She hadn’t slept well in Hannah’s room last night. Plus, she was still feeling a bit dicey today. She’d even gotten snippy with two of her favorite students during her one-thirty session. The soon-to-be-married Dante and Pattie were so sweet, and she’d gotten impatient with them over practically nothing. Or maybe it was simply because they were young and cute and in love, and she was bitter.
As she stepped inside the house and disarmed the code, Sheila wondered if it was too soon to call the funeral home and ask if they’d sent the memorial guest book yet. She hung up her coat, took the two bags of groceries into the kitchen, and unloaded them on the counter. She started putting things away—including some small, individual bottles of cranberry juice. From now on, everything she ate or drank would be in a smaller container. She wasn’t touching anything that had already been opened.
She’d put away nearly all the groceries when she noticed something through the kitchen-door window. It looked like a large tree branch had fallen onto the lawn.
Sheila opened the door and stepped outside.
To her horror, she saw it wasn’t a tree branch on the grass. It was one of the Japanese maple trees from her garden. It had been uprooted and tossed into the middle of the yard.
That was when she realized her entire garden had been demolished. The beautiful flowers and plants had been torn up from the roots and scattered on the grass. The birdbath was tipped over. The stones she’d painstakingly arranged were strewn all over the place. The garden was her pride and joy, and someone had completely destroyed it.
“Oh, no. Oh, no,” she kept murmuring. Tears filled her eyes. It was all so utterly senseless.
For a few moments, she wandered amid the carnage as if it were a battlefield full of corpses. Devastated, Sheila started weeping.
“Who would do this?” she cried.
Then she heard a voice inside her head: Do you really have to ask?
*
Dressed in his suit and tie, Dylan stood in his backyard with Sheila, Eden, and Steve. As he surveyed the damage to the garden, he listened to the high-pitched accusations and denials between his wife and this stranger who was his daughter.
It was close to four o’clock, and he should have been at the office. He wished he were still there.
Until all this happened, he’d been in a good mood today. Sheila had given the all-clear for him to work out tonight. He would hit the gym, all right. But he wouldn’t be stepping inside. It was merely a rendezvous point for Brooke and him. They’d steal two wonderful, clandestine hours together.
On Wednesday night, all they’d done was kiss and neck on that old dock. Then they’d made out in the car like a couple of horny teenagers, but not for long, because he’d had to go home. Kissing, necking, and some fondling. Even if that was all they did tonight, he’d be happy.
But of course, he wanted more.
A mere thirty-five minutes ago, he’d been at his desk in his office, thinking about Brooke and tonight. That was when Sheila had called him. Hysterical, she’d demanded he come home immediately. “You need to see what your daughter has done,” she’d said, enunciating each word with an angry tremor in her voice.
And now Dylan was looking at it.
His heart broke for Sheila. She loved this garden. She’d worked hard to make it beautiful. He completely understood why she’d become unhinged. Annihilating something so lovely just seemed cruel and pointless. He didn’t want to think Eden had anything to do with it.
Apparently, Sheila had phoned Eden earlier. With no explanation, she’d asked her to come home immediately after school. Then she’d called Steve and asked him to skip gymnastics practice and make sure Eden came directly home.
At least, that was the way Dylan understood it from what Sheila had told him.
Now, the four of them stood at the edge of the demolished garden. And in Sheila’s way of thinking, the perpetrator was returning to the scene of the crime. Dylan, feeling like a referee, stood between his wife and his daughter. Steve was at Sheila’s side with his hand on her shoulder. Looking somber and uncomfortable, Steve said nothing.
“I didn’t do this!” Eden cried, hugging herself. Dark eye makeup ran down her cheeks along with her tears. Despite the buttoned-up black cardigan she wore, she was shivering—maybe more with rage than from the autumn chill. “This is so unfair! How can you guys blame me for this? I was at school all day!”
Her loud protests prompted the new neighbor’s dog to start barking.
