The House on Harbor Hill

by Shelly Stratton

  “I’m sorry, Paul,” she said, lowering her head. “I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

  He pursed his lips. “Yeah, well, don’t be sorry. Just don’t fuck up again!”

  She nodded. “I won’t.” She placed the last item in the suitcase and zipped it shut. “I’m done packing my things,” she said, reaching for Maggie. She placed the sobbing toddler on her hip. “Should I start packing the kids’ stuff now?”

  He nodded and tilted his head toward the opened doorway. “Go ahead. Be quick, though.”

  “Come on, Cabe,” she said, walking toward him and holding her hand out to him.

  Caleb’s vacant eyes slowly rose from the floor. He stared at his mother.

  “Help me pack your bag, sweetheart. We don’t want to forget anything.”

  She stared back at him, hoping to convey a silent message in her gaze, though the tips of her fingers that hovered in the air. Finally, he took her hand, and they headed out of the bedroom.

  “Wait! Caleb isn’t going with you. He stays here with me!” Paul rushed toward them, making Caleb cower against her side. “You think I’d let you out of my sight . . . that I’d let you out of here with the kids again? You think I’m that fucking stupid?”

  She turned to him, forcing her voice and breathing to stay even. “Of course not! I thought you were coming with us.”

  “Oh.” He blinked. The angry chords in his neck and veins along his brow disappeared. “Oh, yeah, sure.”

  He trailed behind them, his thudding footsteps bringing up the rear as they walked down the hall. Tracey told herself to keep her pace even and unhurried. She gave Caleb’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze, though he clung to the folds of her bathrobe like it was the only thing tethering him to her, as though his father could yank him away at any second.

  Caleb’s room was two doors down. The closed door was adorned with a smiling half-moon, inscribed with the words, “Come back later! I’m busy dreaming.” Caleb reached up to open it but stopped when Tracey suddenly said, “Let me do it, honey. I know it sticks a little.”

  She grabbed the door knob and pretended to twist it. She frowned. “It won’t open.”

  “What do you mean it won’t open?” Paul asked.

  She pressed her shoulder against the wood and shoved, then shook her head. “It won’t open!”

  “Why the hell won’t it open?” he shouted, and she shrugged helplessly.

  “I don’t know! It’s an old house!” she insisted, pretending again to shove the door open. “Sometimes the doors stick. It happens a lot with this one. Maybe you can try.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, lowering the knife. “Just move out of the way.”

  She and Caleb stepped aside as he reached for the door handle. She watched as Paul braced his shoulder against the door and twisted the knob. It burst open when he pushed, and he went tumbling inside with it. He caught himself before he fell to the floor.

  “What the hell did—”

  His words were cut off when Tracey reached out and slammed the door shut, engaging the lock—the lock she had asked Aidan to place on the exterior of the rooms to keep the children from locking themselves in. She grabbed Caleb’s hand and sprinted down the hall in the direction of the locked closet.

  “Tracey! Tracey, you stupid bitch! I’m going to fucking kill you!” Paul yelled.

  “Mommy,” Caleb whimpered as he stared down the hall at his closed bedroom door. They could hear a loud thump and rattle, like her husband was flinging himself against it. “Mommy?”

  “It’s okay, honey,” she whispered as she unlocked the closet door and Delilah came tumbling out.

  “Are you okay?” Tracey asked the older woman, wiping at the tears on her wrinkled cheeks.

  Delilah gradually nodded. “I’m . . . I’m okay,” she stuttered.

  “We have to go!” she urged over her husband’s furious screams. In addition to the thumping, there was the sound of splintering wood. The door wouldn’t hold for much longer. “Do you think you can you walk?”

  Delilah nodded again.

  She grabbed Delilah’s hand and helped hoist her to her feet. They raced toward the stairs. Delilah and Caleb were in the lead. He guided the older woman down the staircase with a care that would have made Tracey proud if she hadn’t been so terrified. She adjusted Maggie on her hip and began to descend the stairs just as Caleb’s bedroom door came crashing open.

