The Night the Lights Went Out

by Karen White

  THE PLAYING FIELDS BLOG

  Observations of Suburban Life from Sweet Apple, Georgia

  Written by: Your Neighbor

  Installment #10: Truth and Lies

  I’m not going to pretend that we aren’t all talking about the news item that not only has been splashed on the covers of three local-area newspapers including our own Sweet Apple Herald but, owing to the prominence of the victim, has been reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. If I start seeing national news media trucks, I’m packing it in and calling it a day. Because this is the sort of tragedy that is best left to be grieved in the privacy of our own homes and not broadcast into strangers’ lives when people are eating their dinners or putting on makeup and need background noise. Because, neighbors, this is a story about a human tragedy that has no business being relegated to the background.

  This murder—yes, we’ve all been made aware that his death was not an accident—is a tragedy. The victim was a loving father of two little girls who adored him and who miss him now, and who will miss him when he’s not there to walk them down the aisle at their weddings. It’s as heartbreaking as it is cruel, and the gossiping I’m hearing in the nail salon, coffee shop, and grocery store is not only vulgar but demeaning. And hurtful for those left behind. Well, for most of those left behind.

  There’s a lot of talk and innuendo about what happened or didn’t happen. About who’s involved and whose name hasn’t been mentioned. To all parties concerned, remember one thing: Truth, like oil, will always rise to the surface. I know there’re at least two of you who are worrying something fierce about the truth—one because she’s afraid it will remain hidden. And the other afraid that it won’t. I’d like to say that worrying makes big shadows of small things. But there’s nothing small here. A man has been killed, and despite a lot of finger-pointing, only one person—two if you can count a dead man—knows the truth.

  Now, enough of all this ugliness—it’s almost Thanksgiving, and I’d like to turn our focus onto happier topics. So on to a lighter note. As we approach the holidays, I want to remind everyone that they’re all about family and not about the perfect turkey or the prettiest table settings. Good food and a beautiful home are wonderful to have and to share with loved ones, but not at the expense of enjoying your company.

  I have it on very good authority that the prebaked turkeys and honey-baked hams at Costco are divine and probably better than you can make in your own kitchen. Their sides of mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and macaroni and cheese will rival your own. They come in these convenient foil baking tins with the instructions right on the lid. When they’re done baking, and your house is smelling like home cooking, you just put them into your own china serving pieces and nobody’s the wiser. It’s a win-win: delicious food that everybody enjoys, and a hostess who’s not passed out from exhaustion at the head of the table.

  I know there are a lot of diehards out there who will insist it won’t be as good as what they could bring to their table or what grandma makes. I understand. It’s hard to switch parties mid-election (and that is the first and last political comment you will see on this blog). But the Wright brothers didn’t invent the airplane by saying their bikes worked just fine.

  After the sad news in our community, this Thanksgiving let’s not forget to give thanks for family, good friends, and neighbors. They are truly life’s blessings, and we shouldn’t forget to be grateful for them. Sadly, every garden has some weeds. The hardest thing sometimes is in determining the good people in your life from the rotten ones, because unlike apples, you can’t tell a good one from looking at their skin.

  That brings me to this edition’s Southernism: “One day you’re the peacock, and the next you’re the feather duster.” It’s natural to have a turn of fortune—people change jobs, move towns, lose at poker. It happens to everybody. We’ve all been the peacock or the feather duster at different points in our lives. The good thing about bad times is that’s when you’re able to tell who the good people in your life are. Those are the people who will stick by your side even when you lose your looks or your bank account dips into the red.

  Which is why our recent tragedy made me think of this particular Southernism. Because I would bet my last dollar that I know who’s responsible. And to that person, let me say this: Right now you’re the peacock, strutting about allowing people to admire you in all your perfection. You think you’re untouchable, but you’re not. Your days as a feather duster are coming, and there’s no avoiding it, and I don’t think you’re going to have any friends left who will be willing to stick by your side, because they’ll be afraid that whatever it is you’ve got is catching. You think you’ve covered your tracks, allowed someone else to take the blame. You think you’ve gotten away with murder. But you haven’t.

  And you and I both know who you are.

  Thirty-three

  MERILEE

  Merilee kept her eyes focused on Bob Van Dillen and the HLN weather report on her television set, watching the rotating hurricane symbol in the Atlantic as it approached the southeast coast. As of two days before, the Category 4 storm was supposed to head north toward New England before veering east and dissipating out over the ocean. Except it hadn’t. In typical hurricane fashion, it had made landfall in the coastal Carolinas the previous evening and was slowly traveling inland, creating havoc through rain, sleet, hail, and the occasional tornado.

  She never watched morning television, and definitely not the weather, but Sugar had insisted that she do both while Sugar made breakfast. The scent of frying bacon and fresh biscuits came from the kitchen, saturating the house, reminding Merilee of what a home should smell like. Sugar had opened the freezer door the previous evening to store leftovers and had seen the boxes of frozen waffles Merilee usually fed Lily and Colin for breakfast on school mornings. Merilee shouldn’t have been surprised to find Sugar on her doorstep the next day with supplies for a home-cooked meal.

