Better Left Buried (26 page)

“
That doesn’t make any sense. She was probably wasted. Tell your father not to get his hopes up.”

Jaxon
parked at the far end of the senior parking lot. “She wasn’t wasted, Brea. She signed herself into rehab.”

“That family never fails to surprise me.”

Harmony shook her head. It was exactly like her mother to end up pregnant two months into a whirlwind relationship. Consequences weren’t in her vocabulary. She read the progressively disjointed ramblings of a nineteen-year-old would-be mom and couldn’t help taking the misgivings personally. There was mention of an appointment at an abortion clinic, one which was promptly cancelled as soon as Tom realized why her mother had stopped partying and started puking all the time. Almost every entry started with half of the day spent in the bathroom.

I’m not ready for this. Joan made me another appointment and even brought me a pamphlet about what to expect. I read it and buried it in the trash where Tom wouldn’t find it. It says there will be a lot of bleeding afterward. I figure, I can tell Tom it was a miscarriage. There’s nothing he can do about that, right? We’re moving in together next week and he wants to get married. I’d rather pretend none of this ever happened.

But it did happen, and the entries cut off until about a year later.

I haven’t slept in almost two days. I keep looking at Tom, sleeping through the colicky night walks, and I know my instincts are right. Marrying him would be the nail in my coffin, but he’s determined. He says we’re living in sin, ironic coming from him, and that we need to set things right. I don’t think he’s capable of taking “no” for an answer. Having a baby is miserable and I wish I could run away.

Not even a week later, bad went to worse.

He hit me! He made damn sure to put Harmony in the bassinette first—God forbid anything happen to his precious daughter—but he closed-fist hit me, right in the jaw. Mom says it’s natural for people to fight with a new baby in the house, people not sleeping and doing the things married people do. Dad doesn’t say anything because doing so would mean admitting guilt for something he’d been doing his whole life. I refuse to let this beat me. I have Harmony to think of.

It was the first time she’d been mentioned by name. There was the sense that her mother was jealous of her father’s lavishing attention on her, but moreover there was a hint of the maternal instinct she’d rarely displayed over the past seventeen years.

Harmony sighed.

At least once in her life, someone had truly loved her.

The next two months of entries were more hearts and flowers, reinforcements of the thousands of apologies and gifts her father heaped on her mother in an attempt at erasing what, in hindsight, was a turning point in both of their lives.
Harmony knew the pattern and expected what came next.

Two days in the hospital. Thank God Joan agreed to take Harmony. She just found out her and Kurt are having a honeymoon baby and she says she’d like the practice. I told her if she knew how awful all this was she’d think differently. I think she’s starting to suspect all of the bumps and bruises weren’t accidents, and that I most certainly didn’t trip with a basket of laundry and fall down the stairs. The black eye was the hardest to explain so I told her it all happened too fast. Her brother’s a cop. Tom knows this, but he knows I won’t say anything. Pressing charges is the furthest thing from my mind right now. I’ve started saving up in the hopes of going away sooner than later.

Brea.
Of course she’d been a warmly received, well-thought-out,
wanted
honeymoon baby. She’d always had things easier. Harmony read more about her mother’s plan, her meager savings, and the part-time cleaning job that was all she could manage with an infant. Brea’s uncle had been instrumental in a turning point that was one of the last entries ever written.

It was the first time Tom ever hit me in front of someone. He found the passbook to the savings account I’d been hiding and accused me of stealing from him. He said the money was his, whether I earned it or not. Joan tried to step in, but it was too late. He slapped me so hard that my ears rang for an hour afterward, so loud that it was hard to hear Jim’s questions. I did what I do, I denied every incident leading up to the slap that Joan witnessed. That was irrefutable. Everyone knows I’ve been covering for Tom, but I can’t keep doing it. Jim hauled him away in handcuffs. He said a night in a cell would scare him straight, but the last words out of Tom’s mouth as he was marched out the door said someone was going to die. Either him, or me.

Brea had been looking over her shoulder all day, unable to shake the unease of the rumor that somehow Rachael had gotten out of her suspension. Every time the cafeteria doors opened, she looked and sighed with relief when someone else walked through them.

“Are you all right?” Becky
asked.

Jaxon
smoothed his thumb over the back of Brea’s hand, which he held now out of habit. “She’s fine. Aren’t you?”

“I guess.” Brea shrugged, on the verge of admitting she was scared shitless
of losing her hard-won place in their group.

“
You know, Rachael’s not as tough as you think she is.” Becky smiled. Apparently she’d been easier to read than she thought. “She only pulled that stunt because she had Amanda for backup.”

That stunt.

For as much as it was supposed to be kept quiet, Brea dangling from a gym locker had topped the senior year news.

“Can we talk about something else, please?” Jaxon’s request was anything but subtle.

“Speak of the devil.” Becky nodded toward the open cafeteria door, Principal Anderson, Carla, Rachael’s mother, and Rachael walking through it.

Brea clamped down on Jaxon’s hand.

“Ouch, babe. Take it easy.” He looked at the others and raised his eyebrows. “She doesn’t sit here, that’s what we agreed to, right?” He hadn’t mentioned it to Brea, but there was an obvious coup—a grab for power in Rachael’s brief absence, or him proving she was only with that crowd because of him—taking place.

Everyone at the table
, including Pete and Becky, nodded in agreement.

