by Carys Jones
*
Brandy read the final sentence of the book and gently pushed the covers together and carefully placed it upon her lap. As she’d been reading, silent tears had wandered down her cheeks and only now did she notice them and lift a hand to wipe them away.
The ornate book cover looked up at her; the dark gothic mansion hiding the darkest of secrets. She used to believe that only poor parents abused their children, now she realized how wrong she had been. Everyone was at risk of being abandoned by their mother, even children in a sumptuous mansion. Money could make people do the cruellest things. But sometimes they didn’t even need money to be cruel.
Fresh tears sprung like morning dew drops in Brandy’s brown eyes. They gathered amongst her lashes before cascading down the pure slopes of her cheeks. She was thinking about Brandon. He’d had wealth and the adoration of an entire town yet it wasn’t enough to suppress his inner cruelty. He was destined to be a monster, no matter how fortunate he’d been.
A brisk knock at the door caused Brandy to pull herself out of her thoughts. Startled, she wiped her cheeks once more. After unlocking the deadbolt and removing the chain, she opened her door to find her Aunt Carol standing there, her hair slightly damp from the drizzle currently falling upon Chicago.
“Aunt Carol, hey!” Brandy hastily wiped her face of any remaining tears with the back of her sleeve.
“We’re having dinner tonight,” Carol frowned at her young niece. Her eyebrows were perfectly shaped, which made the gesture appear even more severe. With a critical eye she scanned Brandy’s dark skinny jeans and oversized jumper that she was wearing.
“Did you forget?”
“I…um…” Brandy helplessly glanced back into her apartment. The clock on the wall told her that it was almost seven in the evening. She’d been reading for two whole hours and completely lost track of time. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment.
“I didn’t realize the time,” Brandy told her aunt sincerely. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Carol confidently strode past her and into the apartment. “Are you still okay to go?”
Brandy nodded. A part of her felt as though it were still within the book, still within that oppressive attic, making her appear distant to her aunt.
“Have you been crying?” Carol noticed the redness of Brandy’s eyes, the blotchy tone of her cheeks.
Before Brandy could respond, her aunt continued, her tone rising with authority. “I told you to stop moping about after that man! He’s no good for you, Brandy! You need to move on from Avalon and from him!”
“Actually, I was reading a book.” Brandy smiled shyly and pointed at the now disregarded book resting upon her sofa.
Carol glanced down at it and the harsh lines gathered around her eyes softened.
“Oh,” she turned back to her niece, her mouth lifting in an apologetic smile. “I read that when I was at school. It is a terribly sad story.”
“It just got to me,” Brandy admitted. “Reading about how terribly they were treated by the people who were supposed to love them.”
Carol crossed the space between them and wrapped Brandy in her arms.
“It’s okay,” she whispered protectively to her. Brandy inhaled her Aunt’s dense odour of Chanel No. 5 and tried not to cry again. She felt that each time she cried over Brandon, she was giving him the power to hurt her once again.
But Brandon wasn’t the only person in Brandy’s life who had let her down, who had forgotten that love was supposed to be unconditional and kind.
“Did she ever get back to you?” Brandy asked, her voice small as her aunt freed her from the impromptu embrace.
Carol raised a hand to her chest, adorned with bright-red false nails, and shook her head gently.
“Your ma is gone,” she told Brandy. “When she left Avalon she left for good. But that was always her way; she only ever looked out for herself. Sometimes I think it’s a miracle that you turned out as sweet as you did.”
Brandy nodded with understanding and internally berated herself for clinging to the childish notion that one day her mother might return to her life and see the error of her ways for abandoning her only child.
“No good comes from dwelling on the past,” Carol said sagely. “Look how far you’ve come. You’re in Chicago, you’re reading novels, you play the piano now! It’s a far cry from the girl in the trailer back in Avalon.”
“You’re right.” Brandy wrapped her arms around herself as if having a solo embrace.
