Harmony House (2 page)

November 1997

T
here's a feeling like my stomach is trying to climb out my throat. I choke the nausea down and breathe and try to block out the smell of grease and frying bacon. I take a sip of coffee and sit back in the corner of the torn vinyl booth.

Dad reads the paper, looking tired, with dark circles cut deep under both eyes. His hair has gone almost completely white in the past few months. There are lines set deep around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes—his eyes, which are almost transparent blue, gray
and clouded. He's grown weak and pale.

The waitress, a haggard, aging blonde with her roots grown out dark, sets a plate of eggs and hash browns in front of my dad and a chocolate donut in front of me.

“Thank you,” my dad tells her.

And I say, “Thanks.”

She asks if we need anything else. My dad says no, thank you. She walks off to the next customer. She doesn't smile.

My dad puts his paper down and folds it neatly on the bench seat.

“We should be there before dark,” he says.

I roll my eyes without really meaning to.

“Great.”

“Come on, Jen,” he tells me. “You've gotta try.”

“I am,” I say.

I tear off a piece of the greasy-feeling donut.

“Wait,” my dad says, placing his hands on mine.

I put the donut back.

“Come on,” he says. “You know better than that.”

I take another sip of coffee.

“It's all you,” I tell him.

He lays his palms down flat on the cracked linoleum table. He bows his head. His heavy eyelids flutter and close.

I glance around at the other customers in the dingy, smoke-filled diner. None of them seem to notice my father with his bowed head. Mostly they look like local farmers or long distance truckers. There's one mother with a little boy at a booth in the corner. Her jaw click-clicks back and forth. The boy looks very dirty.

“Our Father,” my dad says, “Who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Thank you for this food, and God bless the soul of our Maggie. We miss her very much.”

“Dad,”
I say.

There are tears in his eyes.

“She's in a better place now,” he says.

I tell him I don't doubt it.

He wipes the tears away with his long, knotted fingers.

“We can't be selfish, wanting her back with us,” he says.

“But I
do
. I do want her back.”

He shakes his head.

“It was God's will for her. And it was God's will for us.”

“Then God's an asshole,” I say.

He strikes fast across the table like a snake and smacks me in the mouth.

I hold my jaw and look around the restaurant again.

No one seems to have noticed.

The farmers and truck drivers stay hunched over their plates.

“You watch your mouth,” he tells me.

“Cocksucker,” I say, but not loud enough so he can hear.

“What's that?”

“Nothing,” I tell him.

I eat the chocolate donut and drink the weak coffee.

“I've tried with you, Jen. I've tried and tried.”

He breaks the bright orange, toxic-looking egg yolk so it goes dripping out over the ham and potatoes. He smears it around with his knife and takes in big mouthfuls as he talks. It's enough to make me sick.

“When are you going to learn?” he asks. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

I swallow the last of the coffee down and stand, pushing the table back toward my dad roughly.

“I've gotta go to the bathroom,” I say.

I don't look at him.

The waitress comes over to ask if everything is all right.

I know what the answer is.

But I don't say it.

I walk on past her.

To get to the diner bathroom I have to walk outside and around to the back of the building. The sky is clear and cold, so I can see the steam of my breath in the early morning. Already the leaves on the trees have changed colors—from green to red to gold and brown. Smoke drifts from the chimneys of the surrounding farmhouses and there's a layer of frost on the grass—glittering bright in the faraway sun.

The bathroom door is off its hinges up top, so it drags on the concrete. There's a thick sludge across the floor. I almost slip, catching myself on the stained metal washbasin. I can feel the grit crunching under my boots. I go pee and smoke the butt of a cigarette I've been saving for a few days. I smoke and look at my reflection in the graffitied mirror.

My eyes are red and bloodshot around the blue. My skin is pale, framed by black, dirty-looking hair—since I didn't want to take a shower at the Super 8 motel
before we left this morning. In the corner of the mirror someone has scratched FUCK YOU in all capital letters. I say it out loud.

“Fuck you.”

I drop the cigarette in the sink and try to breathe, but this nausea won't leave me alone—this nausea that's been with me since she left. Since as long as I can remember.

There're oil fires burning through my insides.

I dig my nails into the palm of my hand, feeling the pain cutting in. At least it's a pain I can understand.

“Fuck. You,” I say again. This time drawing out each word—my voice shaking.

From outside I hear the loud screeching of tires on wet pavement and then the sound of a heavy impact.

I struggle against the door and go running out into the shock of cold air.

On the one-lane highway in front of the diner, a pickup truck sits idling, gray smoke rising from the road behind it. The driver opens the door and steps out slowly. He is a stocky man, wearing a flannel shirt and a thicker flannel jacket. Steam comes in great gasps from his crooked nose and wide-open mouth.

Directly under the front tire of the pickup, a man
wearing tattered clothes, with dark skin and matted dark hair, lies motionless—crushed between the black rubber and the black asphalt. There is no blood. The man could very well be just sleeping there.

But he's not sleeping.

The driver walks over to the dead man. He stares down at the lifeless body. Then he looks up at me. His dark eyes stare straight into mine. His hands make little grabbing motions in the air. And he screams out. He screams louder than I've ever heard anyone scream in my whole life. He screams from somewhere deep in the very center of him. He screams from the center of him to the center of me.

“GET HELP!” he screams.

I turn back to the diner and burst into tears.

My dad has come running over. He presses me tightly against him, covering my eyes.

“Don't look,” he whispers. “Don't look. Don't look.”

But it's already too late.

The driver screams again.

I press my hands against my ears.

My dad rocks me back and forth in his arms.

