The House on Harbor Hill

by Shelly Stratton

  “I’m serious! It didn’t help that you made the announcement out of nowhere that you were moving out. Caleb was really disappointed when he heard that—”

  “Do me favor,” he said, cutting her off. He set his bottle on the island and braced his hands along the edge. “Stop fucking hiding behind your kids.”

  She blinked. “I wasn’t hiding behind him. I just know you guys have developed a relationship—a friendship. He would never say it himself, so I was telling you how hurt he—”

  “ ‘I’m just worried about Caleb . . . I have to think of my children now, Aidan,’” he said, imitating her. He rolled his eyes. “If you feel some kind of way about me, just say it, goddammit!”

  The kitchen fell silent. She shook her head. “I’m sorry I brought it up. It was a bad idea to do this now. Obviously, this conversation is going nowhere.”

  “Fuck!” he yelled. “Don’t do that shit either!”

  “Don’t do what, Aidan?”

  “Don’t start in on me and then retreat like I came at you first. Like I’ve done something wrong!” He walked around the island, pointing at her. “Trish used to do that shit all the time: pick a fight, then act all wounded when I came back at her! It pisses me off!”

  She began to close her textbooks and notebook, to grab her pen and highlighter. “I’m not doing this,” she said, shaking her head again. She rose from her stool. “It’s the middle of the night. Everyone else is asleep, and I just don’t have the energy for it. I’m going to bed. Good night.”

  “No! No, don’t fucking walk off! Finish what you started!” He banged his fist on the tabletop. “This shit is so typical! I should’ve known—”

  “I’m not Trish!” She gathered her books in her arms. “I’m not your wife!”

  “You think I don’t fucking know that?”

  “You must not because you keep comparing me to her. You keep blaming me, and I don’t have to put up with this!” She then turned around and headed to the kitchen entrance.

  “Because you keep dumping the same guilt trip on me that she always did!” he shouted at the back of her head. “It must be genetic. . . like it’s on the X chromosome to make a guy feel like shit. Yes, I fucked up! I know that! But let’s be honest, I could never really please you, could I? A guy like me will never be good enough!”

  She whipped back around. “That’s what you’ve been telling yourself? That my standards are too high?” She shook her head again, looking disgusted. Her cheeks burned bright. “You’ve got some nerve, Aidan Dominguez! If you were this stubborn and dense with your wife, no wonder your marriage fell apart! No wonder she kicked you out and you had to come running here!”

  At that, his face drained of all color. He took an unsteady step back, bumping into one of the kitchen stools. Seeing his reaction, realizing what she’d said, Tracey instantly looked remorseful. She dropped her books back to the countertop. She closed her eyes.

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry, Aidan. I didn’t mean that.”

  “Yes, you did.” He grabbed his bottle and walked around her with his head lowered, no longer able to look at her. He made his way across the kitchen.

  “Aidan? Aidan, come on!” she said, reaching out to him, placing a hand on his arm. “I didn’t mean it. Don’t leave like—”

  “I didn’t fucking come here because my marriage fell apart or my wife kicked me out!” he yelled, snatching his arm out of her grasp. “I came here because I couldn’t stand to live in the same town where my wife and my kid died! All right? I wanted to get as far away from fucking Chicago as possible.”

  “W-what?”

  “They died in a car crash! The accident was five years ago today. Trish got hit by a fucking eighteen-wheeler while she was driving through an intersection. Our baby, Annabelle, died instantly. Trish stayed on life support for about three days before she died too.”

  Tracey continued to gape.

  “She hated driving,” he rambled. “I did most of it because I knew how much she hated being behind the wheel. She never should’ve been on the road that night, but we were separated, so I . . . I couldn’t drive for her anymore. I wish she’d just gotten a fucking Uber.” He let out a chuckle, and Tracey cringed. “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. ‘How can he laugh about something like this? He must be a real son of a bitch.’ Well, you’re right. I am. And I’m an even bigger son of a bitch than you think—I skipped the funeral. I stayed home and got drunk. I pissed off her parents, but I didn’t care. There was no way I was going. There was no way I was going to see her and our little girl in those boxes.”

