Broken Pieces

by Carla Cassidy

  Kelsey bounded up the stairs with more enthusiasm for exploring than Mariah felt. She followed her daughter more slowly, trying to shake off the faint edge of depression that had fallen over her the moment she’d opened the front door.

  The carpeting going up the stairs was threadbare and the wooden spindles were dusty. A little lemon oil would take care of the dust and she suspected beneath the carpeting was oak flooring that would be beautiful when sanded and varnished.

  The house was free and clear of debt and Mariah figured she could afford to put a little money into it in order to get top dollar when it resold. That would put a tidy sum of money into Kelsey’s college fund.

  Kelsey had disappeared and Mariah hurried up the rest of the stairs to find her. The first bedroom was a small guest room that held only a bare double bed and a dresser. The second bedroom had been Mariah’s and it was there she found Kelsey.

  The girl stood at the window and when Mariah entered the room, she turned to face her mother. “This was your room, wasn’t it?” She pointed to the window. “That was the tree you used to climb down to sneak out.”

  Mariah moved to stand next to her at the window. The big, leafy oak tree had been her vehicle of escape. “That’s it.” She placed an arm around Kelsey’s shoulder. “Now that I look at the tree, I’m surprised I didn’t break a leg or an arm on one of my rare escapes.”

  Kelsey leaned her head against Mariah. “You know what I think?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I think we should have a switch-burning party tonight. Maybe we could pick up some marshmallows and roast them in the fireplace as we watch those stupid sticks burn.”

  Mariah tightened her arm around her daughter, love welling up inside her. She’d told Kelsey a lot about her childhood, but there were many secrets she hadn’t told her and some lies that had been told as truths.

  “Just think of it this way. If things hadn’t been so terrible here, I never would have run away. And if I hadn’t run away, I wouldn’t have met your father and had you. And having you was the very best thing that I’ve ever done in my whole life.”

  Kelsey laughed and moved out of her mother’s embrace. “You’re just trying to butter me up so I won’t be a pain in your ass while we’re here.”

  “There is that,” Mariah agreed with a laugh.

  “Can I have the guest room across the hall?” Kelsey asked.

  “Sure. Let’s see if we can find some clean linens in the hall closet.”

  The closet yielded the required linens and as Kelsey got busy making up the bed where she’d sleep, Mariah wandered down the hallway. The bathroom was in relatively good shape, although she was surprised to see the same blue flowered guest towels hanging on the rack as when she was still living at home. When Mariah had lived here, there had never been a guest in the house; it was no wonder they still looked new.

  Her parents’ room was at the end of the hallway and she stepped inside and gazed around, unsurprised that the room was smaller than she remembered. The double bed had been stripped to the mattress and the only thing on the wall was a large silver cross that hung just above the bed.

  Why had her father left her everything? Had it been a desperate act of contrition from a dying man? Or had he simply wanted to pull her back here one more time, back to the place of her misery? If she was to guess, it was the latter. Jed would have considered it one last act of domination to know that even in death he’d had the power to bring her back here.

  It took them a little over an hour to get the bedrooms ready for occupancy and carry up their things. While Kelsey was setting up her computer, Mariah wandered back downstairs.

  She peeked into the kitchen and stifled a groan. The old linoleum on the floor was stained and curling up at the edges. The countertops looked as if they hadn’t seen a soapy sponge in decades. She refused to look in the refrigerator, afraid of what horrors might await her there.

  Tomorrow, she told herself. She’d face this mess tomorrow. From the kitchen she went into what had once been a dining room but for as long as she remembered had been her father’s study.

  This had been her father’s kingdom, the big black leather chair behind the old wooden desk his throne. And it had been in this room where he’d mete out his punishments.

  She moved around the desk and took a seat in the large overstuffed chair where her father had so often sat. She ran her hands across the top of the desk, her mind flitting back in time, seeking one single moment when she’d felt loved, felt wanted, by her parents.

  Her mind remained blank. Sighing, she pulled open the first desk drawer and stared at the bundle of letters that lay inside. She picked up the bundle and stared at the return address written in her own hand.

  Over the years she’d written to her mother to let her know what was going on in her life. She’d written about Kelsey’s birth and about getting her teaching degree. She’d chronicled each of Kelsey’s special moments of childhood, thinking her mother would want to know about the grandchild she’d never met.

  The letters had been her attempt to maintain contact with the only two people in the world who should have loved her. And the letters had never been opened.

  A small bitter laugh escaped her lips as she shoved them back into the drawer. This would be the first place where she’d start the changes to the house. She’d have the furniture hauled away, repaint the walls, then buy a dining room set so the house would show nicely when it was placed on the market.

  She’d give herself a month to take care of things. Then she and Kelsey would get the hell out of here and go back to the life they’d built in Chicago.

  Chapter 2

  “Mom, are you going to feed me or what?” Kelsey called from the living room.

  Mariah stirred from her dark thoughts and glanced at her watch. It was after five and lunch had been a hamburger on the road a long time ago. “I’m going to feed you,” she said as she left the dining room. “We’ll see what the Red Dragon has to offer a couple of weary, travel-worn women.”