  “Tracey!” Paul screamed. “That’s it! I’m going to fucking kill you! Do you hear me?”

  She took a panicked glance over her shoulder, catching a glimpse of him as he raced down the hall, still clutching the knife. She ran down the stairs, gripping Maggie against her side.

  As her feet neared the first floor, Tracey hoped that the past would repeat itself, that the curse that seemed to hang over this beautiful home would work to someone’s advantage for once. Tracey prayed that Paul would take the same fatal misstep that Delilah’s husband had taken forty-plus years ago. She willed the fates to make him trip, fall, and go tumbling to his death. But that didn’t happen. Harbor Hill insisted on having the last laugh. Paul took the stairs two at time, but his steps were sure. As she hopped off the last riser, he caught her by the collar and yanked her back, sending Maggie flying instead. Delilah caught her, but she and the toddler went crashing to the floor, slipping in the pool of water.

  “That’s it!” he screamed, tugging her toward him. He yanked her head back and held the knife to her throat. She clawed at his fingers, feeling the blade against her skin. “You’re not worth it! You’re not worth the fucking headache! I should’ve—”

  His words were stopped short, and his grip loosened when he went crumpling to the floor.

  Tracey looked up in surprise to find Aidan standing over him with a tire iron clutched in his hands.

  CHAPTER 40

  “Put the weapon down!” someone shouted, and Aidan glanced over his shoulder to find two police officers charging up the porch steps with guns drawn.

  He had been staring down at Tracey’s husband, crumpled on the floor, and asking everyone else in the foyer if they were all right when the officers showed up.

  “I said put the weapon down right now!” the officer with the pale blond hair and blue eyes shouted again.

  “But I called you!” he yelled back, lowering his tire iron to the hardwood.

  He’d called them as soon as he had arrived at the property and seen the gray Mercedes parked behind a series of four-foot-high bushes only fifty yards from the house. The car was so hidden from view that it seemed almost intentional, as though the person who had driven the car didn’t want it to be seen.

  When he pulled up the gravel driveway, saw the front door sitting open, and heard Tracey’s shouts even from the front yard, he knew all hell was breaking loose inside Harbor Hill. He’d immediately called the police. The dispatcher had told him to wait outside until the cops arrived, but every muscle and bone in his body screamed to do the opposite. That’s when he grabbed the tire iron from his truck bed and went charging inside.

  It had been foolish and risky in retrospect, but he had managed to take out Paul without getting so much as a bruise or a cut. Now he ran the real risk of their supposed saviors shooting him.

  “Put your hands behind your head!” one of the officers shouted, rushing at him, shoving him to his knees.

  “Wait! Wait!” Tracey screamed, holding up her hands. “It wasn’t him. He was rescuing us! It was my husband. It was him!”

  She pointed down to the unconscious man lying between them. Paul still loosely held the butcher knife in his hands.

  “It was him. Please, don’t arrest Aidan.” She wiped the blood from her nose in a careless gesture, smearing it further on her face. “He kept him from killing me.”

  The officers stared at her, confused.

  “That’s what happened,” Delilah interjected, rubbing Maggie’s back gently. The little girl was crying. “It’s the truth.”

  Aidan co
ntinued to kneel on the floor with his fingers interlocked behind his head. Sweat rolled into his eyes, but he didn’t dare remove his hands to wipe it away. He gazed up at Tracey, and she smiled at him. “Thank you,” she mouthed.

  The two police officers exchanged a glance between them. The blond one shrugged. His shorter, darker counterpart sighed, then nodded. They finally lowered their guns.

  “Okay,” the blond one said, holstering his Glock, “just what exactly is going on here?”

  * * *

  An ambulance arrived soon after. The paramedics examined Delilah, Tracey, and the children—addressing wounds and bandaging cuts. Paul was finally awake, and he seemed to stare around him dumbly, like he didn’t know how he had gotten there. His eyes finally settled on Tracey, and that’s when Aidan saw the change in him. The other man no longer looked confused but now was alert. Pure hatred was in his eyes. Aidan knew that, at that moment, Paul would have killed Tracey. He would have done it in front of his own children, if Aidan hadn’t arrived at the moment he did.

