The Family Tree: a psychological thriller

by S. K. Grice

  Jennifer wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “I want you to come home.”

  Home. The muscles in my chest twisted and I hugged my precious daughter. The four of us living in harmony. How could I explain to her we’d never be a family in that sense again? How my drinking, paranoia, and OCD had inflicted this change in their lives? How it ripped my spirit apart? “I know, sweetie. Things will get better. You’ll see.”

  I looked over at Aaron. He stood under the tree talking to a solemn Mr. and Mrs. Nichols. The entire twenty minutes I’d had with Eric and Jennifer, he’d spent checking his watch. It hurt, but I got it. This wasn’t Aaron’s life anymore, and I couldn’t blame him for wanting to make a quick exit. I was just grateful he’d brought the kids today.

  Slowly, I led the children across the lawn toward Aaron’s car where it was parked on the two-lane road. It wasn’t unusual to see cars lined up on both sides of the road in front of Patsy’s house for a celebration. Except today was her last party. I swallowed, then winced. My throat was raw from pushing down the grief.

  “Sorry to break this up,” Aaron said from behind us. An electronic beep unlocked the car door. “But we’re already running late.”

  Eric wrapped his arms around my waist and looked up at me with his round brown eyes. “When are we going to see you again, Mom?”

  I stroked his hair, holding back my tears. My road to redemption was long and painful. “Soon, my love. As soon as I can.”

  Aaron opened the back car door. His cell phone screamed out AC/DC’s “Back in Black” and he answered. “Hey. We’re on our way right now.”

  India. A rock formed in my stomach. I hated knowing another woman was spending more time with my kids than I was, but I took a deep breath and hugged the twins. Blew kisses as they drove off, leaving me alone on the road.

  Heartache spread across my chest and climbed up my sore throat with cleats. Pushing down the grief of losing my family was like holding a downward rolling car. Exhausting.

  I wanted to call it a day. Go home. Sleep. Wake up from this dream.

  A flock of black crows prattled in the pines, snapping me out of my self-pity. My eyes turned to an older woman several steps ahead wandering up and down the middle of the road. The woman stopped in front of Patsy’s house then turned to the cleared land across the road. Her silverly blonde hair fell to her shoulders in a tangle of curls. She wore a baggy, purple velvet dress and black tights. Sensible Mary Janes on her feet. Overdressed for a hot July afternoon. Her hands stayed loosely clasped behind her back as she took in the surroundings, her nose in the air like she’d smelled something bad.

  I kept walking on the road toward Patsy’s driveway, getting closer to the odd woman. I didn’t recognize her. Wasn’t sure if she was lost or on a nature walk.

  Once upon a time, I would have asked her if she needed help. But today my throat was tight, and it hurt just to breathe.

  She looked my way and squinted. A chill ran over me, yet the sun was hot and the temperature in the high eighties. I ignored her and strolled up the driveway.

  Noah rounded the corner of the house and pushed his grumpy-faced father’s wheelchair onto the paved footpath toward the driveway. I groaned, wishing I could avoid them.

  “Ah…there you are,” Noah said. Old Man Baker looked up at me and scowled.

  I flinched, because I couldn’t forget how they’d been examining the family tree, like it had a shared meaning to them. Stop overanalyzing. It’s nostalgia, I reminded myself. Patsy had thrown many a party in this backyard. I stopped at the footpath in front of the house. “Leaving already?”

  “Dad is tired.” Noah kept both his hands on the wheelchair handles. “But we’ll talk again soon, eh?”

  Again? My thoughts raced. Had I really talked to Noah recently? We’d never been chummy. But his tone had a sense of urgency, of unfinished business. Something I didn’t like feeling around cops. I blinked hard and hoped my danger-sensing radar was off-kilter. Nothing made sense recently. “Sure. I’ll see you around.”

  Melissa and Denise were on the front verandah waving me inside. I made my way toward them, resigned to dealing with the rest of the day. With Aaron and the twins gone, at least I could indulge in a strong drink. Just one. Until I got home.

