The House on Harbor Hill

by Shelly Stratton

  “When did it happen? How did it happen?”

  “I tripped and fell on the stairs. I landed on my stomach. It was an—”

  “Accident?” she finishes for me. “You seem to have a lot of those.”

  “I’m just clumsy,” I say weakly.

  “Delilah, tell the truth! Is that man beating on you? Did he push you down the stairs and make you lose your baby?”

  I shake my head. “No! He didn’t push me . . . I-I fell. I did!”

  “So how did you get that thing on your face? Did you fall then too?”

  I lower my eyes to my feet.

  “Girl, you can’t stay here! You have to get out of this house and away from him!”

  “He feels bad for . . . for what happened. He knows he’s wrong. He wouldn’t admit it before, but I think he . . . he finally realizes it now.”

  Agnes purses her lips.

  “He’s giving the house to me! He’s putting my name on it. He showed me! He made me the beneficiary in his will. He wants to make up for everything he’s done, and—”

  “Delilah Grey, shut up! Just shut up and listen to me—and you listen to me good!” She points her finger up at me. “You didn’t listen before, and look where it got you. That man beats you! And I don’t believe for one damn minute he isn’t behind you losing that baby! What difference does it make if you have his name or get this house or get his money when he dies. You ain’t gonna live long enough to see that goddamn money! Those daydreams of yours are gonna get you killed!”

  I open my mouth to argue, to tell her that she’s wrong, but then she grabs my shoulders again and shakes me. She shakes me hard. The look on her face is frantic, like she sees me sinking into the ocean and she’s throwing me the last life preserver.

  “Dee, you either need to leave this house—or kill him. You hear me?” she says in a harsh whisper. “Because if you don’t, he’ll kill you first.”

  CHAPTER 34

  I think about Agnes’s words for the next week. From one moment to the next, my resolve shifts. One minute, I agree with her and start to gather my things, to pile my clothes on the bed so I can pack them in a suitcase. A few minutes later I return my clothes to their drawers and the closet. I decide Agnes has the right to be worried, but I have things under control now.

  Cee is still full of apologies, and this time, he’s not just pretending to be sorry. He finally realizes what he’s done wrong, and he wants to be better. I can see it. He isn’t as quick to anger. He hasn’t hit me since I’ve come back from the hospital or shouted at me. He seems better.

  Another week passes, then another. Nothing happens. Cee and I settle into a routine that I expect normal married people would follow. I finally start to feel like things may have changed permanently between us. Agnes’s warning begins to fade into the back of my mind.

  I come home from grocery shopping Monday evening to find Cee sitting in the living room, staring at the television. I can hear the Bonanza soundtrack.

  “Hey! How was your day?” I ask, juggling my paper bags and closing the front door with my foot.

  He doesn’t look at me or answer. Instead, he continues to smoke his cigarette. I can see that his flask is in his other hand.

  “I’m making meatloaf and mashed potatoes,” I call out to him. “Your favorite.”

  He still doesn’t answer, and I walk down the hall toward the kitchen. I take off my coat and throw it over a chair. I begin to unload the groceries, opening the refrigerator and putting the butter and milk on the shelf. When I close the door, Cee is standing a foot away from me. I jump in surprise.

  “Honey, you scared me!” I say, dropping my hand to my chest. “I didn’t hear you walk in here.”

  “They kicked me out,” he says with a frown.

  “What? Who kicked you out?”

  “Those sons of bitches at the country club! Now that Mama’s gone and they don’t have to kiss her ass anymore, they kicked me out. Revoked my membership!” he pauses to bring his flask to his lips. He takes a swig. “They actually put it to a board vote. Said my behavior wasn’t becoming and in proper representation of the club. They tried to say it was because I’ve been drunk a few times at the clubhouse, but I know why they really did it.” He squints at me. “They did it because of you.”

  I don’t comment. Instead, I return to the groceries. I grab a loaf of bread from the bag and walk across the room to put it away.

