The Memory House

by Rachel Hauck

  “—and you got the one you really wanted.” She held her hand up for a high five. “Way to go.”

  He held her gaze. “I couldn’t have done it without you, Beck.” He leaned toward her, but when she didn’t respond, he turned the other way. “Stu’s flying me to Tallahassee tomorrow.”

  “Baby Girl and I are excited.” She patted her belly. “Did you call teams on his behalf yet? Or whatever it is you do?”

  “Not yet. It’s early, but I’ve got some teams in mind. But, Beck—” Bruno brushed her breeze-tossed hair from her face. “Brace yourself. He’s not going to make it to the NFL.”

  “Maybe. But what if he does? What if believing in him changes the tide? You helped him go for his dream, Bruno. Just think how the world would be if everyone gave a hand up to someone else. Look how it changed things for you and Calvin.”

  “You can’t leave, Beck. You’re my good-luck charm, the love of my—”

  “I have to go, Bruno. You know I do.”

  “Stay here with me. In the memory house.”

  “What about her?” She grabbed his hand and placed it on her swelling middle and his chest fluttered.

  “I’ll love her too.” A small kick pumped against his warm palm. His heart thundered.

  “Will you?” She raised her hand to his face but pulled away before touching his cheek. “Why would you take on me and Baby Girl, Hunter and Gaynor while building your business? You don’t need us slowing you down. Who are you, Bruno Endicott?”

  “The man who loves you.” Hooking his arm about her, he drew her in for a kiss, the first of many to come. Or perhaps his last.

  “Bruno,” she said, low. “Do you think you have feelings for me because you remember me from back in the day? Because Miss Everleigh is gone and now I’m here? Because I’m part of your happy childhood memories at the memory house?”

  He pressed her hand over his heart. “Beck, it’s like we’ve never been apart.”

  “Yet we have, Bruno. There have been other men in my life.” She set her hand in her lap.

  “Obviously.”

  “And women in yours.” She nudged him. “You’re too good of a kisser for it to be otherwise.”

  He made a face, not bothering to hide his wide grin. “I like hearing that from you. To be honest, I haven’t had a lot of girlfriends. A few. Mom made sure I had enough Jesus in me as a kid that I’d never be comfortable with the love-’em-and-leave-’em lifestyle. Besides, I think I’ve always been looking for you.” Her hazel gaze fell into his and for a moment, neither of them moved. Even Beetle stopped his soft snoring.

  Beck broke away first. “I have something for you.”

  That’s right, she invited him for chili and a movie. “Let’s do it. I’m hungry.”

  “Me too. But first . . .” She pulled an old cell phone from her pocket.

  “Wha—A Nokia 8810? Where did you get this?” He held the piece up to light. “This is a collector’s item.”

  “It was in the box of Dad’s stuff Mom sent down.”

  “This was your dad’s phone? Did it spark any memories?”

  “No more than pictures or Mom’s stories. You can have the phone, by the way.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What am I going to do with it? Not when I’m in the presence of an antique cell phone aficionado.” She offered a mock bow. “You can do that jail heist thing with it.”

  “Jail break.”

  “Exactly.” He turned the phone over for closer inspection. “The condition is pristine.”

  “Should be. He hardly ever used it.”

  On his feet, Bruno reached for his bag and offered Beck his arm. “Feed me.”

  She patted the board next to her. “Sit for one more second.”

  “What’s up?” He loved this moment. That she thought of him. That she trusted him with her dad’s phone. He’d extract Dale Holiday’s outgoing voice message as a keepsake of her father’s voice.

  “I have to tell you something,” she said, “and I’m not sure how to go about it.”

  “Just say it.” She looked serious.

  She breathed in and adjusted Beetle Boo in her lap. If he ever found a way to advance their relationship, this dog would have to like him.

  “What’s going on? Something with the baby?”

  “Your dad’s not dead, Bruno.” The blunt words tumbled from her lips.

  “What?”

  “Your dad. He’s alive.”

  He shot off the veranda. “That’s not funny, Beck.”

  “I know and I’m not laughing. Remember the black Mercedes? I ran the plates.”

