“Jack, what did Amy mean by ‘house of horrors’?”
Jack slid his hands into his pockets and Sarah tried to keep up, the slap of their footfalls echoing throughout the nearly deserted parking lot. “I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”
She tried to keep any accusation from her voice, any irritation. She wanted to give Jack the benefit of the doubt, but she could hear the reproach in her voice. Jack sped up as if trying to avoid her.
“Jack, wait,” she said, snagging his sleeve to try to get him to slow down, and he shook her away.
By the time they reached the car, both of them were soaked, their hair flattened, raindrops dripping from their noses. Jack unlocked the doors and they climbed in. He placed the key in the ignition, and Sarah reached over and put her hand over his. “Jack, talk to me. Please.”
Jack pulled his hand away and sat back in his seat. “There isn’t anything to say. You know Amy. She’s exhausted, Aunt Julia is hurt and Amy’s scared. Everything becomes one big drama and she lashes out.”
Jack turned the key and the car rumbled to life. Sarah knew she only had Jack to herself for just a moment longer.
“I’m not trying to fight with you,” Sarah said quietly, trembling as much from Jack’s loud indignation as from the cold. “I’m just trying to understand.”
“I know.” Jack lowered his voice. “Hal’s waiting. Can we just talk about this later?” he asked, but before she could respond, Jack had backed up the car and pulled out of the spot. Their conversation would have to wait.
He drove the car to the front of the hospital entrance where Hal was waiting for them.
“You remember how to get to the house?” Hal asked.
“Of course,” Jack answered. “How could I forget?”
As they pulled away from the hospital and back onto the highway, darkness enveloped them. They drove in silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Sarah’s mind drifted to Julia, the image of her limp body hooked up to all those tubes and wires. She couldn’t imagine what Hal was going through, what it was like to be so close to losing a spouse. Could she live without Jack if she had to? She shook off the thought.
They drove past an expansive field, and Jack pointed into the dark. “I worked in that field for eight summers,” Jack recalled.
“I remember,” Hal said with a nostalgic laugh. “I had to drag you out of bed each morning.”
“That was hard work,” Jack said. He held up one hand, putting it on display. “I think I still have calluses.”
Sarah sat back and looked out the window. The countryside seemed to have gone to sleep. Farmhouses were dark and still, and hulking equipment lay dormant in the fields. No other cars were on the road, and the rain continued to beat steadily on the roof of the car. The rhythmic swish of the windshield wipers was hypnotic and Sarah found her eyes growing heavy.
Jack slowed the car and carefully turned onto a gravel road. The rain had washed away much of the loose rock and the car bumped and bucked through the deep gouges in the road. Sarah grabbed the dashboard to steady herself. Walls of corn rose ten feet above the ground, surrounding them on both sides, a narrow tunnel nearly obscuring the sky. Sarah peered into the dark shadows between the stalks, wondering what might be lurking in the night.
Finally the tight passage opened up into a wide expanse, revealing the sharp-angled silhouette of a farmhouse, the sloped curves of a barn crowned with a weather vane and two dome-shaped grain bins. The house was still and dark. There was no warm glow from a porch light, no lamp burning from behind a pulled shade to welcome them home. Jack parked in the driveway and sat for a moment, hands on the wheel, staring at the house with an unreadable expression. Sarah knew he was shutting down.
“Do you remember where we keep the key?” Hal asked, breaking the silence.
“Of course,” Jack forced a smile as he popped the trunk. “I used it many times when I had to sneak inside in the middle of the night.”
Sarah was reluctant to leave the warmth of the car, but she stepped out into the chilly night while Jack retrieved their luggage from the trunk. She shut the car door, the interior light was extinguished and they were once again plunged into blackness. Sarah immediately recognized the loamy scent of black earth and livestock in the air. The porch swing creaked on its chains and soft warbling wafted up from a nearby chicken coop.
Jack jogged ahead and rooted around the wrought-iron light affixed to the porch. “See, told you I didn’t forget,” he said, raising the key.
