by Boris Bacic
Her Home
Copyright © 2021 Boris Bacic
All rights reserved.
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“Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false namings of real events.”
- Adrienne Rich
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
Heart n’ Home Hospice, OR
About the Author
Final Notes
Prologue
Annette rushed inside the bedroom and frantically slammed the door shut behind her. Her trembling hands fumbled with the key in the lock before quickly managing to turn it, locking the door. As soon as she heard the latch click, she took a halting step backward, as though she had just touched something extremely hot.
She swallowed through her dry throat and steadied her breathing as she continued staring at the door. Other than the sound of her panicked breathing, silence permeated the air. Annette released a tentative sigh of relief with a trembling breath. Perhaps she was safe after all.
A stampeding batter of footsteps resounded from outside the bedroom, followed by a loud slam on the other side of the door.
Annette recoiled, stumbling backward in the process. She would have screamed, but her voice was stifled by the sheer terror that coursed through her entire being.
Three loud knocks resounded on the door. And then silence.
Annette heard the loud drumming of her heart in her chest, as her legs became wobbly. She fought her body’s urge to collapse while she tried to remain as frozen as a statue.
“Anneeeette. I know you’re in theeeere,” a soft voice called out from the other side of the door.
Hearing her name being called out made the hairs on the nape of Annette’s neck stand straight up. Judging by the tinny manner in which the voice came through, it was clear that the person was right on the other side of the door. Annette looked down at the crack under the door, and through the meager hallway light that gleamed inside, saw a shadow standing in front of the door.
“We had a deal, Annette,” the voice came through again, still as perky and friendly. “You don’t want to break our deal, do you?”
Three more raps on the doors, this time in a much hastier manner. Annette’s body refused to budge. All she could do was stare at the shadow under the door as it nonchalantly swayed from left to right, but never disappearing.
“OPEN UP, YOU BITCH!” The knocking sounded more like a battering ram, as it loudly filled the bedroom, effectively snapping Annette out of her stupor.
She turned around and looked around the moonlit bedroom. She ran as quickly as her elderly legs could carry her to the cabinet in front of the window. There, a doll sat on top, staring at her with its vacuous eyes and creepy smile.
“OPEN UP!” the voice said again, the relentless knocking never ceasing for more than a second at a time.
Annette placed her hands on the doll and closed her eyes. For a moment, she couldn’t remember the words. The knocking, the shouting, the panic—all of it was putting even more pressure on Annette.
“ANNETTE! DON’T MAKE THIS HARDER ON YOURSELF!”
The first word came to her mind, then the second, and then the rest followed smoothly. Annette chanted the same sentence over and over as quickly as she could, ignoring the knocking at the door. She didn’t know what the sentences she chanted meant, but she knew that she had to continue, otherwise it would all be over.
“ANNETTE!” the voice boomed one final time.
And then, just like that, it stopped.
The knocking, the yelling, the threats, all gone. The only sound that remained was Annette’s panicked panting.
Annette opened her eyes and was greeted by the doll’s face. She did it. She did it. She placed the doll back on top of the cabinet and opened the drawer. She frantically rummaged through it out of fear that she may not have a lot of time left. Just as she was about to lose hope, she found it.
The piece of paper she was looking for. She slapped it next to the doll on top of the cabinet and then looked for a pen in the drawer. As soon as she felt its smooth, oval surface, she fished it out and used her other hand to hold the paper steady. There was a bang somewhere in the house, causing Annette to jump and almost drop the pen in the process.
As quickly as she could, she scribbled one sentence on the back of the paper.
IM SORRY FOR TREATING YOU THE WAY I DID
Before she could finish putting it down on paper, another bang resounded in the house—this time much closer. Annette was frozen in place, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t will herself to budge. Somehow, she had the impression that if she did, it would bring the intruder back.
“Found you,” the voice said, calmly this time, and Annette felt her blood run cold, because the voice didn’t come from the hallway.
It came from behind her.
Her eyes inadvertently moved up to the window for a split second, and there he was, standing right behind her, his silhouette reflected on the glass.
Just as she shot around to face her assailant, she felt a numbness forming on the side of her face. In an instant, that numbness appeared in her leg, and Annette’s knee buckled under her weight, causing her to topple sideways. She would have screamed at the painful collapse, but her mouth and lungs refused to cooperate.
As she fell down, she saw the paper she wrote on gyrating left and right in the air before sliding under the bed.
The last thing she saw was a face grinning at her before everything went dark.
Chapter 1
“I know, I know. I don’t like it either, but I’ll only be gone for a day. Okay?” Jill said on the phone, as she turned the key in the ignition to kill the car’s engine.
