The House on Harbor Hill

by Shelly Stratton

  As Tracey had basked in the warmth of a good meal in what seemed like a beautiful, loving home, she had started to seriously consider accepting Delilah’s offer to move into Harbor Hill with the children. But then she remembered Jessica’s dire warning. She remembered the rumor.

  They say she killed someone . . .

  But how could Delilah possibly be a killer? Tracey had wondered this as she watched Delilah dole out mashed potatoes and charm those at the table with stories about her childhood, where she’d lived on a farm in Virginia filled with apple trees and surrounded by tobacco fields. Delilah didn’t look like she’d lift a hand to swat a fly, let alone murder someone.

  But people could wear masks. Paul certainly had. Why would Delilah be any different?

  “You look good, Mom,” Tracey said with a false cheeriness and a tight smile, turning away from the older black woman sitting on the other side of the sandwich shop.

  She watched as her mother pulled out the chair facing her. Her mother wrinkled her nose, removed one of the paper napkins from the dispenser at the center of the table, and wiped at an invisible spot on the chair before taking a seat. Caleb climbed onto the chair beside his grandmother, flipped open his coloring book, and grabbed a blue crayon.

  “Thank you,” her mother replied as she placed her purse on the table and eyed Tracey. “You look tired—and skinny. Are you eating?”

  “When I can. Working in a hotel restaurant kind of puts you off your appetite most days, anyway. All that food . . . all those smells.”

  Her mother wrinkled her pert nose again. “You’re still working as a waitress?”

  Tracey lowered her eyes and nodded. She bounced Maggie more vigorously as she did it. The toddler looked like she was perched on a pogo stick.

  “Why haven’t you found another job yet?”

  “You don’t think I’ve tried, Mom? I have!” To her own ears, she sounded a lot like Caleb; she sounded like she was whining. “But . . . you know . . . most of the better paying jobs want people with . . . well, college degrees and experience and—”

  “Which is what you would have if you hadn’t have dropped out!”

  “You know why I dropped out,” Tracey snapped.

  “Yes, I know, but that doesn’t mean I was happy about it. A mother has a right to be disappointed about something like that.”

  “I couldn’t take the morning sickness!”

  “What’s morning sicky-ness?” Caleb repeated slowly, looking up from his coloring book at Tracey, but both women ignored him.

  “I lost more than fifteen pounds, Mom! Remember, my gyno had to put me on that medication. The same they give to chemo patients. I couldn’t make it to my classes. My grades dropped. If I hadn’t left Drexel, they probably would’ve kicked me out anyway.”

  And she had planned to go back after Caleb was born. She had wanted to go back—but Paul had talked her out of it. He’d said finishing her degree wasn’t necessary. She would take care of their child, and he would take care of her.

  She now wanted to laugh at the naïveté of her twenty-one-year-old self.

  “Oh, Trace,” her mother now lamented, slowly shaking her head. “You’re always full of excuses, aren’t you?”

  “It’s not an excuse! It’s the truth!”

  “Excuse after excuse after excuse,” her mother continued, as if she hadn’t heard her. “You’re making excuses even now. Your situation. . . your life is your own doing, sweetheart. You could go back home and try again with Paul, try to make it work. But you haven’t.”

  “I told you why I left him. I told you what he—”

  “Yes! Yes, I know what Paul did,” Gwendolyn said, rolling her eyes, “and it wasn’t right.”

  “ ‘Wasn’t right’ is putting it lightly!”

  “But everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect!”

  Tracey’s lap felt hot and clammy. She fidgeted in her chair and shifted Maggie, who was squirming in her arms.

  “And the thing is, Trace . . . I can’t keep giving you money.” The older woman pursed her lips and glanced at Caleb, who was back to coloring Elmo’s pirate hat. “You do need more money, right? That’s why you called me?”

  Tracey didn’t respond.

  “Well, I can’t help you—not anymore. I’m all tapped out. Harold cut back my allowance,” she said in a stage whisper as she leaned forward.