“She’s lying,” Sheila insisted.
“I’m sorry this happened, okay?” Eden cried. “But you can’t pin this on me! I wasn’t even here! It’s bad enough that I’m still getting over my mom dying. But I’m forced to live with somebody who hates me! This isn’t my fault! How could I have done this? I told you, I was at school all day!”
“Please, Eden, you don’t have to shout,” Dylan murmured. “The neighbors . . .”
“Well, if you were at school the entire day,” Sheila snapped, “then you must have gotten that scummy boyfriend of yours to do your dirty work.”
“How could Brodie have done this?” Eden yelled, motioning toward the wrecked flower bed. “He’s in Portland, you crazy bitch!”
“Hey!” Dylan warned, pointing his finger at her. “Now, that’s enough.”
All the while, the neighbor’s dog kept barking.
Dylan took a deep breath, then edged closer to his son. “Stevie, can you take Eden for a walk or something?” he whispered. “Just get her out of here for a while until she calms down. I’ll owe you.” He turned to his daughter. “Eden, why don’t you go with Steve, walk around the neighborhood, and cool down a little, okay? We’ll figure this out.”
Frowning at him, she wiped her eyes again. Then she swiveled around and headed toward the walkway beside the garage. Steve started after her. “Hey, hold up a minute!” he called. “I’ve got to talk to you!”
Once they were gone, Dylan waited for the stupid dog next door to stop barking. He took another deep breath, then put his arm around Sheila. He looked at the ruined patch of land in front of them. “Y’know, honey, it’s not a total disaster,” he said gently. “We’ll buy some new plants tomorrow. We’ll all work together to get this back into shape over the weekend. We’ll make it a family project.”
Sheila pulled away and glared at him. “Is that it?” she said. She shook her head at him. “Unbelievable. Are you really going to let your bastard daughter get away with this?”
His mouth open, Dylan gazed at her.
She didn’t wait for an answer. Sheila turned away. Threading around the corpses of plants and flowers, she headed into the house.
*
“Hey, wait a minute, okay?” Steve called to his half sister. “Slow down!”
He was reluctant to chase after her. The way she hurried down the steep street near his house, Steve knew she’d get to a point at which she couldn’t stop herself. She’d end up falling and breaking her neck. The downhill incline toward Portage Bay was so sharp that Steve didn’t dare take his bike or skateboard down the street. From this spot, near the top of the hill, he had a beautiful view of the bay, the floating homes, Montlake Bridge, and beyond that, part of the University of Washington campus. He also had a view of Eden’s back as she continued to charge down the slope.
“I know you were lying!” Steve yelled.
That did the trick—almost. It looked like Eden tried to stop, but couldn’t. She veered off the sidewalk and staggered toward a tree on the parkway. She grabbed its trunk to stop herself.
Steve took his time catching up with her. “I saw you having lunch with your boyfriend by the bike racks today,” he said. “He’s not in Portland. And you ditched history class after that.”
Still bracing herself against the tree, she stared at him. She was panting. “I didn’t wreck that garden,” she insisted. “Jesus, so some flowers got trampled on. She’s acting like somebody shot her dog or something.”
“That garden’s
very important to my mother,” Steve said.
“Well, I didn’t touch it!”
“I don’t believe you,” he said. “And you still haven’t explained why you lied about your boyfriend being out of town. I saw both of you eating a cheeseburger, too. I recognized the yellow McDonald’s wrapper. What’s this shit about you being a vegan? That’s obviously a lie. What are you up to? What’s your deal, anyway?”
Her eyes widened. Steve could tell he’d put her on the spot.
“Well?” Steve said.
“For starters,” she said, a bit huffy. “That was an apple pie in Brodie’s cheeseburger wrapper. I don’t eat anything that once had a face. And I didn’t eat any part of the pie that touched the wrapper. I had no idea that Brodie was in town. I was totally surprised when he showed up at school today. And yes, I ditched one stupid class so we could go for a drive . . .”
