At the top of the stairs, she closed and locked the door with the key she wore on her wrist. In the bathroom, she made herself beautiful for her husband, Derrick. She met her clear blue eyes in the mirror and wondered when the lines had formed around them. When did her frown become so permanent? Someone once told her the lines on one’s face were a road map to the life the person lived. She stopped a scowl from emerging at the thought and smiled instead.
Hair perfectly coiffed, makeup expertly applied, she went into the kitchen to pack lunch for Maggie, their adopted six-year-old. By the time she finished the peanut butter and jelly sandwich it was already a quarter past seven, and Maggie hadn’t come downstairs.
Teresa went to the landing. “Maggie, you’re going to be late.”
Back in the kitchen, she flipped on the coffee pot. When she turned around, Maggie stood behind her. Her long dark hair stuck out from her head in frizzy ringlets, a stark contrast to Teresa’s smooth blonde lob. That mess would take twenty minutes to comb out.
“What took you so long?” Teresa asked.
“I didn’t sleep very good,” Maggie said. She yawned.
“You didn’t sleep very well.” Teresa corrected her. “Here’s your lunch. Your backpack is in the living room.”
Maggie went around the breakfast bar and pulled her backpack onto her shoulders. She started toward the hallway.
“Maggie,” Teresa said. “Where’s my hug?”
Maggie shuffled back to Teresa, gave her a half-second embrace around the waist, and turned back toward the front door.
Derrick’s footfalls came from the stairs. Teresa watched from the kitchen. He met Maggie in the foyer. Her face lit up.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said. She hugged him tight. She looked up at him and whispered, “She forgot breakfast again.”
Teresa sighed. Rearranging her routine to make the child lunch every morning was hard enough, but breakfast, too?
Derrick said something about the muffin store in a low voice, and Maggie smiled and nodded. He pulled her hair back into a ponytail and fastened it with a pink scrunchie. When he glanced toward the kitchen, his mouth turned down at the corners.
“Wait on the porch. I’ll be right out.” He came into the kitchen while Maggie went outside.
“Good morning,” Derrick said. He pulled a travel mug out of the cupboard and filled it with coffee. He turned to Teresa. “What’s wrong?” His tone suggested, What’s wrong this time?
Teresa busied her hands with the dishes in the drying rack. Derrick touched her wrist and stopped her. She didn’t look at him.
“What’s wrong, honey?” The softer tone, the nicer one. He was pretending to care.
“Maggie doesn’t like me.”
Derrick shook his head. “Not this again.” He put his mug on the counter and crossed his arms. “Why do you think that?”
“She doesn’t hug me like she hugs you.” Teresa fiddled with her necklace. “She rarely makes eye contact.” What else? Oh yes. The most important. “She never calls me Mommy.”
“Don’t be silly,” Derrick said. “She’s just getting used to us.”
“She’s been here for three months.” Teresa dropped her arms. “How long until she settles in?”
Derrick shrugged. “I need to get to the clinic. I have an eight o’clock.”
The usual excuse to not deal with things. To leave the situation. To leave her. Harmony was a fifteen-minute town. It took him five to walk Maggie to school, another ten from there to the clinic.
He brushed a kiss across her cheek and grabbed his briefcase from the living room.
“Derrick,” she said, her voice cracking. “You know what today is, right?”
He shook his head. So easy for him to forget now that he had a replacement daughter.
“The baby . . . our baby’s . . . anniversary. . . . of her . . . of her death.” She held the tears in, but her voice hitched.
“Oh, Teresa.” Derrick came back to her, hugged her. “I’m sorry. I forgot. I know how important it is to you.”
But not to him.
He kissed her forehead and released her, turned to leave but stopped. “You know,” he said, then paused.
Teresa knew what he was going to say. He was going to tell her to get over it. That’s what it always came to. He didn’t understand. He didn’t know what it was like to grow a human in his body only to have it ripped away. But he reached for her again and awkwardly held her by the shoulders. His voice softened.
“It’s been seven years. Maybe you should . . . I don’t know . . . call your therapist. Start seeing him again.”
He wants me medicated.
“Or you could come help out at the office. Perhaps some . . . normalcy . . . or a new routine would help.”