“Now, go put a coat on as it’s raining out. Our reservation is in twenty minutes and I won’t miss it!”
“Okay,” Brandy nodded and headed towards her bedroom.
Carol stood in the ensuing silence in the lounge and glanced back at the book which had brought Brandy to tears. She remembered how deeply the novel had moved her when she read it as a teenager. It wasn’t the content that distressed her so much, but the realisation that many mothers had the capacity for cruelty; her own included. Neither Carol nor her sister had been born wicked, it was a trait which one of them had learned from their own creator.
“Are you okay?” Brandy asked with concern as she came back in, pulling on a navy parka equipped with a large hood.
“I’m fine,” Carol sighed, a bittersweet smile pulled on her red lips. “I just forget sometimes how potent the power of the past can be. That’s why we have to let it go and move forwards. Mind if I borrow this?” she gestured to the book on the sofa.
“Sure,” Brandy shrugged lightly. “But it’s from the library so it isn’t really mine.”
“The library?” Carol’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Well, after dinner we’ll stop by Barnes & Noble and buy you your very own book to keep.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Carol nodded. “The greatest stories need to be kept and shared. I’m sure I can point you towards a few more classics whilst we are there.”
*
Isla was sat on the sofa, her head bowed and her hands clasped tightly together between her knees. She turned her head slightly to look at Aiden as he walked back in. Her eyes were red from crying.
“That was one of my friends from Greensburg,” Aiden pointed at his cell phone as he explained.
“He needs me back there as soon as possible. Something has come up.”
“Oh,” Isla replied stiffly. She could barely speak.
“I’m leaving tonight,” Aiden added. He watched his wife straighten and look up fearfully at him, like a child awaiting punishment for a wrong they had committed.
“But…We need to talk,” she uttered, her lower lip quivering.
“I know,” Aiden nodded gravely. “But not yet, not now. I think we each need space to process everything.”
Fresh tears began to streak down Isla’s cheeks, causing her mascara to cloud beneath her eyes.
“Aid, please, you can’t just leave when things are like this,” she pleaded.
Aiden sighed heavily. “I have to leave,” he told her. “I have to leave because right now all I want to do is yell at you. I want to yell at you until I’ve got no voice left and I know that’s the wrong thing to do. Our daughter is upstairs sleeping; she doesn’t need to hear us shouting at each other. She’s at the age where she’s forming memories, I don’t want her trying to sleep over the sound of our arguing, it isn’t fair.”
“But you should shout at me,” Isla stood up and reached for Aiden’s hands. “You should shout and scream at me for lying to you, for being a bitch. It’s what I deserve.” More tears flowed down Isla’s cheeks as she spoke, her voice trembling.
“No,” Aiden replied coolly, shaking his head and stepping back, away from her reach. “Right now I need space.”
“Aid,” Isla raised a shaking hand to her mouth. She felt as though she were in a prolonged car accident and all around her glass and metal was still being torn and crushed. Only once the accident ended could she finally assess the damage and consider how she could put everything
back together again.
“My friends need me in Greensburg,” Aiden said sternly. “We’ve got the chance to right a wrong that happened to one of us and I’m not going to pass that up.”
Mentally he calculated how long it would take him to pack, to load the car and leave Avalon. His house suddenly felt unbearably small, as though the walls were slowly encroaching in on him. He knew that ultimately the small home he’d painstakingly selected for his family would not be able to contain his rage, not when it was so raw.
“We’ll talk when I get back.” He quickly turned away from his wife and headed upstairs, taking them two at a time, to gather his things into an overnight bag. Isla followed as loyal as a shadow.
“I’m begging you not to go.”
Aiden ignored her and began tossing essentials into his holdall.
“Are you really going to Greensburg?” Something in Isla’s tone changed which made Aiden momentarily cease packing and look back at her. Her eyes sparkled from tears as acid dripped from her lips as she uttered the accusation. “Are you just going to Chicago and lying about it?”