“And you guys drove here and demolished my mother’s garden,” Steve said.
Eden shook her head. “We went to Volunteer Park. Brodie just wanted to say good-bye to me. When he dropped me off at school later, he said he was leaving for Portland right then. His crap was in the back seat. He’s probably halfway there now.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You really think I tore apart your mother’s precious garden?” Eden asked. She waved a hand from her neck down toward her legs. “Look at what I’m wearing. It’s what I’ve had on since this morning. You saw that garden. If I had destroyed it, I’d be covered with dirt from head to toe. Look at my hands.” She shoved them in front of his face, palms up, then palms down. She obviously chewed her fingernails, which still had remnants of black polish on them. But her hands were reasonably clean.
Steve realized she had a point. The destruction of his mother’s garden seemed like a crazy, impulsive act. He couldn’t imagine Eden stopping to change clothes and find some gardening gloves before trashing the flower beds. Then she would’ve had to clean up and change back into her old clothes afterwards. It didn’t make sense.
“Okay, maybe you didn’t do it,” Steve allowed. “But how can you be so sure your boyfriend didn’t come back here and wreck my mother’s garden?”
“’Cause he would have told me.”
“He lied to you about going to Portland the other day. Why wouldn’t he lie to you again?”
“Something came up at the last minute, and that’s why he didn’t go to Portland. He didn’t deliberately lie to me. And if he trashed your old lady’s garden, believe me, he’d have told me about it. It’s something Brodie would brag to me about. He’d have called me from the road to let me know what to expect when I got home today.”
Steve frowned at her. Again, her answer made sense, but he still wasn’t satisfied. “Why didn’t you just tell my parents—our parents—the truth?” he asked pointedly. “Why did you have to lie about your boyfriend being in Portland?”
“Because he’s practically there now!” she said, exasperated. She rolled her eyes at him and then started to walk back up the hill. “What goddamn difference does it make? If I admitted that he was still in town, they’d have insisted—just like you did—that he did that number on the stupid garden. They wouldn’t have listened to me. Your mother has it out for me. It’s that simple. I can’t say I blame her. But it’s not my fault your dad screwed around with my mom. It’s not my fault I was born.”
Steve walked alongside her and didn’t say anything for a few moments. There was still something else that bothered him. He gazed up at the steep hike in front of them. “Who’s Molly?” he finally asked.
She squinted at him. “What?”
“Who’s Aunt Molly?”
“I don’t get it.”
“Did you or your boyfriend text me this afternoon?” he asked, a bit winded by the uphill climb.
“No. Why would we? What are you talking about?”
“Nothing, forget it,” he said. “You know, if you think my mom doesn’t like you, it might help things a lot if you offered to help clean up that mess in the backyard.”
His suggestion was met with silence. Steve figured she was either saving her breath for the uphill climb or she wanted him to mind his own goddamn business.
Ten minutes later, when they came in through the front door, they were met by Hannah. She’d stormed out of the kitchen and practically pounced on them in the hallway. “There you are!” she yelled at Eden, almost in her face, “Oh, sure, now you’re covering yourself up with that hideous sweater.”
Taken aback, Steve shut the door behind him.
His parents tentatively stepped out from the kitchen, where Hannah must have been venting at them.
“Go ahead, Chesty,” Hannah said. “Show my mom and dad what you have on underneath that rag. Let them see what the whole school saw today. It’s not humiliating enough that everyone in school knows we’re related. But you have to make things even worse by putting your tits on display for the whole school! Go ahead, show them what I’m talking about. Let them see what you’ve got on under that ugly, homeless old-granny sweater. I dare you.”
Sneering at her, Eden unzipped the threadbare sweater and shucked it off. To Steve, it almost seemed like an act of defiance.
“Oh, God,” their father lamented. “Eden, what were you thinking? Please, cover yourself up.”