  “Mr. Colter? He’s not my dad. He’s a sweet old man. Lives right there.” He pointed to the house two doors down from Mom’s.

  “Mr. Colter drives a blue Mercedes.”

  “Since when?” He walked across the yard, ducking beneath the tree branches, looking toward the older man’s place.

  “I had a friend on my squad run the plate. The car is registered to a Stone Endicott. His address is in White Plains, New York. So I did some snooping on the internet. He’s hard to find but he’s out there. A partner in an investment firm.”

  “My dad?” He couldn’t look back at her. If he did he might just lose it. “Stone ‘The Rat Gut’ Endicott? Alive? No, he’s dead, Beck. For crying out loud, his urn is on Mom’s mantel.”

  “Was he born in October of ’53? In Miami?”

  He nodded.

  “I broke a few rules and regs to get his social and found your parents’ marriage certificate. But, Bruno, I couldn’t find a death certificate.”

  “How can he be . . .” Settle. Breathe. Think. “Are you telling me my mother has lied to me for seventeen years?” He shook his head, snatching up his bag. “She wouldn’t. Not about this. Beck, I don’t know who you found, but it wasn’t Stone Endicott. Was his middle name Aloysius?”

  She winced and nodded.

  He swore, punching the air, and walked toward his mom’s.

  * * *

  Everleigh

  It was all over the news. Hurricane Donna made landfall in Florida as a category four with winds up to 145 miles per hour.

  Connie turned up the radio when the weather report came on. Everleigh hummed to herself, trying not to listen, but the announcer’s voice filled every crevice of her being.

  Storm, storm, storm.

  Her trembling hands dropped Mr. Childers’s order of roses, pink alstroemeria, and white waxflower.

  “Careful, Ev,” Connie said.

  “. . . 150 miles per hour, the storm is expected to weaken slightly as it makes landfall.”

  “My granny was a girl in Galveston the year of the Great Storm.” Connie snipped the ends from the orchids she was arranging for Mrs. O’Hare. “For the rest of her life, she never went to the shore, and every time the wind blew she had my granddad board up the windows.”

  Everleigh snatched up her car keys. “I’m off to lunch and Mr. Childers’s.”

  “Can you bring me a sandwich?” Connie pulled a dollar bill from her pocket. “Roast beef on rye.” The bell dinged as a customer entered. “Afternoon. Welcome to Reed’s.”

  In her car, Everleigh settled the flowers on the passenger seat and tied a scarf on her head. It was still convertible weather in Waco and she enjoyed the sun on her shoulders.

  The radio popped on as she as she started the car.

  “. . . expecting Donna to head northeast across the state, exiting between Daytona Beach and Jacksonville. If you have family or friends in the Sunshine State, make sure they are prepared for this deadly storm. Once again, Hurricane Donna—”

  She snapped off the radio, her hands shaking as she shifted gears. A hurricane . . . in Florida. Where Don lived. On Franklin Avenue, she nearly ran a red light.

  Get ahold of yourself.

  She changed the station, searching for music, then cut the radio off all together. But the idea of a major wind blowing over her Don bloomed and consumed. By the time she
pulled into Mr. Childers’s drive, her bones rattled with fear.

  The widower met her at the kitchen door wearing his same dark slacks, stained striped shirt, and tattered blue sweater.

  “Come in, come in.” He took the box from her and dropped it on the kitchen table next to last week’s order. And the week before. “I was just reading my paper.”

  It’d been a few weeks since Everleigh took this run, but surely Connie hadn’t let the flowers go unattended.

  “Mr. Childers, don’t you want to put the flowers in a vase?” She followed him through the swinging door into the living room.

  “Got vases of flowers all over the house.” He motioned to the one on the living room table. Another vase of dry, dead flowers sat in the dining room. “Darn things die so quick.”

  “Not if you water them. Tell your housekeeper to tend them.” Everleigh set aside her keys. “Do you have a newspaper I can spread over your table? I’ll dispose of the old and set out the new.”