Jack nudged the door open with his shoulder and ushered Sarah and Hal inside. The entryway was dark and smelled of lemon wood polish. Hal flipped a switch illuminating the room in a soft light. “Jesus, it looks exactly the same,” Jack marveled. “You didn’t change a thing.” He dropped their bags by the steps.
A lumpy, misshapen brown-and-black plaid sofa lined one wall; above it hung a Norman Rockwell print depicting a haggard farmer holding a bird in his hands. On another wall was a crucifix with palm leaves tucked behind it. An oblong coffee table, covered with a lace cloth, held a neat stack of Farm Journal magazines and a white dish filled with butterscotch candy. An oversize gold armchair sat facing a console television set, the only relatively new piece of furniture in the room. “Same sofa, same lamps, same pictures.”
Hal leaned heavily against the walnut post at the bottom of the steps. Suddenly he seemed miles away.
“Hal, is everything okay?” Jack asked.
“It’s nothing,” Hal said, clutching his hat against his chest. “It’s just that...” His voice trailed off as he glanced down at the floor, and Sarah realized that this was the spot where Julia had landed after her fall down the steps. It must be haunting, she thought, to stand in the same place where something so tragic had happened. Would Hal ever be able to walk through this room without picturing his critically injured wife splayed on the floor? She couldn’t help but wonder then who cleaned up Julia’s blood after the fall. She imagined Hal on hands and knees, dipping an old rag in a bucket of soapy water and wiping away the sticky, congealed blood. Sarah shivered at the morbid thought.
“I think I’ll go on to bed if you don’t mind,” Hal said, his face heavy with exhaustion. “Help yourself to anything you need. You know where your old room is.”
“I remember,” Jack said, embracing his uncle tightly.
“Get some rest,” Sarah said. She rubbed his arm sympathetically. “We’ll see you in the morning.”
Sarah watched as Hal slowly and carefully made his way up the steps, then she turned to Jack. His attention was focused on a wall covered with framed photographs, and she watched his expression transform as his eyes traveled from picture to picture.
“Oh, wow,” he murmured, and Sarah joined him in front of the wall. “Me and Dean. I was about fourteen here.” The photo showed a young Jack, tan and lean, his eyes fixed on a spot just beyond the photographer, an easy smile on his face, a smile that seemed to share a secret with whomever he was looking at. Dean, also slim and bronzed by the sun, was grinning widely into the camera and had his arm thrown carelessly around Jack’s neck.
“What were you doing?” Sarah asked. She had never seen a picture of Jack that young. He said it was taken the summer before his parents died. No wonder he looked so happy, so carefree.
“We were walking beans for my dad. God, I hated that job, but we earned good money. Six hours of bending over and weeding acres of soybeans.” Jack grimaced at the memory.
“You look like you’re having fun,” Sarah said.
“Dean made it fun. He was always screwing around, throwing clumps of dirt, picking up snakes. He’d sneak wine coolers into our water bottles and we’d be half-hammered by the time we were finished for the day. It’s a miracle that we got any work done.”
Jack examined the wall and pointed to another photo. “The
re’s Amy. When she was ten, I think. She was such a cute kid.” Sarah could see what he meant. The girl in the photo had eyes that sparkled brightly and a disarming smile, nothing like the pale, withered woman she had seen earlier that evening. “She was a good sport, too. She never ratted on Dean and me when we got ourselves into trouble. She could keep a secret.”
“She seems so different now,” Sarah observed. “How did she go from that sweet little girl to being so angry and guarded? Was it your parents’ accident?”
“Amy was a lot younger than I was when they died.” Jack ran his finger along the top of the picture frame, wiping away a thin layer of dust. She felt Jack bristle beside her. “Of course it changed her. It changed both of us.”
Sarah knew she was broaching dangerous territory and returned her gaze to the wall. “Who’s that?” she asked, nodding toward a small black-and-white photo of a young man in a military uniform. He looked somberly at the camera but his eyes snapped with mischief.