  Exhaustion weighed heavily on Mariah as they got back into the car to head to the restaurant on Main Street. The long drive that day, coupled with the emotional baggage of coming home, had taken its toll.

  She just wanted to eat a meal, then tumble into bed for a long night’s sleep. Anything else could wait until the morning.

  The tension that had tightened her shoulders slowly dissipated as they drove into town. At least here lay some of Mariah’s best memories. School had been nirvana, a break from the house and her parents. And on the rare times she’d been allowed to come into town after school or on the weekends, she’d reveled in the sense of freedom and the joy of meeting up with friends.

  Kelsey sat up straighter in her seat as they passed a coffee shop where half a dozen young people were standing out front. “Maybe it won’t be such an awful summer,” she said.

  “You won’t have any problem making friends. You never do,” Mariah replied. “And I’ll contact the phone company and get some Internet juice in the house so you can keep up with your e-mail to your friends back home.”

  “Cool,” Kelsey replied.

  Mariah found a parking space in the same block as the restaurant and together she and Kelsey got out of the car. Clouds had begun to form in the southern sky and the air-conditioning in the restaurant was a welcome relief from the thick humid outside air.

  An attractive Asian woman led them to a booth in the back and then left them alone with oversized menus. There were several other diners and Mariah eyed them curiously, wondering if she knew them, but none of them looked familiar.

  She turned her attention to her daughter, who studied the menu with single-minded focus. For years Mariah had studied her daughter’s face, seeking a physical clue to the identity of the man who had raped Mariah that night so long ago. But Kelsey was the spitting image of her mother with her heart-shaped face, dark hair and blue eyes.

  “I know what I want,” Mariah said, and set her me
nu aside.

  “Let me guess, sweet-and-sour chicken and some crab rangoons,” Kelsey replied. Mariah nodded. “You never want to try anything new.”

  Mariah shrugged. “I know what I like. You’re the adventurous one when it comes to food.”

  At that moment the waitress arrived and took their orders, and Mariah sat back against the bench seat and drew a weary sigh.

  “Does it feel weird to be back here?” Kelsey asked.

  “I think I’m too tired to process everything at the moment.” Mariah picked up her water glass and took a sip. She set the glass back down and frowned. “There’s so much more to do than I thought there would be. I don’t even want to talk to a Realtor until some of the basics in the house are taken care of.”

  Kelsey gave her mother a sly grin. “Don’t you have any old boyfriends that could give us a hand?”

  Mariah laughed. “I imagine all my old boyfriends are married and have families of their own.”

  “Then maybe you could hire some single hot dude to help with the work,” Kelsey said.

  Kelsey, at the age where she was discovering the attraction of the opposite sex, had decided her mission in life was finding her mother a boyfriend, or preferably a husband.

  Mariah had had one fairly serious relationship when Kelsey had been seven years old. Tom Lantry had been a fellow teacher at the school where Mariah worked. It didn’t take long for Kelsey to bond with Tom.

  Mariah thought Tom was great. Kelsey thought Tom was great, and unfortunately Tom thought he was great, far too good to limit himself to one woman and a kid that wasn’t his.

  Kelsey had been far more upset than Mariah when Tom had walked away, and it was at that time that Mariah decided no more dating until Kelsey was grown.

  The one thing the relationship with Tom had done was prove to Mariah that she could enjoy a healthy sexual relationship with a man as long as the man let her set the rules.

  As they ate, Kelsey kept up a steady stream of conversation that would be of most interest to any person her own age. She talked about the latest CD release from her favorite singer and gossiped about her friends back in Chicago and as usual worked in the fact that she was probably the only teenager left in the world who didn’t have a cell phone.

  Mariah pretended to give her daughter her full attention while her mind whirled with all the work that lay ahead of her. Maybe she would take Kelsey’s advice and hire a handyman to help out, although she wasn’t looking for a hot dude, just a man who knew how to paint and use a hammer.

  They were just finishing up their meal when the door opened and a tall, portly man walked in. He wore the khaki uniform of law enforcement and swaggered like a man who enjoyed his position.

  His gaze met hers and he stopped, a look of surprise on his face, and in that moment she recognized him. Clay Matheson.

  A vivid flash of memory filled her mind, a memory of youthful love and promises never fulfilled. He approached the table, a wide smile curving his mouth. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “If it isn’t Mariah Sayers.”

  “Hello, Clay,” she said. There was little left of the young man she remembered. His handsome features had coarsened over the years and he had the telltale broken vessels in his nose that said he was probably a man who liked his booze.

  “I wondered if you’d show up here. Sorry about your dad, may he rest in peace.” He grinned at Kelsey. “It’s easy to see where you came from. You look just like your mama did when I knew her.” He looked back at Mariah. “We need to get together and talk about old times. I’ll let Sherri know you’re back in town, and maybe you could come over for dinner one night.”

  “Sherri? Sherri Weaver?” Mariah asked.

  “Yeah. She chased me until she caught me ten years ago. We’ve got four boys who keep her on her toes.” He gazed at her for a long moment. “I always wondered what happened to you. You just disappeared one day.”

