by Lori Roy
You must be wondering why, after all these years, I decided to reach out. The short answer, the easy answer, is a new family moved into our old house. The Williamsons, who lived there for twenty-five years, never mattered much to me. But last year, the Giffords moved in, and they’re the reason I can finally write.
Plenty of times, I thought to reach out, even sat down with pen and paper. When Grandma died, I considered it. You probably don’t know she died. It’s been a few years now. I wonder if it brings you joy to know she’s dead. You probably hope it was a painful death, but it wasn’t. She went peacefully in her sleep, though it was four days before anyone found her. A neighbor called about the smell. I suppose that gives you some pleasure.
We had a lovely funeral for her. My husband planned the entire thing, insisted, though I told him it wasn’t necessary. I think he was afraid of the memories that might rattle loose if I had to select the casket or order a spray of flowers. I told him once I remembered lilies at Mama’s funeral. They were her favorite. Do you remember? My husband made certain...no lilies at Grandma’s funeral. He’s thoughtful that way. He even managed to track down all her friends. I was her only family. And you, I guess, by marriage.
Did you know I got married? Oddly enough, you probably remember him. Harmond Bails. He grew up on Locust Street, lived a few houses down from us. He’s a couple of years older than me and was all legs and arms back then and had a mop of dark hair that always hung in his face. Still does. He and I live in that house, the one where he grew up. Do you remember it? A two-story Craftsman. Nice lot. Good shade trees. Live oaks. Not laurels. If I walk onto the front porch and stand on the top step, I can see our old house. It still has a blue door, just like it had back then. It was nice to have the Giffords living there, even if only for a short time. Especially sweet Gabby Anne Gifford with her dark brown braids, milky skin and icy blue eyes. What happened to that family...a terrible shame.
The backyard was dark before, dark like everyone should be sleeping, but now it’s light. Gabby Anne Gifford sits tall in bed to get a good look out her doors—Mama calls them French doors—but the drapes are closed. She sees only the fuzzy shadows of patio furniture and Daddy’s grill. Soon after they moved into their new house on Locust Street, Daddy said raccoons were coming in the night to dig through their garbage, so he put up a security light to scare them away, but Gabby Anne doesn’t think raccoons turned on the lights this time.
The French doors in Gabby Anne’s room lead to the backyard and are always supposed to be locked—always, always, always—because there is a swimming pool back there. The first Saturday after they moved in, Gabby Anne began going to swim lessons because, in Florida, even the babies know how to swim. Daddy sometimes fusses at Mama because she opens those French doors to let in the fresh air and Florida sunshine and doesn’t always remember to lock them again. Gabby Anne doesn’t like it when Mama forgets, either. On Gabby Anne’s second day at her new school, Arabella Hollingsworth told her a woman drowned in the swimming pool at Gabby Anne’s new house. The woman’s lungs puffed up and burst, squirting bloody guts into the water, and now, most likely, she is a ghost who lives in Gabby Anne’s backyard.
As long as Daddy’s security light is shining, Gabby Anne is safe. It will keep the raccoons away, but it will also keep the woman who died and squirted bloody guts from creeping through the backyard and rattling the knobs on Gabby Anne’s French doors. She grabs hold of the yellow glow shining through the curtains by squeezing tight with all her fingers and toes, squeezing tight as she can. She waits, waits, waits but still, the light switches off. As her room tumbles from light to dark, she slides deep into her bed and closes her eyes.
A click makes her open them again. A puff of air chills her cheeks and ruffles her eyelashes. Next, the bed shakes, something bumping against it. Like a hip or a knee. Gabby Anne’s heart pounds in her chest. Her throat turns dry. The tips of her fingers tingle. Fresh air, filled with the smells of outside, rushes into her room. The fluffy white gardenias that grow on the side of the house. The neighbor’s grass he cut that morning. The chlorine Daddy pours in the pool. Gabby Anne tries to pull her knees to her chest, slowly at first, one at a time, but the sheets coil around her ankles and her bed won’t let go. She wants to jump up and run as fast as she can to Mama’s room. But the more she kicks, the tighter the sheets hold on. And then something tugs at her quilt.