  Harold was Tracey’s stepfather, Gwendolyn’s third husband. He was the owner of two car dealerships and always smelled vaguely of Bengay and the cigarettes his doctor had banned him from smoking. Harold was one of many men in Tracey’s mother’s life who had financially supported her in the past thirty or so years. In fact, when Tracey had married Paul, her mother had applauded her decision because he reminded her so much of her own boyfriends.

  “It’s a shame you dropped out of school, but at least you made a good choice with Paul. If you didn’t catch him, someone else definitely would’ve—like me!” she had said with a laugh.

  Even at the time, Tracey had known her mother was only half joking.

  “Harold got a look at my credit card bill from last month, and he went ballistic, absolutely ballistic!” her mother now continued, rifling through her handbag. She pulled out a small gold compact and flipped it open. She squinted at her reflection and tucked a few wayward strands of hair back into place. “Harry can be so melodramatic sometimes. I think one of his dealerships isn’t doing well. I told him he should just hire new staff, but he won’t listen to me. And he started a new diet. He always gets cranky when he’s on a diet. Well, anyway,” she said, dropping her compact back into her purse and waving her hand, “I’m tapped out. I can’t give you any more cash.”

  Tracey nodded, though she could feel her throat tightening and going dry. That was it—no more help. She was officially on her own.

  “This is for you, Grandma,” Caleb piped before shoving a drawing toward Gwendolyn. Again, she nodded politely.

  “I . . . I understand. I appreciate all . . . all that you’ve done already,” Tracey said, staring down at Maggie’s head, at the wispy curls swirling at her crown. She startled when her mother suddenly reached across the table and grabbed her hand. Her mother had never done that before.

  “Just go back to Paul, dear. You’ve made your point. Trust me! He’s heard it loud and clear. He knows he was wrong and feels horrible for what he’s done. He told me himself!”

  “He told you himself?” Tracey yanked her hand back. “You spoke to him?”

  “Well, of course, I spoke to him! What a silly question. All you left him was an empty house and a note! He had to look for you. Being your mother, he came to me first.”

  She squinted at her mother in disbelief.

  “He was really concerned. He still is, Trace!”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Well, I . . . I told him that you and the children were fine, that you were safe. Like I said . . . he was very concerned.”

  “But did you tell him where we went? Did you tell him where we live?”

  Even before her mother spoke, Tracey knew the answer. She could tell from the way her mother hesitated—how she anxiously licked her lips and averted her brown eyes to the sales counter.

  Tracey started to tremble. It was a tremor threatening to turn into a full earthquake.

  “Trace,” her mother whispered, finally looking at her again, “I didn’t have to tell him. He would’ve figured it out himself—eventually. He could’ve . . . I don’t know . . . hired a detective to look for you. People do that nowadays. I see it on TV all the time!”

  It had all been a waste, Tracey thought as she dazedly shook her head while her mother prattled on.

  She had moved twice in less than a year, packing her things when she caught a whiff of Paul on her trail. She had changed their last name and started over again. She’d had friends she’d once considered close but hadn’t spoken to in almost a year. Tracey had lived like a hermit, like a Luddite, avoiding Facebook and Tw
itter for fear one day Paul would stumble upon a photo of her or the children and discover where they were. She had drilled into Caleb his new last name, how they should never talk about home and avoid talking about his father.

  All her efforts had been pointless.

  And what had it taken for her mother to sell her out? Had Paul offered her an expensive gift to coax the secret out of her—or maybe money?

  “Let’s be honest, honey, if Paul was really going to come after you, he would have done it by now! Don’t you see? He’s not some boogeyman or crazy stalker. You don’t have to—”

  She stopped when Tracey leapt from her bistro chair, almost dropping Maggie to the tiled floor as she did. The little girl started to cry, but Tracey barely heard her. Instead of her daughter, her focus was on the floor-to-ceiling windows. Her eyes scanned the cars parked along the sidewalk and those in the lot next to the sandwich shop. She searched for a black Mercedes among the pack—her husband’s Mercedes.

