“You look terrible, Harp.” My mother had never been one to bite her tongue and I rarely appreciated her brutal honesty.
My body was exhausted from trying to claw myself out of the grave I had buried myself in. It was only a matter of time before the police came knocking on my door. I had researched every possible outcome for myself, and it all ended the same: jail, and a fine that would throw me into bankruptcy. The judicial system didn’t take kindly to tampering with evidence and insurance fraud. Of course I’d refute Lane’s involvement and spare his future, since he’d be the one taking custody of the kids. God forbid I let my mother spoil them worse than I already had.
“I’m sure I look as terrible as I feel, Mom.” You know you’re in it deep when your mother is the only person left whom you can trust.
Elmo’s Diner was packed as usual, but it was always worth the wait. It had a menu that catered to Mom’s particularities for meals that she couldn’t make at home, coupled with my preference for tried-and-true dishes; it was the happy medium one rarely found in life. Across the austere table, Mom looked overdressed in a silk blouse with a cream blazer. Her blond hair was styled up in full waves, her go-to style when her gray roots were growing out, and it framed a face perfectly made up. The woman literally put her face on when she applied her makeup.
“Would you like a refill on your tea, ma’am?” the waitress asked me, carrying a sloshing pitcher full of southern sweet tea.
I definitely shouldn’t. I didn’t need the extra calories.
“I’d love a refill, thanks.”
Outside of our booth’s window the sky brooded, like acid-washed jeans. I pushed my home fries around my plate, my stomach already full after eating the quiche and drinking two—now three—glasses of sweet tea, which Mom had clucked at. Sweet tea this early in the morning? she had scoffed when I placed my order. But it could be the last time I enjoyed sweet tea, because who knew if they offered it in jail? So I drank my fill, with Mom tsk-tsking in the background.
While I overindulged on tea, Mom picked at her salmon cake and eggs, a slow-eating trait she must have passed down the line. I’d lost count of how many times Jackson came home with notes from his teacher saying he needed to start eating lunch faster at school. Eventually the teacher sat him at a table by himself so he’d stay focused on his food, but he still took his sweet time eating, like a grazing cow with nothing else to do. When I found out my little boy sat all alone in a buzzing cafeteria packed with energized kids, my heart broke a little, and that’s when I had started popping by the school for lunch to join Jackson.
“Thanks for meeting me today. How’s your meal?” I asked Mom.
She held up a finger, a gnarled twig tipped with cherry blossom–pink nail polish, while she finished swallowing her bite. “Delicious, thank you. How’s yours?”
“Good.” But there was no good transition into what I wanted to tell her.
“Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do with your house?” Mom could always fill the dead air between us.
“What do you mean?”
“Certainly you don’t want to keep it . . . after what happened there.”
I swallowed a bite. “I’m renting it out. I have a family getting ready to move in.”
“Rent it? Why not sell it?”
“I’m not ready to part with it. All our family memories are there. I still feel Ben there, in the cushions of the sofa and the reflections of the mirrors.”
“But it’s been almost two months since he died, honey. It’s time to start healing and moving forward with your life.”
“I know, but he hasn’t disappeared yet, no matter how many times I clean the rooms. I’m not sure I want to move on yet.”
“Harp, you can’t do this to yourself again. Hasn’t enough bad happened there? It’s time to let go.”
“How can I? I’m not sure I want to say goodbye forever. Besides, I’ll be getting monthly rent checks to help pay the mortgage, so that gives me time to see how I feel about it a year from now.”
Mom slapped the table and my half-empty glass of tea trembled. “You want the burden of that house for a whole year? Renting is a pain, let me tell you. And it rarely turns a profit. Why weigh yourself down with the bills and maintenance of a large house like that when I could sell it quickly for you? It’s a seller’s market right now. I could get you top dollar for it.”
She grew more heated with each word, as if my holding on to my house was a personal affront to her.
“To be honest, Harp, I don’t think you should ever return to that murder house. It’s not safe. What if the killer comes back? And besides, why would you want to be surrounded by the ghosts of the past? That sounds terribly painful.”