Aiden felt his entire body become rigid with anger. He clenched his fists and willed himself not to scream at her.
“I’m really going to Greensburg,” he replied through gritted teeth.
“So you’re not leaving here to see her?” Isla asked as she placed her hands upon her hips in a confrontational gesture.
Aiden paced towards the en suite bathroom to collect together his toiletries.
“No, I’m not going to see her,” he replied to his wife as he continued to move about their bedroom, chucking various items into his holdall.
“If by her, you mean Brandy, I doubt I’ll ever see Brandy again as I chose you, Isla. I chose this family, I chose our unborn child. You held me here with lies and you didn’t care, then you have the audacity to call me a liar!” Aiden could hear his own voice rising so he ceased speaking for fear of waking his daughter.
“I tried to keep our family together.” Isla inhaled sharply to hold back a fresh onslaught of tears. “We were coming undone, Aid, I didn’t know what to do.”
Aiden zipped up his holdall and slung it across his back. “We’ll talk when I get back,” he sighed.
“What’s in Greensburg, Aid? What’s so important there that you can’t stay here and fix things with me?” Isla demanded. She could already anticipate the unbearable emptiness of the house if Aiden were to leave.
“I guess we both have secrets we keep,” Aiden told her callously as he moved through the doorway. He headed towards the stairs but stopped briefly at the door to Meegan’s room. He could hear her soft breaths through the door. She was blissfully sleeping through her parents’ turmoil.
“We have a daughter,” Isla told him gently as she stood behind him. “We made vows to one another.”
Aiden placed a hand on the door handle and then quickly removed it. If Meegan was sleeping, he didn’t want to disturb her.
“I think we’ve already broken most of those,” he told his wife bitterly before heading down the stairs, out to his car. He hauled his bag into the trunk and climbed into the driving seat. Isla was now at the front door, pained resignation distorted her usually beautiful features. Aiden gunned the engine. Quickly he backed out of the drive and pulled away, not bothering to glance back at his wife in his rear-view mirror. He knew that all his problems would be there waiting for him on his return. Right now he needed to focus on Justin and the answers to his death, which might be in Greensburg.
*
Greensburg was just as Aiden had left it. He was given the same room in the motel on the outskirts of town, the air still smelled of sugar cane and forgotten summers. Stretching out on the hard motel bed, Aiden gazed at the ceiling fan which made a gentle whirring sound as it spun around. He was exhausted. He had hoped that his long drive would give him time to think, time to digest what Isla had told him, time to come to terms with her lie. But all the drive had done was drain him. Lying on the bed in his former home town he felt as though he had nothing left, like there was only dust in his veins.
He wanted to close his eyes and drift into a dream where his problems couldn’t find him. The golden light of early morning began to seep in through the thin curtains which Aiden had drawn closed. A new day was beginning in Greensburg, he didn’t have time to rest. As if on cue his cell phone began vibrating in his trouser pocket. Groaning, Aiden reached down and answered the call, lifting it to his ear without even checking the caller ID.
“Hey,” his voice was groggy. He sounded as though his vocal cords were currently being pulled across hot coals.
“Aiden, hi,” Alex sounded crisp, clear and irritatingly awake. “Are you setting off soon?”
“I’m already here.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.” Aiden coughed his response.
“Jeeze, I thought you weren’t getting in until this evening. Did you like drive all night or something?”
“Something like that.”
There was a pause as Alex tried to decipher if Aiden was joking or being serious.
“Okay, well, I guess we can meet earlier. How are you fixed to meet me before work?”
“Sure.”
“Are you staying at the motel? Can I come there? I’d much rather talk privately.”
“Uh-huh.” Aiden’s eyelids felt heavy as he nodded and tried to focus on the conversation.
“Great, I’ll see you in thirty.”
“Bring coffee,” Aiden quickly added. “Strong coffee.”