  “Get your things, Caleb!” she ordered, grabbing for his crayons, which were strewn along the tabletop. A few fell and tumbled to her feet, rolling in all directions. She flipped his coloring book closed, making him jump back in surprise. “We have to go! We have to go right now!”

  Caleb frowned. “Why do we have to go, Mommy? I thought we—”

  “We just have to go! Now pack up!”

  Several eyes in the shop shifted toward their table. Heads pivoted in their direction, drawn by Maggie’s wails and Tracey’s shouting. Tracey reached for her purse, which was draped on the back of her chair, and threw it over her shoulder.

  “Trace, what are you doing?” her mother asked, staring up at her uneasily. “Why are you leaving?”

  “You promised me you wouldn’t tell him!” Tracey yelled, making her mother flinch. “You promised!”

  “But it’s not like I gave your address. I don’t even know the address! I just told him you were still in the area. He was worried you’d moved to California or Hawaii or something. Please, Trace just . . . just calm down!”

  Was her mother telling the truth?

  Caleb sat frozen in his chair. He started to sniff.

  “Why aren’t you moving? I said we have to go!” she yelled at him, making him cringe and Maggie scream even louder.

  “Trace,” her mother whistled through clenched teeth, “you’re upsetting the children.”

  But her mother hadn’t seen the kids upset, not really—not like they’d been the moment she’d decided finally to leave Paul. It was the part of the story she hadn’t told her mother because it made her queasy to tell it.

  If it wasn’t for that day, Tracey would have been content to stay locked in her expensive, beautiful prison at the end of the cul-de-sac on Holly Lane for the rest of her life.

  It isn’t such a bad prison when you think about it, she had rationalized for years.

  At least she was surrounded by other lovely homes filled with mothers who coordinated carpools and helped with homework, and fathers who coached Little League and held barbeques. It was what she had always wanted in her own childhood—a sense of family and belonging. So what if her husband slapped her for forgetting to buy laundry detergent or shoved her into a wall for leaving the lights on in the basement overnight? It could be worse!

  But that morning, Paul had hit Caleb—something he had never done before. He had slapped him over something as trivial as knocking over a coffee cup.

  Tracey had been reaching for the paper towels to clean up the mess when it happened. It had caught her off guard, and she had tugged the roll so hard she’d sent the paper towels streaming across the counter. She had almost dropped Maggie, who’d been cradled against her side.

  The loud slap had startled a normally talkative Caleb into silence.

  “Shit!” Paul had spat as he shoved back from the kitchen table and dabbed the dime-sized spot of coffee on his shirt with a napkin. “Be more careful next time, Cabe!”

  He’d tossed the napkin onto the table, complaining that he didn’t have time to change, that he had to get to an early office meeting.

  While he’d spoken, Tracey had watched, paralyzed, as tears slid over Caleb’s reddened cheek.

  “What a way to start the day,” Paul had mumbled ruefully seconds later as he rose to his feet and walked out of the kitchen.

  “It’s okay, honey,” Tracey had whispered to her son when the front door slammed shut behind Paul. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  But it wasn’t “okay,” and Caleb knew it. He had cried silently at first, but then began to hiccup and sob, his thin shoulders shaking as he gulped for air.

  Hearing her brother’s cries, Maggie had begun to wail. The infant’s tiny face had twisted into a tight ball of outrage. She’d sobbed even louder than Caleb.

  The slaps, punches, shoves, and hair pulling had been Tracey’s and Paul’s dirty little secret, hidden beneath long-sleeved shirts, sunglasses, and makeup, buried under painted-on smiles and false laughter. Now the dirty little secret had been whispered into her babies’ ears.

  Tracey had realized that day it wasn’t just about her anymore. She came to the realization again now.

  She turned from the shop window and looked down at her children—their frightened, bewildered faces. She told herself to pull it together, to patch herself with glue, gum, tape—whatever was necessary to not fall apart right now. Her children needed her to keep it together. If she had done it before, she could damn well do it again.

  Tracey took several deep breaths. She leaned down and scooped Maggie into her arms.