  “I’m finished with this one.” He handed her the morning Tribune. Hurricane Donna Ripping Through South Florida

  She turned the paper over and spread it out on the table. South Florida. See, there was nothing to worry about. Don was in north Florida. A long way from the storm.

  She dropped the dying, rotten blooms on the newsprint. Take that, Donna, and go away! Then she washed out the vases and filled them with fresh stems.

  “If you don’t want the flowers, you should cancel, Mr. Childers. Or we can reduce your order to once a month.”

  He sat in his chair watching her work at the dining room table. “My Mae loved flowers. Couldn’t afford them when we got married, but I promised her she’d have a bouquet a week someday.”

  “She was as lovely as any bouquet.” The white-haired, elegant Mae Childers had been Everleigh’s Sunday school teacher and spoke of God with such joy.

  “That she was. Loved her at first sight. Can’t believe she’s gone. But you know a thing or two about loss.”

  “I know you have to water dying things from time to time.” She paused at her own words, pierced by the subtle truth.

  “That you do. Are you watering yourself, Mrs. Applegate?”

  “Certainly.” She fixed a smile and carried the first fresh vase to the living room.

  “I’m old. Lived my life. But you’re young.” He chuckled. “If I were a few years younger . . .”

  “Mr. Childers, you flatter me. Do you have any more vases?” She thought she could salvage a few flowers from the older boxes for an arrangement in the front hall.

  She and Connie would just have to come in every week and tend his order.

  “In the kitchen. So, what do you make of this hurricane? It’s all the weatherman can talk about and we’re a thousand miles away. I swear those TV folk love a good disaster.”

  “Since when has the weatherman ever gotten anything right?” Everleigh collected one more vase from the hall closet.

  “They’re starting to send up satellites to check on the weather. Come a day when they can see a rainstorm days off.”

  “Oh please, Mr. Childers, who can predict the rain? Are we God? You’ve been reading Ray Bradbury books again.”

  “Nevertheless, the National Weather Bureau has done a fair job predicting Donna. It’s a good thing, Mrs. Applegate. People need time to prepare. Can’t help but think back to ’53 when that tornado ripped through—”

  “There.” Everleigh held up a fresh arrangement for him. “What do you think of this? Isn’t it beautiful? Your wife had exquisite taste in flowers.”

  She walked the vase to the hall table, happy not to reminisce about the storm of ’53, then cleaned up the mess of dead flowers and carried them out to the trash cans, crushing the newspaper declaring Hurricane Donna doom over eggshells and coffee grounds.

  “Please, Mr. Childers, remember to add water by Tuesday,” she said when she returned to the living room where he’d just lit up his pipe.

  “Are you stuck, Mrs. Applegate? I see you dyed your hair, bought a new work dress, but here you are, still a widow, delivering my flowers.”

  “I’m not stuck. Stuck means I can’t get out. I can get out.”

  “Can you?”

  “Anytime I want.”

  “I heard a rumor you had a fellow wanting to marry you.”

  “You heard a rumor?” Everleigh propped her hand on the back of a dining room chair and another on her hip. “I’d like to know who’s going around gossiping about me.”

  “Connie said you had a fella.”

  Of course. Connie. She would wring her neck.

  “Well, if that’s all, Mr. Childers, I’ll be off.” Turning on her heel, Everleigh’s dramatic exit was ruined when the heel of her shoe fell through the floor grate.

  “Have mercy,” she said, bending to retrieve her shoe. But the heel was wedged between the narrow louvers.

  “Been meaning to replace that.” Mr. Childers chuckled, rising from his chair to help. He grasped her shoe and with a backhand, then forward twist, set the red heel free. “Here you go, young lady.” He winked. “Don’t get stuck now.”

  “I am not stuck.” Everleigh dug her foot into her shoe and headed for her car. “Good afternoon, Mr. Childers.”

  Stuck. What did he know? She wasn’t stuck. She could go anytime she wanted. But as she backed out of the driveway, listening to yet another storm update, she knew more than anyone, she wasn’t going anywhere.

  She couldn’t be any more stuck if she were buried six feet under.

  chapter twenty-seven

  Bruno

  “Mom? You here?” The kitchen smelled of tomato soup and grilled cheese.

