The Memory House

by Rachel Hauck

  But that would require slowing down. It would require a relationship with a woman that lasted beyond one date. It would require him opening his heart.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” Coach said, pushing Bruno into the room.

  “I’m starved.” He shifted his gaze to Tyvis, then to Mrs. Brown. “Ready to eat.”

  chapter three

  Beck

  Light flooded her East Flatbush bedroom as she awoke, grumbling, squinting against the brightness. Burying herself under the covers, Beck bumped against a warm body curled next to hers.

  She sat up, tossing the blankets aside as last night’s events swept through her groggy haze. Boudreaux. The dog. Four hours at the animal clinic.

  “Hey, little man. Happy New Year.” She rubbed the pup’s ears with tenderness. “Did you sleep well?”

  With a small whimper, he tried to open his eyes, but exhaustion and the meds still claimed him.

  He was a mini schnauzer, according to the vet. Five to six years old. Malnourished and dehydrated. Flea infested and full of worms.

  They x-rayed and ultrasounded his battered insides, then treated him with antibiotics and fluids, finally sending Beck home with special food and recovery instructions.

  “Bring him back in two weeks. We’ll do a more thorough exam.”

  While the little guy seemed to respond to hydration and food, the vet was concerned about unforeseen complications.

  Stepping from her bed, Beck drew the curtains closed, then returned to curl up next to her new friend.

  He sighed as she stroked his paw. She’d called him Beetle Boo on the mile walk to the clinic, and when the doctor wrote it on his chart, it was settled.

  A light knock sounded on her door. “Happy New Year, Beck. You awake?” Mom peeked around. “You got home later than—” Her lips pursed, and she looked like an angry Popsicle in her pink nurse’s uniform and pale winter skin. “A dog? Beck, please, you know Flynn is allergic.”

  “Happy New Year to you too, Mom.” Eyes closed, Beck pressed her forehead against his tiny face, inhaling his sweet, clean fur. She’d had to leave the room when the vet tech started to clean him up by shaving off the clumps of matted fur. Beetle Boo had moaned and cried.

  “Is there a story with this dog?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m looking for my own place. You won’t have to endure a pet for long.”

  “You don’t have to get defensive. It’s just that Flynn is allergic to dogs.”

  Living with her mom, stepdad, and baby brother at thirty-one had never been the plan. But when Sara, her best friend from college and her Stuytown roommate, got married last year, Beck returned to her old East Flatbush bedroom temporarily.

  But days and weeks turned into months, and then a year passed. She’d saved enough to get her own place and was about to sign a lease when she realized the night at Rosie’s and the collision with Hunter Ingram had come with consequences.

  Maybe that’s why she wanted to care for Beetle Boo. As a distraction from the truth she’d so far ignored with her head monumentally in the sand.

  “Beck?” The side of the bed sagged under Mom’s light weight. Beck peeked at her with one eye. “Did you hear me? I’m heading to work, but dinner is in the Crock-Pot. Flynn should be home by six. The fridge calendar says you’re working tonight. Please eat before you go. You’re a rail. Flynn said he thought you’d been sick off and on last month—”

  “Yeah, I ate too much street vendor food. Didn’t sit well with me. Have fun at work, Mom.”

  “As fun as a twelve-hour shift at Kings County can be. But it is New Year’s Day. There’s always lots of good eats. Speaking of eats—”

  “I heard you five seconds ago.” Beck sat up, shoving the loose ends of her dark hair from her face. “Eat before I go to work.”

  “So, what’s going on here?” Mom glanced at Beck, who tugged the sheet over her belly, then inspected the dog. “He’s in bad shape.”

  “Took him from a perp who was feeding him drugs to poop out later.”

  Oh, right on time. Nausea. Within ten minutes of waking up. She thought she should be past it by now but—

  “Why didn’t you call animal control?”

  “Because—” Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in . . . And the moment passed. For now. “I felt he needed my help.”

  Beck glanced at Mom, a nurse, a caregiver, a lover of life. She should understand someone needing help.