  They led Paul out of the house in handcuffs with a bandage attached to the back of his head, near the neck, where Aidan had hit him. He gave one last glower over his shoulder at them all, like some menacing cartoon character, then turned around when one of the officers barked at him to keep walking.

  Aidan shut the door behind them and turned back around to find Tracey sitting on the stairs, holding both her children on her lap, whispering to them. All three of their heads were bowed. They looked like they were in prayer. Delilah stepped out of the kitchen, carrying a Swiffer mop, a broom, and a dustpan.

  “Really, Dee?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. “You’re going to clean up right now?”

  “Well, I can’t leave all this broken glass lying around! What if one of the children steps on it? And I can’t have all this water sitting on my hardwood either. It’ll damage the floors.”

  He watched as she began to sweep. He chuckled and rolled his eyes. “I’ll help you. Just give me a sec.” He then walked toward the staircase, where Tracey and the kids sat.

  “Cabe,” he called out.

  The little boy turned away from his mother and raised his head.

  “I got sidetracked because of all the . . . well, because of all that happened. But I came back here to give you this.” Aidan reached into his jeans pocket. He pulled out the action figure. “It was sweet of you to give me this, but I can’t take it from you.”

  He handed it to Caleb, and the boy slowly reached out and took it from him. He ran his hand over Hulk’s plastic face.

  “Did it make you feel better, though?” Caleb asked, looking up at him.

  Aidan nodded and smiled. “It definitely did. I’m honored that you gave it to me,” Aidan said.

  Caleb puffed out his chest.

  Aidan helped Delilah clean up the foyer and the kitchen, sweeping up the debris and mopping the spilled water. While they cleaned, Tracey fed the children, though neither seemed to have much of an appetite. She sat with them in the living room, drawing them close to her. At around noon, she put Maggie down for a nap. Caleb, who Tracey said hadn’t taken naps in almost two years, went to sleep too. Aidan could understand why. The poor boy seemed exhausted.

  Tracey strolled down the steps just as Aidan rose to his feet, holding a dustpan filled with broken pottery. She gazed at him, and he tried not to wince at the bruises and scars on her beautiful face.

  They’ll go away, he told himself.

  She would heal. The wounds on both the inside and the outside would eventually lessen, even if they didn’t disappear completely.

  “Thank you for doing this, Aidan. For coming back,” she said, walking toward him.

  “It’s no problem. You’ve got your hands full, and I know Dee would tire herself out trying to get this place back in order by herself.” He surveyed the room around him. They’d finished most of the sweeping and mopping, but there were still a few knicks here and there in the wainscoting and wall trim that needed to be addressed. The same for the kitchen and porch. He’d have to go to the toolshed to dig up some spackle and paint. “Dee could use the help.”

  “How long are you going to stay?”

  He shrugged. “As long as I’m needed, I guess.”

  She lowered her eyes, then looked up at him again. She exhaled. “We need you, Aidan. All of us do. Me in particular.”

  He fell silent.

  “And I hope . . . I hope you need us too.”

  His throat tightened.

  “Please stay.”

  He suddenly recalled again the day when Trish had walked out on him. She’d left their house with Annabelle nestled in her arms and a pink diaper bag slung over her shoulder. He remembered her last words, “I’m sorry, Aidan, but I have to do this. I can’t stay.”

  She then turned back around and strode out of their front door, and he had lowered his head, feeling defeated and rejected.

  Now he recalled how she had lingered in the doorway a few seconds longer, like she was waiting for something. He thought she’d been fiddling with her diaper bag, looking down at Annabelle, but now he suspected she had she been waiting for him all along. She had been waiting for him to fight for them, for their family.

  He lowered the dustpan to the floor and took a step toward Tracey. He held open his arms, and she almost fell into them. He held her close.