Her legs stop moving. Her arms, too. Her breath catches in her throat and sticks there as the quilt falls away. Off Gabby Anne’s shoulder, down her arm, across her waist. She grabs at it, gives a yank, and it stops. She gasps, air rushing in. Now someone is patting her quilt. Pat, pat, pat like when Mama loses the TV remote in her bed and pats her fluffy comforter until she finds it. The patting stops. The mattress dips. Gabby Anne tries to call Mama’s name, but her voice is wedged deep down inside and can’t get out. The patting is closer. Closer. Something brushes against her foot, disappears and comes back again. It stops. That same something lands on Gabby Anne’s foot, her left foot. It tightens, slowly, slowly and then it grabs hold of Gabby Anne.
Tugging on a T-shirt as he fumbles with his glasses, Harmond Bails tiptoes from his bed to the window and pushes aside the drapes. Down below, Locust Street is dark except for the red and blue lights of a police siren flashing beneath a canopy of oak leaves. With each pulse of light, the moss dripping from the twisted branches shimmers. The eerie scene, so familiar, tugs at a memory. It tugs so hard that when Truvy switches on her bedside lamp, Harmond startles.
“What are you doing?” Truvy whispers, her voice raspy because she snores. Harmond teases her about it because it’s cute, isn’t it, when a beautiful woman with large blue eyes and glittery blond hair does it?
“It’s nothing,” Harmond says, hoping she stays in bed. He waves at her to turn off the light. “Really. Go back to sleep.”
A click and the room falls dark again. Harmond lets out a sigh of relief, and that’s his mistake. Truvy knows. The mattress creaks as she crawls from the bed.
“What are you looking at out there?” she says, her tiny feet padding across the floor.
Harmond turns to her. With each splash of light from down below, she’s one step closer. Her face is scrubbed clean, her yellow hair hangs loose and she wears one of Harmond’s T-shirts. It dangles to her knees. She looks young, helpless, about to be broken. My God, he loves her, and Harmond’s job, his most important job, is to protect her, something he can do only with the truth. He presses his shoulders back and puffs out his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “But it’s the police. They’re outside your old house. You probably shouldn’t look.”
“You’re sweet to be concerned,” Truvy says, the lights making her eyelashes flutter. “But it’s never really felt like my house. Heck, I don’t even remember living there.”
Truvy was too young, or maybe too traumatized, to remember when she first lived on Locust Street, but Harmond remembers. He grew up in this house, and except for a few years away at college, he’s always lived here. It’s no wonder Truvy is fiercely independent and struggles to let Harmond in. She was only seven years old when police officers and reporters descended on her old house. Her grandma whisked her away as quickly as she could, but Truvy still saw the stretcher that rolled out the front door, her dead mother on board. No telling what something like that does to a person.
This might be the moment Truvy finally remembers. The scene is almost the same as it was all those years ago. The play of the lights on the oaks. The shuffle of dark silhouettes in and out of her old house. The yellow glow in every window as if all that warmth can smother the darkness of whatever has happened. Because Harmond knows these things, he extends a hand to Truvy. With a deep, fortifying breath because maybe she does realize how difficult this will be, she takes it and huddles at his side. Through a web of sparkling branches, they lean left and right, and look down on the house Truvy lived in until she was seven years old.
On the Giffords’ first night living in our old house, I walked down the block with Harmond to greet them. I took a peach pie with me because Harmond told me they had a daughter. Seven years old, he said and stared at me hard to see if her being seven troubled me. I smiled. He was obviously worried about me being at the old house again, even though I’ve told him on several occasions that I don’t remember living there. I’ve told him I don’t remember him from those days, either. And he believes me.
When I went to the store to pick out the peaches for my pie, I spent fifteen minutes in the produce section. I cupped each peach in my hand, gave it a toss, rolled it side to side. It’s what Mama always did. I didn’t remember until I stood in front of the bin, the nearby refrigerated storage chilling my bare arms and legs. After Mama filled a bag with a dozen or so, she’d always pick one peach that was spongy, almost brown and hold it for me to smell. I did the same when I bought my peaches, and the light sweetness, something I hadn’t smelled for over twenty years, was like a fist to the gut. When I got home, I let my peaches ripen in a paper bag and then cut them into chunks. Not slices. That’s how Mama always did it. Do you remember?
