with the pace of a wet sloth.
The only brief glimpse of happiness that Dave found that day was surprisingly from Schworst. He passed Dave’s desk around noon talking loudly on his cellphone.
“Yeah, I know. I’m on my way now. Stone is already there with that DeLongo bitch. Yep. I’ll see you at the courthouse.” He slammed through the doors and out of sight.
Dave felt a tension he was hardly even aware of anymore drop from his chest. At least he now knew he wasn’t responsible for Desiree’s avoidance of the office. She was probably just ridiculously busy. Dave felt hopeful, bolstered by this news.
He received a text from Georgette shortly before he left the firm, informing him she’d be working late once again—with the charity gala only a few weeks away, she was in crunch mode. Dave briefly considered stopping by the bar but thought better of it. He was still feeling the lingering affects of his two-day hangover. His body just didn’t bounce back the way it did when he was a younger man. Apparently neither did his mind.
Dave settled on checking up on Harmony instead. He’d not seen or heard much from her since their impromptu, odd lunch together.
He found her on the front porch of the main house. She was smoking a cigarette as he pulled into the drive. He could tell immediately, before he even got out of the car, that she was in a complex and sullen mood.
“Hey,” he started towards her, zipping up his jacket and joining her on the steps. The night air was cool, the last glimmers of light just fading from the sky.
Harmony offered him a drag of the cigarette in response. He declined.
“Good twin, bad twin,” she murmured.
“I haven’t seen you smoke in years,” he commented with a frown.
“Well, desperate times and all that.” She took another deep drag. “What brings you by the funny farm this evening?”
“I just wanted to check on you.”
“I haven’t gotten any more notes,” she mentioned with a sideways glance.
“I didn’t think you would. Samantha and I have made amends.”
Harmony chuckled, “That kid walks all over you.”
“She tries.”
“No, she does.”
Dave remained silent. He was not going to allow her to bait him into an argument he could not win. After a few moments, Harmony mashed her cigarette into the wet ground and got to her feet. Dave followed her, watching the tight muscles of her neck strain as she opened the front door.
“Where are Mom and Dad?” he asked.
The main house was never silent when June and August were home. His mother was either chatting away on the phone or his father was blasting the television—fishing or God was all he ever had patience for.
“Oh, take a wild guess!” Harmony exclaimed with irritation as she flipped on the lights in the kitchen.
“Mass this late?” Dave asked, as he looked around at all the Jesus décor. Each room was bordering on “hoarding” the Lord.
“They are taking this new member shit way seriously. They practically live at the church. Not that I’m complaining. Doctor H. tells me the more I separate myself from them, the better.”
Dave watched as his sister poured a glass of wine and leaned against the kitchen counter, watching him.
“And what have you told Doctor H. about them?”
“The truth. I talk about you sometimes, too,” she added, as if it were an afterthought. Dave knew better.
“Oh yeah?” he encouraged. “What sort of stuff do you say about me?”
“I wonder at what point you decided to be happy and I chose to be sad.”
“I don’t think those things are completely in our control.”
“No? How is it, we came from the same womb at the same time, yet
you have always been normal and I’m...” she trailed off. “Doctor H. always says to speak kindly about yourself. It’s difficult.”
“I understand. But Harmony, we aren’t normal. Either of us!” She shot him a skeptical look. “We’re both different. We are both not normal.”
“Then how come your life is amazing and mine is a pile of shit? I’m stuck here in this house with these lunatics. If not here, I’m residing in a nut house. How is that okay? I have no friends, no social life—a distinct fear of the most irrational things. I’ve tried for years and years to make myself better. I’ve done everything in an attempt to mirror you, to be more like you. So that maybe, one day, our parents wouldn’t regret the fact that I’m alive.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true! I’m sick. I’m less.”
“You are not less.”
“But I am sick.”
Dave remained silent. His sister laughed in his face before she threw back the rest of the wine, “And you know who made me sick Dave? Them.”
“I know how much they upset you. You have to learn to ignore it.”
“How can I do that when I am practically chained to them!?”
If his sister wasn’t as fragile as she was, he would have explained how she could become a functioning adult—find work, move out of his parent’s house. But as the years went by, Dave saw that chance go from marginal to fleeting to gone. His sister was too deeply rooted in her habits to break them now.
As if she could read his mind she continued on, “Doctor H. says I need to get a job, maybe one I can work remotely, with limited social contact. She says once I do that, I will be free of them. I won’t have to rely on anyone for anything anymore. I will be my own person—to a small step towards independence,” his sister toasted him with her second glass of wine.