  Though the two of them had never been close. Beck was a daddy’s girl—or so she was told. Then came 9/11, a layered disaster that touched them to this day.

  The collapse of the North Tower forced mother and daughter together and apart in ways neither of them completely understood.

  So they gave each other space, the benefit of the doubt, and overlooked how the other walked with a permanent limp. Mom by moving on with her life and never looking back. Beck by forgetting.

  “Interesting,” Mom said, standing, straightening her scrubs top. “You’ve never been sentimental about animals or babies. You hardly looked at your baby brother until he was two.”

  “Maybe I’ve changed. A little.”

  “Miracle of miracles.” Mom checked her watch. “So is the dog a permanent addition?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Like I said, I have enough saved for my own place.”

  “Did I say you had to move? I just need to know what to tell Flynn. He’s—”

  “—allergic. I know.”

  And so it went between them. Ever since Beck was fourteen and Dad died. Any attempt to talk or connect came with an unseen tension, yet somehow laced with a soft patience and love.

  “What kind of dog is this again?” Mom stretched her hand to Beetle’s nose. But he was too weary to lift his head. “Maybe he’s the kind that doesn’t shed.”

  “A mini schnauzer.” Beck smiled, warming her own soul a degree or two. “I appreciate all you and Flynn have done for me, letting me stay rent-free. But I want—need—to be on my own.”

  Mom nodded once. “I remember chomping at the bit to fly my parents’ coop. I was twenty when I met your dad and fell head over heels.” She leaned over to kiss Beck’s forehead, bid Beetle Boo good day, and walked to the door. “Oh, you have some mail downstairs. A registered letter.”

  “From who?”

  “A Florida lawyer.” Mom checked her watch again, making a face. “I’ve got to go. Don’t forget dinner is in the Crock-Pot.”

  When the door closed, Beck bolted out of bed and banged into the bathroom, dropping down beside the toilet. Relief. How was it possible the worst thing in the world—throwing up—gave her such sweet comfort?

  Stretching her T-shirt over her expanding middle, she examined herself in the mirror.

  She was in trouble. Big, layered, no-way-to-get-out-of-it trouble. The baby was making itself known, and she could not ignore her any longer.

  The first two months she thought she was just working too hard, battling fatigue. Then the nausea started.

  If she had her way, she’d hole up in her room with Beetle Boo until winter and all of her woes had passed. But by all accounts, labor was more than a mere woe.

  Labor . . .

  She’d have to go through it alone.

  After brushing her teeth and washing her face, she returned to bed and curled up with Beetle. She stared at the ceiling, trying to think of nothing.

  When she was little, her parents tucked her in with good-night prayers. The memories were vague and distant, and none of them had images of her father. Just Mom.

  Beside her, the dog shifted with a light whimper and tried to jump down. Beck set him on the floor and watched as he teetered a second before trotting over to his water bowl.

  She’d have to take him outside soon. He needed help to do his business. His back leg still didn’t work right from being dropped on concrete. X-rays showed it’d been broken twice before. Burn, Boudreaux, burn.

  Without a thought, she whispered a prayer for the pup. Then for
herself. She heard enough desperate pleas on the job from dying vics, scared perps, and grieving loved ones to believe the notion of appealing to heaven was somewhat legit.

  “Happy New Year, God, it’s me, Beck Holiday. I need help.”

  Closing her eyes, she waited for some sort of voice or feeling, a response from the Almighty. But the only sound was the ping of a text.

  With a groan, she rolled over to the nightstand. The series of one-line texts were from her lieutenant, Hunter Ingram.

  Beck?

  Call me.

  Where are you?

  What happened?

  I need to know.

  I can’t cover for you otherwise.

  Not sure I can anyway.

  Sergeant?

  WAKE UP!

  Lifting Beetle Boo back onto the bed, she weighed her options.

  Run away from home? No, she was too old for that. She’d love to run away from home and emerge into a new, surreal, almost perfect life where being pregnant made sense and gave her hope instead of dread.