The pie pan was still warm when I carried it down the block that night, and as we stood on the Giffords’ porch, I stared at the blue door. The gardenias were in bloom. I smelled them. Crisp. Clean. Do you remember? Though I couldn’t see them from the porch, I knew they were there, growing alongside the house, white blooms dripping from waxy green bushes. Out in the darkness, the cicadas hummed and clicked. Overhead, beetles bounced off the inside of the light shining down on us. And then the door opened, and I wavered, almost stumbled.
You must remember how the neighbors here cling to everything original in their 1920s Craftsman homes. So, when the door opened onto the Giffords’ living room, the floors were the same as they were when we lived there. Strip pine that creaked when Harmond and I stepped inside. The same baseboards, so thick Mama dusted them every week, ran across every wall. The same Cuban tile stretched across the sunroom. Even the same hardware hung on every door—glass knobs with bronze backplates. The same glass knobs Mama touched. You touched. I wanted to feel that cool glass, ached to touch one of the knobs, but I knew doing that would give me away. Instead, I passed off the pie plate and shoved my hands in my pockets, and when a little girl bounded into the room, two braided ponytails bouncing off her shoulders, I smiled.
“You must be Gabby Anne,” I said.
Harmond fumbles with the latch on the bedroom window and when it won’t slide open, pounds on the frame. Truvy nudges him, and they sidestep to the next window where they have a better view. Across the street and two houses down, the door at the Giffords’ place stands open, the light from inside draining out onto their sidewalk. Neil Gifford leans in the doorway with the same relaxed stance he strikes when smoking a cigarette. Neil’s a smug son of a bitch and Harmond has known it since the Giffords first moved in. But tonight, instead of sucking on the end of a Marlboro Light, Neil has one hand pressed to his forehead, not watching as people come and go. Not so smug now.
Harmond flips the latch on the second window, and this time it slides open a few inches. The cool, damp air of dawn rushes in as he presses his ear to the opening. Something squawks, faint but unmistakable. Truvy startles at the familiar sound of a police radio, and Harmond quickly closes the window.
“Sorry,” he says.
Truvy stumbles away, the memory having tugged at her like it tugged at Harmond.
“It really is the police,” she says. “How long have they been down there?”
“Don’t know.”
“It’s familiar, isn’t it?” she says, turning her back on the window. “The radio, I mean. Am I right? Am I remembering it from that night?”
“Can’t say for sure,” Harmond says. “But yeah, I remember the radios. The lights, too.”
Fighting the smile that wants to erupt across his face, Harmond slides up behind Truvy, draws her into his arms and buries his face in her hair. She smells of soap and fresh sheets. He hates to admit it, even to himself, but he waits every day for one of these rare moments. There was the time she got the flu, the days after her grandma died and the day more recently when she learned her father was to be executed. She’s always first out of bed in the morning, runs three miles before he’s had his first cup of coffee and recently passed him in the moneymaking department. Truvy says wanting a man is better than needing one, but that’s hard for Harmond to believe. It’s ingrained probably, the need to be needed, so he can’t stop the smile that wins out. It spreads wide because despite what terrible thing may be going on down at the Giffords’ house, this is what Harmond needs.
“Better?” he asks, pushing her hair aside to rub his stubble against her neck.
Truvy nods. “Better.” And this time, instead of a whisper, her voice is a purr.
Leading Truvy back to the bed, Harmond helps her to sit, but before he can climb on top of her, she presses a hand to his chest.
“You better go see what’s going on,” she says.