  Denise pointed to the road. “Look how many people are still coming to celebrate Patsy’s life.”

  I turned and my eyes zoned in on Noah at the end of the driveway, shaking hands with the eccentric lady. A knot twisted in my belly. They laughed like they were in on some joke. A thousand needles prickled my skin, sweat beading at my hairline. Who was this woman? I hadn’t seen her at the funeral, and I didn’t recognize her as one of Patsy’s friends. Noah waved the woman goodbye and rolled his father down the road with a satisfied smile on his face.

  I wiped the sweat from my forehead. Damn, I needed a strong drink, but not until I got home, and not at the risk of another DUI. At least I had good meds to keep my chemically unbalanced brain under control until then.

  More guests made the trek up the driveway to the house. Pressure built in my sinuses and I blinked away the moisture blurring my vision. Five deep breaths. I needed to do this. Talk to everyone who loved Patsy. Pretend I was doing just fine.

  This day wasn’t something I could block out.

  Chapter Five

  Daylight seeped through the shuttered windows in my living room. I rolled onto my side on the linen sofa and hugged a cushion to my chest. I didn’t know the time—or the day, for that matter. After Patsy’s funeral reception, I’d gone home, swallowed two high-dosage Xanax, chased them down with a bottle of wine, and zonked out during a Sopranos marathon on television.

  I lifted my head from the cushion, but the heaviness of grief weighed it back down. I didn’t want to move from my spot on the sofa.

  My stomach growled. When had I last eaten? I had to get up and take care of myself. Getting healthy again was a crucial part of my recovery. I heaved my feet onto the ground and looked at my phone. Almost forty-eight hours had passed since the funeral. I’d already given the attorney my acceptance of Patsy’s bequest before I’d left the funeral reception. If Patsy wanted me to have the property, then I had no choice but to accept. She and Annette would want me to put aside the grief and move forward.

  The orange prescription bottle of Xanax on the coffee table flashed like a beacon in a foggy sea. My fingers curled and uncurled. My doctor had prescribed half a tablet as needed. As if that could buffer this anxiety. I shuffled to the kitchen, brewed a pot of coffee, and made a grilled cheese sandwich. With sustenance in hand, I curled up on the sofa again and switched the television to the start of the six o’clock local news.

  Channel 12 news anchors Becky and Don rattled off a few headlines: The schoolboard had requested more funds. A break in a main sewer line had caused water shut-offs in a midtown suburb. Yawn-worthy.

  The camera turned to Don. “We’ll start the news tonight with a special report.” An image was displayed next to the newscaster—an enlarged photo of a smiling young man wearing a baseball cap.

  I dropped the sandwich on my lap. My hands shook. No.

  “Tonight police report they have new leads on missing person, Mike Morton,” Don said, “a Lighthouse Beach resident who’s been missing since August, 2003.”

  Mike Morton. His name crash-landed into the room like a boulder from the sky. It filled all of the space. I hadn’t dared speak his name in years. Now, a news banner rolled across the bottom of the screen: Exclusive News Report: Family of missing person, Mike Morton, put up a $50,000 reward for information leading to finding their son. The Morton family pleas with the public for help.

  I fell to my knees in front of the widescreen as the photo of Mike stared back at me. My scalp tingled and every word the reporter spoke was like a megaphone in my ear.

  The camera zoomed to Becky. “That’s right, Don. Our opening story tonight is about the seventeen-year-old unsolved mystery of the d
isappearance of Mike Morton. Here for us live on the scene to tell us more is our investigative reporter, Candace Gailes.”

  The scene switched to Candace, a petite blonde reporter standing at the intersection of two rural roads. I swallowed. She was on Crab Creek Road, close to Patsy’s house.

  “Thank you, Becky.” Candace walked alongside the busy road then stopped at the Willow Road street sign. “The mystery starts here. At this intersection of Crab Creek Road and Willow Road, where Mike Morton was last seen at approximately nine o’clock on the night of August 3rd, 2003. Theories about what happened to him next range from him running into foul play involving a drug deal to him moving out of town and changing his identity. The one thing authorities feel certain about is that Mike Morton was last seen on this corner. Then, he disappeared, never to be heard from again.”

