The Half That You See by Rebecca Rowland (best summer reads .TXT) 📕

He didn’t go to Vancouver often, but little changed. It was a drab and dirty city. Everything was old and disorganized. Half of the houses appeared empty with mossy roofs and crumbling masonry. Windows boarded up, doors broken open. He’d heard there was a squatter problem, but it looked more like there was a problem with land investors driving market values beyond liveability—something else he’d heard.

Once nearing the airport and the hotel, civilization thinned out. Long buildings and gas stations and outlet shopping filled his peripheries as he drove, mind throbbing with that nettling need to know.

He parked at the Radisson, next to a pair of Enterprise rental Mazdas and a lamppost. He stepped out, got halfway across the expansive lot, and turned around. He jogged to the car and grabbed the Winnebago box. Door kicked closed, he started out anew.

The room number was on the sleeve around the key card. He rode the elevator to the eighth floor and found Claire’s room. He set the box on one of the two queen beds and withdrew Claire’s phone from his pocket. All he had to do was wake it up, look at the messages, and know the truth.

“Ugh,” he said and set her phone on the nightstand. He read the instructions at the base of the landline telephone, just below the number pad. He dialed zero and it rang three times before a young sounding woman answered. He explained that he needed to register a car to his wife’s room.

That done, he picked up the phone. He touched the button on the side and swiped the lock screen—she didn’t password protect, and if she had, it would be her childhood phone number, her pin for everything. He swiped once more and his thumb hovered over the loaded message box. His heart quickened its pace—did he still love her, did he care, what the hell was she going to do with the kid? His eyes hovered away and settled on the Winnebago.

The phone returned to the nightstand and he withdrew the huge tin toy from the box. The husband figurine was on his back, arms out, knees bent. Josh put him behind the wheel. A smile played across his face.

From his pocket, he took out his cellphone and snapped a shot, ignoring all the messages and calls he’d missed while driving—he’d put it on silent when he saw Claire’s mother’s number pop up.

He lay back and turned to face the TV. They didn’t bother with cable at home, so watching bad television was always a treat when on the road. He found Jeopardy! and grabbed his phone. He sent a text to his superior and explained that he wouldn’t be in for at least a few days, Claire’s sick in the hospital.

Before Trebek broke from play for the show’s first sponsor, Josh picked up the Winnebago Indian Motorhome by Tonka and set it on the bed next to him.

Josh opened his eyes. He’d slipped down and curled on the spacious bed; the motorhome’s passenger’s window was eye level. The little man behind the wheel was pale, wore blue pants and a yellow and grey sweater.

“Almost dressed like me,” Josh mumbled into the stiff white bedsheet. His t-shirt was yellow and grey, but those distinctive seventies’ lines…

Josh rolled to his back and reached for his phone. He had several text messages and a handful of missed calls—all the calls came from Claire’s mother, none from the hospital. He dug into the front pocket of Claire’s suitcase and found her phone charger. The zipper around the main compartment seemed to tease him: Look in me, I’m hiding her lingerie, I’m hiding all the good stuff she saved for the other man. Teeth clenched, jaw strained, Josh jerked the zipper around three rounded corners and flipped the lid. Plain underwear, plain undershirts and bras, yoga pants, slacks, blouses, the bag with her toiletries, everything went to the floor until all that remained was a lacy, silky, red teddy.

He swallowed. She’d never…never in the whole time…

The clothes returned to the suitcase and the zipper closed. Josh plugged in his phone and took Claire’s bag of toiletries to the washroom. Working in that same state of mild shock from the day before, Josh stepped into the washroom and stripped. He removed towels and hung everything he’d worn over bars: steam cleaning. The shower ran and Josh sat and stared blankly at the running water until the room fell under a heavy fog, despite the effort of the small ceiling fan. The water temperature lowered and he stepped in.

Fingertips and toes gone to raisin, Josh came to and turned off the shower. Dried but not dressed—he hung the damp clothes in the open closet—and smelling of Crest Whitening and Secret antiperspirant, he went to his phone. No new messages.

“What the hell?” Josh spun and looked around. “Hello?”

The Winnebago’s awning was open and the little man sat in a lawn chair. Next to him was a beer cooler, and a few inches from that was a hibachi grill, tiny hotdogs roasting. How the…? Where did…?

“Well, ain’t that something?” The roof of the motorhome had been slipped out and stood on an arm as an awning, leaving the top wide open. Inside was the bench seat in the kitchen area, set on the table, revealing a storage compartment. The salesman at Cooper Collectables didn’t even know about this, how cool was that? “But, who…?” He gave his head a little shake, lips pursed. The simple answer was obviously the right answer, a bed-turner came in and couldn’t help themselves, had to play.

And how could he be mad? They’d revealed a secret.

He put everything away and put the man back behind the wheel. The toy returned to its box and he placed it on the desk. Somebody would come in to make the bed when he was gone.

Before he left, he spun Claire’s cellphone beneath the index finger