  Tracey’s face crumpled. She actually looked on the verge of crying. “Oh, Aidan, I’m so—”

  “Sorry?” He sneered, furious that she had made him talk about something so painful, something he had refused to say out loud for years. “Yeah, you said that already.”

  “What in the world?” Delilah called out.

  They both turned to find the older woman standing in the kitchen entryway in her pink terry-cloth robe and pajamas. Her face and eyelids were puffy with sleep. A black cap was on her head.

  “Why are y’all shouting? What if you woke up the children with that noise? Don’t you know it’s past midnight?”

  “I’m sorry we woke you, Dee,” Tracey answered softly. “We were talking, and things got a little . . . heated. We’re done now, though.” She reached for her books again. “I was leaving.”

  “No, I’m the one leaving,” Aidan said, stomping out of kitchen, brushing past a bewildered Delilah as he did it. “I’ll be out of here tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Aidan made good on his promise. He left Harbor Hill the next day.

  Tracey was at a loss for what to say to him after his outburst, so she didn’t say anything. Instead, she pretended she didn’t notice him loading the last of his things into his truck. She behaved as if the day was just like any other. Aidan seemed to be diligently doing the same. He went about the task of moving out with a mundaneness that was almost unnerving.

  She served the children their breakfast and got them ready for school, not looking up when she heard his footsteps thudding on the stairs. When she returned home from work, she helped Caleb with his homework and played with Maggie, ignoring Aidan’s grunts as he lifted each cardboard box. After the children went to bed, she kept her head in her textbook and her eyes on its pages.

  Tracey broke her casual façade only when she heard Aidan’s engine rumble a little after eight o’clock. She closed her book, rose from her bed, and walked into the hall. She watched through a window as Aidan stood next to his truck with Delilah. Both were silhouetted by the dying light. They seemed to be talking about something, though she couldn’t hear what they were saying from her bedroom. She watched as Delilah stood on the balls of her feet, looped her arms around him, and gave him a motherly hug. Aidan hugged her back. The two stood like that for what seemed like a full minute before Aidan stepped back, kissed her cheek, and climbed into the truck’s cab. Delilah waved good-bye, then walked back toward the porch with her head bowed.

  Tracey stared at the rear lights of his Toyota as he pulled out of the driveway and took the gravel road that led off the property. She then walked down the hall and the stairs in just enough time to see Delilah step back through the front door and close it behind her.

  “He’s all set then?” Tracey called out to her.

  Delilah sniffed then nodded. Her eyes were pink, and her nose was red. She looked like she had been crying. “I guess so.”

  “At least he isn’t moving that far away. He’s still in Camden Beach.”

  “He won’t be here for long though. I can tell,” Delilah said, glancing back at the closed front door forlornly. “I bet he won’t even stay at that condo until the lease is up. He’ll move on to somewhere else, but who knows where. He’ll keep going.”

  Tracey lowered her eyes to her bare feet. “I hope . . . I hope I’m not the one who drove him away from here. I hope he didn’t feel
like he had to leave Harbor Hill because of me.”

  Delilah gave a sad smile. “Oh, it’s not your fault, honey.” She walked toward her and rubbed her arm. “Aidan’s never been very good with facing his problems. He ran away from Chicago after his wife, Patricia, and their baby, Annabelle, died. Now he’s running away from here too. But he doesn’t realize that your pain and heartache follow you wherever you go. He’s gotta face the pain and the grief. He’s gotta face all those demons or he’ll never be settled.”

  “It’s so much easier to run, though. I did.”

  She raised her eyes to find Delilah squinting at her. “You ran for survival, honey. He runs because he refuses to face the truth. Those are two very different things.”

  “Same outcome, though.”

  Delilah wrapped an arm around her and drew her close. Tracey closed her eyes, surprised to find her lashes dampening with tears. She clung to the older woman.

  “You’ll be strong enough to face your demons too one day,” Delilah whispered, patting her on the back. “Until you are, you’re welcome to stay here.”

