Better Left Buried

by Frisch, Belinda

  The dirty linoleum radiated cold through her feet and she shivered, setting down a picture of her father and deciding to see what else had been left behind. She wandered down the hallway and glanced into her old bedroom before heading into the master.

  The closet doors were open and there were both men’s and women’s clothes inside. The wide void in the center told of things that either her parents had taken with them or had been stolen since they left. Harmony lifted a red plaid shirt to her nose and breathed in stale air and dust. She had wanted, despite everything, to remember her father’s smell. She took the shirt off the hanger, put it on, and rolled up the sleeves before going to one of the dressers to look for socks.

  The top drawers were empty, except for one. She grabbed a pair of women’s dress socks, put them on, and looked through the complicated knot of tangled hosiery to see if there was anything else inside. One of the pantyhose was stuck on something and she couldn’t yank it free. She set the drawer on the bed and followed the snag to the drawer’s false bottom. She pushed as hard as she could on the corner, forcing the bottom to tilt, and dumped out what had been hidden beneath it. Her eyes filled with tears as she saw more Polaroids of her mother, beaten and broken. With them was a journal.

  She dusted off the teal leather cover, terrified to open it. For all of the times she’d wanted answers, being faced with them was another matter. She turned to the first page, dated 1992, the year before she was born.

  The handwriting was a cleaner, loopier version of her mother’s now almost illegible scratch. Most of the entries were dated and the book was nearly full, the well-worn pages frayed at the edges, smelling like cigarette smoke. She slid between the queen size bed’s dusty covers to stay warm while reading her mother’s life story.

  I never thought dropping Joan’s car off at the garage would have landed me a date. She thinks I’m crazy for going out, alone, with someone I just met, but everyone has to start somewhere. Even her and Kurt. Tom took me to the drive-ins to see Jurassic Park and some other movie, though I couldn’t tell you a thing about either of them. We parked behind the snack stand. There’s not a whole lot of movie watching going on from back there.

  A chain of connected hearts was drawn across the page, the kind a girl might sketch, daydreaming about some bright future.

  Harmony remembered when she felt the same way about Adam, who, conveniently, also worked at a garage. She hadn’t known that when she met him, though she guessed it from the grease stains under his fingernails. No matter how much she denied it, she was following in her mother’s footsteps—more so since Adam had hit her.

  The fact that her mother was friends with Joan wasn’t a secret, at least not to her. She never told Brea that the two had been friends because it seemed that whatever had happened ended with bad blood between them, the kind of thing Brea would’ve gotten in trouble asking about. Her mother had more than a few things to say about Joan when she was mind-erasingly wasted.

  Harmony had felt bad, keeping the secret, but over time it just became a thing she and Brea didn’t talk about. She convinced herself years ago that not talking about something wasn’t the same as lying.

  Her life depended on that.

  She skimmed the next several pages, reading every other sentence in an attempt at getting to the meat of her mother’s mundane confessions. There were more dates, more hearts, a drawing of a daisy plucked of half its petals that said, “He loves me. He loves me not.” Two months went by before the lovesick girl sentiment faded, revealing a fear-stricken version of her mother in an entry that started with the words “I’m pregnant”.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  It had been easy for Brea to blame Harmony for all that had happened because it’s what her mother wanted to hear—that she was, in fact, again, blameless. Climbing into the passenger’s side of Jaxon’s Jeep, she couldn’t help rehashing the inventory of lies that had Harmony on trial in her mind. She tried to focus on their years of friendship, but circled back to the fact that if her uncle wasn’t a cop, she’d have been arrested more than once.

  The fact that Harmony had gone so far as to drug Lance to take his car said as much about her worsening condition as the knife had. She was, as everyone had been trying to tell her, out of control.

  Brea flipped down the visor and shook her head at her reflection. Her reddish brown hair was still wet from the shower and the dark circles hollowed her eyes. She pulled her hair back and sighed.