“It was so easy for you to move on, wasn’t it?” Teresa said in the voice she used when she wasn’t sure if she really wanted Derrick to hear her. “So easy to be normal again. To forget our baby.”
“It was never easy, Teresa.” His nostrils flared. “I just . . .” He lifted his hands, then dropped them. “Never mind. I have to go. I don’t have time for this.”
She stood in the kitchen and listened to the front door open and close. At least he didn’t slam it this time.
Teresa scurried to the front room and looked out the window. Derrick and Maggie strolled down the sidewalk and out of sight. His smile was for her now. Teresa sat on the love seat. Across from her, an upright piano stood against the wall. Pictures in silver frames sat in a cluster on top of lace doilies from Bruges, from another time, another life. Pictures of them, together. Happy. Smiling. Carefree. She and Derrick.
Tucked in the middle, partially obscured by the music stand, captured for the rest of time in black and white, was Teresa holding the baby. They had the same fair skin and pale hair. She was only seven weeks old.
A tear welled in Teresa’s right eye but didn’t fall. She went to the bathroom, snatched a tissue from the box on the counter, and dabbed, careful not to mess her makeup.
Mommy . . .
A distorted voice, like a child talking into a fan.
Teresa whirled and peered out into the hallway. Across from the bathroom, the basement door stood wide open. She checked her wrist for the key. Still there. No one else had a key. She knew she locked it. She always locked it. The only other way to unlock it was from the inside.
She slid to the door and peered down the darkened staircase.
A shadow drifted by at the bottom. Prickly chills washed over her scalp.
“Who’s down there?” Her voice cracked. “Maggie?” she called, even though she knew she was home alone. Her mouth went dry.
Teresa took one step down the stairs and stopped. She didn’t want to be the idiot bimbo in a horror movie. She backed out into the hallway, closed the door, and locked it, jiggling the handle to ensure it was secure.
The water heater, the furnace kicking on, wind in the ducts, rats . . . She’d call an exterminator.
Glass shattered in the front room. She spun toward the noise.
No, the kitchen. She found a tipped glass in the sink. Nothing broken. She rinsed it under the tap.
Mommy . . .
She shut off the faucet and listened, holding her breath. Her hand went to the cross at her neck.
The clock on the wall ticked off the seconds. Ten. Twenty.
Mommy . . .
From the front of the house. Teresa nearly shrieked. She took small, slow steps back down the hall. She stopped at the doorway and peeked into the front room.
The frame with her and the baby lay on the hardwood floor surrounded by pieces of glass. The other pictures remained untouched in a circle around a now empty space where the portrait had been.
There had to be an explanation. She just couldn’t think. Not with a mess on the floor. She knelt and picked up the larger pieces but needed a broom. She took one step toward the hallway and tripped over something soft and yielding.
Teresa caught herself on
the doorframe, turned, and gasped. The antique stuffed bear she’d had as a child stared up at her.
Big Bear.
She lifted him to eye level. What was he doing here? Derrick had put Big Bear in the garage. He’d wanted to throw the stuffed toy out, but she begged him not to. It had been hers when she was little. It hadn’t been in the house since . . .
Since the baby died.
“Mah-mee,” Big Bear said in the voice she’d heard.
Teresa dropped him. He landed face down. The pull string on his back slid inside his body. She let out a relieved laugh and tucked Big Bear on the love seat and arranged the pillows around him.
“Mommy.”
The voice came from behind her. Not distorted. A child’s voice. Crisp and clear. Not from the bear’s old voice box.
Teresa turned around and froze.
A girl in a frilly white dress stood in the doorway. A black ribbon held her long pale hair away from her face. Dark eyes peered up from beneath a fringe of blunt-cut bangs.
“Mommy,” the girl said in a sickly sweet voice. She cocked her head. “Why did you kill me?”
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About the Author
Claire L. Fishback lives in Morrison, Colorado with her loving husband, Tim, and their pit bull mix, Belle. Writing has been her passion since age six. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys mountain biking, hiking, running, baking, and adding to her bone collection, though she would rather be stretched out on the couch with a good book (or poking dead things with sticks).
She can be reached at [email protected] for questioning.
Read more at Claire L. Fishback’s site.
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