  * * *

  Tracey lay awake in bed for entire the night, tossing and turning, considering Delilah’s words. She knew she and Aidan were both running from something, even if they had different motivations. But he would never admit that to himself. He was numb to his emotions, and no amount of arguing or cajoling could make him feel what he had no desire to feel. It sounded like Delilah had been trying for years to make him do it with no success. So why was Tracey still agonizing over him? Why did she worry so much about this man when she had enough problems of her own?

  Because I care about you, she could remember Aidan saying. And she cared about him too. She couldn’t turn off affection like it was a faucet. It poured forth regardless of her wants or reservations.

  Tracey sighed and glanced at her alarm clock. It was a little after five o’clock. The sun would be up soon.

  “Might as well get up,” she whispered, rubbing her puffy eyes and throwing back the bedsheets. She pushed herself up from the mattress, stretching as she did it.

  Tracey didn’t have to be at the hotel and resort today until nine, so she would be able to stick around to make breakfast for the kids and see them off to school and day care, but first she needed a cup of coffee—maybe two.

  “Or I’ll be a zombie,” she mumbled.

  She grabbed her robe, shoved her arms into the sleeves, and made her way to the bedroom door. She opened it slowly and tiptoed down the hall so as to not wake the children or Delilah. She walked down the staircase and across the foyer, yawning as she did so. When she reached the kitchen, she dug up a packet of French roast from one of the overhead cabinets and then removed a clean coffee mug from the dishwasher. She poured in the ground coffee beans and let them percolate before walking across the room, leaning against the kitchen entryway frame, and gazing into the foyer, watching it brighten with filtered light as the sun slowly climbed across the horizon.

  The coffee maker began to beep. Just as she started to turn around and turn it off, she saw a dark figure walk past one of the windows near the front door. Tracey squinted and walked out of the kitchen, wondering if she had made a mistake, if her tired eyes were playing tricks on her. But there it was again, a figure passing the window. Thanks to the closed curtains, the figure was nothing more than a looming silhouette. This time it was headed in the opposite direction, like it was pacing the front porch.

  “Aidan?” Tracey whispered. She closed the panels of her robe and knotted her belt.

  Had Aidan come back to the house to get something he had forgotten last night?

  She took a few steps across the foyer, watching as the figure passed the window a third time. The figure paused, and she heard the windowpane rattle. This time, an icy sensation washed over her. Tracey slowly shook her head, now wary. That wariness was verging on alarm.

  No, it wasn’t Aidan. He still had a key to the house. He wouldn’t be walking back and forth like that. He wouldn’t be fiddling with the window either, like someone who was trying to find their way in.

  So who could it be?

  A thought dawned in Tracey’s head.

  That son of a bitch Teddy was back. It was bad enough that he had sent those letters and had painted that message on Delilah’s garage. Now he was trying to break into the house. Perhaps he had seen Aidan’s truck leave, laden down with boxes, and thought this would be the best time to do it, when two defenseless women were alone with children in the house.

  “He’s in for a rude awakening,” Tracey mumbled as she raced across the foyer and grabbed the cordless phone from its perch on the oak console table. She began to dial, pressing the number 9 on the key pad. She was prepared to dial 1 twice if Teddy didn’t leave—and she planned to tell him as much.

  She marched toward the front door, filled with indignation. She unlocked the door and threw it open.

  “Look, you son of a bitch!” she shouted, charging onto the porch. “You know you’re not supposed to—”

  Her words died on her lips and sank into her throat when the figure turned away from the window, which he had been trying to jimmy open with a screwdriver. He faced her, and she did a sharp intake of breath. The cordless phone fell from her hands and clattered to the porch.

  It had been more than a year, but he still looked the same.

  When their eyes met, Paul pushed back the brim of his baseball cap. A smile spread across his face. “So there you are!”

  CHAPTER 37

  Delilah heard the scream first, roughly yanking her out of her sleep. Then she heard the crash, making her shove herself up from her bed.