Principal Anderson pointed right
at their table and Brea’s heart raced.

Rachael walked toward them, head down,
looking mortified.

Her mother
was casually dressed, but her expression was all business. She stood to the side of and slightly behind Rachael with her hand on Rachael’s shoulder.

Principal Anderson forced a smile.

Jaxon put his arm around Brea who, by the time Rachael reached their table, was so panicked she couldn’t see straight.

The lunchroom went unnaturally
quiet. Everyone turned to look at what could only be described as an adolescent train wreck. Anyone their age being accompanied to school by a parent was awkward enough to make everyone uneasy, but as soon as whatever was about to happen blew over, the aftermath would be merciless.

Carla nudged Rachael forward. “Go on
.”

Rachael twirled her blond ponytail once around her hand and let it fall over her shoulder
, her jaw clenched.

Brea crossed her arms over her chest and buried her shaking hands in her armpits to hold them still.

“Rachael?” Principal Anderson’s tone said she wasn’t interested in waiting all day.

Rachael’s eyes locked on Jaxon’s and he shook his head, radiating an air of disapproval.

Becky snickered and whispered something into Pete’s ear that earned a glare from Principal Anderson.

“I’m sorry.” Rachael finally managed the words, sounding anything but repentant.

Her mother smiled and nodded, as if it were pride-inspiring to see her daughter show a little character.

Principal Anderson looked less convinced.
“And?”

“And I promise
not to bother you again.” Rachael turned to her mother, her eyes pleading.

Even with the adults in the room, kids were laughing.

“That’s enough,” Principal Anderson said. “Get back to lunch.”

The show was over.

Brea steadied her breath, accepting the nods of congratulations, thumbs up, and general solidarity that came from all those who were tormented before her, witnessing Rachael’s fall.

Principal Anderson and Carla spoke softly and
then said something to Rachael that sounded like acknowledgement of a deal fulfilled. They walked out of the lunchroom, leaving Rachael behind.

S
he was back.

And without Amanda, still serving her in-school suspension time, she was far more humble.

“You want to get out of here?” Jaxon pulled Brea close and kissed her cheek, lavishing her with over-the-top attention.

Brea nodded, unable to speak.

Jaxon picked up her books and slung his backpack strap over one shoulder. “Let’s go.”

Rachael
kept her eyes down, but looked like she wanted to cry. The jokes, the laughter, the mimicked apologies started as soon as the cafeteria doors closed. She walked around the far side of the table to the empty seat next to Becky and took off her coat. She went to sit down and Becky set her bag on the chair.

“Sorry, this seat’s taken,” she said and smiled at Brea.

Storm clouds turned the sky a deep gray.

The house would
soon be dark.

Harmony
put the box of emergency candles on the table with the matches she had found in one of the kitchen drawers. She pulled on a pair of calf-high, men’s rubber boots she found in the garage. Her blistered feet swam in them, aching with each step, and she was barely able to keep them on as she shuffled toward the basement. The boots hit the steps before her feet did and she clung to the railing to keep from tumbling down the stairs head first. Despite the nagging dread, she was compelled to go down there.

Water marks stained the walls, as high up as a foot, and the cement had cracked in more than one place, allowing more water to seep in. A matched pair of avocado-colored appliances—a washer and dryer—rusted near a hot water heater long out of use
and sat at an angle as if something was blocking them from sitting closer to the wall.

She stopped at the last step
and a cold breeze blew across the back of her neck. There were so many stains on the concrete floor, but the only one that came to mind—either from her nightmares or her memory—the crimson pool not a foot from where she stood, was gone.

She made her way over to the pile of boxes
in the corner, each bearing the familiar Pierce Hardware logo. Those that made up the base of the stack were soaked to the point that the cardboard had started to melt away. Pieces of it floated on top of the water. It was safe to assume the similar boxes in the kitchen came from down here, though she couldn’t imagine who brought them up or why. She peeled back the yellowed packing tape on the first box, unfolded the flaps, and looked inside. It was full of baby toys—dolls whose eyes opened and shut when you picked them up or laid them down, blocks, and heavy cardboard books. Had she been paying attention, she’d have noticed the words “Harmony’s room” written on the side. She turned the others to read them, piling them on a folding chair next to the stack and stopping at the one marked “Photo albums”. She was revealing her past through pictures, though some things, like why her mother had abandoned their home, couldn’t be photographed.

She pulled out the first
album, deep red with a three-ring binding, and jumped when she heard a car door slam.

“Hey, grab that ladder, would you?”
a man said, his voice muffled by the sound of metal on metal.

Harmony
climbed on top of a folding chair and looked out the window. An overgrown hedge obscured her view of the front yard, but she could see the back of a blue work truck and knew what it said on the side from the last few letters: Winslow Construction. Two pair of men’s construction boots headed right for her.

T
here was no way out without being seen. The basement windows were far too small to climb through and other than heading back upstairs, she was trapped. One pair of boots was visible out the front window, the other out the back.

One of the men laughed and dropped something that sounded like a stack of wood. “Tell me
why we’re here, again?” His voice was muffled, but audible. “There’s no way they’re going to fix this place up. It’s bulldozer food.”

A ladder hit the side of the house and the other man climbed up. His footfall was heavy against the metal and the ringing resonated. “Harold says it’s what the owner wants done before she’ll sell it. Maybe she wants to get her stuff out of here. Didn’t you see all the junk through the front window?”