  The television screen split with Don in the news studio on the left side and Candace live on location on the right. Don spoke. “Candace,” Don said, “tell us about the leads in the investigation.”

  My breaths grew shallow, and my nerves reacted to every word with a twitch.

  Candace nodded twice. “Investigators say they are analyzing the original reports for overlooked clues. Now, they’re not releasing information which could jeopardize the investigation, but head investigators have indicated the new leads are encouraging.”

  New leads. Boom, boom, boom. Every vessel in my head pounded. No one knew anything. Did they? I recalled Noah and his father at Patsy’s funeral reception—how Noah had pondered the tree as Old Man Baker pointed to the branches and trunk.

  Bile rose to the back of my throat. I wished I could turn off the television and have this all go away.

  “Candace,” Don said, “can you tell us if the reward the Morton family is offering was instigated by any of these leads?”

  Candace shook her head. “I can’t confirm that, but with all the attention around the mystery, we hope the Morton family finds closure soon.” She nodded at the camera. “Becky and Don, back to you at the station.”

  Don nodded. “Thank you, Candace. We look forward to hearing more from you about this investigation soon.” The camera went back to full screen with Don looking into the camera. “Again, police are asking anyone with information to please contact the Lighthouse Beach Police Department at the number on the screen.”

  The screen flashed back to the news desk with Becky at Don’s side. “We caught up with the parents of Mike Morton today outside police headquarters, where they made an emotional public plea to anyone with information about their son.”

  The screen switched to an elderly couple linked arm-in-arm as they left the police station. A younger horse-faced man and woman followed close behind them in a frenzy of flashes and news cameras. The Morton family. The parents looked frail and tired.

  Guilt twisted around my heart and up to my throat. I didn’t like being reminded that Mike had had a family who cared about him.

  The foursome stopped outside the police building and faced the press. Mr. Morton took the mic and spoke to the camera. “We’ve waited seventeen years to find out what happened to our son. Seventeen years of not knowing,” he said, raising his tone. “And we’re certain someone knows. Someone knows what happened to our son.”

  Every muscle in my body tightened. Someone knows. Who? How?

  Mrs. Morton stepped in front of the mic. “We plead to anyone with information to notify the police.” Her voice cracked and she shoved the mic toward her daughter.

  The daughter stood tall, proud, and stoic. The news banner read: Rebecca Morton, sister of missing man Mike Morton. “Our family is offering a $50,000 reward for any information which leads us to the whereabouts of Mike. Dead or alive.”

  I grabbed my throat. No. No. No.

  Mike’s sister continued, looking directly into the camera. “Our family strongly believes someone knows where my brother is. Please. Please. Anyone who has information, your call will be kept confidential.” She walked away, and the nightly news duo came back on screen and segued into state political news.

  I turned off the television, and the cold fist of fear filled the silence, squeezed the air from my lungs. I picked at my fingertips, at the dirt embedded deep in the crevices of my skin.

  I could’ve blamed what Annette and I had done on the acid, but I knew better. Mike had been dead and buried by the time the drug had taken effect. I’d simply allowed myself to forget.

  Seventeen years. That was how long I’d lived as if that night had never really happened. As if it had been a dream. Annette had been the great reinforcer of the lies we’d told ourselves. It was only a dream. Nothing happened.

  I’d taken for granted that Mike Morton would remain just another face on a missing person’s poster, drifting in a sea of lost souls. That was my theory, and I’d convinced myself it was universally accepted. If someone did know what we’d done, the $50,000 reward would bring them out in the open. But that wasn’t possible—was it?

  The thought scared me, because to this day, the one memory of that night which I hadn’t been able to shake was the eerie image of someone wearing dark clothes running across the lawn—along with the feeling that someone had watched us bury Mike.