  For a second, she’d thought she was still locked in one of her old nightmares, the dreams she’d had in prison and for quite a few years after Cee’s murder. In the dream, she’d replay that deadly night in vivid detail—from the smell of bourbon on Cee’s breath to the chill in the air that had lit her bare arms with goose bumps. Sometimes in the dreams, she would watch him tumble down the stairs, his hands flailing wildly for one of newel posts or the handrail to stop or slow his momentum. She’d reach out and try to stop him, but it never worked. She’d watch him as he tumbled and hear the thump, thump, crunch when he landed.

  Each time, she would wake from the dream with a lurch. Perspiration would be on her brow, and a shout would burst from her parched lips. It angered her to know she kept having the same dream, even though she hadn’t killed him—and she suspected she knew who had.

  “Oh, God!” Delilah screamed, jolting upright.

  She looked around her bedroom with her heart thudding like a snare drum against her rib cage, making her wonder if it would burst from her chest. She slowly exhaled, and her heartbeat decelerated. She realized she wasn’t standing at the top of her staircase but was safely in bed. She wasn’t the young Delilah Buford waking up to the lurid scene of her dead husband, but an older Delilah Grey with that past far behind her.

  But then she heard the scream again. It sounded like Tracey’s voice, not her own.

  “Let go of me! I said let go!” Tracey screeched.

  Delilah leapt from her bed, almost getting tangled in the sheets and nearly tripping over Bruce, who went scurrying underneath the bed frame. She ran across the room, threw open her door, and peered down the hall.

  “You ran out on me!” a male voice yelled back, and Tracey cried out again. She sounded like she was in pain. “You stole my children from me, and you thought I was just going to sit on my hands forever? I gave you the chance to come back. Now I’m taking you home!”

  “Please, just let me go!” Tracey sobbed. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t—”

  “You’re goddamn right you’ll do what I want! You will if you know what’s good for you! Where the fuck are my kids?”

  “Paul, stop! Stop it!” she screamed.

  “Mommy?” Caleb said.

  Delilah whipped around to find the little boy standing in his bedroom doorway. His fa
ce was stark white. His blue eyes had gone so wide that they seemed to take up almost half his face. He was shaking so much that he looked like he was doing a little dance.

  “It’s all right, honey. It’s okay,” Delilah whispered, rushing toward him. “Come with me.”

  “I want my mommy,” he cried, running toward the stairs, but she grabbed his arm and stopped him.

  “No!” she whispered, wrestling with him as he twisted in her arms, as he kicked his feet and hit her shin, making her wince. “No, honey, we can’t go down there yet! Your mama wouldn’t want you to do that.”

  “I have to help my mommy!” he cried. Plump tears fell onto his cheeks.

  “Caleb . . . Caleb, look at me! Look at me!”

  Finally, he stilled. He started to cry in her arms.

  “We will help her, honey. But we’ve got to call the police first, all right? Let’s call the police.”

  He looked up at her and slowly nodded.

  Delilah ushered him into her bedroom, hoping that ruckus Tracey’s husband was making had covered up the sound of their voices upstairs.

  “Sit right here,” she said to him, after closing her bedroom door. She motioned to her bed, and he climbed on top of the disheveled sheets. “Don’t you go anywhere! You hear me?”

  He bit his lower lip and nodded.

  Delilah rushed to her night table and removed the cordless phone. She didn’t usually trust the police, but under the circumstances, she would make an exception. She pressed the green button to turn it on and start dialing but winced when she heard the line beep, like the phone had been taken off the hook.

  “Damnit,” she spat, before dropping the cordless handset back into its cradle in defeat.

  The only other phone she could possibly use was her cell phone. She ran toward her purse and began to dig through it.

  “What are you doing, Miss Dee?” Caleb asked.

  She didn’t answer him. Instead, she upended her purse over the bed—watching her wallet, sunglasses, keys, and everything else tumble onto the mattress. She searched desperately for her cell phone, her hands shaking as she did it. All the while she could hear Tracey’s screams of desperation and Tracey’s husband bellowing at her.