by Brent, Cora
“I miss you too.” A smile spreads across my face. “I might have had a dirty dream about you last night. Are you working?”
“Somebody’s got to make the banana muffins.” He pauses. “Got to tell you something. After we close later, Lana and I are bringing Shane to a rehab facility. It’s about forty miles from here. Looks like a nice place.”
“Oh.” I’m saddened to hear this. I suppose it has to happen, though. Lana’s been worried sick about Shane.
“It’s a good thing,” Jay assures me. “He’ll get the help he needs.”
“You’re right. It’s a good thing.”
There’s a long pause.
“How are your folks?” he asks, slowly and carefully.
“Talk to your fucking father. Maybe he’ll even tell you the truth.”
I have not done that yet. My parents were so overjoyed to see me yesterday, especially my mother. We went out to dinner together and then we watched one of the original Star Wars movies in the living room. They went to bed early.
“They’re fine,” I tell him. “But I think I hear them lurking around outside my door, eagerly waiting for the birthday girl to get up.”
“You should go put in an appearance then.”
“And you should get back to your banana muffins.”
“I want to hear more about this dirty dream when you get home.”
Home.
Yes, the house in Hutton is home now. He’s my home.
“You will. I plan to act out the particulars for you.”
He groans. “Now I have to finish making banana muffins with a boner.”
“I’m sure it’s been done before.”
“Happy birthday, baby.”
I keep touching the butterfly around my neck. “And Happy First Day We Met Anniversary.”
“That too.”
I want to tell him I love him. He’s infuriating and sexy and tender and protective and I don’t need to know anything about his past that’s too painful to share. I just want to know that he’s mine.
There are voices on the other side of my door.
“She’s still asleep, Suzanne,” my fathers stage whispers.
“No, I heard her voice,” my mother insists. “Caris?”
“I got to go,” I tell Jay. “But I’ll be home tomorrow. My flight is supposed to land at four thirty so if it’s on time I should be home a little after five.”
“I’ll be waiting,” he says. “In case you have any doubt, I’d wait for you forever.”
This boy. He doesn’t know what he does to me.
Half a second after I set the phone down my parents crack open the door.
My mother beams when she sees me sitting up in bed.
“Happy birthday, sunshine!” She strolls into the room carrying a bouquet of pink and purple balloons.
“For my sweet girl.” She hands me the balloons and then sits on my bed before folding me in the softest of hugs. I breathe in the smell of her gardenia perfume. She pulls away, moves a strand of hair off my forehead and peers into my eyes with a gentle smile.
Suzanne Chapel Marano has always been beautiful. When I was little and other kids met my mother for the first time they would often exclaim over how pretty she was and I would be puzzled because it had not occurred to me to see her like that. She was just Mom. And mothers are always beautiful, aren’t they?
“Happy birthday, peanut.” My dad leans in and plants a kiss on the top of my head.
“Twenty two years old,” my mother sighs.
“Hard to believe,” my dad agrees in his scratchy baritone. “Don’t know where the times goes. Feels like yesterday I was watching your mother rock you in a chair right over in that corner the day we brought you home from the hospital.”
His hand lands on my mother’s shoulder and she rewards him with a smile. He lives for her smiles. I know he does.
My parents met when my mother was in her first year at the University of Texas. He was twelve years older and a frequent customer at the electronics store where she worked as a cashier. From the little I’ve been told about their romance it was a slow burn. They were married three years later, chose to settle down in Dallas and eventually I came along. For years they tried to give me a sibling and it seemed like a miracle when my mother finally became pregnant again. But it was not to be.
He must have known about her mental health issues before they married. There was never a time in my own memory when I was not aware of ‘Mommy’s sadness’. That’s what my father would call it when she was in the middle of a bad spell that would send her to bed for days, sometimes weeks, on end.
They’ve suffered their ups and downs but I admire them. They’re still together. They love each another. And love is so much more than the easy thrills of romance. Love is also the hard stuff that must be overcome.
They insist that I need to open my presents immediately. I receive a new Kindle reader along with a generous Amazon gift card. There are also boxes of cute clothes picked out by my mother and an adorable hand painted porcelain cat that I can’t wait to add to the shelf above my desk in my bedroom. I feel spoiled and loved and grateful. I’m so lucky to have my parents. So many people don’t have this. My own mother didn’t have this. Jay doesn’t have this.
I can’t really think straight in the morning before a shower so I set my gifts aside, accept another round of enthusiastic hugs, and promise to come to the kitchen for a pancake breakfast as soon as I am showered and dressed.
“Don’t forget we have to go see Aunt Vay this afternoon,” my mother says as she follows my father out of the room. “She’s looking forward to it.”
I nod because it’s become tradition to go visit Aunt Vay in the nursing home on my birthday. She suffered brain damage as a result of her brutal attack and was thereafter unable to care for herself. My parents moved her to a nursing home nearby so they could assist with whatever she needs. The Arcana house, originally Nancy and Richard’s house, was sold. It’s changed hands a couple of times since then. I found pictures of it online at a realtor site. It’s been renovated and looks nothing like the house I remember.
