Free Little Gale Gumbo by Erika Marks Page B

home, and Matthew had been due any day.
    But for years after Leslie had left them, Ben had wrestled with the useless belief that it was the house that had driven his wife away; that if only he’d given her a new house, with tidy electrical wires threaded through perfectly drilled studs, and gleaming new pipes tucked neatly under even floorboards, toilets that emptied after every flush and sinks that drained, then maybe she would have stayed, and for months afterward the house suffered the blame. Ben could still recall the time Matthew had toddled from his bed at three in the morning to find his father berating a loose stair spindle that had slipped from its joint for the umpteenth time. Thirteen years later, Ben finally understood that it wasn’t the house’s fault that Leslie was gone, that some wounds didn’t close neatly or heal cleanly. Just like houses.
    Climbing to his feet to find a wrench, Ben heard a knock on the front door. At first he wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard anything other than the house’s typical moans and creaks, but when it came again, sharp and clear, he wiped his hands on the sides of his work pants and walked to the foyer. A flurry of possible visitors rushed across his brain as he reached for the knob—salesmen, a neighbor, the mailman—but when he opened the door and saw the trio on his front porch, he blinked in surprise. The woman was slight in build under layers of brightly colored fabric, with a dome of tight brown coils and skin the color of coffee with milk. Of the two girls on either side of her, the older was clearly her child, with her equally buoyant curls and dark, almond-shaped eyes, but her frame was heftier, rounder. The younger girl was red haired and slender, with peachy freckled skin and ice blue eyes.
    â€œGood morning,” the woman said.
    Ben glanced at the two girls. The redhead smiled shyly. The darker one looked like she was sizing him up.
    â€œMorning.” He straightened his glasses, leaving a thumbprint of grease on the edge of one lens. “Can I help you?”
    â€œI do hope so. I’m looking for Benjamin Haskell.”
    â€œI’m Ben.”
    â€œOh, wonderful.” The woman held out her hand, a chorus of bracelets colliding at her wrist, nearly lost under a fluttering sleeve. Ben took her hand carefully, her fingers like pussy-willow branches in his rough palm. “My name is Camille Bergeron and these are my daughters, Dahlia and Josephine. The waitress at the restaurant said you have an apartment for rent.”
    â€œI do,” he said, his gaze moving between the three of them. “It’s furnished, but it’s small. Just one bedroom.”
    â€œWe’re quite comfortable in small places, Mr. Haskell,” Camille said. “Unless you have some sort of occupancy code issue or some other reason why we can’t rent it?”
    Ben paused, uncertain. His last two tenants had been single people, young men. One had even owned a dog. Ben hadn’t had a problem with that. Besides, an inquiry this late in the year was nothing short of a miracle. He wasn’t about to turn away a prospective tenant. Especially not a single parent. Not that the woman’s business was any of his concern. Ben had never made his tenants’ business his own, and he wasn’t about to start.
    â€œNo,” he said at last, “there’s no issue of code.” He pointed behind them. “It’s just up the stairs. I can show it to you if you’d like.”
    She smiled. “Please.”

    It would do just fine, Camille decided, running her fingertips over the dusty top of an empty dresser. No matter that the walls were as bleak as oatmeal and the rooms smelled of sour milk; the ceilings were high and the windows were tall and sunlight poured in. She could paint. She could bring in plants, paper lanterns, colorful tablecloths. She could light incense. She could make it feel like