“All day long at school, she was walking around like that,” Hannah said. She shook her head at Eden. “As if you didn’t already look like a train wreck, you have to go out of your way to dress like an alien prostitute from the wrong side of Mars.”
Putting her sweater back on, Eden zipped it up. “Oh, bite me,” she said.
“Okay. That’s enough, you two,” their dad said.
Steve noticed that his mother hadn’t said anything. She just stood there behind his dad with a disgusted look on her face, like someone who didn’t particularly enjoy being right.
“Why in the world would you wear something like that to school?” his dad asked her. He rubbed the side of his neck.
Eden shrugged. “All my other clothes were dirty. I was going to keep my sweater on, but it was hot in those classrooms.”
“Hey, y’know, there’s this thing called a bra,” Hannah interjected.
“Do me a favor,” their father said to Eden. “Get rid of that thing, throw it out. I don’t even think Goodwill would take it. Hannah, listen, could you do what sisters do and loan Eden something of yours to wear until we can get the washing machine fixed?”
“Half sister,” Hannah corrected him.
“Fine, if you want to get technical.” He let out an exasperated sigh. “I just figured, honey, since you seem to have your finger on the pulse of all the latest fashion trends, you might be willing to help her out a little.”
Hannah rolled her eyes as if his request had put a huge burden on her. With her lip curled, Eden didn’t seem too thrilled about the idea, either.
“Would it kill you guys to at least try to get along?” he asked.
His phone rang, and he pulled it out of the inside pocket of his suit coat. He stepped toward the dining room to look at the screen—almost like he wanted privacy, which struck Steve as weird. His father seemed puzzled as he glanced at the phone screen.
For a moment, Steve wondered if he was getting a message about Aunt Molly, too.
“Yes, hello?” his dad said into the phone. Then he frowned at Eden. “Oh, yes. Hi, Ms. Warren . . .”
*
This was just what he didn’t want to do: drive to the high school for the second time this week—and in rush hour traffic, no less—so he could get a tongue-lashing from some teacher about the bratty, screwed-up daughter he never knew he had. Dylan glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard: 5:17. Eden’s teacher and advisor, Ms. Warren, wanted to talk with him at 5:30, and no, it couldn’t be done over the phone.
Dylan kept thinking that, if not for this latest headache, he would have been getting ready to “go to the gym” just about now.
He’d
managed to grab a few minutes alone to text Brooke earlier, letting her know that he’d be at least an hour late. That had been sometime between all the refereeing of his family. After things had calmed down, he’d ordered a new washing machine online, to be delivered on Monday. The machine they had was about seven years old. Since it had practically killed Sheila, he figured they should just get a new one. But Sheila—of all people—gave him an argument. She wanted a repairman to determine exactly what had happened to make the machine short out the way it had. It was almost like she wanted to blame somebody for it. She hadn’t elaborated. But Dylan imagined she wanted to hold Eden or her boyfriend accountable for that, too. Dylan didn’t want to feed into her paranoia any further. He’d found out that the crew that would deliver the new machine would haul away the old one for an extra $20. And Dylan had gladly paid it.
As he’d started off for the high school, he’d dropped off three big bags of dirty laundry at the cleaners near their house. The clerk told him the clothes would be ready tomorrow afternoon. He’d figured, whatever the cost, if it made things a little easier for Sheila right now, then fine.
Waiting in line for a traffic light he’d watched change twice now, Dylan grabbed his phone and texted Brooke again:
Stuck in traffic. Ok to call u?
His phone rang just a few moments later. It was her.
“Hey,” he said into the phone. The light at the intersection changed again, and he moved his car about a space and a half forward. “Did you get my message about being late?”
“Yes.”
“I’m really sorry. It can’t be helped. But I should be there around six-thirty at the latest. Please, tell me you can still make it.”
The Betrayed Wife Page 21