“Just stop, okay? I don’t know why you’re so quick to forget Ben and—” I stopped, unable to say her name, or else I knew I’d break down into tears that wouldn’t stop. “I know you never really liked Ben, but he was a good husband and a good father. We might have had our rough patches, but what couple hasn’t?”
“What you two went through wasn’t a rough patch. It was a devastating loss, and he never truly supported you through it. I never even saw the man cry after she died. What kind of man doesn’t cry at his own child’s funeral? Especially when he’s to blame!”
“Enough! I’m done talking about this. You blame him for what happened, but it was just as much my fault as his.”
“Nonsense. The blame lies solely on him for her death. You know that, I know that. And at least you didn’t go cheating on him afterward. The man deserved to die, if you ask me. Clearly whoever killed him felt the same way.”
A diner was no place for this conversation. And I was in no emotional state to keep it civil.
“What about me? Did I deserve to lose my husband? Did the kids deserve to lose their father? No, because even if he made mistakes at the end, it doesn’t erase all his goodness before that. I don’t know how you can be okay with the fact that he’s dead. Because I’m not.”
She shook her head and fingered the collar of her blouse. She looked just as uncomfortable with this argument as I felt. “Maybe you should be okay with his death. It’d help you move on with your life. Find someone better, who doesn’t destroy everything he touches. I just want to see you happy, that’s all. And getting rid of that house of haunts could be part of that process.”
And we were back to the house again. “I’m not saying I won’t eventually sell. But unloading that house is the least of my worries. Right now, my focus is to find a job, find a place to live, and get my family back on its feet.”
She huffed. The same huff she always did when the topic transitioned to me working. “What kind of job does a girl with no degree or career path find? Maybe working at a garden center or plant nursery again? I just don’t want you ending up like me.”
“What’s wrong with how you ended up? You’re a successful real estate agent, Mom. That’s something to be proud of.”
The corner of her lip curled up in a doubtful look. “But it wasn’t my dream. I want better for you. You know, it’s never too late to go to college and pursue your passion, which you could have done if that husband of yours hadn’t pressured you to start having kids instead.”
It was I who wanted kids right away; it was my choice, not Ben’s. But Mom never missed a chance to guilt me about it, as if college were going out of business.
“Can we not speak ill of the dead, please? He was my husband, Mom, the father of my kids and your son-in-law.”
“Well, he was no son to me, leaving you and the kids with no security. At least you should be getting your insurance payout soon, I hope. Have they found any leads yet on who killed him? It worries me that his killer is still out there, running free.”
“No, they haven’t given me any names yet.” And I knew there would never be any. I wanted to tell her everything. She was my mother; it wasn’t like she’d ever turn me in. I felt it in my bones. It was time to come clean. “I need to be honest with you. I’ve done something bad.”
She dabbed her napkin to the corners of her mouth, tinting it with pink lipstick. My mother, so prim and proper, even amid a scandal.
“We’ve all done bad things, dear.”
“No, this is really bad. I might end up arrested over it.”
She dropped the napkin and aimed a sharp gaze at me. “What are you talking about? What could you have possibly done?”
I leaned across the table and whispered, “Ben wasn’t murdered. He killed himself.”
Mom gasped and her eyes lit like the neon lights stretching across the ceiling.
She shook her head. “No, not possible. What makes you think that?”
“A suicide note he wrote. It mentioned something only Ben knew about, and it was definitely his handwriting.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police that?”
“Because I would have lost the insurance money, so I staged it to look like a murder. It’s only a matter of time before they figure that out and arrest me.” I couldn’t tell her about Lane’s involvement. As far as she knew, it was only me . . . and it would stay that way, just in case the police questioned her. No way was I going to risk Lane’s freedom.
“If the police haven’t turned up yet, there’s a chance they never will. It’s been almost two months. And besides, knowing what kind of man Ben was, murder isn’t out of the question.”