Jack shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned in to get a better look. “It’s my dad.”
“Wow,” Sarah said. Jack and his father looked so much alike it was uncanny. If not for the navy uniform and a tear-shaped birthmark on his father’s cheek, she would have thought the man in the picture was Jack. “You look so much like him.”
Jack opened his mouth as if he was going to argue the point but didn’t speak.
“Is there a picture of your mom here?” Sarah asked, scanning the wall in hopes of finally catching a glimpse of her.
“I don’t see one,” Jack said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Do you think it’s too late to call the girls?”
Sarah looked at her watch and shrugged. “They usually stay up late. I’m sure it’s fine,” she said, and Jack sat on the couch and began dialing.
While Jack spoke with the girls, Sarah joined him on the couch. She took off her shoes and rubbed her feet, the exhaustion of the day finally hitting her. Jack engaged in his comfortable father-daughter banter, and for the first time that day he seemed relaxed.
Jack handed Sarah the phone and returned to the wall of photos. As she spoke with her daughters, she watched as Jack scanned the pictures with a smile she could only interpret as nostalgic. The memories weren’t all bad, she thought; he’d had a lot of good times here, as well.
She listened as Emma recounted her day, keeping her eyes fixed on Jack. His gaze moved high and low across the wall until suddenly something caught his attention in the far corner of the wall. From the couch she couldn’t see what he was looking at, but clearly it hit a nerve. He leaned into the wall more closely and she noticed the expression on his face grow serious. He looked over at Sarah and realized she was looking at him and quickly turned his attention to their luggage.
“You ready to go upstairs?” he asked after she ended the call and hung up. “I’m exhausted.”
Sarah looked at the grandfather clock standing in the corner. It was only nine o’clock. “You’re not hungry? You haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.”
“No, but help yourself to whatever you can find in the cupboards.” Jack embraced Sarah and kissed her on the lips. “Thanks again for being here. I know things got a little tense earlier at the hospital.”
Sarah leaned into his arms, the heat from his body warming her cold limbs. “It was tense,” she echoed. “And that whole argument in the waiting room between Dean and Amy. Dean got so upset when Amy mentioned the house of horrors. Did something happen in Dean and Celia’s house?”
“I told you Amy was just stirring up trouble. It’s nothing,” Jack said shortly, pulling away from her. He took a suitcase in each hand and started toward the stairs.
“It’s not nothing,” Sarah pressed, and grabbed the handle of the suitcase to keep Jack from fleeing. “Just tell me why?” Sarah didn’t know what she expected Jack to say. Would he tell her some creepy urban legend about the house? Maybe a terrible crime was committed there a hundred years ago, but would that be enough to keep him from staying at the house? She didn’t know Jack to be skittish about anything.
Jack looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. “Dean and Celia live in the house that Amy and I grew up in before our parents died.” He tugged the suitcase away from Sarah. “Is that enough of an explanation for you? Can I please go to bed now?”
This was sometimes how it was with Jack. She knew that his wall was up and the conversation was over, and she watched in stunned silence as he hefted the suitcases and lugged them up the steps with difficulty.
She was exhausted, too. Her eyes were gritty with lack of sleep and her mind was spinning from the extreme emotions of the day. Why did Dean and Celia live on the farm where Amy and Jack grew up? And why was it such a big deal? More importantly, why couldn’t he talk to her about it? And there was still the niggling question as to why Amy called it the house of horrors?
She went to the photographs and studied the wall where Jack had been fixated earlier. There was a picture of children splashing in a small wading pool, an old sepia photo of a stern-looking couple in wedding garb and a picture of two women smiling happily into the camera. Sarah stood on tiptoe to get a better look. One of the women was clearly Jack’s aunt Julia, thirty years younger. Could the other woman be his mother? She scrutinized the woman’s face, searching for any hint of resemblance to Jack or Amy. Maybe in the shape of their eyes, the tilt of their heads. It was difficult to tell.