Even though we always go see Aunt Vay on my birthday it’s unlikely she’s looking forward to the visit. She doesn’t remember things from one day to the next and for the last few years the only person she consistently recognizes is her niece. Suzanne. The little girl she raised after her brother’s murder.
The smell of apple cinnamon pancakes greets me after my shower. As I pass through the living room en route to the kitchen I pause to look at the small, framed photo on the end table. It’s my mother’s senior photo, the very same photo that Rafe Hempstead once stole from the house in Arcana. When the house was sold some neighbors offered to help pack it up so my folks wouldn’t need to do it themselves. The furniture was all sold but the personal effects, like the photo, were shipped here. In the corridor that leads to my parents’ bedroom hangs the picture that I used to stare at in Aunt Vay’s house. The last family photo of Richard, Nancy and baby Suzanne.
While I look around the living room, another object catches my eye. It’s a small figurine of a sleeping angel. Inscribed at the base is the name Ella. The name of my sister, who was born sleeping. I think about her often. She’d be nine now. I don’t know how it’s possible to desperately miss someone you never even got to meet but it is.
I find my mother in the kitchen, busily putting the finishing touches on my birthday breakfast. There is a stack of pancakes covered in whipped cream waiting in front of my seat at the table. She’s cut up some strawberries and arranged the slices in a heart shape in the whipped cream.
“Sit down,” she urges and pours me a glass of juice. I watch her closely for any sign of distress but today she seems happy.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He had to run to the store real quick to get a part for the sprinkler system. Apparently it’s leaking again.”
My mom takes a seat across from me and happily watches me dig into my br
eakfast. She’s wearing a cute lemon colored dress that I’m sure I’d fit into with no problem because we have the same figure. She hasn’t dyed her blonde hair lately and it’s noticeably streaked with gray, which on her manages to look glamorous, especially with the way it’s pulled back into a chic bun at the nape of her neck.
“How pretty,” she exclaims and reaches out to touch my butterfly necklace.
“It was a birthday gift. From Jay.”
Her eyes sparkle with interest. “You haven’t mentioned him before. He must be someone special.”
“He’s very special. I care about him very much.”
I take a deep breath. I need to tell her everything.
“Mom, we first met when we were kids, during the summer I spent in Arcana. He’s changed his last name but it used to be Hempstead.”
She doesn’t get upset. Her eyes become thoughtful. “Oh. Is he Clay Hempstead’s son?”
I would think the name would be too painful for her to utter. “Yes, he is.”
She nods. “I knew Clay in high school. He was kind of a hothead but he meant well.”
My mouth falls open. “But…”
She looks at me. “What, sunshine?”
“But he hurt you, Mom. Didn’t he?”
Her eyebrows lift. “Clay? No. Clay never hurt me.” She frowns. “I hope Aunt Vay didn’t tell you that. At a party in high school I had too much to drink. There was this football player named, oh, I forgot his name but he kept trying to get me to come outside with him. Clay got angry and told him to back off, that I was much too drunk to mess around. Then he grumbled that I shouldn’t have come to the party and helped me to his car. He drove me straight home and that’s the only time we were ever alone together. A lot of people saw him escort me to his car. They saw that I could hardly walk and they made up stories. They said I was passed out. They said I was naked. Aunt Vay heard the rumors and got upset. She wouldn’t listen when I told her the truth. Clay Hempstead drove me home from a party and that’s all.”
“He didn’t hurt you,” I say, trying to come to terms with something that has been haunting me for years and was never even true.
“No. Clay didn’t hurt me.” Her tone has changed, softening to a near whisper. Her chin quivers. “He wasn’t the one.”
Clay Hempstead never hurt her. But someone did.
My mother sighs and when she raises her eyes again they are a little teary but she smiles.
“What’s Jay like? Is he nice?”
“He’s perfect. I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
“Yes, I would like that. I would very much like to meet him.”
I can feel my own tears starting. “I love you so much, Mom.”
“Oh, Caris.” Her arms open. “I love you too, baby girl.”
I’m happy to climb right into a long hug. My father has returned from the store and when he walks into the kitchen he smiles at the sight of us embracing. My mother pats my back and reminds me that I ought to eat my breakfast now because we need to leave soon.
Aunt Vay is expecting us.
Caris
The long term care facility looks like a happy place from the outside. The building is a wide, sprawling structure similar to a single story hotel and the exterior is painted red and white. A tiered fountain bubbles in the front courtyard and the multi acre grounds are immaculate.
Aunt Vay’s room is meant for two people but she is currently without a roommate ever since her last one died in her sleep a few months back. When we arrive, Aunt Vay is asleep in her comfortable armchair and there’s a fleece blanket draped across her knees even though the temperature outside is over ninety degrees.
My mother gently calls her name and she stirs, opening her eyes in confusion. At first her gaze lands on me and there’s no light of recognition. Then she sees my mother and her face, so gaunt and creased, breaks into pure happiness.
“Suzanne.” Varina Chapel lifts her thin arms to embrace the one person her damaged mind never forgets.