  Where she had her own home, a husband to be the baby’s father—if she even decided to raise this baby—the return of her childhood memories, and a moment with Mom where the pain of Dad’s death didn’t silently send them to their opposite corners.

  Was she just dreaming? Demanding too much of life? After eighteen years, she didn’t hold out hope.

  This was why she loved being a cop. She knew the job. Knew what was expected. Found a piece of herself in the day to day.

  She’d created trouble for herself because of one stupid night. She had no one else to blame. Well, except him. They were both drunk, but if her vague memory served, she’d been the one to initiate things at Rosie’s.

  In the middle of Ingram’s texts was one from Hogan.

  How’s the dog? Call me. Boudreaux’s lawyer showed up before I finished paperwork.

  She was about to text him back when her phone rang. Ah, Ingram. She could tell by the ring he was losing patience.

  Nevertheless, Beck hit end, tossed her phone beneath the tissues, papers, books, and essential oils in the nightstand drawer, and buried her burdens in her pillow.

  Thanks for the help, God.

  She must’ve dozed off, because a knock startled her from a dreamless sleep.

  “Yeah?” She cleared her throat with a gaze at the clock. Seven p.m.

  Her stepfather, Flynn, entered, dressed in his Brooklyn captain’s uniform. “Did you walk off the job?”

  “So they’re calling captains in Brooklyn now?”

  “Ingram, yes.”

  Beck moved the blankets, exposing Beetle Boo. “I didn’t walk off. I just took this little guy to the vet. Hogan took the collar into the precinct. Which was a waste of time and money. Is there any justice in the world, Flynn?”

  “There’s justice. And everyone gets their day in court.” He nodded to the dog. “You should’ve called animal control. That’s their job. Yours is to—”

  “Ignore an innocent, hurting, pleading animal to collar a multiple offender? Who, by the way, walked before Hogan finished the paperwork. No, Flynn, no. I was saving this guy right here.” She scratched Beetle’s nose and he raised his head, touching her hand with his pink tongue.

  Flynn stared at her for a moment, caught between police captain and stepfather.

  He’d been Dad’s best friend since high school. They joined the force together at twenty-two and became members of the Cemetery Club, chasing coffee and trouble from midnight to eight a.m.

  After 9/11, Flynn came around a lot to check on “Dale’s widow.” He and Mom married a year later.

  “What happened?” he said with a deep sigh.

  “Caught a repeat offender dealing again. He dropped a tote while I was in pursuit. This little man was inside, half dead. A drug mule.”

  Flynn leaned in for a look but stayed on his side of the room. “He’s a sorry-looking pooch. What’d the vet say?”

  “‘That’ll be fifteen hundred bucks.’” Beck jammed her feet into her slippers, flaring her T-shirt away from her middle, and reached for her robe. “Sent me home with some meds and food, along with instructions. He already looks ten times better.”

  “You know I’m allergic.”

  “Yep.” She walked out of her room. Coffee, please, coffee.

  She’d switched to decaf a month and half ago. Mom raised an eyebrow when she poured herself a cup one morning. Beck doctored it with creamer and told herself she had enough caffeine running through her veins to last two pregnancies.

  Beef stroganoff aromas permeated the kitchen and for a moment, an overwhelming peace. Beck did love home. The cozy, safe place one went to hide from the world’s troubles.

  She wanted what Mom and Flynn had, a place to recover from the unexpected and build a life, maybe raise a kid.

  There was the place on Rockaway Avenue, but it was a far cry from the swanky apartment she had shared with Sara in Stuytown.

  Flynn moved about the kitchen, setting up for dinner, his broad, strong presence causing the peace to linger.

  “Wyatt won’t be home,” he said, taking two plates from the cupboard and setting the table. “He and some of the boys went to Judah Maas’s to watch the national championship semifinal.”

  “Who’s playing?” Beck lifted the empty coffee carafe from the machine. So sad. So very sad. She returned it to the burner and opted for an orange juice.

  OJ was better for her, right? At least that was the word on the street.

