Lilly is eight today, the exact age Isla and Henry were the day they drowned in the lake. Isla and Henry are,were, Bram’s children with his first wife, Simone.
We have never kept them a secret, never shut them out of our children’s lives. They are ever-present in the hall just outside our bedroom, an entire wall devoted like a shrine to their young, vibrant lives cut short far too soon. A day at the lake that turned tragic. The sitter tended to her jilted heart by way of weeping into her phone while the kids swam out too far and got sucked under.
But Bram swears the lake was glassy, both kids strong swimmers. His wife, an editor at the local paper in their upstate New York life, quit her job and spent her remaining days buried among the couch cushions. Then another tragedy struck, a break-in, a bludgeoning. Simone was gone just like the kids, and, of course, everyone thought Bram had done it. He was already hung in the court of public opinion by the time they caught the real perpetrator, a man by the name of Nolan Kingston, a homeless man prone to bad decisions, breaking and entering while in the midst of a psychotic episode. A burglary gone wrong. A rape gone wrong. Everything had gone wrong for the Woodleys.
Two dead children. One dead wife. Bram lost his practice and was run out of town. He couldn’t sell or rent the house, and it sat empty for years until last fall. A builder offered full asking price. He’s going to raze it and put in a duplex. Fair enough. We really don’t care.
The doorbell rings, and Lena shouts that she’s too busy to get it, so I sail downstairs, trying to ignore the fact dog hair has amassed to each step. As much as I love our Husky, Dawson, he is a shedding machine. Twice a year it snows Dawson. You can’t have a meal without a dog hair in it. My mother hated the creatures, and that made me all the more certain I would always have one.
I swing the front door open, an old wooden carved wonder the previous owner—original owner at that—had shipped from Mexico. It’s inlaid with an intricate floral design, and one day (soon hopefully) when we remodel, I plan on using the door as a base for a custom desk. It has character, and what better place to plot and ponder my own characters than this old door that I’m sure has more than a few haunted stories to tell.
“Packages.” A cheery UPS man squints out a smile as he slips in two large cardboard rectangles into the foyer before whisking back to his truck.
“Oh, thank God,” I moan. “The decorations are finally here!” I shout to Lena as I kick them past the entry enough to close the door. As much as I adore Dawson, he is a runner, and I swear the day he sails out of our lives and bounds down the street will be the last we ever see of him. Not really, but I’m a lousy dogcatcher and even lousier at slapping missing posters to every tree in town. We have him chipped, and I’m hoping that’s enough to keep the shelter he finally gets turned into from adopting him out behind our backs.
I muscle open the heavier box of the two. My God, did I put in an order for concrete? I pull back the lid and reveal three bright red Dutch ovens nesting in one another, the lids wrapped neatly in paper by their sides. My heart sinks for two reasons: I didn’t order these, and I happen to appreciate how pricey these are. Lena has been after me to get my hands on one for ages.
I’m sure they were meant for somebody else, most likely Astrid down the street, but a horrible part of me wants to keep them.
The kids scream with laughter, pulling me out of my Dutch oven induced trance, and I quickly move onto the second box. I need to throw some party hats about and pull out the happy birthday banners as quick as my limbs allow. We look incredibly ill-prepared to host the entire second and third grade classes from Richard E. Moss Elementary. Lilly and Jack’s birthdays are two days off and one year apart, so we’ve always celebrated at the same time. So far, no complaints. I run my finger along the seam of the lighter box and feel the burn over my skin as it gives, and once I peer inside, my stomach drops again. Not a sign of anything remotely happily cartoonish. Instead, it’s just a pile of old composition notebooks, bloated used ones at that, some paperbacks, and an emerald tin coffee can at the bottom. I pull it forward, and it’s full of old costume jewelry, a few gold rings, a silver necklace, and a pair of pearl earrings that may or may not be real. I slip the lid back on and pull open one of the composition notebooks. It’s a journal.
“Huh.” I rock back on my heel, taking a moment to slip through a few pages. It dates back to 2008, the penmanship neat and heavily slanted, pleasantly legible, yet not flowery, clearly a woman’s. The color of her pen varies every so many pages from black to blue, to red to green, no particular pattern, just whatever she could reach for that night I suppose. Then I see it. My eyes snag on an all too familiar name, first Henry, then Isla. I quickly spot Peter in the mix, and a rush of bile inches to the back of my throat.
Went to the grocery store. Henry pitched a fit and wanted a bouncing ball. Why the hell do they put those in the middle of the aisle? There was no way around it. I bought two. Henry chose red and Isla bought a purple marbled wonder. Peter was not happy with my spontaneous purchases. I’d like to see him get out of the supermarket alive.