  “You’re right. I need you too,” he said. “I’ll stay as long as you guys will have me.”

  CHAPTER 41

  It was morning, and the sun was out, bright and intrusive, sending shafts of light into Delilah’s tired eyes and across the bedroom floor. The light would not be ignored, much like the cat, who now batted at her face, purring softly. She didn’t know if the sunlight was an apt metaphor for how Harbor Hill felt now, after all the chaos had finally been swept away like the broken glass and splinters in the foyer. Frankly, she didn’t care. She’d take the hint and let a little sunlight into her life as well.

  Delilah pushed herself from her bed and stretched, listening to the crack of her old bones and joints, groaning with each twist of the muscles. Bruce did the same from his perch on the bed, letting out a low purr as he arched his back. When he was done, he hopped off the bed and followed her into the bathroom.

  Even before Delilah brushed her teeth and turned on the shower, she knew where she was going today. She could no longer deny the magnetic force pulling her back to that place, back to her past. It was a story that needed an ending.

  “Not all stories have happy endings, Delilah,” Cee’s voice whispered to her.

  “You’re right,” she answered aloud.

  But, all the same, she would not go another day without attempting to finish this one. It might prove pointless, but she had to try.

  After she dressed, she walked down the stairs, clutching her car keys. She could hear Tracey, Aidan, and the children in the kitchen, eating breakfast. As she walked past the kitchen entrance, Aidan called to her.

  “Where are you going, Dee?” he asked. Suddenly, they all turned to look at her quizzically. Even Maggie stopped chewing her Cheerios.

  “Got something I’ve gotta do.” She removed her sweater from the hook and put it on, closing the buttons with her free hand. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry. It won’t take too long.”

  She opened the door and stepped into air, cooled with morning dew, then shut the front door behind her.

  Out here the world seemed even brighter, illuminated not just from the sun but from within. Each tree . . . each flower . . . every object seemed so luminous that she had to squint. She dug into her handbag and pulled out her shades. After lowering them over her eyes, she made her way to her PT Cruiser.

  * * *

  The drive didn’t take as long as she thought it would, even though she felt as if she was traveling through time the closer she got to her destination. Regressing forty-eight years should have taken at least an hour, but thanks to the light weekend traffic, she was able to do it in f
orty-five minutes. As she drew closer, the streets started to look more familiar, even though many of the homes had changed from her memories of them. The old ranch houses had been replaced by tawny Tudors and colonials, white picket fences with wrought-iron gates, and old baseball fields with townhouse developments and lavish playgrounds. But the ghosts of those past houses and people still lingered here. She could feel their presence as if they were sitting in the passenger seat beside her.

  Then she saw it. The house sat three houses from the corner.

  The two-story colonial was not as grand as she remembered. It was now dwarfed by the renovated houses on each side of it, but the exterior was the same, and so were the hedges along the front. The quarter of an acre front lawn still lazily sloped to the roadway below.

  Delilah pulled the PT Cruiser to a stop at the end of the driveway. She climbed out of the car and trudged up the slight incline, wondering what she would do once she reached the front door. (Yes, she would use the front door and not the back door, as she had when she had worked here decades ago.) What would she say when she got there?

  I’ve come here to find out the truth.

  Did I really kill my husband, or did someone else do it?

  Why can’t I remember what happened that night?

  Delilah practiced the words in her head over and over again. She became so engrossed in her mantra that when she rang the doorbell and the front door sprang open, she almost uttered the words instead of “Hello” but caught herself.

  “G-good morning,” she stuttered.

  The woman who stood in the doorway in an oversized yellow sweater and linen pants did not return her greeting. Her doughy face was filled with irritation. Her plump body jittered with the anxiety of one who had forty things to do and not enough time to do them. She looked five seconds away from slamming the door in Delilah’s face.

  “H-hello, ma’am,” Delilah continued anxiously. “I was . . . I was wondering if Ms. Melinda Williams lives here.”