*
Almost forty minutes later a patrol car pulled into the motel parking lot, sending clouds of dust billowing into the air. Alex stepped out wearing his uniform and aviator sunglasses. He leaned back into the vehicle to grab two travel cups of coffee and headed over to where Aiden was leaning outside his motel room door, which was ajar.
“You certainly got here quick,” Alex commented as he handed one of the cups to Aiden.
“You said it was important.”
“It was.” Alex nodded. “It is.” He glanced past Aiden at the motel room door. “Can we go in?”
“Sure!” Aiden kicked the door open fully and the two men walked inside. Alex removed his glasses and ran a hand through his hair. Before shutting the door he quickly scanned the parking lot to make sure prying eyes weren’t observing him.
Aiden lowered himself onto the edge of the bed and drunk greedily from his cup. He desperately needed the caffeine fix.
“Like I said on the phone, the police report on Justin came back.” Alex remained standing, a pained expression on his face.
“Well, what did it say?” Aiden’s curiosity helped reignite his senses and blow away some of the fog of fatigue.
“That’s the thing,” Alex reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a neatly folded piece of crisp white paper.
“It didn’t say anything.” He tossed the paper over onto the bed for Aiden to review.
Aiden drank some more of his coffee and then placed it down on a nearby nightstand so that he could use both hands to unfold the paper. He saw the insignia for the local police force in the top corner, accompanied by the standard format for most official documents. It was an incident report for Justin’s accident. Only no incident was mentioned. There was Justin’s name, the date of his accident and then stamped garishly across the rest of the page was one word; ‘classified’. Nothing in the report had been filled in. Aiden stared at the page in his hands in bewilderment.
“Classified?” He averted his eyes briefly to glance at Alex, who looked as troubled as he felt.
“It means the files are sealed.” Alex sighed. “That’s why I could never find them when I originally looked.”
“Why would they be sealed?” Aiden’s mind wasn’t sharp enough to begin running through potential scenarios. He’d seen classified files before; he just needed to remember what invoked the need for secrecy.
“There is a locked cabinet in the stor
age room that we aren’t supposed to enter. But when I filed your request, I was granted access to it. There can only be a handful of files there, if that, Justin’s included,” Alex began explaining. “But Greensburg don’t get much call for cases that need to be classified. I had to ask my superior what it meant.”
“And?” Now Aiden was giving his friend his full attention.
“It means that the Greensburg Police Department is now longer in charge of the investigation. A larger body has got involved. Whoever that may be, they have the files, not us, as it is their investigation.”
“So who got involved in Justin’s case? And why?” Aiden’s mind stung from the influx of questions suddenly bouncing around in it.
“No one at the station seemed willing to talk about it,” Alex continued. “Which didn’t surprise me.”
He took a nervous sip from his own coffee.
“But eventually the chief gave me an answer. I bugged him, said how you’d be all up in our case with your lawyer shit if we didn’t comply. He basically said we don’t have anymore information on Justin’s accident because the case is being investigated by the FBI. The fact that his file is still sealed, that his cause of death hasn’t been confirmed, means that the case is still on going.”
*
Isla’s eyes felt raw as she spoonfed Meegan her dinner. The little girl obediently opened her mouth and swallowed down the small portions of spaghetti.
“Where’s Daddy?” Meegan asked innocently as she waited on another spoonful.
“He’s at work,” Isla replied, forcing a smile. She aimed the spoon laden with stringy pasta towards Meegan’s little mouth. She tried not to think about the previous night. How she had lain awake, almost suffocating beneath the weight of her imploding marriage. She kept telling herself that everything would be fine, that she and Aiden had weathered worse storms. Then she’d turn over and see the vast, open expanse of bed beside her. Aiden wasn’t there. The sheets he normally slept beneath were untouched, the mattress cold. Isla had trembled with despair as she lay there, one hand resting where her husband should have been. She couldn’t shake the awful feeling that she’d never share a bed with him again.