  Jaxon looked perfect. He could’ve been a model in his hooded sweatshirt and dark washed jeans. He smelled even better.

  She felt awkward by comparison.

  He put on his seatbelt, restraining a wide grin and the obvious urge to say something.

  “What?” Brea slammed the visor back into place.

  “Did you really steal a car?”

  Damn small towns.

  “No, Jaxon. I did not steal a car.”

  “You borrowed it, right?” The ends of his ear-to-ear smile curled up even farther as he backed out of the driveway. “You know if you’re that desperate to get your license, I’ll teach you how to drive the Jeep.” It was a kind offer wrapped in an insult. She gave him a playful punch in the arm. “Harmony again?”

  She nodded. Some things went without saying and the fact that she’d been cast as a sheepish follower had only ever worked in her favor. Even Jaxon displaced the blame. “How did you hear?”

  “My father. Ken Phillips moonlights as a freelance roofer. He’s working on the new development.”

  Phillips was the name of the wiry cop who had restrained Adam.

  “And how did my name come up?”

  “Remember the blue F150?” He was talking about the man he waved to when they’d been parked in front of Charity’s old house.

  “Yeah.”

  “This guy named Rick owns it. He mentioned us being at the house to Ken, the cop, and Harmony’s name came up. Ken put two and two together and figured he better tell my father what’s going on. He called this morning.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  “Trouble? No, but I can tell you we’re not going anywhere near that house again.”

  “What did he say, exactly?”

  “I don’t know, for sure. Apparently they were looking for Harmony.”

  “Were?” Brea clued in on the word that indicated they might have found her.

  “I guess the guy whose car she borrowed,” he made air quotes with his fingers, “dropped the charges. She’s off the hook, but Ken still wanted to let my father know to be on the lookout.”

  “For what?”

  “For Harmony being at the house, or something. I don’t know.”

  “What would it matter? He doesn’t own the place.”

  “He will. Charity called him yesterday to negotiate the purchase price.”

  First she sold Harmony up the river to Midtown, and then she sells her house.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. She was probably wasted. Tell your father not to get his hopes up.”

  Jaxon parked at the far end of the senior parking lot. “She wasn’t wasted, Brea. She signed herself into rehab.”

  “That family never fails to surprise me.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Harmony shook her head. It was exactly like her mother to end up pregnant two months into a whirlwind relationship. Consequences weren’t in her vocabulary. She read the progressively disjointed ramblings of a nineteen-year-old would-be mom and couldn’t help taking the misgivings personally. There was mention of an appointment at an abortion clinic, one which was promptly cancelled as soon as Tom realized why her mother had stopped partying and started puking all the time. Almost every entry started with half of the day spent in the bathroom.

  I’m not ready for this. Joan made me another appointment and even brought me a pamphlet about what to expect. I read it and buried it in the trash where Tom wouldn’t find it. It says there will be a lot of bleeding afterward. I figure, I can tell Tom it was a misc
arriage. There’s nothing he can do about that, right? We’re moving in together next week and he wants to get married. I’d rather pretend none of this ever happened.

  But it did happen, and the entries cut off until about a year later.

  I haven’t slept in almost two days. I keep looking at Tom, sleeping through the colicky night walks, and I know my instincts are right. Marrying him would be the nail in my coffin, but he’s determined. He says we’re living in sin, ironic coming from him, and that we need to set things right. I don’t think he’s capable of taking “no” for an answer. Having a baby is miserable and I wish I could run away.

  Not even a week later, bad went to worse.

  He hit me! He made damn sure to put Harmony in the bassinette first—God forbid anything happen to his precious daughter—but he closed-fist hit me, right in the jaw. Mom says it’s natural for people to fight with a new baby in the house, people not sleeping and doing the things married people do. Dad doesn’t say anything because doing so would mean admitting guilt for something he’d been doing his whole life. I refuse to let this beat me. I have Harmony to think of.