  “Shsssh, honey,” she whispered into the little girl’s ear before kissing her cheek. She then reached over the table toward Caleb. She ruffled his hair. “Mommy’s . . . Mommy is sorry she yelled at you,” she began in an even voice. “We just . . . we just have to go now, all right? I’ll even let you change clothes as soon as we get home.”

  He smiled a little.

  “But I only just got here,” her mother protested. “I drove all the way to—”

  “I don’t have anything else to say to you,” Tracey snarled, whipping around and glaring at her mother.

  The older woman’s mouth clamped shut.

  A minute later, Tracey and the children emerged from the sandwich shop. She looked from her left to her right, still on the lookout for Paul’s car, waiting for the moment he would call out her name and come charging across the parking lot toward her.

  “Mommy, you’re squeezing my hand too tight!” Caleb said.

  She looked down and realized that his fingers were turning white in her clammy hand. She loosened her grip slightly. “Sorry, honey.”

  She and the children walked toward the car and climbed inside. All the while, Tracey told herself not to panic, not to fall apart. But she could feel it loosening—the glue and the tape patching her together. Her hands shook as she fastened the lock on Maggie’s car seat and then as she inserted her key into the ignition.

  She startled again when she heard a male voice, only to realize it was the sound of the newscaster on her car radio announcing the weather.

  High of 68 with a 30 percent chance of rain . . .

  “Mommy?”

  Tracey turned to Caleb, pulled by the worry in his voice.

  “Mommy, are you okay?”

  She knew he was asking her about more than her current emotional state. He needed reassurance that she was with him, that she could protect him.

  “I’m fine. We’re fine, sweetheart,” she lied.

  But her lie was sufficient. He slowly nodded, then gazed out the car windshield at the sandwich shop where his grandmother still sat at the bistro table, staring out at them.

  “When will we see Grandma again?”

  “Probably not for a while.”

  She threw the minivan into reverse, pulling out of her parking space. When she turned, the image of her mother disappeared behind the glare of the sunlight refracting off the window glass. It was replaced by the reflection of the gas sta
tion across the street.

  We might not see her ever again, she thought, but she didn’t say it aloud.

  If living with Paul had taught her anything, it was to be careful with her words; some thoughts were best kept to yourself.

  Caleb nodded thoughtfully again before reaching down to retrieve his Hulk action figure from the car floor. He held it aloft, moving Hulk’s arms up and down.

  “I don’t think Grandma likes seeing us anyway. She always talks about how we’re too far away. I don’t think she likes driving for a long time.”

  Tracey didn’t comment but instead continued to drive.

  “Will we see Miss Delilah again?” He sat upright in his seat. The fear had left his voice. “I like her!”

  “I like her too,” Tracey whispered, turning onto a roadway.

  “So will we?” he persisted, lowering the Hulk to his lap and gazing at Tracey.

  “I don’t know, honey. Maybe.”

  He seemed to contemplate her answer.

  “I think we will,” he said after some seconds, then stared at the sidewalk.

  CHAPTER 8

  Blackberry. Blackberry. Where the hell is the blackberry?

  Delilah stood on the balls of her feet and peered at the kitchen cabinet shelf overhead. Her eyes scanned the line of cans and jars in front of her, skipping from the Cento tomatoes to the boysenberry preserves. She shifted two cans aside, dropped back to her heels, and pursed her lips.

  Aidan must have used the last of her blackberry jam. Why hadn’t he told her? She kept a chalkboard near the fridge where they could list items she needed to purchase at the grocer every week. He often laughed at her list; he thought it was an anal-retentive nuisance.

  “If you need something, I’ll just head out and buy it for you, Dee,” he had said casually only two weeks ago. “No big deal!”

  Well, now she needed blackberry jam, and Aidan wasn’t here to get it.

  He had disappeared early that morning, driving off in his Toyota pickup without so much as a good-bye. He hadn’t said more than a few words to her since their blowup after the dinner with Tracey Walters and her children a week ago.