  Merilee had been too distracted to protest. Ever since the police search and the discovery of the shoe, she’d been unable to focus. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten, and even the smells from the kitchen weren’t enough to convince her to make herself a plate of food. She’d managed to dress for work but wasn’t sure if she should even bother. She hated the way people watched her and how the conversations in the break room seemed to stop as soon as she walked in. Merilee especially hated the smug look on Gayla Adamson’s face whenever Merilee saw her at the store. This couldn’t possibly be her life. Not the independent life she’d worked so hard at and carefully cultivated for herself and her children. A life to be proud of. Not the train wreck it had become.

  She became aware of her children laughing as Sugar came into the room and placed a heaping plate of eggs, bacon, and two biscuits on the coffee table in front of her. “You’d better eat something, Merilee. You’re nothing but skin and bones.”

  Merilee managed a smile. “Some people would think that’s a compliment.”

  Sugar didn’t reciprocate and kept her lips in a firm, straight line. “It’s not. And I’m going to stand right here and watch you take a bite before I go back to the kitchen and make sure your children aren’t fighting with sharp knives over the last biscuit.”

  From the look in the old woman’s eyes, Merilee wasn’t sure if she was joking. She picked up the fork and stabbed it into the eggs, then stopped as she heard more laughter from the kitchen. “What are they doing in there?”

  “Take a bite and I’ll tell you.”

  Merilee did as she was told, hardly tasting the food in her mouth.

  “They’re looking at your yearbook. I’m afraid it was left on the kitchen table and nobody thought to put it away.” Sugar didn’t even look sheepish at her admission, even though they both knew that it had been Sugar and Wade who’d looked at it last when digging into the rumors about Merilee’s past. When Merilee had seen it, she’d been angry
at the intrusion. At least until Lily had pointed out that they’d been trying to help her.

  She swallowed. “What are they finding so funny?”

  “The hairdos and fashion choices, mostly. But some of the people have funny things written beneath their pictures, apparently. I don’t have my reading glasses on, so I can’t tell you which ones. They found one especially funny because they thought it looked like someone they know.”

  Merilee put down her fork at the approach of a car in the drive and stood. “That’s Michael. Please go tell the children their dad is here to take them to school.”

  Sugar pressed her lips together even more tightly, leaving Merilee to wonder what she was more disappointed about—the fact that Merilee had barely eaten two bites or the fact that Merilee had chickened out completely and refused to show her face at the school and had asked Michael to take over the morning school drive at least until Christmas break. After which she had no idea what would happen.

  He was walking toward the porch when she stepped out to join him. “How are you, Meri?”

  “I’ve been better. Thanks for driving the kids this morning and picking them up this afternoon. Their after-school activities have been canceled because of the weather, so if you could just bring them straight home, that would be great.” Friday was a teacher workday, and although technically Michael was supposed to have them only for the weekend, he’d happily agreed to take them Friday, too. She needed time and space to figure out what she was supposed to do next.

  As if on cue, a few fat drops of rain plopped down in the dirt in front of them, followed by a rapid-fire pattern of splats. “Come on up to the porch,” she said, stepping back into the shelter of the slanted roof just as the leaden skies opened up to a deluge. “I’d invite you in, but Sugar’s here.”

  He nodded in understanding. “Are you going to be all right?” She’d called him the night before to tell him about John before he heard the rumors, assuming he hadn’t already. There had been no recrimination or pointing fingers, just an understanding that he knew what it was like to make mistakes. It was an odd thing to be grateful for, but she was.

  She looked in his face and for the first time didn’t feel the hurt of his betrayal. She saw instead the face of the friend he’d been for so much of their marriage, the friend she wished she still had. She shook her head. “Not really.”

  “You have someone to stay with you over the weekend? You shouldn’t be alone, for many reasons, but especially with this storm coming. It looks like we’re in for a bad one.”

  “I’ll be fine here—I have a cellar and it’s stocked with flashlights, batteries, and water. And Wade got me a weather emergency radio.”

  “Good. Don’t forget to keep your phone charged, just in case you lose power.” He smiled softly. “For the record, I like Wade. I like that he thought to get you an emergency radio.”

  She smiled awkwardly, not sure how to respond. “You have a basement in your new house?”

  “Yeah. We have a safe place for all of us—and I’ve stocked it with survival supplies, so don’t worry about Lily and Colin.”

  “Thanks—I will probably still worry, but I’ll at least know that I don’t need to.”

  The children burst out of the house wearing their dark blue school uniform rain jackets and carrying their backpacks and anything they needed for the weekend.

  “I can’t find my rain boots,” said Lily with a frown. “I know I didn’t leave them at school, but they’re not in the closet.”

  “I’ll look for them—they didn’t walk away on their own, so they must be here somewhere. Maybe by the time I find them, you’ll have grown two sizes and can fit into them.” They’d been another ill-fitting gift from Merilee’s parents, and if they were lost forever she’d be okay with that. Merilee knelt on the porch and opened her arms. “Come give me a hug—I won’t see you until Sunday.”

