The Spite House(49)
“You have me there.”
“I know I do. I suspect that’s the real reason why you hadn’t called yet. You have to know I wouldn’t actually put this family in harm’s way.”
“I know you wouldn’t intentionally hurt anyone.”
“And how would I accidentally do it, Neal? Anyway, the children aren’t even going to be staying in the house anymore. They’ll be staying with me. And their father has agreed to stay in that house—safe and sound—long enough for me to be able to make a believer out of you.”
“Well, I hope that day comes soon, because I can’t wait to flip you over to the rational side of the world.”
“Just be ready to fly down here when I make the call,” Eunice said, “and expect it to be soon.”
CHAPTER 22
Eric
When he was fifteen, Eric’s mother was diagnosed with cancer, and given less than a year to live. That summer, as she seemed to get sicker by the day, his father and grandfather took him to a lakeshore near his house to let him get drunk for the first time, get his emotions out. Mostly, he just wanted to know why. Why her? Why so young? Why someone so good? Why?
“I think the same thing all the time,” Eric’s father said. “All I can do is just remind myself that … you know … everything happens for a reason.”
“Bullshit,” Frederick Emerson said to his son, sounding like someone had directed a slur at him.
“Pop, not now,” Eric’s dad said.
“Yes, now,” Fred said. “Don’t go filling your boy’s head with that bullshit. Things happen for one of two reasons: You either let something happen, or you made something happen.”
“Really, Pop? Are you serious right now?”
“I sound it, don’t I?”
“So what are you saying?” Eric’s father said, his voice pinched a little. “You saying I let my wife get sick? You’re saying I’m letting her … what exactly? Huh? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to ‘make happen,’ Pop? I’m not a nurse or a damn doctor. There’s nothing I can do.”
“You don’t know that,” Frederick told his son. “You haven’t even tried.”
Eric’s father stormed off then. Walked to the house of the nearest neighbor he knew, about five miles away, and spent the night there before getting a ride home in the morning. The next day, he took Eric’s mother to another doctor to get a second opinion. A week later they visited a third, who recommended a specialist on the other side of the country. A month later, Eric’s mother was signing up for a drug trial, and being told about other possible treatments her first doctor hadn’t mentioned. She lived another twenty-two years, long enough to give Dess good memories of her.
That was when Eric learned that his grandfather’s motto had value. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t one hundred percent true, it mattered that it called you to act. It demanded that you not sit back and trust the world to grant you a single kindness or break. Anything good it gave you could be stolen right back if you weren’t vigilant. He knew that too well. His grandfather’s truth resonated with him today more than ever. If you didn’t at least try to make something happen, you were just letting something eventually happen to you and yours.
Eric stared up at the spite house like it was a giant daring him to move so it could step on him. He was no match for it, but he’d have to face it on his own, and he ultimately had no one else to blame for his predicament. He had let everything happen that brought him to this.
A cool front blew in to finally bring a belated hint of autumn to Degener, Texas. Eric stared up at the Masson House as the wind chilled him in a way that was distinctly natural compared to what he’d felt the night before.
The girls wouldn’t be there tonight to distract the house, or him. He couldn’t play the ABC game with them, tell them corny jokes while cooking dinner. He would have the house’s full focus, and it would have his.
He turned to the buildings in the hollow between the hills. Under different circumstances, Eric would have presumed that a long-abandoned orphanage, with its adjacent empty church and playground, would be at least as haunted as the novelty house overlooking it. Compared to the spite house, however, it looked like a sanctuary. It was a place he could go to for a little bit of peace before stepping back into whatever madness the spite house had planned for him. He could also drive away, go back into town at the moment, kill time at the library or any shops, but he wasn’t sure that he’d come back if he did that.
He started toward the orphanage. An unexpected instinct came over him when he turned his back on the house—an urge to dive to the side or duck into a ball, or do both at once. It was as if he sensed a truck bearing down on him from behind. He held still for a moment and let the sensation fizzle out. It might’ve come from within, apprehension manifested as a physical flight response, but he doubted it. Something from the house had reached out and rung the alarm built into the living that warns them that the dead are watching. Was the spirit toying with him, or did it want something? Did it want him to turn around? Come into the house? Or did it want him to stay away from the orphanage? He believed it was the latter, in part because it gave him more incentive to go there. When he was able to move again, he walked down the hill.