“I really think I should have come with you,” Lee sighed over the phone exasperated.
Jill undid her seatbelt and sighed. She was starting to get a little irked. She’d spent the day working until 3 pm, then drove for three hours, and she barely had enough time to squeeze in one meal for the whole day. It didn’t help that her asshole of a boss wasn’t very understanding about letting her leave earlier on a Friday. It helped even less that she didn’t get to see her son Charlie today.
And now for Lee to be on her back about the things he could have done but didn’t—it took everything inside Jill not to snap at her husband. That would do her no good though, and she knew well enough that Lee would end up interpreting Jill�
��s raised tone as hostility, so she instead forced her customer support tone and spoke calmly to Lee.
“Honey, there’s really nothing you could do to help me here. Besides, Charlie has his baseball practice tomorrow, and he needs someone to take him there.”
“Yeah. Are you sure you can’t come back a little earlier? I honestly have no idea how I’m gonna handle all the cooking and cleaning while you’re gone.”
The thought of not having to cook for the whole family for the next few days filled Jill with comfort. She’d have some work around her mom’s house, but at least there’d be no cooking,
She absolutely hated cooking.
“Just follow the things I wrote on the note,” Jill said as she exited the car and shut the door.
She was greeted by the orange sky and the chattering of the birds.
“I’ll try. But if you come home to a mess inside the kitchen, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Jill tuned out halfway through that sentence, when she glanced at the old house in front of her.
The house where she grew up.
The house wasn’t lavishly big, but it was two stories, and despite being decades older than Jill, it still looked well-maintained. Jill glanced up at the second-floor window, where her bedroom used to be, and then at the spacious green landscaping surrounding the house.
Memories suddenly flooded her. Her playing in her room with the toys, swinging on the swing behind the house, running in the woods nearby, playing fetch with Kenny, the family dog, etc.
Jill expected the memories to be accompanied by a sort of nostalgic emotion, but she didn’t feel anything like that. Not yet, anyway. Maybe once she entered the house, she’d start to get overwhelmed by her childhood memories.
“Are you going to be okay with Cheryl over there?” Lee’s voice shook her back to reality.
“Yeah. Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Jill asked absent-mindedly as she diverted her attention back to the phone call.
She didn’t want to enter the house when she was distracted. She would end the call with Lee first, and then give the house her full attention.
“You know, because of—” Lee started.
“Honey, I’m sorry, I need to go. I just arrived,” Jill cut him off. “I’ll call you and Charlie tonight, okay?”
“Sure thing. Good luck out there, honey,” Lee responded.
“Thanks. Love you. Oh, and make sure Charlie tidies his room before dinner.”
“Will do, boss,” Lee sardonically said. “Love you, too. Talk to you later.”
Jill put the phone in the pocket of her slacks and locked the car. She looked around the place. No houses anywhere in sight—just green prairies, bushes, and trees. The chances of someone stealing from her car in a place like this one were abysmal, but you never know.
It was almost night, and now that she thought about it, Jill wondered how her mom wasn’t afraid to live here all by herself, with no one in sight—not even a neighbor to call an ambulance or the police for you in case you got in trouble. She trotted towards the house, briefly glancing at the red SUV parked on the lawn.
Must be the nurse, Jill thought to herself, wondering what the person would be like.
As Jill climbed the steps leading to the porch, she felt a sense of familiarity overwhelming her. It was a strange thing to feel like she was here just yesterday, even though years had passed.
She found herself staring at the ancient doorbell next to the door and knowing exactly how firmly to press it in order to make it ring. The house always had trouble with the doorbell, and if not pressed with enough intensity at the right spot, it wouldn’t work. Jill remembered her mom constantly yapping to Dad about having to change the doorbell and him promising to do so as soon as he found the time—and then never actually end up doing it.
Jill raised a hand and rang the doorbell. A muffled buzz came from inside of the house. She turned around and stared at the landscape from this point of view. Far across the road was a thicket of trees and bushes. Jill suddenly remembered playing hide and seek with Cheryl over there during summer. There used to be a little boy who joined them as well, but Jill had no recollection of where he came from or what his name was.
“Good afternoon,” a voice boomed behind Jill, half-startling her out of her drowsy reminiscence.
She spun around and realized that a woman stood at the now open door. She was a little older than Jill, maybe in her early thirties. She had her hair tied into a bun, and suddenly Jill felt a little jealous over how well she managed to pull off such a simple hairstyle. Jill has always been self-conscious about tying her hair into buns and ponytails because she felt that she had a big forehead.
“Uh, hi. My name’s—”
“Jill. I already know. I’m Violet. I’ve been hired to take care of your mother until you and your sister arrive,” the caretaker opened the door wider and stepped aside, revealing the dim interior of the foyer.