  “Do you even care how much I’ve sacrificed for you, Delilah?” he says to my back. “Do you know what I’ve put up with? I’ve lost my friends . . . my family. My mother’s dead and my sister’s disowned me. I’ve ruined my name. No one wants to be around me anymore because I married a Colored gal!”

  “No, no one wants to be around you anymore because you’re always drunk,” I mutter.

  “What did you say?” he asks between clenched teeth. “What the hell did you just say to me?”

  He stomps across the kitchen and grabs a chunk of my hair. I shout out in pain. He pulls and whips me around to face him.

  “Stop it, Cee! You said you weren’t gonna do this anymore!”

  “You think you can just say whatever the fuck you want to me, you ungrateful little bitch!” he shouts, spitting into my face. I can smell the alcohol on his breath, and I cringe. “You think I’m just gonna take it!”

  I don’t know what came over me—instinct or just being fed up with all of this, all of his broken promises and anger—but I grab one of the knives from a butcher block on the counter. I do it with my free hand, lightning fast. I point it up at him.

  You need to leave this house—or kill him. Those were Agnes’s very words, and I tremble at the idea that she was right again. I have no other choice.

  He releases me and squints down at the steak knife in my hand. “What the hell are you doing? You’re gonna stab me, Dee?”

  I don’t answer him. I continue to point the knife up at him.

  “You goddamn cunt! You fucking bitch!” He drops his flask to the counter and grins. Mr. Hyde is back. He begins to unbutton the cuffs of his shirt, to roll up the sleeves like he’s preparing for heavy labor. “Well, you better kill me or kill yourself, because once I get my hands on you, you’re gonna wish you were dead.”

  I take one hesitant step back, then another. He follows each step.

  “Stay away from me, Cee!” I scream through my tears that are blurring my vision. The trembling of my hand increases, and I look like I’m waving the knife instead of pointing it at him. “Leave me alone!”

  “Do it! Do it, Dee!”

  I try to work up the will to stab him, to force my hand to plunge forward—but I can’t. Even after all that he’s done to me, I can’t kill him. Instead, I turn and rush down the hall. I run toward the stairs, and he comes chasing after me. The steak knife falls from my hand in my haste, but at least this time, I don’t trip on the runner. I rush straight up the stairs to head to the bedroom.

  “I’m gonna kill you, you bitch!”

  When I reach the bedroom, even if he locks me in, this time I will call the police. He will not harm me anymore. I will not die tonight.

  I start to reach the top step but feel myself being yanked back. He’s grabbed onto the belt of my dress. He pulls again, and I lose my footing. I try to regain my balance, but I can’t. My forehead goes crashing onto the newel post.

  I don’t have the chance to scream before everything goes black.

  * * *

  When I wake up near the top of the staircase, the sun is up. It floods through the opened front door, and the bright light blinds me for a bit. I can feel the cold air from outside rush over me, lighting goose bumps on my arms. I squint and look around me dazedly, wondering what happened. Why is the door open?

  “Cee?” I call out and then look at the bottom of the staircase, where he seems to be sleeping for some reason. “C-Cee?”

  He doesn’t move, and for the first time I realize that his head is at an odd angle. It’s facing the wrong wa
y from the rest of his body, away from me, though his torso is turned toward me.

  I let out a shrill cry and scramble to my feet. When I do, I instantly feel a pounding in my head. My vision blurs a little. “Cee! Cee, oh, my God!”

  I rush down the stairs to him and see that his eyes are wide open, staring out the door. No, not out the door. He’s staring at a place that even I can’t see.

  “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” I keep repeating as I peer down at him.

  I don’t know what else to say.

  Part V

  Camden Beach, Maryland

  April 2017

  CHAPTER 35

  The sun hadn’t made its way past the horizon before the storm clouds chased it away, covering the sky with a dull gray blanket no light could pierce. From the moment Aidan opened his eyes, even before he raised his head from his pillow, he could hear the torrential rain beating against his window and Harbor Hill’s roof like someone was taking a fire hose to the brick and siding. With the rain came an unholy stench, a toxic mix of rotting fish and boiled shit thanks to the bay coming ashore and the town’s sewer mains overflowing. The smell would make most of the inhabitants of Camden Beach frown and hold their noses as they crossed the street, as they walked along the town’s sidewalks.