Linda Gifford and I became friends instantly. The day after Harmond and I took the peach pie to her family, she returned the plate. I knew she would. She had that look about her. Rosy skin. Blue eyes. Smooth, brown hair. Perfectly drawn pink lips. She was a woman who couldn’t rest until a borrowed pie plate was washed, dried and returned. Gabby Anne tagged along, those same braided ponytails frayed and fuzzy one day later. After we enjoyed homemade chocolate chip cookies and sweet tea, I dug paint and poster paper out of the closet as if it had always been there and wasn’t something I bought that same day. We spread it out on a plastic tablecloth, and Gabby Anne painted while Linda and I talked. Linda told stories of Gabby Anne’s tantrums, funny now that she’d outgrown them. She talked about how she loved being pregnant and that she couldn’t wait to have another baby. I told her I was hoping to get pregnant soon and that I’d be lucky to have a little girl as sweet as Gabby Anne. I went to bed happy that night, maybe for the first time. Ever. At least since the night Mama died.
Grandma carried me from our old house that night, did you know? She draped her sweater over my head so I wouldn’t see everything going on around me. But it was a loose knit, so I could still see the flashing lights of the patrol cars and the people coming and going. Radios squawked, cameras snapped, car doors opened and slammed closed. Neighbors, too, had gathered on the street, all of them with hands pressed to their mouths because they’d heard by then. Mama had been found dead in the pool and you, Daddy, had been taken away in the back of a patrol car.
As Grandma carried me from the house, me seeing the outside through a web of white, wooly yarn, she whispered in my ear. “You’ll be all right,” she said. “I’m so sorry you had to see that. I’m so sorry you had to see what your father did.” When we reached her car, Grandma slipped her sweater from my head and my view turned sharp and clear. Straight ahead, Harmond, my future husband, stood with his mother and father. They were a warm, happy family. Harmond looked at me, and I looked at him, looping myself around him so that eventually, one day, he’d pull me back. He tells me he remembers that moment and that maybe he’s loved me ever since.
The damp morning air surprises Harmond when he throws open the front door. He shivers, glad he rarely sees this soggy time of day. Life’s tough enough in the daylight. Slipping on a jacket, he pulls the door closed, hard. He wants Truvy to hear it up on the second story. Truth is, he’s angry. No, he’s pissed. This is how it always ends with her lately, although it isn’t usually the flashing lights of a few patrol cars that derail his advances. It’s Truvy jumping out of bed to strap on her running shoes or being too exhausted by a long afternoon spent with Linda and Gabby Anne. She’s practically a single mother, Truvy is always saying of Linda. Even on the weekends, Truvy is up and out of the house before Harmond rolls over to discover her side of the bed empty. At this rate, they’ll never get pregnant.
It wasn’t always this way for Harmond. He had his share of women before Truvy. Sure, he wasn’t what you’d call a ladies’ man, but he was better than that. He was a catch. Taller than average. A head full of dark, floppy hair. And he was an educated man with a bright future. He was all those things when he and Truvy reunited on the University of Florida campus, and he’s done all right for himself in the years since and has even better years ahead. Any woman would be happy to have Harmond. He needs to remember that, especially in times like this. He’ll hustle down to the Giffords’ to find out what’s going on and then hurry back to bed before Truvy falls asleep. She’ll be grateful, feel safe because of him, and she needs that. Needs it more than anything. And just as he thinks he might still have a chance with her, the lights at the Stratton house pop on across the street, and he’s not in such a hurry.
Wearing a silky white robe, Julia Stratton sweeps out her front door. Her long blond hair glows under the porch lights that have started to turn on, and as she drifts weightlessly across her lawn, Harmond wonders if she dresses that way every night. Yes, he decides. Most definitely, yes. Maybe he’ll buy Truvy a nightgown like Julia’s. Yes, he thinks again. He steps off the curb and follows Julia toward the Giffords’ house.
“Can you believe it?” Julia whispers when Harmond slides up alongside her. She looks a good bit like Truvy but is...what...softer. Yes, her voice is softer, and her hand, when she brushes it across Harmond’s forearm, is warmer. She’s easier, too. Always smiling.
“What happened?” he asks. “Do you know?”
Julia smells nice, like a flower. He inhales and thinks he might ask what kind of perfume she’s wearing so he can buy some of that for Truvy, too.
“Don’t know yet,” Julia says, not looking his way but instead lifting onto her toes for a better view of the Giffords’ house. “There’s Neil.”
