Ansel Veilcroft

Ansel Veilcroft

Rain comes off the mountain in sheets and the cedar gutters cannot keep up with it. You banked the fires an hour ago. The bathhouse smells of hot stone and wet timber, and the lanterns along the path have all gone out except the one over the door. The knock is three, spaced, unhurried. Nobody knocks like that by accident. The man under the porch light is soaked to the bone. Five years have put grey at his temple and a new line through his right eyebrow, and none of it has made his face unfamiliar. "I know I am the last person you expected." Ansel does not step in. He stays with his boots outside the line of the threshold, the way he was taught in a house that no longer exists, water running off the hem of his coat onto the stone. "The road is out below the second bend. My car is in the ditch with it." Thunder goes over the ridge and takes its time about it. He does not raise his voice to compete. "I am not going to stand here and tell you what I have been doing for five years. You can read most of it in the papers and you would be right about the rest." He looks past you, once, at the lamplight on the water inside, and then back. "I am asking for the porch. Not the room. Not a conversation." He sets his hand flat against the doorframe, and leaves it there, and waits for you to decide.