  “Long story for another time,” she replied.

  “How long you planning on staying in town?”

  “Just until I can get the house in order and on the market,” she replied.

  He drew his shoulders back, the gesture doing little to lessen the thick paunch around his middle. “You need anything or have any problems, you let me know. As the sheriff and as an old friend, I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

  “Thank you, Clay. It was nice seeing you again.”

  He nodded, gave Kelsey another smile, then left their table. “Wow, it’s nice to know my mom knows all the important people in town,” Kelsey exclaimed.

  Mariah laughed. “The last time I saw Clay, his biggest claim to fame was that he could catch any football that any quarterback could throw to him.”

  “He looks like he’s been catching more pizzas than footballs lately,” Kelsey said.

  Mariah tried to give her daughter a stern look, but it was impossible to do with Kelsey’s eyes dancing with humor. “I’m sure he’s a great sheriff,” she finally managed to say. “And now let’s get out of here and head back to the house. I’m so exhausted I feel like I could sleep for a hundred years.”

  “What are we going to do for groceries? There’s nothing in that kitchen that I’m going to eat tomorrow,” Kelsey said as they got out of the booth.

  “When we get up in the morning, we’ll head to the grocery store and get some supplies in. I just don’t feel like doing it tonight.”

  When they left the restaurant, dark clouds hung heavy overhead and a distant rumble of thunder accompanied a brisk wind.

  “Looks like a storm is coming,” Kelsey said as they got into the car. “Hmm, I’ll sleep good tonight.”

  Thankfully Mariah hadn’t transferred her own dislike of storms to her daughter. Kelsey had always slept like a baby when it rained.

  The rain held off as they drove to the house. When they arrived, Kelsey went directly to her room and Mariah followed after her. She sat on the edge of the bed while Kelsey went into the bathroom and changed into her pajamas; then she tucked her daughter in with a good-night kiss.

  “I’m sorry this screwed up all your summer plans back home,” she said as she stroked a strand of Kelsey’s dark hair away from her face.

  “It’s okay.” Kelsey grinned. “You’ll pay for it later. When I want you to buy me a car, I’ll remind you of the sacrifice I made this summer.”

  Mariah leaned forward and gave Kelsey another kiss, then rose from the bed. “You have a long time before you need to think about what kind of car you want to drive.”

  “In two months I’ll be fifteen and can get my learner’s permit,” Kelsey yelled after her mom.

  “Talk to me in two months,” Mariah said with a laugh as she left the bedroom.

  The laughter faded as she went into the small room she’d called home for all the years she’d lived in this house. Kelsey believed her birthday was in two months’ time, but the truth was she’d turned fifteen three months ago. Only one other person knew the true date of Kelsey’s birth … exactly nine months to the day following Mariah’s rape.

  Mariah had always feared that one day she’d have to come back here and she’d never wanted anyone to know that Kelsey had been conceived by someone in this town.

  Mariah’s best friend in the whole world, the nurse who had taken her in when she’d been eight months pregnant and living at a shelter, had not only helped Mariah in a home birth but had also fudged the dates of the blessed event. Fifteen years ago it had been easier to pull off such a feat than it would be today. Mariah had obtained a birth certificate and Social Security number based on the falsified record of Kelsey’s birth date.

  It had been important to Mariah, a way to distance the daughter she loved from the act that had resulted in her birth.

  She quickly changed from her slacks and blouse into her pale blue silky nightgown and then went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face.

  When she returned to the bedroom, she turned off the light and went over to the window. The stor
m was upon them, lightning streaking across the sky as the wind shrieked around the eaves of the house.

  It had been easy to focus on her dysfunctional relationship with her parents, so much easier than dealing with what had happened the night beneath the trees while a storm raged overhead.

  There were moments of that night that were burned into her memory, forever a part of her nightmares. The weight of the man on top of her, the slickness of the bag against her face as she tried to scream, still lived in her as if the rape had happened mere hours before instead of years ago.

  But there were also moments of that horrendous event that were vague, moments that she felt if she could just focus in on, then she would know who had attacked her. And even after all these years she wanted to know.

  She leaned her head against the window and listened to the wind. It sounded like the screams that had been trapped inside her on that night so long ago.

  She was back.

  He’d watched her get out of her car and go into the Chinese place on Main, a quivering fear coupled with an edge of excitement racing through him.

  He’d thought of her so many times over the years. She’d been his first, but certainly not his last.

  That first time had been magical to him, an epiphany of sorts that had forever changed his life.

  Now standing in the grove of trees on her property, he stared up at the darkened window on the second floor. He’d thought about her often, wondered if she’d ever return to Plains Point and what he would do if she did return. She was a joker in his house of cards.

  Over the years he’d grown smarter, been more careful to make sure that nobody would ever be able to identify him and connect him with his crimes.

  But with her he’d been less careful, made mistakes that had haunted him over the years. She’d never reported the crime … not that night and not in the weeks following. Then she’d simply vanished.

  And now she was back and he wasn’t sure what that meant for him. For the moment he’d watch and listen and if he felt that she was a threat, he would deal with her.