Stretching higher, she grabs Harmond’s shoulder for balance and reaches one arm overhead, the sleeve of her white, silky robe slipping down as she waves at Neil.
“He sees us,” she says. “Yes, he’s coming over.”
Neil Gifford, wearing basketball shorts and a white T-shirt walks toward them. It’s what he normally wears, but something is different. It’s his eyes. They aren’t focusing and his movements are slow, as if his arms and legs are too heavy for him to maneuver.
“Jesus Christ,” Neil says. He blows out a long breath that smells of whiskey and falls into Julia’s arms.
Julia cups his head with one hand and lays the other on his chest. This isn’t the first time they’ve embraced. She knows exactly how to slip into the crook of his arm, and he knows exactly how to burrow into her silky hair. All the rumors are true. Harmond has heard them from a few of the neighbors, even told Truvy about them. After all, Neil’s wife is Truvy’s best friend. Men like Neil, they shouldn’t get away with it, and if he’s gotten himself into some trouble, well, he deserves it.
“What is it?” Julia says. “Dear God, Neil. What’s happened?”
When I first learned of the new family, the strangers, who would move into our old house, I was worried. Before they came along, the house was always quiet, kept to itself because an old couple with no children lived there. I never had to think about it. But as the Giffords toted boxes and tubs from the moving van to our old house, I knew it would begin to breathe again. We’d hear splashing from the swimming pool, bicycles creaking, little girls giggling. But within a few months of the Giffords’ arrival, my worries disappeared. Yes, things changed. They planted flowers, replaced the concrete sidewalk with pavers, rolled out new sod. But what I hadn’t expected...the house’s quickened pulse was contagious. The hustle and bustle of the Gifford family crowded out the heavy past that had been allowed to fester in our old house and inside me for more than twenty years.
I began to think of Linda and Gabby Anne first thing every morning. The plans I made with them shaped my days, weeks and months. I’d hurry home from work to meet them at the park, spent evenings at soccer games and dance recitals, and on Tuesdays, I ducked out early to pick up Gabby Anne from school as a favor to Linda. Those Tuesdays were most precious to me. When I would lean over Gabby Anne to buckle her in my backseat, I’d feel her warm skin. I’d smell Chapstick and sunscreen and the grass she’d run through and the pages of the workbooks she’d written in. I’d close my eyes as all the makings of Gabby Anne’s childhood leached into mine, replacing all my bad with her good.
I was inside our old house almost every day, and inside my old room at least once a week when, on date night, I babysat Gabby Anne. I stopped thinking of it as our old house, and it became the Giffords’ house. I even found the courage to tell Linda what happened to me as a child. She hugged me, said she already knew and insisted I throw open the French doors in Gabby Anne’s room that had been locked up tight the night Mama drowned. Back then, I couldn’t reach to unlock them, couldn’t reach to unlock any of the doors. They were designed that way to keep me safe from the pool. Instead, they meant I couldn’t save Mama. Linda thought by my throwing open those doors, I would regain the control I lost that night, the control you took from me. And then...
“Too bad Neil is such an ass,” Harmond said one night when we lay in bed.
Even before he said anything else or explained anything more, my happy world, the one I’d wrapped myself in for a few short months, collapsed.
“He’s screwing around. Poor Linda. Doesn’t suspect a thing.”
Staring at Julia as she strokes Neil’s hair, Harmond wishes he were the one Julia held in her arms and that it was his hair she stroked. As much as he needs to be needed, he needs that, too. To be loved and touched. But the squawk of a police radio snaps him out of it and regret takes over. He regrets thinking he might buy Truvy a white nightgown. Regrets thinking he might ask Julia the name of her perfume. That’s not who Harmond is. He’s one of the good guys. Not perfect, sure, but good. In case any of the neighbors are watching, he shakes his head as a sign of his disapproval and when he turns to walk away, Neil glances up from his cozy spot in Julia’s arms.
“Gabby Anne’s gone,” he says.
“Gone?” Julia says. “Gone where?”
“No,” Neil says. “She’s...gone.”
“You don’t mean?” Julia asks.