  “Upstairs,” she called. “Finally decided to tackle my closet.”

  Bruno took the stairs two at a time, ducking under the dormer wall as he entered her room. “Is Dad dead?”

  “What?” The garment in her hand slipped to the floor. “Of course he’s dead.” She stooped to pick it up, wadding it into a ball and stuffing it into a garbage bag.

  “Let’s not dance around this, Mom. You lied about Dad, didn’t you? He’s alive.”

  “Bruno Endicott, I don’t have to stand here and—Who do you take me for anyway?” She picked up a pair of shoes, examined them in the light, then set them back in the closet. “I thought you were having dinner with Beck.”

  “Mom, look at me.” His adrenaline had settled enough for a modicum of rationale to return. “Did you lie about Dad?”

  She yanked a yellow dress from the hanger and held it against her. “What do you think? Too young for me? Not a good color for my skin? I never felt good in this.”

  “Mom, stop.” Bruno jerked the dress from her hands and tossed it on the bed. “I want the truth. Did you lie about Dad?”

  “Could you be more specific? Are you asking if he was dead or if he is dead?” She twisted her hands together, turning away, gazing out the window.

  “Mom!”

  “Okay, okay, he’s alive. At least last I heard. But it’s been a few years. He could be dead now for all I know.”

  Bruno boomed, swearing against the wall and the ceiling, crushing his angry words under his heel as they fell to the carpet.

  “You are unbelievable. You lied to your own kid about his father’s death? Who does that?”

  Mom spun around, shaking, her face red. “Yes, I lied. But I did it for your own good. Better to have a dead father than a deadbeat one who disappointed you over and over, who never showed up when he said he would, who forgot birthdays and Christmas, who owed me thirty-five thousand dollars in child support. Yeah, you bet your life I killed him.”

  “Just like that?” Bruno snapped his fingers. “You killed him off to make life easy for you. He was out of your hair and you didn’t have to look at your sad, rejected kid. Is that it? Did you think of me? How I’d feel? I cried myself to sleep for a month.”

  “You think I couldn’t hear you? It broke my heart. I cried over you. But I finally had a hop
e, Bruno.” She tapped her chest. “That sooner or later, you’d heal, find some closure, and stop thinking you were a nothing because Stone Endicott couldn’t keep a promise. Because the older you got, the more he treated you like the competition and not his son. I never, ever understood why he had to put you down.” Mom growled. “I can still hear his condescension.”

  The room spun, his reality tilting, as he crashed through his emotions, sorting and tossing everything from anger to compassion, pitting his self-righteousness against hers.

  “I have no words. I literally have no words.” His phone pinged, reminding him he had a call tonight with the Dallas Cowboys about Calvin.

  “I have to go. I have a call . . .”

  “Bruno, wait.” Mom held his arm. “H-how did you find out? I mean, it’s been a secret for seventeen years. Stone has never even approached the barrier—”

  “Who’s in the urn, Mom? Mrs. Acker’s husband?”

  Mom turned away, mumbling.

  “Speak up, I can’t hear you.”

  “Ashes. Ashes from Mrs. A’s fireplace.”

  “Unbelievable.” He turned to go, but about-faced. “I trusted you. If anyone could shoot straight with me, it was you.”

  “Who told you? My sister? I knew she couldn’t keep a secret!”

  “Aunt Joy knows?”

  “I had to tell someone. I needed help pulling off that small, private memorial.”

  “Do you hate him that much?”

  “For hurting my boy, yes, I hated him. But it took prayer, lots of prayer to forgive him, and I have, Bruno. Really, I have.”

  “How does God feel about your little lie?”

  “He’s not pleased.”

  “So why didn’t you tell me the truth? Fess up?”

  “I considered it a few years ago. The first time I saw you on ESPN I was terrified Stone would contact you. When I had the accident and you came home, the boat was sailing peacefully. Why rock it? How did you find out?”

  “Beck. She kept watching that black Mercedes slinking around—”

  “Mr. Colter?”

  “His car is blue. She ran the plates. It was Dad. He lives in New York. Did you know?”