  It was the first time she’d been mentioned by name. There was the sense that her mother was jealous of her father’s lavishing attention on her, but moreover there was a hint of the maternal instinct she’d rarely displayed over the past seventeen years.

  Harmony sighed.

  At least once in her life, someone had truly loved her.

  The next two months of entries were more hearts and flowers, reinforcements of the thousands of apologies and gifts her father heaped on her mother in an attempt at erasing what, in hindsight, was a turning point in both of their lives. Harmony knew the pattern and expected what came next.

  Two days in the hospital. Thank God Joan agreed to take Harmony. She just found out her and Kurt are having a honeymoon baby and she says she’d like the practice. I told her if she knew how awful all this was she’d think differently. I think she’s starting to suspect all of the bumps and bruises weren’t accidents, and that I most certainly didn’t trip with a basket of laundry and fall down the stairs. The black eye was the hardest to explain so I told her it all happened too fast. Her brother’s a cop. Tom knows this, but he knows I won’t say anything. Pressing charges is the furthest thing from my mind right now. I’ve started saving up in the hopes of going away sooner than later.

  Brea. Of course she’d been a warmly received, well-thought-out, wanted honeymoon baby. She’d always had things easier. Harmony read more about her mother’s plan, her meager savings, and the part-time cleaning job that was all she could manage with an infant. Brea’s uncle had been instrumental in a turning point that was one of the last entries ever written.

  It was the first time Tom ever hit me in front of someone. He found the passbook to the savings account I’d been hiding and accused me of stealing from him. He said the money was his, whether I earned it or not. Joan tried to step in, but it was too late. He slapped me so hard that my ears rang for an hour afterward, so loud that it was hard to hear Jim’s questions. I did what I do, I denied every incident leading up to the slap that Joan witnessed. That was irrefutable. Everyone knows I’ve been covering for Tom, but I can’t keep doing it. Jim hauled him away in handcuffs. He said a night in a cell would scare him straight, but the last words out of Tom’s mouth as he was marched out the door said someone was going to die. Either him, or me.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Brea had been looking over her shoulder all day, unable to shake the unease of the rumor that somehow Rachael had gotten out of her suspension. Every time the cafeteria doors opened, she looked and sighed with relief when someone else walked through them.

  “Are you all right?” Becky asked.

  Jaxon smoothed his thumb over the back of Brea’s hand, which he held now out of habit. “She’s fine. Aren’t you?”

  “I guess.” Brea shrugged, on the verge of admitting she was scared shitless of losing her hard-won place in their group.

  “You know, Rachael’s not as tough as you think she is.” Becky smiled. Apparently she’d been easier to read than she thought. “She only pulled that stunt because she had Amanda for backup.”

  That stunt.

  For as much as it was supposed to be kept quiet, Brea dangling from a gym locker had topped the senior year news.

  “Can we talk about something else, please?” Jaxon’s request was anything but subtle.

  “Speak of the devil.” Becky nodded toward the open cafeteria door, Principal Anderson, Carla, Rachael’s mother, and Rachael walking through it.

  Brea clamped down on Jaxon’s hand.

  “Ouch, babe. Take it easy.” He looked at the others and raised his eyebrows. “She doesn’t sit here, that’s what we agreed to, right?” He hadn’t mentioned it to Brea, but there was an obvious coup—a grab for power in Rachael’s brief absence, or him proving she was only with that crowd because of him—taking place.

  Everyone at the table, including Pete and Becky, nodded in agreement.

  Principal Anderson pointed right at their table and Brea’s heart raced.

  Rachael walked toward them, head down, looking mortified.

  Her mother was casually dressed, but her expression was all business. She stood to the side of and slightly behind Rachael with her hand on Rachael’s shoulder.

  Principal Anderson forced a smile.

  Jaxon put his arm around Brea who, by the time Rachael reached their table, was so panicked she couldn’t see straight.