“The pool,” Neil whispers. “God damn Linda. She leaves that door open. All the fucking time, I’m telling her to quit leaving it unlocked.”
“The French doors?” Julia says. “Is that what you mean?”
Neil nods. It’s something they’ve talked about before, and if they’ve talked about Gabby Anne’s doors, they’ve talked about other inside moments from the Giffords’ marriage.
“She left them open again?” Julia asks. “Oh, my God. Neil, no.”
“Jesus,” Harmond says. “Right out of her bedroom?”
Julia swings around. “What do you mean?”
“I’m just shocked, is all,” Harmond says. “This happening right here on our own street. Someone taking her from her own bedroom?”
Without any warning, Neil’s knees give out beneath him. Harmond lunges, catches him by one arm and softens his landing on the curb.
“Jesus,” Neil says. “You think someone did this? Went in her room? Why? Who would...”
“I... I don’t know,” Harmond says, his eyes jumping between Julia and Neil, both staring at him. “You said it. You said her door was left unlocked. I just thought you meant...”
“He meant, with the door unlocked, Gabby Anne could get to the pool. She’s not a strong swimmer, isn’t allowed.” Julia peels herself from Neil and steps toward Harmond. “Do you know something, Harmond? Was someone in her room?”
“What,” Harmond says. “No. You’re twisting my words. I just misunderstood.”
“What do you know?” Julia says.
“I don’t know anything. Jesus. I’m... I’m just so sorry, Neil.” Harmond continues to back away. “You said the door was unlocked. Jesus, I’m so sorry.”
Julia leans in to get a good look into Harmond’s eyes.
“I’ve heard about you, Harmond Bails,” Julia says, backing away.
“Heard what about you?”
Harmond turns. It’s Truvy. She’s wearing a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. Her hair has been brushed out and tied back, making her look like a college student again.
“What’s Julia talking about?” she says. “And where’s she going?”
Julia now stands at the barricade of yellow tape and is talking to a police officer. Scanning the crowd of neighbors, she points a finger directly at Harmond.
“I don’t know,” Harmond says to Truvy. “It’s Gabby Anne. I think she’s... I think she drowned.”
“Well, whatever it is,” Truvy says, taking Harmond’s hand, “she’s talking to the police, and she’s talking to them about you.”
Neil Gifford meant nothing to me before I found out about his affair. He wasn’t part of what was wonderful about the Gifford house. He was the property you never buy, the piece on the board you never move. And yet he was able to so quickly ruin everything. Our old house sank back into the past once I knew Neil was a cheat and a liar. Because you, Daddy, were a cheat and a liar. And as the house sank, it became our house again, not theirs. It became my bedroom and not Gabby Anne’s. I could feel the weight of the drapes on the French doors when I pushed them aside the night Mama died. I was too young to know why you were never home and why I’d see Mama crying by the pool and drinking red wine. But all those things were true that night. I was too young to know about loneliness and sorrow. I was too young to know Mama needed you, but I was old enough to know you weren’t there.
I never liked when Mama turned on the pool lights after dark. They made the water glow and the pool bottom disappear, and when Mama stripped down to nothing and dove in, the water cracking open and sucking her under, I worried she’d never come back. So many nights, I watched as she did just that. I’d wait at my French doors, forcing my eyes to stay open, until she climbed out, wrapped herself in a towel and went inside. But that night, something was different. I wasn’t sure at first what I saw outside the French doors. I stood on my tiptoes and rattled the knobs, but Mama, unlike Gabby Anne’s mother, was always careful to keep the doors locked. I was never allowed outside by myself because the pool was dangerous. I hopped up and down to get a better look. Something was floating, the lights from beneath making its underside glow.
I snuck out of my room even though I wasn’t allowed. That’s how scared I was. I tried every door, but they were all locked. I couldn’t get outside, not even when I stood on a chair and knew it was Mama floating out there in the pool. I rattled knobs, banged on doors. There were no glittery ripples in the water. Her arms didn’t sway in circles like they did when she glided from one end of the pool to the other. Her feet didn’t flutter like they did when she kicked down to the bottom and exploded back to the top. She was still. The water’s surface, lifeless.