“Aunt Vay, look. Caris is here. It’s her birthday today. Isn’t she beautiful?”
My aunt’s eyes shift back to me and are not impressed. There’s a scar on her right temple, plainly visible amid the wispy white hair remaining on her frail scalp.
She doesn’t remember the details of her attack. She doesn’t remember slapping me or spitting out the terrible news that my mother was raped as a teenager. She doesn’t remember me at all.
My mother fusses over her aunt, helping her select a soft cardigan to drape over her shoulders and then picking out one of the pretty hats in her closet.
Aunt Vay has absolutely no interest in either me or my father. Her eyes only land on Suzanne. She only smiles at Suzanne.
We usually stay for at least an hour when we visit and this seems like an opportunity. My father and I are overdue for an important conversation.
“Hey Dad, why don’t we go out and get something to bring back for lunch so Mom can visit with Aunt Vay a little longer?”
He clearly likes the thought of getting out of here and running an errand together. “Great idea. What do you want for lunch, Suz?”
It’s decided that the Mexican food restaurant right down the street will do nicely. I suggest walking since it’s so close. After we exit the front door of the nursing home I point to an empty bench.
“Dad, can we sit and talk for a minute?”
“Sure, peanut.”
Once we’re sitting side by side I try to puzzle through what I want to ask him. As far as I know, my father has never lied to me. Sometimes he paints a rosier picture of the world than it really is but he doesn’t lie. At least I don’t think he does.
“I need to ask you about something. It has to do with Arcana.”
He sighs loudly. “Is that reporter bothering you again? I told her to quit calling. We’re not interested in reopening those wounds.”
“Reporter?” I have to think for a moment. “You mean the one who wanted to talk about the show she was working on about the murders?”
“Yes. She’s trying to get the case reopened.”
The news is unexpected. “I don’t understand. Why?”
“There was a man from El Paso who made a deathbed confession to his son. He claimed to have been the one who really killed Nancy and Richard.”
I’m shocked. “Wait, so she’s saying that Billy Hempstead didn’t kill them?”
“I’m sure Billy Hempstead really did kill them. He was convicted. He was given the death penalty. This guy who confessed was either delusional or trying to make himself infamous. The authorities consider the case closed. But supposedly there is still some evidence in storage. Nancy’s dress, I think, among other things. The man’s son has provided a DNA sample and it’s been suggested that testing ought to be performed on the murder evidence to see if there’s a match. Since law enforcement has no interest in pursuing hearsay leads on a murder that was solved decades ago, they would need a relative to sign a consent form to access the evidence.”
I need a moment to process this. My mind rattles off the memorized details of the grisly case.
Billy Hempstead never confessed. His conviction was based on multiple witness testimonies. He did engage in a fistfight with Richard Chapel at the Roundabout Bar. He was drunk and furious. Around the time of the murders he was seen on the very road where Richard and Nancy’s car broke down. He was known to still carry a torch for Nancy, his high school girlfriend. Those who knew him say he never recovered from their breakup, not even after he married and had a son.
There was no DNA testing at the time. There were no other suspects. Billy had a violent temper at times and he had both motive and opportunity.
The fact that he insisted on his innocence was not considered important. After all, murderers do that all the time.
And so do people who really are innocent.
All my life I’ve known that Billy Hempstead killed my grandparents.
And most likely he did.
&nb
sp; But maybe not.
Maybe not.
My mouth has gone dry. “What does Mom think about all of this?”
My dad looks down and toys with his wedding ring. “I don’t see any reason to bother your mother with this ugliness.”
“You don’t? They were her parents. Don’t you think she deserves to know what really happened to them?”
He sighs and looks off into the distance. “This would upset her.”
“Oh for god’s sake, she’s not a child, Dad!”
The outburst surprises me. And him. His eyes widen and then become wounded.
“From the day I met your mother I’ve always done everything in my power to protect her.”
“I know.” I lower my voice. “I know you have. But it’s her decision whether or not to pursue this.”
He sighs. “You’re right. But the past still hurts her. Arcana still hurts her. I’m not sure she’s ever forgiven me for sending you there when she was in the hospital.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your mother didn’t know you were in Arcana. She thought her aunt had come to Dallas to stay at the house with you.”
“Why wouldn’t you want her to know that I was there, staying with Aunt Vay?””
“Because she hates that place so much. Even hearing the name Arcana would set her off. And at the time, after Ella… She was in such fragile shape, Caris. I refrained from mentioning anything that would upset her.” He gives me a pleading look. “I thought she hated her hometown only because of what happened to her parents. She loves Varina and Varina was always so devoted to her. It never crossed my mind that sending you to Arcana would place you in any danger. Then I had to tell her about Varina’s attack. I’d already brought you home by then but she freaked when she found out you’d been staying in Arcana. You see, honey, she never told me about Gary.”
A terrible suspicion begins to take root.
The way my aunt’s boyfriend would look at me. The way he would lurk outside my bedroom door.
“Clay didn’t hurt me. He wasn’t the one.”
I try to swallow but I can’t. “Never told you what about Gary?”