  The few times I’d brought it up to Annette, she’d told me it was a hallucination from the acid and refused to discuss it any further. It had become easier over the years to convince myself that the memory was false. A false memory. Fake news. It had become a comfortable shell to cover the guilty secret. If no one knew, then it hadn’t happened. I’d found a hazy comfort living this way—in that murky place where my secret stayed safe.

  But now sharp images of that night played in my mind— the sky full of stars, singing cicadas, shoveling dirt over Mike, and a dark figure running across the lawn.

  I shook the thoughts from my head. I’d shut that night out of my mind years ago. Only shards of memory remained.

  Someone saw what happened. Someone knows. Someone knows.

  Someone saw what happened. Someone knows. Someone knows.

  No. The shadow had been a hallucination, like the thousands of cicadas flying around the house, the psychedelic rainbows, and the clownfish in the sky.

  I crossed my arms and hugged myself. Don’t look back. Don’t look back.

  Looking back triggered obsessive thoughts. Chalk it up to my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. An overwhelming fear of impending doom was a classic OCD trademark. And once the floodgates of paranoia opened, the current was too strong for me to fight.

  The feeling of being watched and stalked had haunted me for years—ever since that night. I took a deep breath. I wouldn’t allow my mind to wander to the past. I’d atoned for any sin. I was caring, giving, and compassionate. A teacher who went an extra mile with students who needed help. It was the small stuff which kept me on a path of redemption.

  One might have thought I could find true redemption in confessing my crime. It might have seemed selfish that I hadn’t called the police and given Mike’s family the closure they deserved. But I’d been in a safe place for a long time. A place where the Morton family didn’t exist.

  But now I worried someone didn’t want me to forget. The someone who was sending me oak leaves in the mail.

  I went to the cupboard in the kitchen where I’d always kept my mail. Lifting the stack of paperwork, I pulled out the eight white envelopes bundled up with a rubber band.

  The first envelope had come to my home with Aaron and the children, four years ago, at the zenith of my happiness. We’d just finished celebrating the twin’s third birthday when I opened the letter addressed to me.

  The bright red oak leaf inside the envelope was odd. I’d searched the Internet and postal areas to find out who’d sent it, but learned it was a bogus return address.

  For the next four years, the leaves had kept coming at random times. Always the same. The handwriting, a generic block style. I’d had several students who loved the natural world as much as I did. The ones who liked
to collect leaves or examine the geometric intricacy in a blade of glass. I wanted to believe that.

  But I’d worried the leaves were more sinister. Something to do with what Annette and I had done.

  I’d dared bringing up the letters with the leaves to Annette a few times. Each time, I’d been shut down with her stone-cold response: You’re having delusions. Even on her deathbed, she’d refused to talk about what had happened. Nothing happened, Jolene.

  But the thought had taken seed: The oak leaves were a message. A message relating to the only oak tree of significance in my life. The family tree.

  After Annette had died, another leaf had come in. Then another envelope two months later. The last envelope and leaf had come to the townhouse last week, just before Patsy had died.

  Overcome with the grief of losing Patsy and Annette, I’d put aside the leaf mystery. Now, I analyzed the envelopes once again. Eight pieces of a puzzle with no picture to follow.

  Did the sender have anything to do with the investigation?

  No.

  It was the damned newscast about Mike which had sent my mind off in a tangent. Mike’s disappearance. Oak leaves. I couldn’t ignore the looming dread.

  My children could never find out I was a killer. I’d lost the unconditional love I’d had with Patsy and Annette. All I had left was my children. And if I wanted to keep making progress, I’d have to make sure the secret about Mike stayed buried.

  First, I wanted to know what leads the police had, and what I’d closed my mind to for all these years. I opened my laptop and logged into the Internet, eager to know what I was up against and arm myself with knowledge.

  I typed ‘mi’ into the browser, then hesitated. My breath quickened. I was being paranoid, but what if something happened to cause the police to hack into my laptop, and if they saw I’d searched for information about Mike’s disappearance? It was an illogical thought. Nothing should link me to Mike Morton in any way, but why invite suspicion?