  Lily hugged her first, as usual—because she was the oldest—then gave her mother a big kiss on the cheek and then a second hug. “What was that for?” Merilee asked.

  “Just because. Jenna said that I need to be extra nice because you’re having a hard time.”

  “And I already feel better because I got two of the greatest hugs from my best girl.”

  Lily smiled, then pulled her favorite pen from her pocket. It wrote in four different colors, and when you pushed a button on the side, it lit up in rainbow colors. “In case you get scared at night in the storm and we’re not there to make you feel better.”

  “Thanks, Lily. I’ll put it by my bed.”

  Lily ran from the porch toward the car, her head low as the rain poured down in sheets. Merilee felt something being placed over her head and looked in surprise at Colin, who was adjusting his binoculars over her chest. “In case you need company,” he said, which didn’t make any sense but made Merilee smile anyway as she hugged her son.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. It’s supposed to rain all weekend. And Dad lives in a neighborhood with lots of houses so there aren’t a lot of birds and stuff. I’ll just wait until I get back. Take really good care of them or Sugar will be mad.”

  “Will do,” she said, standing.

  He ran to the top step, then ran back to give her another hug, holding on as he looked up at her. “If the lights go out, don’t be scared. Everything’s the same in the dark—if you close your eyes, you’ll remember what it looks like when the lights are on.”

  “Thanks, sweetie,” she said, bending down to kiss the top of his head before he turned and sprinted to his dad’s car and shut the door.

  Michael paused for a minute. “Call me if you need anything, all right? Anything.”

  She nodded as he turned up the collar of his jacket and dashed to his car.

  “Colin says those binoculars have magic powers, you know. And that he sees the white dog all the time.”

  She turned, surprised to see Sugar standing in the doorway, her apron still tied around her waist. “Does he, now?”

  “He’s got a bright imagination. You’ve raised two fine children, Merilee.”

  She turned back around to face the empty drive, which was quickly turning into puddles. “By some miracle, I think you’re right.”

  “It’s not an accident,” Sugar continued. “I think we become good parents by either copying what our parents did or doing the opposite. The trick is in deciding which way you want to go.”

  Merilee stared out toward the car disappearing down the drive, the wind spritzing water over her face. “I’m scared. I’m really scared.”

  “Good,” Sugar said, not unkindly. “Remember that feeling, because you’re going to need it.”

  Merilee’s cell phone rang and she quickly looked at the screen. It was her attorney, Cynthia Turlington. She pictured the woman, with her no-nonsense haircut and crisp suit, imagined her walking in the rain and not getting wet, as if even water were afraid to touch her. Merilee let it ring a few more times before answering it, fairly confident that whatever Cynthia had to tell her wasn’t going to be something she wanted to hear.

  Cynthia sounded out of breath. “Good, I’m glad I caught you. Either what they found at your house when they searched it was what they needed, or somebody’s putting a lot of pressure for an arrest to be made. Either way, there’s a warrant out for your arrest.”

  Merilee stepped closer to the edge of the porch, welcoming the cold blast of rain as it hit her skin. “They’re going to arrest me?” She was amazed at how calm her voice sounded.

  “Don’t panic, all right? Are you at home?”

  “Yes. The kids just left for school, and I’ve decided I’m not going in to work today.”

  “Good. I’m on my way to pick you up and take you to the police station so you can turn yourself in.”

  “Turn myself in? But I haven’t done anything. Won’t that make me
look guilty?”

  “Actually, it should do the opposite—make you look more like you’re willing to talk with the police, and it will look good to the judge setting your bail. I’ll be with you the entire time. They’re not allowed to talk to you without me.”

  She glanced back at Sugar, remembering what she’d said about being scared. “All right,” she said, her voice sounding like it belonged to someone else.

  “You’re at home?” Cynthia asked again, as if Merilee might have already started running.

  “Yes. I’m here.”

  “Okay. Stay put. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes—maybe a little more with this weather.”

  Merilee clicked the “end” button without saying good-bye, noticing the binoculars hung around her neck. She touched them, hoping she could feel the magic powers Colin was convinced they had, but felt only cold, damp metal instead.

  She wasn’t scared. She was petrified. Petrified of being sent to jail and never seeing her children again. Remember that feeling, because you’re going to need it.

  She turned around to find Sugar watching her closely. “Are you all right?”

  She shook her head slowly. “My attorney is on her way to take me to the police station to turn myself in.”

  Sugar raised what was left of her eyebrows. “And is that what you’re going to do?”

  Merilee met Sugar’s gaze, feeling the weight of the binoculars around her neck. “I don’t know. I’m pretty much out of options, but before I go anywhere I need to talk with Heather first. I’m going to ask her point-blank why she killed Dan. And why she’s trying to pin it on me. I don’t really expect her to answer, but I’ve got to try.”

  “Will you be armed?”

  “Of course not. I have no idea how to use a gun anyway.”