“Tell me about the mantel, Helen,” he said.
“What?”
“I’ve been thinking. First the beam, then the bricks. I thought it was great at first, that you were incorporating pieces of history into our house, repurposing materials.”
Really? Then why’d you argue with me about it every step of the way?she thought, but stayed silent.
“But it’sweird,Helen. Your insistence on bringing home objects connected to these women who died in terrible ways. So, who did the mantel belong to, Helen? What’s the real story behind it? I wondered when you brought it home but didn’t ask. But now I’ve got to know.”
“I—”
“Tell me the truth, Helen. Please. Or are you just going to lie to me again? It must be getting pretty easy by now.” He looked so crushed.
She felt a horrible weight bearing down on her. Guilt. How had it come to this? How had she become a woman who could do something like this, sneak around and lie to her own husband, the man who was once the great love of her life, the man she once shared every secret thought with?
Because he doesn’t understand,a little voice whispered.He never has.
“Okay. The mantel belonged to a woman named Ann Gray. She was Jane’s daughter. Hattie’s granddaughter.”
Nate clenched his jaw. “Yeah, I figured. But let me guess. There’s more to it than that, right? She died in some really horrific way?”
Helen thought of lying. She did. But Nate would look online and learn the truth in a few quick keystrokes. She sighed and nodded.
“It was a murder-suicide. Her husband shot her, then himself.”
He laughed in a sickeningI can’t believe this is happeningkind of way. “So the mantel—this mantel that you just had to have, that we had to do a major redesign for—for our new home, our new life together that we left everything behind for, it came from the house where the guy shot his wife and then himself?”
“I—” she stammered. “I’m sorry,” she said, truly meaning it. Feeling it in her gut. “I know it sounds crazy and terrible, but it’s not. I didn’t mean to lie. I was just afraid. You get so annoyed, angry even, when I talk about Hattie and Jane.”
“Do you blame me, Helen? I mean, really? Think about it. How is it that they’ve become more important to you than I am?”
“They’re not more important, Nate. How can you think that?”
How could she explain it? This feeling she had, uncovering little pieces of truth about these women and the lives they led. It was like Hattie wanted her to find them. Hattie was guiding her, helping her to bring them all together like this, these generations of Breckenridge women. And now to save one of them.
“It’s just been this amazing experience,” she confessed. “To make these discoveries. To feel so connected to the past. To find these objects tied to these women, generations of Breckenridge women. It’s like…like I was meant to find each object, led to them somehow, and I—”
“Don’t give me this New Agey destiny bullshit,” he interrupted. “You sound like that wacko Dicky talking about all that the spirits have to teach us.”
“I don’t think—”
“You’re turning our house into this fucked-up museum of Hattie’s fucked-up family, all of whom seemed to die in horrible ways! Some people move into a haunted house, but you, you want tobuilda haunted house, Helen. How fucked up is that?”
He took a few long swallows of beer, tilting the can way back. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stared at her accusingly.
She’d never seen him this angry, this spiteful. His whole face seemed to change. The dark circles beneath his eyes made them look sunken deep in his skull, small and beady. His hand holding the beer can trembled slightly.
She thought, absurdly, of Ann’s husband. Of what it had taken to break him, to turn him to act in the violent way he had. He must have loved her once, back before something snapped inside him.
Was everyone capable of such evil? Of doing such a terrible thing?
A few months ago, Helen would never have believed herself capable of lying to Nate. And if anyone had told her Nate would talk to her in such an angry way, look at her with such loathing, she never would have believed it.
Other people’s lives were like that. Not theirs. They were different.
They loved each other. He’d written her a poem about the night they’d met, a beautiful poem that had won her over completely. They had their differences, sure, but she didn’t remember him ever even losing his temper before Vermont.
“Shit, Helen,” Nate continued. “Are you going to charge admission at Halloween?Welcome to Helen’s Haunted House: enter if you dare!”