Obviously, she wasn’t going to be able to ask Jack about the photo. At least not tonight. There was no way that she’d be able to sleep anytime soon. She looked around the room. She didn’t want to turn on the television and disturb Hal or Jack, and she had forgotten to pack a book to read. She realized it had been over a day since she’d last checked her work email, so she grabbed her laptop and made her way to the kitchen.
Sarah’s job as an advice columnist for the Midwest Messenger, a prominent newspaper in Montana, was an opportunity that had come to her unexpectedly seven years ago when a former colleague and the paper’s editor, Gabe Downing, contacted her out of the blue. Sarah had once been a hard-news reporter, the kind that traveled all over the world to places like Bangkok and Eastern Turkey, covering major international news stories. But she’d made the difficult decision to leave after the girls were born, and she adapted to her new life as a stay-at-home mother.
When the offer to write for the Messenger’s popular Dear Astrid advice column arose, it felt like a step down. She’d once covered wars and political upheavals, and now she’d be telling people how to confront a difficult neighbor or ask a girl on a date. But by then the girls were much more independent and, with college tuition looming, Sarah decided to swallow her pride and take the job. She’d be helping people, she convinced herself. And now, seven years later, here she was.
Only a handful of people knew Astrid’s true identity: Sarah’s editor, Gabe; Jack, of course; and her mother and sister. Not even Emma and Elizabeth knew. Not that it was some big secret, but it never came up. They knew their mother wrote for a newspaper but were too immersed in their own lives to pay much attention.
Sarah preferred the anonymity. Most of the letters were from regular everyday people looking for an unbiased opinion, a fresh perspective. They were often amusing, sometimes sad. Heartfelt. But some of the letters were odd. Downright disturbing. Dark, needy letters describing base desires either contemplated or completed. Some were overtly violent. So graphic that she’d have to alert the police in whatever city the letter was postmarked from.
As Sarah set up the laptop on the kitchen table, she sensed Julia’s presence. Small touches that reminded Sarah of her own mother. A vase filled with cut flowers on the table, small ceramic birds resting on the windowsill, a half-eaten chocolate cake beneath a glass cover. The kitchen was dated but clean. The linoleum floor was swept and scrubbed, and the faint scent of cinnamon a
nd anise hung in the air, as if ingrained in the fabric of the yellow gingham curtains hanging over the window. The only thing that seemed out of place was the stack of dirty dishes soaking in the sink. Julia must have fallen before she had the chance to wash them.
A ceramic container with hand-painted roosters rested on a brown laminate countertop, and Sarah imagined Jack as a teenager, reaching into the canister for freshly baked cookies, still warm from Julia’s oven, doing his homework at the kitchen table. Sarah lifted the lid of the canister and, sure enough, it was brimming with peanut-butter cookies. Sarah’s stomach growled, and she helped herself to a cookie.
Sarah turned on the computer and waited for the system to boot up. She pulled up her email and began going through letters. There was one from a man struggling with the decision of whether to place his aging father in a nursing home and one from a teenage girl fed up with her parents’ incessant arguing. It was funny, she thought, how she managed to come up with just the right words to help complete strangers, but when it came to her own husband, sometimes nothing she said seemed to come out right.
She finished up the last of the new letters and shut her laptop when Hal shuffled into the kitchen, barefoot and bleary-eyed.
Sarah stood. “Is everything okay?” she asked. “Did the hospital call?”
“No, everything’s fine.” Hal waved his hand dismissively and Sarah lowered herself back into her chair as he sat down next to her. “I couldn’t sleep so I decided to get up. You can’t sleep, either?”
“Just catching up on a little work.” Sarah nodded toward her laptop. “Jack was showing me the pictures in the living room earlier. It was nice seeing him as a kid. I’d love a copy of the one of him with Dean.”
Hal smiled. “I know exactly which one you’re talking about. Jack, Dean and Celia would walk beans all day and then come back to the house with sunburns. Celia’s hands would be full of blisters.” Hal shook his head. “I don’t know how many times I told her to wear gloves.”