Dave could have kissed Harmony’s therapist for saying such a wonderful and helpful thing. Clearly if he couldn’t get through to her, at least someone else had.
Their conversation was abruptly halted by the sound of popping gravel as his father’s car pulled up into the driveway. Harmony peeked out the kitchen window.
“Ugh, already?” she complained, depositing the now empty wine glass in the sink. “I’m going up to my apartment.” She turned to look at him. “Coming?”
Dave was tempted by the offer, but he knew his parents already spotted his car parked outside. His mother had eyes like a hawk and if he chose to purposely avoid them, he would never hear the end of it. He opened his mouth to relay this message to his sister when a sob sounded from the front of the house. He glanced at Harmony who looked towards the noise with confusion.
Dave hurried out the front door and down the stairs to find his mother standing next to the mailbox with a trembling hand covering her mouth. The other hand was holding a large envelope—it was open. June’s eyes were scanning several pages. A few of them fell from her hands as August read over her shoulder—all color draining from his normally ruddy complexion.
Dave felt like a deer in headlights. He could not possibly imagine what news they received to make them look so horrified. Harmony stepped out onto the porch just as his mother looked up from whatever it was she finished reading.
“Davey!” she choked out, rushing forward, as she scrambled to pick up the papers she dropped. “Oh, Davey!” She burst into tears as she reached his arms.
Dave helped his mother inside where she collapsed on the nearest chair, tears streaming down her face.
“Tell us it was a joke, son. Please,” August pleaded.
Dave was so startled by their behavior he was momentarily struck speechless.
“What is happening?” Harmony’s voice was high pitched, racked with terror. Any kind of emotional confrontation immediately attacked her nerves.
June groaned with anguish as she tossed the mail down on the table and covered her face. “It wasn’t there this afternoon. I never check the mail at night, but the flag was up,” she babbled on as Dave lifted the papers carefully into his hands.
It was a police file.
His police file to be exact.
Dave felt his stomach plummet to the ground as he tried to come up with a rational explanation to subdue his mother’s growing wails.
“Mom,” he started, looking down at his mug shot. “This was a very long time ago.”
“It’s true?!” she screeched, jumping to her feet in horror. “You were arrested?”
Harmony sucked in a deep breath of air, regarding Dave as if she never seen him before in her life. “For what?” she asked in a deadpan voice.
“It was a long time ago,” Dave repeated, feeling numb as he continued to stare down at the file. Drug possession, driving under the influence—that night came rushing back to him as if it were yesterday. “Robb and I...”
“I should have known!” June railed, as August sat down wearily, rubbing his temples in agitation. “That scoundrel! The drug-fiendish fool!” she howled.
“It was his birthday,” Dave continued over the racket she was making, “We had a few too many, we were young and stupid. But I swear to you, the drugs were not mine. I’ve never done drugs a day in my life.”
“And we’re supposed to believe you?” Harmony chimed in, her eyes narrowing by the second.
“How could you keep this from us?” June sobbed, “How could you let us go on not knowing of your sins? What He must think!?”
“Mom,” Dave could feel anger rising in his chest. Who the hell had gotten access to this information? And why, why in the world would they send it to his parents? “Was there anything else in the mailbox?”
She shook her head no. Dave flipped the large manila envelope over—a large smiley face was drawn on the front.
“Bad things coming,” Harmony whispered.
“Do you know what will happen if this news gets out?” June gasped suddenly, as she turned to look at her husband, eyes wide with terror. “What will our congregation think of us once they hear about our only son’s delinquent behavior? Oh Davey, your soul is in mortal peril! Your actions will be our ruin!”
He could not get another coherent word out of his mother as she once again dissolved into a fit of tears at the prospect of losing her status within the church. August helped her off to bed with a look of disappointment at both of his children.
Dave picked up the files and shoved them carelessly back in the envelope. His sister watched him with rising fury evident in her gaze.
“So,” she began, her voice trembling with emotion. “For years you let me go on believing that I’m the only screwed up one. Did you care so much about preserving your own image that you couldn’t even be honest with ME!?” she screamed. “Don’t you trust me? I tell you everything. How could you keep this from me? What else have you kept from me?”
“Harmony, I swear—“
“You love having me as the scapegoat, don’t you? Nothing perfect Davey can do to upset Mommy and Daddy. You disgust me!”
She picked up her wine glass from the sink, grabbed the bottle and stormed from the kitchen without a backward glance.