Better Left Buried (3 page)

“Grab the flashlight, would you?”

Adam took a light from under the driver’s seat and hopped down from the truck.

Harmony
was already halfway across the lawn.

“
Here.” He handed it over, having to jog to catch up with her.

Harmony
aimed the beam at the cracked terra cotta pot on the brick paver patio uneven from years of frost and snow. “Key’s under there.” The plant inside had long been dead, lending nothing to the curb appeal of a place that already looked condemnable. The hidden key was her mother’s way of accommodating late night clients and one of the many reasons she couldn’t stand to sleep there.

Adam tipped the pot. “No key.”

Harmony grunted and scaled the rotting stairs, dreading the possibility of walking in on her mother with a John.

“Be careful.
” Adam held her waist to keep her from falling through the collapsing porch.

Rusty nails stuck out in spikes
, pulled from the wood. The metal door was ajar and had several new dents.

She hadn’t been there five minutes and already
couldn’t wait to leave.

“Let’s get this over with.” She pushed the door
and met with unexpected resistance. A half-foot gap offered her passage, but she wasn’t sure Adam could fit. She shined the light inside, reached for the switch to the right of the door, and flipped it. “Power’s off.”

No surprise there.

“Let me go first.” Adam opened the folding knife he took from his pocket.

“Put that away. It’ll be fine.” Harmony squeezed through the door sideways, focusing the
light on the floor by the door. Dust motes swirled in the air like snow. The ice-cold room smelled of stale cigarette smoke and vomit. “Mom!”

Charity
lay on the floor, blocking the door.

Harmony grabbed one of her feet and pulled her limp body the few inches she needed to make enough room for Adam to
get inside. She dropped to her knees and felt for a pulse. It was weak, but there. The acrid smell of whiskey spilled from between her mother’s cracked lips. Her left eye was black and blue and swollen.

“Mom, please
answer me.” Harmony smoothed the tangles of dirty blond hair back from her mother’s face. Her hand came away sticky. She held it in front of the flashlight and saw blood streaking her fingertips. “She’s hurt.”

One of her
“boyfriends”, a term her mother preferred to “client” or “John”, had most likely gotten rough with her.

“Here, hold this.”

Adam focused the beam like a spotlight.

Harmony assessed the damages.

Her mother’s denim mini skirt was twisted up around her waist. The tank top that may have once been white was torn, slung over one shoulder, exposing a jagged scar than ran from beneath her left breast to just above her hip.

Harmony looked up to see Adam staring at it.

“Get me something wet to wash her face with.” She pulled her mother’s shirt and skirt down and noted that one side of her underwear had been torn clean through. There were bruises on her thigh from force. Tears welled up in her eyes, but having seen this before, she refused to cry. She reached back to grab the afghan off the tattered recliner and used it to cover her mother, rubbing her hands gently across her bruised arms and legs in an attempt at both waking her and warming her dusky, cold skin.

“
Here.” Adam held out a wet kitchen towel.

Harmony applied it to her mother’s head
. Charity sat up, screaming.

“
It’s okay, Mom. It’s me. Harmony.”

“Help!
Get off of me!”

Charity
swung.

Adam caught her hand
right before it connected with Harmony’s cheek. “Leave her alone.”

“Get out of my house!” Charity
rolled onto her knees, her movements uncoordinated and sloppy, and swung again, the side of her fist glancing off of Adam’s chin.

“Mom, stop.”

“Leave me alone!” Charity tried to scratch Adam and narrowly missed, catching a hold of his sleeve. It was as if she came to in the middle of whatever fight she’d been in. They couldn’t get her out of attack mode.

Adam
wrestled her into a cross-legged sitting position and held her arms behind her back, refusing to let go.

“Don’t hurt her,” Harmony said.

“Hurt
her
? She tried to punch me in the face.”

“She’s confused.
Mom, can you hear me?”

Charity
fought Adam with all the strength she had left, squirming like a small child wriggling to get free. “Get off of me! You hear? Get off!”

Adam
locked his grip. “She’s tough, I’ll give her that.”

It was
a trait she’d passed on.

“Mom,
please, you’re fine. It’s all over. You’re going to be okay.”

“I. Said.
Get. Off.”

Adam let out a pained grunt when Charity’s bony elbow connected with his ribs.
“How long are we going to keep this up?”

Harmony hauled off and slapped her
.

A
string of unintelligible slurs spilled from Charity’s mouth. The best Harmony could make out was that it was some kind of apology.

“Let her go.”
Adam shook his head. “I said let her go.” Harmony licked her finger and wiped at the streak of blood on her mother’s cheek. She lifted the stretched tank top strap onto her bony shoulder and brushed her hair back from her eyes a second time.

It was like someone flipped a switch.

Charity threw her arms around Harmony’s neck and held on for dear life. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

It was the kind of lie you only believe the first time.
Harmony half-heartedly returned the embrace and shifted her mother’s weight to help her stand. “Can you walk?”

Charity pulled her legs underneath her,
her range of movement limited as she tried to get to her feet.

“Help me get her up
.”

Adam
grabbed underneath her armpits and lifted. The blanket fell to the ground around her and her panties dangled from one foot. Harmony unhooked them from her heel to keep her from tripping.