Harmond trails Truvy toward Julia and the police officer.
“Here,” Julia says, as Harmond and Truvy approach. “Look how brazen.”
The officer is young, and his eyes are red, as if he’s not yet accustomed to these long nights and early mornings.
“What is it you’re telling me, ma’am?” the officer says.
“I’m telling you I think this man knows something about what happened to Gabby Anne,” Julia says, jabbing a finger at Harmond.
“That’s not true,” Harmond says.
“Even his own wife is afraid of him,” Julia says. “Just ask her.”
Harmond swings around to face Truvy. “Afraid of me? What...”
“Oh, Harmond,” Truvy says. She steps away from Harmond and toward Julia. “Is that where you went? Why you weren’t in bed?”
“What?” Harmond says as neighbors begin to close in on the conversation. “What do you mean, where I went?”
“He wasn’t in bed,” Truvy says to the officer. “For the longest time. And then I must have fallen asleep. I don’t know. But when I woke, he was back and looking out the window. And there are clothes, wet clothes and shoes, too, in our shower.”
“Do you hear this?” Julia says to the officer, slipping an arm around Truvy’s shoulders. “Are you going to do something? Anything? My God, he took Gabby Anne. Drowned her.”
“That’s not true,” Harmond says. “None of that.”
Truvy clings to Julia. “What will I tell Linda?” Truvy says. “I should have known, should have seen this coming. I should have warned her.”
Harmond backs away, keeping his eyes on Truvy. She’s coiling up, preparing to strike again.
“That’s not true.” Harmond shakes his head and jabs a finger at Truvy. “Truvy, she’s the one. There’s something wrong with her. She didn’t even care when her grandmother died. I did everything for the funeral. She didn’t even want to go. And when her own father died...”
“Do you see?” Truvy says to the officer. “He’s come unhinged. I’ve been telling Linda for weeks now. Linda, that’s poor little Gabby Anne’s mother. I’ve been telling her something wasn’t right. I’ve been afraid even. Afraid of Harmond. He’s obsessed with me, my past. My mother, she died in this house, did you know? My father killed her. It’s been the most horrible thing. My father was executed for it. And ever since, Harmond, he’s been...well...troubled. Ask Linda. I’ve been telling her for weeks.”
That’s where you found me, standing on a chair, looking out onto the pool, banging on the glass. Do you remember? I was screaming. My hair hung in my face, wet, matted. My cheeks were streaked with tears. You grabbed me, frightened just to see me like that, and then you saw Mama. And then Grandma was whispering in my ear.
“I’m so sorry you had to see your daddy do that,” Grandma whispered as she tucked me in the backseat of her car.
She knew the same as me. She knew all the nights you left Mama home alone. All the lies. All the excuses. She knew about the yelling and drinking and sadness. She knew how the sneaking and lying dirtied up everything. You made us all sticky to the touch. Made us want to wipe our hands of each other. But mostly, the loneliness. We both knew you should have been there to save Mama.
“Yes,” I whispered back. “I saw what Daddy did.”
“He was terrible to her,” Grandma said once we were in the car, cushioned from the outside noises. “He was never home for you. He was never home for her. That’s why she’s dead. You saw him hold her under. That’s what you saw, yes?”
I nodded and blinked as the red and blue lights spun past. “Yes, Grandma. I saw.”
“Show me how again,” she whispered.
I stretched out my fingers as wide as they would go and touched my hand to my face. I did the same for the judge in a courtroom. Do you remember?
“And he held her down,” I whispered back. “All the way under.”
I thought I was done punishing you and that the Gifford family was the thing to finally cure me of my past. I was happy again because Gabby Anne was happy. But that changed when I learned about Neil. I realized you hadn’t suffered enough. Not nearly enough. Gabby Anne died because her daddy was just like you.
I wonder sometimes...who will next move into our old house. They’ll be strangers for sure, at least when they first arrive on Locust Street. Linda and Neil are getting a divorce, or so I hear. I live alone now. The house is far too big for one person. Harmond won’t ever be coming back. But I’ll stay because I can step onto the front porch and see the door at our old house. It’s still blue. Do you remember?