  Aidan knew it would be inescapable, much like the realization of what today was, of what had happened on this day exactly five years ago. He could not ignore it or forget it, even if he wanted to.

  Delilah, who was well aware of the date and the effect it had on Aidan, mercifully kept her distance. When he didn’t come down for breakfast, she knocked on his door and told him that a plate of scrambled eggs and toast waited for him in the fridge.

  He looked up from the last of the boxes he was packing and nodded at her. “Thanks, Dee.”

  He made his way downstairs to the kitchen an hour later, ignoring the plate of breakfast on the top shelf. Instead, he grabbed the six-pack on the bottom shelf and took it with him back to his room.

  Delilah knocked again at around noon to ask him if he wanted lunch. He told her no and turned up the music on his stereo, letting the mournful tunes drown out the sound of the rain.

  Caleb didn’t know what today was and didn’t understand why his buddy refused to leave his room.

  “Aidan? Aidan?” Aidan heard along with a knock after he had finished his third beer and smoothed the masking tape over one of the cardboard boxes at the foot of his bed.

  It would join the other boxes he would load in his truck to take to his new place—a condo he was renting in the new waterfront complex. He had already signed the lease and gotten the keys last week. All he had to do was move in.

  “Aidan?” Caleb shouted again, knocking louder.

  Aidan sighed. He guessed he couldn’t continue to pretend like he hadn’t heard the kid. He glanced at his opened six-pack. He couldn’t let Caleb see it, to get any inkling that Aidan was slowly drinking himself into a stupor during daylight hours, so he quickly hid the empty bottles, along with the six-pack, in the bottom drawer of his night table. He crossed his bedroom, cracked open the door, and found Caleb peering up with him, holding two wooden paddles.

  “It’s raining, and Mom won’t let me play outside. Will you play Ping-Pong with me downstairs?” Caleb asked.

  Aidan leaned against the door frame and shook his head. “Sorry, not today.”

  “But I’ll let you win a few games. Please?”

  “I’m a little busy, Cabe. Not today.”

  Caleb peered around Aidan’s shoulder into the bedroom, as if inspecting it for some evidence of a project he was working on. “Busy doin’ what?” Caleb asked, sounding skeptical.

  “Adult stuff.”

  Caleb lowered the paddles to his side, looking dejected. “That’s just what grown-ups say when they want you to go away,” he mumbled before turning around with his head bowed and shoulders slumped. He began to walk back down the hall toward the staircase.

  “Shit,” Aidan muttered under his breath, watching Caleb’s retreating back. He opened his mouth to shout for Caleb to stop, to tell him he would play Ping-Pong with him after all—but he held back. Instead, he closed his bedroom door and opened another beer.

  “It’s not my fucking problem,” Aidan whispered before taking a swig.

  He was tired of the guilt trips everyone in this damn house had been dumping on him lately, tired of feeling like he had disappointed them.

  He knew he had disappointed Tracey. She had stated it plainly, and she’d practically radiated the message ever since—in her body language, in how she would no longer look him in the eyes. She was never mean to him. She hadn’t uttered one unkind word in his presence. But that stilted politeness from someone you had sincerely cared for, and maybe even grown to love, seemed crueler.

  He had disappointed Delilah too. Not only was he moving out and leaving her alone to fend for herself at Harbor Hill in a week, he had almost talked her into selling her house to that psycho Teddy—to the very man who had been harassing her for months. Aidan would never forgive himself for that. He had tried to make amends by going to the police, filing a report, and telling them what the pompous Theodore Williams had done. He had gotten a half-hearted promise from the investigating detective at the sheriff’s office, who said they would “look into it,” but it was almost a month later, and nothing had come of it.

  Delilah had warned Aidan that it would be pointless to go to the cops for help, and he hadn’t listened. Now she had been proven right.