“Shh,” he tells me. “Shh.”

I cry and cry.

I can't stop.

The tears are hot down my face.

I cry into my dad's sweatshirt.

I smell the smell of him.

The driver keeps on screaming behind us.

In my mind I see my mother lying there in front of me, her face blue and swollen—her eyes wide and red and bulging.

“It's all right,” my dad says.

But I know that's a lie.

It's not all right.

It never will be again.

“I hate you,” I tell him.

And when he asks me, “What?” I tell him, “Never mind.”

It's late afternoon by the time we reach the house.

The sun is low on the distant horizon and it is still very cold.

My dad gets out of the car and unlocks the big padlock on the wrought iron gates with keys the owner must've given him.

We drive, not saying anything, up the uneven gravel driveway. There is a canopy of live oaks hanging with
Spanish moss. The wood is thick in all directions and green and shadowy. A shiver runs through me. The car skids and rattles. I see my dad's hands, veined and tight on the steering wheel. A mass of black crows or ravens are perched on the branches overhead. I dig my nails into the palms of my hands.

The house appears in a clearing beyond a line of bare white beech trees.

It is huge and dark and looming. The windows are black. And I am chilled.

“People actually pay to stay here?” I ask my dad, breaking the silence so my own voice sounds strange to me.

He smiles.

“It's not so bad.”

The driveway curves around the house in a circle so we drive around to the back door and park. My dad shuts the car off and we both just sit there for a minute staring out.

“It's not for forever,” he tells me.

We get out of the car.

“I'll show you around,” my dad says.

“I gotta call Steph,” I tell him. “They do have a phone here, don't they?”

“Of course.”

I follow him up the crooked back stairs. He unlocks the door and steps inside. I grab hold of the screen and start in after him. But when my foot touches the threshold, something in my stomach turns cold and I stop. I look up at the uneven corners and mismatched, maniacal crossbeams and window frames and overhanging rooftops with dark wood shingles. There is no color anywhere. The whole house looks as if the life has been drained out of it.

And I don't want to go in.

“Dad,” I say, faltering.

He turns and frowns.

“What?”

I search frantically in my mind for the right words.

“We shouldn't be here,” I tell him.

He breathes out slowly.

“We've been over this. It's just for a little while. I know you didn't want to leave Johnstown.”

“No, it's not that.”

He steps back over to me and puts a hand on my shoulder.

“It's been a rough day,” he says. “I understand. Come on in and call your friend. I'll show you around later.”

I glance up at the enormous house looking down on me. It seems to be . . . watching. But that's just in my mind. And there's no reason not to come inside.

I close my eyes and walk through the open door.

The walls seem to rush in around me. As if I'd stayed still and it was the house that had moved to bring me inside.

But I am inside.

And I am okay.

Behind me the door slams shut and I jump a little.

He laughs.

“There's a phone in the kitchen. You'll feel better once you talk to Stephanie.”

He pauses for a second before adding, “And, by the way, her mom said they might drive up for Thanksgiving. That's just a few weeks away.”

I can see in his face how hard he's trying and I almost want to give in—to feel sorry for him. But I tell myself again that this is all his fault. He has—I have—no one else to blame. Cocksucker.

He reaches out to give me a hug, but I just walk on by.

The phone is in the kitchen, mounted on the bright-colored wall. It's actually a bright cheerful kitchen
in general—which surprises me. There are hexagonal-shaped glasses in the cupboards. I drink water from the sink and fill a kettle with water and put it on to boil. There are boxes of tea next to the coffeemaker and plastic stirrers and sugar packets—I guess leftovers from the last guests who stayed here. I haven't checked the refrigerator yet, but I'm sure there's nothing much in it. My dad bangs in and out through the back door, unloading luggage and rearranging things.

I pick up the phone and dial.

It's Steph's mom, Lydia, who answers and I have to talk to her for a minute. I tell her about our trip—but leave out the dead guy underneath the pickup truck—before she finally puts Steph on.

Her voice is gentle sounding and familiar and I feel the pain of missing her in my chest—my heart beating faster.

“Is it terrible?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

I tell her about the house and the drive and the man getting hit and then I start to cry again.

“Don't worry,” she says. “It'll get better. It has to. And Mom says we're gonna come for Thanksgiving.”

“Yeah, I know. My dad just told me. That'll be great.”

“I'm excited to see the house,” she says. “It sounds . . . creepy.”

“It is.”

I breathe in and out and tap my fingers on the counter and ask her, hesitating, “So . . . how's Todd?”

“You mean Turd?”

“Yeah. Him.”

She hesitates, too, before speaking.

“He's still in the hospital.”

“Jesus.”

“I know.”

Then she laughs and says, “The rumor around town is that you pushed him down those stairs.”

I laugh, too.

“I wish I had. Asshole had it coming.”

“You
sure
you didn't?”

I laugh more.

“You know Sunday mornings Dad does his weird church thing at our house. That's my alibi and I'm sticking to it.”

She breathes out then, as if in relief—as if she actually considered that I could've pushed my ex-boyfriend down the stairs, breaking both his goddamn legs in the process.

“Well, good,” she says.

“But if the town wants to believe I did it, that's fine with me.”

“Speaking of people you'd like to push down the stairs,” she says, “how's your dad doing?”

“The same,” I say.

And then the teakettle starts screaming loudly on the gas stove.

I go over and turn the kettle off and make a cup of black tea with sugar.

“Have you seen the town yet?” Steph asks.

“We drove through it. I'm gonna walk in later. Looks pretty Podunk. And it's all shut down for the winter. Place is like a fuckin' ghost town.”