In my Father’s house are many mansions.

Also, there’s a pretty neat treehouse out in the yard.

I built it myself. I don’t have a lot of DIY skills and it shows. It’s made mostly of pieces I’ve scavenged here and there: driftwood, planks “borrowed” from nearby yards, and, frankly, a few remnants better left in the junk heap. But, I don’t know, they caught my eye and looked like they needed saving.

Also, there are some very fine and sturdy boards, carefully chosen and cared for. Though maybe “chosen” isn’t the right word. Mostly they sort of showed up with my name on them.

It’s filled with all the stuff I like. Which, I guess, there could technically be room for inside the house, but whenever I try to bring my boxes in, my father rubs his beard and says, “Not in here.”

So I store it in my treehouse.

Which I like to add onto, as much as possible. Sometimes I feel like that lady who built the Winchester Mystery House. Spirits told her that if she kept building, she’d live forever.

I don’t think that. I’m not crazy. I just like to add on, is all.

My father watches from the porch now and then while drinking his early morning coffee. I happen to be out here early morning because at some point, I’m not sure when, I sort of…moved in.

“That’s pretty neat,” he says.

“Yep.” I’m busy organizing my scraps, fragments, and scrapings. That’s pretty much a full day’s work. I admit on occasion I have the sneaking suspicion that it’s time to throw certain of these things away. There can be, how shall I put this, an odor about the place.

For example, this one thing, from when this super famous person—and I’m not going to say who because I don’t like to drop names—winked at me. For at least two weeks it made me feel amazing and powerful and grown up. So I keep the wink in this washed-out tuna can that maybe wasn’t washed out enough.

There’s food, too, like this envelope of powdered skim milk. Which, okay, it’s disgusting, and every night there’s a feast in the main house, but sometimes you just want to sit in your own private dark choking down a little powdered milk.

“Can I come up and see it?”

I call through my tiny window, “There’s not really room. Sorry.” He sips his coffee quietly, and I feel bad for saying that. From a distance I almost can’t remember who he is. “I guess you can stick your head through the trapdoor a second.”

He does, and I can see in his eyes he’s not too impressed. He reaches his arm in, and picks up a flimsy particle board contraption I’ve been working on for years.

“What’s this?”

It’s hard not to feel a little red-faced. “Careful. I tried to stain it with this ‘faux oak’ stuff from IKEA and it never totally dried.”

“But what is it?”

“It’s sort of a chair? It’s all I have to sit on up here. Until my back starts hurting, which actually is after like five minutes….” I laugh weakly.

“Um, did you see the chair I have for you inside?” He sets my chair-like contraption down and brushes his fingers off on his shirt. He could at least acknowledge the work I did to make that thing.

“Well, it’s getting kind of crowded in here.” Hint hint. Some people don’t know when to leave.

After he’s gone I look around with that eye you do when you have guests, and the place is less chic and more shabby. But it’s not like all the stuff inside the house is so nice and perfect. He’s always drinking out of these misshapen mugs and putting what’s basically bad refrigerator art all over the walls just because his kids made it. I don’t see what’s so different between here and there.

I’ve had extended stays in the house. As I recall it, something would wake me in the night—a scary thumping, a mysterious shadow—and I’d look out the window and in the moonlight the treehouse looked so safe, small, mine. And I’d think of something I needed, one or two things I could sneak inside. So I’d creep out, only meaning to pop in for ten or twelve minutes. Then I’d get distracted looking at all my cool old stuff.

Like: This rusty Sucrets box, which is filled with affirmations from random people I don’t even like. That could slip right into my pocket and not take up any space.

He’s under my tree again, admiring a couple of my floorboards, the ones that I didn’t find but found me. “You know,” he says, “I think we can find a nice place for these inside.”

It’s hard to look into his eyes. They’re all excited and hopeful and it makes me nervous. I know that look, and I’m not ready.

“But see how they’re nailed into these other pieces?” I jiggle a piece of drywall I found in a landfill. A chunk of it crumbles in my hands. “I mean you’d pretty much need to dismantle the whole thing to get these loose.”

He brushes drywall dust out of his hair. “Yep.”

“I’m busy.” I pick up my wink-containing tuna can. “I have to arrange these. And I’m tired, so….”

Now he’s inside, somehow. “Maybe if you weren’t trying to sleep standing up half the time.”

Oh, snap. “I’m honestly okay. This is good.” I make my voice cheery. “It’s good enough for me.”

“Not really.”

And with one big arm he sweeps everything off one of my crooked shelves; it all comes down with a loud crash.

“Don’t!” I gather up my stuff but most of it turns to dust in my fingers. For every one thing I pick up, he knocks down ten more. I try not to cry in front of him. I want to be strong. “Seriously. Stop.”

He’s not even listening. I hate him sometimes. I truly do.

Sheets of pressboard, layers of wallpaper, plaster, caulk. It’s all flying. A piece of old twisted iron glances off my foot. It hurts, but I don’t cry out.

“Go inside. I’ll finish up.”

“What about my…” I try to gesture but can barely move my arm.

“Whatever’s worth keeping, I’ll salvage.”

“How will you know what’s what?”

He laughs. “I’ll know.”

I look out my window, which isn’t a tiny hole anymore. More like a missing wall. The outlines of people in the house are limned by the warm glow of the kitchen. I want to go inside. I don’t want to go inside. I measure the distance from here to there. It seems short. It seems long.

I rest for awhile on what’s left of my old chair, and watch, and wait.