Her conspiratorial tone made me question everything I thought I knew. What kind of man did she think Ben was? I wanted to ask her the question that had been bugging me more and more as the police investigation unraveled. It was ludicrous to even consider, but my mother had a way of getting what she wanted. She had always wanted Ben out of my life, then one day, poof, he was.
“Do you know something I don’t?” I wondered aloud.
Glancing away, she avoided my eyes, her fingers frantically fidgeting now. Avoidance—wasn’t that a sign of guilt? Then she sighed wearily. A weary, weighty sigh. What secret was she carrying?
“Mom, did you have anything to do with Ben’s death?”
“Are you asking if I murdered your husband?” With a glare she dared me to answer. “Geez, Harper, what kind of person do you think I am?”
“No, I’m not saying you killed him. But did you say something to him that might have shaken him up? Something that might have made him want to disappear?”
Raising her palms in surrender, she pursed her lips. “Fine, I might have threatened him a bit when I suspected him of cheating, but that’s all, dear. The man needed to know he wouldn’t get away with hurting my baby girl. I would make sure of that.”
Her explanation wasn’t good enough. There was more. I could feel it tearing its way out into the open.
“Where were you that night, the night I found Ben? Because I know you weren’t home with your grandkids the whole time. They told me you left them with the neighbor, Miss Eileen. Which I’m pissed about, by the way. Don’t ever leave my kids with a stranger again.”
“Eileen isn’t a stranger. She’s a dear friend. And I simply needed to run to the store for something. Don’t make such a fuss about it. Eileen loved the company and the kids loved the candy. No harm, no foul.”
Except I sensed a foulness that filled me with fear.
She waved the topic away, then waved the waitress over. The woman was Princess Di, ever decorous. “Let’s not talk about such dark things. How about dessert?”
“I thought it was inappropriate to have dessert for breakfast.”
She chuckled. “Well, you’re already drinking sweet tea, so why not?”
“Mom.” My urgency held a force that crushed her smile. “If I end up in jail, promise me you’ll help Lane take care of the kids. I’m terrified about what’s going to happen.”
“Honey.” She grabbed my hands in a surprisingly fierce, wrinkled grip, as if her words weren’t enough to hold me. “You’ve always been the strong one. Even more so than your brother. You will get through this, your kids will be fine, and no matter what happens”—she squeezed my hands for emphasis—“I will take care of my family. You have my word.”
“Thank you, Mom.” Despite all our differences, Mom knew how to fight, knew how to get back up, and she had taught me that same resilience. “Speaking of Lane, I wanted to talk to you about him.”
“What’s going on with your brother? Is everything okay?”
“Not really, no. You know how I suspected something wasn’t right with Candace?”
Of course she did. We were of like mind when it came to Candy.
“Well, it turns out I was right. She’s on the run from an ex-husband named Noah, and the baby she’s carrying is his, not Lane’s.”
“No!” Mom puffed, covering her gaping mouth with her hand. Blue veins coursed between the jutting knuckles. “Are we living in some kind of soap opera? Where did you hear all this?”
“She told me.”
“Does Lane know?”
“Yes, she told him and they had a big fight about it and he left. But this morning they were all lovey-dovey, so I guess he forgave her.”
“But . . . why? Why would he want to yoke himself to a liar? Or to a child that isn’t his?”
“I don’t know, but there’s more. She lied about her name too. She’s using some alias that she found in an obituary. Honestly, Mom, I don’t know what’s true anymore. And I don’t trust her not to hurt Lane. He’s in love, and we all know how irrational love can be.”
Love had caused me to stay with a husband who was cheating on me. It had caused my mother to suffer the continuous neglect of my father. Mom and I both knew just how treacherous love was. We sat across from each other, her brown eyes burrowing into me, flickering with a dark mischief that sparked the hairs on the back of my neck.
“I’ll tell you what I know about love. Love is a dangerous weapon, and it robs us blind. It makes us weak, because when we’re in love, we live in glass houses where everything feels open and shiny and clean. But all it takes is a tiny crack and the whole house shatters.”
“So how do we crack Candace’s glass house?” I asked.
“All you have to do is find the right stone and throw it.”