Jill nodded and took a tentative step inside, suddenly feeling like she was a guest in her own home. That feeling dissipated as soon as Violet closed the door, and Jill found herself surrounded by the familiar walls of her old home. The outside noises of the animal life instantly disappeared, along with the sunlight that veered inside, leaving only the meager foyer light for visibility.
As she glanced up at the ceiling light, Jill felt a foreboding sense that she couldn’t exactly pinpoint. Living in the brightly lit three-bedroom apartment with Lee and Charlie back in Portland, she forgot how depressing the pendant lights in her mom’s home were.
To make matters worse, the entire house utilized the same kind of lights. They were bright enough to illuminate the house, but too dim to help with anything like reading as soon as night fell. For the first two years of school, Jill constantly complained about her eyes hurting whenever she needed to do her homework at night.
Well, then finish your homework before nightfall, her mom would always chide her.
Luckily, Jill’s dad stepped in and bought her a bright desk lamp that not only illuminated her homework area brightly, but even blinded Jill if she stared directly at the lamp.
“The attorney is not here yet?” Jill asked.
She was about to take off her coat, but she suddenly realized how cold the house was—almost as cold as it was outside. Or maybe it was her own imagination, carried by the memories that accompanied her.
“The attorney said he would be here around 4 pm, but he must have run into some unexpected trouble,” Violet shrugged.
“Guess I’ll call him later. How’s Annette doing?”
“Your mother is in a… less than envious condition,” Violet hesitantly said. “Do you want to see her?”
That’s exactly what Jill dreaded. From the moment when she got the call from the hospital and throughout the entire week, she couldn’t help but imagine what kind of condition she would find her mother in.
“Sure,” she simply said, as convincingly as she could.
Violet nodded and started up the stairs leading up to the second floor. Her footsteps were muffled by the old, musty carpeting on the stairs, which made the house seem all the more silent. It was strange to have it so quiet. Growing up, Jill got accustomed to the cacophony of voices permeating the house constantly.
Cheryl playfully screaming, the parents calling to their daughters by shouting, since the house was so big, loud sounds coming from either the kitchen or the garage, etc. To hear it this deafeningly silent was almost unnatural.
Jill followed Violet up the stairs, making sure not to stamp her feet too loudly to avoid disturbing the eerie silence.
“So you’ve been taking care of my mother ever since the accident?” Jill asked.
“Yes. I’ve stayed here all day through the week, but now that you’re here, I’ll be coming once a day to make sure everything is okay. I’m surprised you haven’t arrived earlier, to be honest. Usually, when this sort of thing happens, children fly out to see their loved ones within a day.”
Jill sensed a hint of animosity in Violet’s timbre, but chose to say nothing. The caretaker didn’t know anything about Jill’s relationship with her mother. She could have just stayed home with her family while Cheryl took care of everything. For a moment, she wondered why she even came here. She concluded that her soft side and faint feeling of love for her mom got the better of her.
Also, Cheryl wouldn’t be able to handle everything on her own.
“Is there anything I need to know when taking care of my mother?” Jill asked, ignoring Violet’s previous statement.
“I’ve written everything down, so we’ll run through it once your sister arrives. She is coming, correct?”
“I think so. I haven’t actually spoken to her, but the attorney said that she said she’d be here.”
“Hm,” Violet chuffed, and this time, Jill heard judgment in her tone.
They reached the top of the stairs and walked past Cheryl’s and Jill’s old rooms on the right side. Violet stopped in front of the last door on the left side and turned to face Jill.
“I have to warn you that this may not be a pleasant sight,” the nurse said solicitously.
“I’ll be okay,” Jill briskly nodded.
Violet turned around, grabbed the knob, twisted it, and pushed the door open.
Chapter 2
Cheryl fished out her phone and glanced at the clock. It was ten minutes past six. The blaring classical music that played from the car’s speakers was jackhammering into her head.
“Dude, can you put on something normal?” she remarked stoically.
Tom looked at her from the driver’s seat briefly with a frown.
“This is normal. You need to learn to respect quality, Cheryl,” he sarcastically said.
Cheryl rolled her eyes and leaned forward. She pressed the button to change the radio stations. Rihanna started singing Umbrella, while Cheryl raised her hands and began dancing in her seat to the tune.
“Hey! Do not touch the radio, Cheryl!” Tom snapped, as he returned the station to the classical music.
Cheryl stopped dancing and glanced in Tom’s direction. He was furious. He had these moments lately where he would get irritated really quickly with Cheryl. At the start of the relationship, it was playful and friendly between them, and she found it cute. Now, whenever it happened, it immediately killed her mood.