Rise: How a House Built a Family(55)

Hershey followed me to my bedroom and stayed next to my bed while I tried to get myself together.

After a few minutes, I started feeling weak and helpless and that pissed me off. “I can’t just climb in bed with a cold washcloth on my head like some victimized woman in a black-and-white film,” I said, tossing the washcloth and sitting up. I took a hot shower with Hershey sitting outside the foggy doors, eyes never wavering from me while I washed away the last of my tears. I was done crying. No more of that nonsense for me. This was my last straw, so to speak, and I felt a surge of power with the hot water.

I stretched my shoulder muscles under the steamy spray, hands clasped and reaching for the ceiling. “It’s time to move forward. Reach for my dreams.”

Hope and I made breakfast for supper. Eggs fried over easy with a side of toast and bacon had been my comfort food since I was a little girl. We added waffles to the menu, with my secret ingredient of almond extract in the batter. I always made the kids leave the room or turn away when I added it, banging around in the cabinets and knocking jars together like it was a complicated process and a long list of secrets. Waffles had never appealed to me much, but making them always put a smile on my face. Our waffle maker made four heart-shaped waffles, and no one on the planet can make heart-shaped food for their kids without it bringing a smile. Even better, instead of it beeping, singing lovebirds chirped when the waffles were perfectly crisp on the outside but just a step past doughy on the inside. I had dropped the waffle maker in soapy water years ago, meaning only to spot-wash it, and ever since the lovebirds had squawked a terrible, shrill noise that the kids never tired of imitating and I never tired of hearing.

While we consumed too much syrup, butter, and bacon, no one asked for the details of Hershey’s injuries. They could see that I was at the edge of breaking. Even though I had put makeup on my red nose and under my eyes, it was obvious I’d been crying. And I was not one for frivolous crying. They had a general idea that it was something terrible, and Hope and Drew, at least, had no doubt who had done it. Maybe it was a survival mechanism in their own minds that warned them not to ask more, a little voice that warned that they knew all it was safe to know without taking a trip down looney lane.

It didn’t help to remind myself that I had known he would keep coming back, that I should be prepared, that nothing he did was surprising or unexpected. I wanted him locked up. I wanted someone to protect me. But there was no place for him to go, no cure for what drove him, and no one to protect us but Karma.

I went out to fill the bird feeder while the girls did the dishes. I smiled every time I looked at the kids. Yes, I was aware that I was smiling far too much considering the circumstances. I wasn’t sure if it was a fake-it-till-you-make-it mind-set, or if lunacy was already tugging at my fingertips, calling me a step closer, just one more step.

My hands were shaking so badly that I spilled a waterfall of sunflower seeds over the side. The squirrels would be pleased. I brushed seeds from my pant leg and walked toward the door.

Something caught my eye on the little table between our lounge chairs, the one for holding a tall cold drink on a long hot day. What do you know, there was a cup there, too. A clear glass mug half filled with cloudy water and chilled with a dead, white mouse.

Something was written on the mug with a black marker, but it was smeared and melting away. Fingerprints! I thought. They could get fingerprints from those smears. The idea almost made me laugh. It wasn’t as though there were any question about who had been there.

I took a step closer, making out a few letters but intentionally trying not to read any words. The mouse wasn’t solid white after all; it had black spots. No. It had words written on it in black marker, just like the mug. His tiny front paws were stretched up, like he was reaching toward the sky, inches from escape. His eyes were open and those little paws were still.

The blue plastic seed scoop clattered to the concrete, settling in the middle of an ugly brown stain.

After I had cut Hershey free, my goal had been to clean her wounds and apply antibiotic cream. I had been focused and working hard to look forward, not back. There was no doubt that I wanted to block out the memory of finding her there on the porch, but that was no excuse to have forgotten the blood smeared in a foot-wide stripe across the porch. Even worse, I had forgotten to look around for other things. It had never once crossed my mind, even though it should have been top of the list. Adam hadn’t been as clutter-minded as I had. A screaming dog hadn’t knocked him off his purpose. He had remembered to leave a telltale message.

I went inside and Hershey met me at the door, nudging my hand for reassurance after refusing to go onto the back porch. I rubbed her ears and patted her ribs until she lifted her head and tail. Then I grabbed a couple of plastic shopping bags and my phone. I slipped out to take a picture and dispose of the mouse.

“Sorry, little guy,” I said when I tied the second bag closed. “I hope you find a mountain of cheese in mousie heaven.” I hosed off the stain as well as I could, but would have to come back later with peroxide and a scrub brush. Cleaning bloodstains was on every novelist’s list of skills that they researched but never expected to use.

I tried to keep thinking that way, as though this were research for some future novel. But I kept failing and slipping back to reality. Everyone knows that in a novel you shouldn’t hurt the dog. People can be tortured, but never, ever hurt the dog.

Real life is a shade different from the novels, though. Sure, I was horrified and incensed that he had done such a terrible thing. I loved Hershey and felt physical pain over the assault. But the one pervading thought I couldn’t shake was how much worse he could do to my kids. In the grand scheme of things, this was not the worst thing that could happen.