“Get her to the couch
.”

Adam dragged Charity across the cluttered floor.
“We should call the police.”

“No police!” Charity said.
“No. Police.”

“Watch your step.” Adam
nodded his head toward the pile of burnt-to-the-filter cigarettes and the broken glass ashtray at Harmony’s feet. A blood smear darkened the rim.

“That’s probably what the asshole hit her with.”

“No police!”

“No police,” Harmony agreed. “That’s not going to help
anyone’s
situation.” By that she meant hers and she could see Adam understood that. “Sit with her a minute.” Adam sat on the couch while Harmony fetched a glass of water and two aspirin from the kitchen. “Mom, how long has the power been off?” She handed the glass to Adam who helped Charity sip it with the pills. The left side of her jaw was swollen and it seemed to affect her opening her mouth. “How long?”

Charity swallowed and stared
vacantly ahead.

“If CPS
gets notified that the power’s shut off again, they’ll be here sooner than later.”

Adam looked
panicked. “I’ll call tomorrow and see if I can make a partial payment to get it turned back on, at least to buy some time until your appointment.”

“
The appointment’s tomorrow, Adam, and there’s no way we can take her to Bennett looking like this.”

“Tel
l him there was a billing error, that things got crossed in the mail and that everything’s better. Maybe if you tell him before your case worker does, it’ll look like you’re being up front.”

“The power’s the
least of my problems.” Harmony dabbed at the trickle of blood rolling down her mother’s gaunt cheek. “I’m definitely going to have to go alone.”

“And say she’s where?”

“I’ll think of something.” Harmony sighed. “Right now I just want to get out of here.”

“W
e can’t leave her. She’ll freeze.”

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Adam was right.

“Hang on a minute. I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

“To buy some more time.”

It was the story of her life.

She navigated the cluttered, narrow hallway by flashlight and stumbled into the back bedroom that was once hers. The mattress on the floor, covered in mismatched sheets, had recently been slept in. She tried not to think too hard about by whom. Her closet door hung half off the track. When she tried to fix it, the bracket holding the wheel broke and the door crushed her fingers. She let out a yelp.

“Everything all right?”
Adam said.

“
Yeah, I’m okay.” She set the door against the wall, filled an old backpack with as many warm clothes as it would hold, and slung the strap over her shoulder. “I’ll be right out.”

She could hear her mother
dry heaving in the living room. The sound echoed in a pan or pail. She hurried, shining the light on the kerosene heater in the corner and letting out a relieved sigh to see it hadn’t been stolen or sold. A gift from a concerned neighbor, the heater was only one of the dozen band-aids put on her life.

Taking care of her mother had hardened her
into someone who thought nothing of leaving her drunk, starving, and beaten with nothing but portable heat. It was more concern than she’d ever been shown. She shook the heater, relieved to hear the swish of fuel inside, and stepped over a pile of clutter to get a two handed grip. It was heavier than she remembered. She grunted when she lifted it, freezing when she saw the clock on her nightstand had stopped dead at 2:34 AM.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Adam said for at least the tenth time since leaving the trailer.

“I’m
fine.
” Harmony said.

“
Fine.
Fine
means you’re angry.
Fine
means, ‘I don’t want to talk about it’.”

“Then I don’t want to talk about it.” Harmony opened the door to Adam’s apartment, relieved to be
home.

“The expression on your face when you came out of that room—
”

“What part of ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ don’t you get? How could you even
see
my face with the power off?”

“You were holding a flashlight
. Besides, I know when you’re hiding something. Why won’t you talk to me?”

“Because there’s
nothing to talk about. I need you to drop me at the mall tomorrow so I can see if anyone’s hiring again. I’ll find a way to pay you back for the electricity bill.”

Adam set Harmony’s backpack on the counter and pulled her to him
despite her resistance.

“You don’t have to be so damn tough all the time,” he said. “Not with me.”
He held her until she relaxed.

“I know
. I’m just not used to being helped.”

“Well, y
ou better get used to it,” he smiled, “because I’m not going anywhere.”

The sentiment
unnerved her.

She had b
uilt her life around not needing anyone—not a mother, or father, or boyfriend—because she’d learned the hard way that, in the end, everyone was only out for themselves. She reached for her bag and stepped away from him. Too much had happened and it was getting late. She pulled open the refrigerator and took a beer from the top shelf.

A perk of Adam working at Scott’s Garage was that Walter Scott, the elderly owner, felt it
was communist to deny a working man a beer. He came from a different time, when eighteen was plenty old enough for a cold one.

“You want
?”

“Sure.
” He reached for her hand to recover the emotional distance, but she left him hanging. Any other girl would’ve been grateful, but not her. She felt
indebted
, which was as close as she ever wanted to be to
trapped
—a thing her mother had been all her life.

“I want to take care of you
, Harmony.”

“I know you do.
” She forced a smile. “You’re more than I deserve.” She pried the top with a bottle opener and took a long sip. “I’m going to get changed.”

He wanted to help her, but he
couldn’t take away the years of pain. She had made a point of keeping an emotional distance from the beginning, even if he had no idea. Loving him meant trusting him and she refused to be that vulnerable.