  The lunchroom went unnaturally quiet. Everyone turned to look at what could only be described as an adolescent train wreck. Anyone their age being accompanied to school by a parent was awkward enough to make everyone uneasy, but as soon as whatever was about to happen blew over, the aftermath would be merciless.

  Carla nudged Rachael forward. “Go on.”

  Rachael twirled her blond ponytail once around her hand and let it fall over her shoulder, her jaw clenched.

  Brea crossed her arms over her chest and buried her shaking hands in her armpits to hold them still.

  “Rachael?” Principal Anderson’s tone said she wasn’t interested in waiting all day.

  Rachael’s eyes locked on Jaxon’s and he shook his head, radiating an air of disapproval.

  Becky snickered and whispered something into Pete’s ear that earned a glare from Principal Anderson.

  “I’m sorry.” Rachael finally managed the words, sounding anything but repentant.

  Her mother smiled and nodded, as if it were pride-inspiring to see her daughter show a little character.

  Principal Anderson looked less convinced. “And?”

  “And I promise not to bother you again.” Rachael turned to her mother, her eyes pleading.

  Even with the adults in the room, kids were laughing.

  “That’s enough,” Principal Anderson said. “Get back to lunch.”

  The show was over.

  Brea steadied her breath, accepting the nods of congratulations, thumbs up, and general solidarity that came from all those who were tormented before her, witnessing Rachael’s fall.

  Principal Anderson and Carla spoke softly and then said something to Rachael that sounded like acknowledgement of a deal fulfilled. They walked out of the lunchroom, leaving Rachael behind.

  She was back.

  And without Amanda, still serving her in-school suspension time, she was far more humble.

  “You want to get out of here?” Jaxon pulled Brea close and kissed her cheek, lavishing her with over-the-top attention.

  Brea nodded, unable to speak.

  Jaxon picked up her books and slung his backpack strap over one shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  Rachael kept her eyes down, but looked like she wanted to cry. The jokes, the laughter, the mimicked apologies started as soon as the cafeteria doors closed. She walked around the far side of the table to the empty seat next to Becky and took off her coat. She went to sit down and Becky set her bag on the c
hair.

  “Sorry, this seat’s taken,” she said and smiled at Brea.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Storm clouds turned the sky a deep gray.

  The house would soon be dark.

  Harmony put the box of emergency candles on the table with the matches she had found in one of the kitchen drawers. She pulled on a pair of calf-high, men’s rubber boots she found in the garage. Her blistered feet swam in them, aching with each step, and she was barely able to keep them on as she shuffled toward the basement. The boots hit the steps before her feet did and she clung to the railing to keep from tumbling down the stairs head first. Despite the nagging dread, she was compelled to go down there.

  Water marks stained the walls, as high up as a foot, and the cement had cracked in more than one place, allowing more water to seep in. A matched pair of avocado-colored appliances—a washer and dryer—rusted near a hot water heater long out of use and sat at an angle as if something was blocking them from sitting closer to the wall.

  She stopped at the last step and a cold breeze blew across the back of her neck. There were so many stains on the concrete floor, but the only one that came to mind—either from her nightmares or her memory—the crimson pool not a foot from where she stood, was gone.

  She made her way over to the pile of boxes in the corner, each bearing the familiar Pierce Hardware logo. Those that made up the base of the stack were soaked to the point that the cardboard had started to melt away. Pieces of it floated on top of the water. It was safe to assume the similar boxes in the kitchen came from down here, though she couldn’t imagine who brought them up or why. She peeled back the yellowed packing tape on the first box, unfolded the flaps, and looked inside. It was full of baby toys—dolls whose eyes opened and shut when you picked them up or laid them down, blocks, and heavy cardboard books. Had she been paying attention, she’d have noticed the words “Harmony’s room” written on the side. She turned the others to read them, piling them on a folding chair next to the stack and stopping at the one marked “Photo albums”. She was revealing her past through pictures, though some things, like why her mother had abandoned their home, couldn’t be photographed.