  “Ohio State and Texas.” Flynn took salad and a beer from the fridge. “Want one?” He held up his dark bottled brew.

  “No, I’m working tonight.”

  He made a face. “Sorry, I thought you were off. Happy New Year, right?”

  “I’ve worked every New Year’s since I joined the force. Wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I wasn’t on shift.”

  She gulped the last swallow of OJ and tossed the bottle in the trash. “I need to feed the dog before dinner.”

  “Beck, you can’t keep him. Forget my allergies. We work all hours in this house. He’ll be by himself most of the time. We fight to spend time with each other as it is, never mind a dog.” Flynn walked to the thermostat in the dining room. “Your mom is determined to turn this house into a summer resort.”

  “I’m getting my own place.” A small flutter tickled her belly, and Beck reached for the high-back chair at the kitchen island. The baby. She moved.

  “How are you going to take care of a dog with your schedule? Especially one that’s sick?” Flynn eyed her over a sip of his beer. “Are you feeling okay these days?”

  “I will. Lots of cops have dogs.”

  “Yes, and they have families to help.”

  “I can take care of him.” She ran her hand through her hair, then adjusted her robe, loosening the belt. “I-I can move to days.”

  “For a dog?” Flynn’s laugh was more sweet than mocking. “Call me the day you ask your lieutenant for that. Why don’t you let me ask around the department? Remember Michael and Esther Greaves? They came to our Fourth of July bash last summer. You played basketball with their special-needs son. Mike told me the other day their therapist recommended a pet for him.”

  “I don’t know.” She glanced down. “I-I’m not sure I could trust anyone with him. He’s been through so much.”

  “They’re good people. You should see them with their boy. Your pup would thrive there.”

  Beck nodded and started for the stairs. “I’ll think about it.”

  In her room she knelt beside the bed, gently waking up Beetle Boo. He regarded her with sad brown eyes, though they were brighter and more alive than twelve hours ago.

  “You hungry?” She opened a can of puppy food, then lifted him with care from the bed. Cradling him in her lap, she fed from her hand, then let him stand, wobbling, for another drink.

  Afterward, she carried him out front, stepping into the cold, crisp night. Christmas lights still garnished the hous
es along the street.

  He hopped toward the grass, and she held his backside as he squatted.

  Then she gathered him up, kissing his head. “You and me. I won’t let you go.”

  Back in her room, she cozied the blankets around him, then showered, the warm water flowing over her body, over the baby.

  But reality was taking hold. Beck sank to the shower floor and pressed her head into her hands. Darn it. How’d she let this happen?

  She was caught, trapped by a circumstance she did not want. And, in true Beck Holiday form, she’d ignored the problem, willing it to go away. She’d put it out of her mind. After all, she was good at forgetting.

  She was supposed to have been a Wall Streeter, majoring in international finance at Columbia. She was law school bound until she interned with Goldman Sachs.

  What a world. Like the ninth circle of hell. She hated every minute of it. On a whim she took the NYPD exams and earned the second highest score ever. Seven months later she graduated at the top of her class.

  She loved her job. It gave her a sense of purpose. She loved the camaraderie of the officers and the unique fraternity of a few in the city of millions.

  Mom reasoned Beck joined the force to be like her dad.

  “Now why would I do that when I can’t even remember him, Mom?”

  But as the hot water turned her winter-pale skin pink, she wondered. By being a cop, was she trying to find something she’d lost? Was it wrong to be like her father? Was it wrong to want to remember him, still, after eighteen years?

  But she had more pressing concerns at the moment. Could she be a single mom and a cop? Flynn didn’t even think she could look after a dog.

  Beck stood and cut off the water. The heat and steam only made her more tired, only made her complications more pronounced.

  She’d just finished dressing and drying her hair when Flynn called up the stairs. “You ready to eat? I’ve got the game on.”

  “Coming.” She grabbed her backpack and set it by the door. Beetle Boo gazed up at her with a lost expression. “I’m right here, buddy. Don’t worry.”