  Aidan slumped back onto his bed, exhaling as he landed.

  He didn’t need this. He felt bad enough as it was. But he couldn’t help feeling like he was being buried under an ever increasing pile of sadness and regret. It made it hard to think. It made it hard to breathe. He was drowning.

  * * *

  A little before midnight, Aidan finally emerged from his bedroom. Everyone else in Harbor Hill was fast asleep, judging from the silence and darkness that permeated the house. Only his footsteps and the squeak of the floorboards under his weight filled the void.

  “Good,” Aidan muttered as he walked down the hall.

  He’d finished his six-pack and was in search of more to drink. He didn’t want to run into Tracey or, worse, Delilah, with their questioning gazes. They’d take one look at him with his heavy-lidded eyes, his wrinkled clothes, and the smell of alcohol on his breath and start judging him.

  To hell with that shit, he thought before letting out a rumbling belch.

  He was going to fall asleep drunk, and he planned to do so without a lecture. Six beers on an empty stomach was getting him well on his way there.

  Aidan steadied himself as he descended to the first floor by grabbing the handrail to keep his balance. When he stepped onto the hardwood, he noticed a light was on in the kitchen. Delilah must have left it on. She always did things like that. She had gotten used to him following behind her, turning off lights and the television whenever she forgot. But he wouldn’t be here to do that anymore.

  He stepped into the kitchen, expecting to find an empty room. He was surprised to see Tracey sitting on one of the stools at the island.

  A stack of textbooks sat in front of her, one with its pages fanned opened. She was scribbling into a spiral notebook, pausing to grab a highlighter and draw a bright yellow line across a few sentences. When Aidan stepped into the kitchen entryway, she looked up.

  “Burning the midnight oil, huh?” he asked.

  “I have an econ test in a couple of days.”

  “You couldn’t study in the office upstairs?”

  “I prefer the kitchen. I knew I wouldn’t keep getting up and leaving the office for a snack or coffee if it’s all right next to me and I could spread out.” She gestured to all the books. “I’ve fallen a little behind on one of the chapters, so I’m crunching to try to catch up.”

  “Well, crunch away! I’ll be out of your hair soon. Just came down for a little . . . uh . . . snack too,” he said with
a drunken smile as he strolled toward the refrigerator, bumping into the island edge as he did it. He tugged open one of the stainless steel doors, gripping the handle for balance as he leaned down.

  “I haven’t seen you all day.”

  “Oh?” he said, scanning the shelves, shifting aside a jar of preserved peaches and a container filled with leftover mac and cheese.

  “Yeah, I thought you weren’t home until Caleb told me you were in your room.”

  “I’m honored that you cared.”

  All the beer was gone, unfortunately, but he spotted a Smirnoff ice malt toward the back. It wasn’t an ideal choice, but he guessed it would have to do. Aidan tugged it out, turned, and found Tracey staring at him and restlessly tapping her pen against her notebook.

  He narrowed his eyes at her, feeling the tingle of a female judgment wriggle down his spine.

  “What?” he snapped. “What is it?”

  She stopped tapping her pen and shifted on the stool. She cleared her throat. “Look, Aidan, I-I know that things have been a little . . . tense between us.”

  He choked back a laugh and twisted open the lid of the bottle. The metal lid fell to the tiled floor with a clink. He raised the bottle to his lips and took a drink.

  “I was hurt by what happened. I admit that. But just because we didn’t work out doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring. I still care about you, and I’ll be honest, you’re starting to worry me.”

  He slammed the stainless steel door shut. “Why the hell would you be worried about me?”

  “For starters . . . you’ve been distant lately.”

  He tipped the bottle to his lips again, muffling his grumble of exasperation. She had told him she wanted nothing to do with him, and now she was wondering why he was being so distant?

  Jesus Christ!

  “And it’s not just me who’s noticed,” she continued. “Delilah has too. Even Caleb has asked about what’s going on with you.”

  He snorted. “Considering that I’m going to be out of all your hair in six days, I’m not sure why you’re expending that much energy on little ol’ me.”