“What in the hell?” Something enlivens in me. My skin prickles with heat, and my adrenaline spikes. I flip to the next page and read mid-paragraph in haste:the veins in his neck bulged when I told him. I hate that Peter suffers from such silent rage. It’s because of all of that bullshit with his mother. I don’t need a therapist to tell me—
“Ree?” Lena calls from the kitchen, and I slap the book shut. “Where’s the olive oil? I’m going to whip up some garlic bread. Don’t tell me you’re out. We just bought a gallon at Costco!”
“Right pantry, on the floor.” Shit. I quickly move the heavy box full of iron pots into the guest closet, and as I bend over to pick up the box full of journals, I spot a yellow envelope taped to the inside flap. I quickly pull it forward and free the letter.
Found the pans in the drawer under the stove. A lot of people forget about that space. Thought you might be missing these. And the rest of the stuff was culled from the basement.
Tim Bergman
Tim Bergman. That name rings familiar. He’s the contractor who bought Bram’s old house. These are Bram’s things. I glance to the box filled with the bloated books. Simone’s personal journals.
My blood runs cold. I doubt Bram knows about those journals. He would never have left them to rot. These are his memories, too painful as they might be.
His car pulls into the driveway, and without thinking, I whisk the small box upstairs and bury it deep in the back of the walk-in closet, throwing a pile of sweaters over it for good measure, just below the gun safe. This closet has become a treasure trove of secrets. But if ever there was a day for keeping secrets, this is it. For sure I’m not souring Bram’s mood this afternoon. I’ll tell him about the delivery tonight or even tomorrow once we’ve come down from our birthday high. I flick off the lights and head downstairs, feeling a bit guilty as if I’ve just taken Simone, Isla, and Henry off the invite list.
Bram comes at me with a kiss, warm and juicy, the promise of things to come. He’s in a cheerful mood, the only mood I’ve ever known from him, so that insert in Simone’s journal resounds like a gong in my ear.
Bram and I help Lena set up the last of the buffet, spreading it over the dining room table, paper plates at the ready. I can’t help but cast a wistful smile at the walls. When we moved in, they were stark white and I insisted on painting them red, something cozy, a nice holiday feel I said at the time. It was a post-Christmas haze that had inspired it, and now that even Valentine’s Day is behind us, the color just feels wrong, offensive even. It’s as if the walls are angry, the entire house were wishing to be rid of us.
The clock strikes one and Bram, Lena, and I freeze a moment like three lonely children standing in the cafeteria on the first day of school just hoping the cool kids will ask us to sit with them. In reality, we’re wondering if the cool kids will show at all. And sure enough, they do like a flood. The glut of second and third graders run through the house and straight for the bounce house out back as if it were magnetically pulling them into its gravity.
A handful of mothers linger in the backyard whispering amongst themselves in groups of two and three. The rest of them asked what time the pick up was and took off for child-free pastures. A part of me marvels at the fact they’ve entrusted us with their most prized possessions. If they only knew who they were dealing with, they would have certainly thought twice, or most likely not come at all. But most of the PTA is present and accounted for, lingering among the crepe myrtles out back, so I suppose there is a small comfort in that. Bridget arrived with her nose buried in her oversized phone. The sparkly pink case looks as if it were an accessory for one of Lilly’s Barbies, and yet some small shallow part of me envied the way it caught the light.
The doorbell rings and in pops Tessa with her down-to-earth sense of style, cut-off jeans as if to usher in the warmer weather and a pink sweatshirt that readsMoss Dolphins, expounding the fact that she’s forever the cheerleader.
“Hello, Woods family!” She gushes, her eyes swollen with that never-ending glee she seems to propagate, and I can’t help but love her. Tessa’s brand of cheerfulness is a contagion and one I’m happy to contract. We exchange a brief embrace, and she lunges for Bram as well.
“My God, you have quite the house!” She takes in the red walls with an exaggerated inspection, and my body heats as if I could feel her judging me.
“It was a post-Christmas thing,” I say stupidly, and Bram shakes his head at me as if to stave me off from going there. He’s already heard this a dozen times. Reiterating my regrets is a nasty habit I’ve yet to rid myself of. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been prone to apologizing for my decisions, for my very existence, and I’m sure all the people my mother bilked money from would appreciate the latter. “I’m not sure I’ll keep it, though—the color. It’s really hideous now that I’ve lived with it for a bit.”
I hear Lena groan audibly and give me the finger behind Tessa’s back. I know that Lena thinks I’m kissing her ass, and perhaps she’s right, but my nerves are jangled from the body, from that box that landed at my feet this afternoon, and all I want is to fit in for once. Lena leaves the room, and I take a breath.
