Dead Spell

by Belinda Frisch

  Brea fought hard to keep her eyes open.

  “Why don’t you give us a minute?” Her father gestured toward the door. “I don’t think she’s going to be awake long.”

  “I…”

  “Jo, she’ll be fine. Let him handle this.” Jim put his hand on Joan’s shoulder and ushered her away. Mike closed the door.

  “He’s dead isn’t he, Dad? Adam is dead.”

  Her father handed her a tissue and dropped the side rail of the bed to sit down next to her.

  “They did what they could, but a piece of wood pierced his heart. He was too far gone by the time they got to him.”

  “I shouldn’t have gone back there. It’s my fault. This is entirely my fault.”

  “Not entirely.” His expression was one of guilt. “How did you know about that house? Did Harmony tell you?”

  Brea shook her head and saw trails from the pain medication. “Harmony didn’t know anything.”

  Her father took her uninjured hand in his. “She knew, but maybe she didn’t remember. I think it’s time I told you why I left.” His eyes filled up.

  “Dad, I saw what happened there. I know what Charity thought and I know that Tom didn’t do it.”

  “How did you…?”

  “I don’t know. The story came to me in flashes, when I was in that house and before. I think Tom was trying to tell Harmony the truth, but she was sick and wouldn’t get help and…she got it all wrong. She was confused.”

  “Following in Charity’s footsteps.”

  Brea nodded, fighting the effects of the morphine.

  “We didn’t know that Charity was sick, Brea. We thought…she told us…she convinced us that Tom might have hurt you.”

  “That’s why Mom took me to Dr. Frankel. It wasn’t because you left, it was because she was trying to find out if Tom hurt me.”

  “Dr. Frankel said there was no sign that anything happened to you. We tried to convince Charity to take Harmony, too, to find out for sure, but she wouldn’t. She said we wanted her to go to jail. She said we were all going to jail.”

  “All?”

  “That was why I left. I kept seeing her at the grocery store, at preschool, and every time she saw me she freaked. It was like seeing me brought her back to that night. We were at that party, your mother and I. Everyone else had left, but your mom and I stayed to clean up. There was a mess: cups everywhere, half-eaten food, and the fire pit burning. We were going to clean up a bit and then go home. We heard the shots and Harmony screaming. We found her covered in blood, hiding in a cabinet in her room. Your mother cleaned her up and Charity told us her version of what happened. I went downstairs and Tom was half falling out of the chair. His face was…”

  “I know.”

  “Charity convinced us to help her stage it to look like a suicide and God help me, when I thought Tom might have hurt you, I agreed to do it. Your uncle, Pat, and Mike, they all knew. They came and we destroyed the evidence.”

  “You what?”

  “It was for you and Harmony.”

  “And that’s why Mom wanted me away from her? Why she acted the way she did when Harmony died?”

  “Your mother was sorry and sad. I know you don’t believe that, but she was and she was also a little relieved until you mentioned that house.”

  “Why didn’t she tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I wanted to. I tried to. But you never wanted to come out to Arizona and every time I came back here, all I could see was that night. I was afraid if I ran into Charity that it would start all over.”

  “Do you think Harmony knew all along? That she remembered and that’s why she killed herself?”

  Her father wiped the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I hope not. I wouldn’t want to think of her carrying that around, but I really don’t know.”

  She felt herself fading, the morphine asserting its control.

  “I only wanted to protect you.”

  Brea closed her eyes, squeezing out a last tear. She felt the weight of another blanket on top of her and gave herself over to sleep.

  39.

  James Taylor’s Fire and Rain played low in Brea’s hospital room. She was sick of television and too sad for much else. The blinds were wide open and the full moon was a beacon in an otherwise pitch black, starless sky.

  The ward was quiet. Most of the patients were settling in for sleep, if they weren’t asleep already.

  Jaxon appeared in the doorway, holding a bouquet of flowers. “How are you feeling?”

  Brea rolled over, careful not to put weight on her arm. “Visiting hours are over.”

  “I heard what happened to Adam. I’m really sorry.”

  “You hated him.”

  “I hated the competition.”

  “Just stop it, okay? Stop pretending like you care about me.”

  “Brea, listen.” He sat in the chair next to her bed and set the flowers on her blanket, filling the air with the smell of pink roses and baby’s breath. “I admit that I said what Harmony said I did. Pete and Rachael were giving me such a hard time that I had to come up with something. My father, your mother, neither of them had anything to do with this. I swear. I was with you for you.”

  “What about Rachael? That day at the deed’s office?”

  “I was only there because Becky called me for a ride. I didn’t even know Rachael was with her. The rest was Rachael putting on a show. Please, Brea. I miss you.”

  Brea held up her hand for him to stop talking and pulled the necklace from beneath her hospital gown. “I haven’t taken this off, you know. Well, except for surgery.” She rolled her eyes when she said it.

  Jaxon smiled. “So you’ll give me another chance?”

  She wiped the tears spilling from the corner of her eyes. “Yes,” she said, not admitting how much she needed him after all that had happened.

  A young nurse’s assistant in a candy striper’s uniform dragged in a small machine—a monitor with cords, probes, and clips dangling from it. She clipped a sensor over the tip of Brea’s finger and secured the blood pressure cuff on her arm. The machine simultaneously reported her vitals and the young woman logged them in Brea’s chart. “Visiting hours ended at eight,” the woman said. “I can sneak maybe one person for a while, but not two. Patients have to rest.”

  Brea looked at her, confused. “Two?”

  Charity was waiting in the hall for the okay to come in. She was wearing a pair of old acid washed jeans and a Giants sweatshirt two sizes too big. Her hair was clean and tied back in a French braid and there was a clarity in her eyes that Brea had never seen. She held out a small bouquet of gas station daisies and had a backpack on her shoulder.

  “I should go,” Jaxon said and gave Brea a kiss. “Can I pick you up tomorrow?”

  The normalcy brought with it relief. “You’ll have to clear that with my mother.”

  “Already done. I’ll see you at check-out.” He smiled and squeezed out the door past Charity. “Excuse me.”

  “Hey,” said Charity.

  “Hey.” Brea scooted up in the bed. “You look good.”

  “Like a woman on her meds, right?” Charity smirked. “Handsome guy you got there. Listen, I’m not going to stay long, but Pat and Mike were by to see me. Pat told me you were here. I just wanted…”

  Brea interrupted. “Listen, Charity, I know what you thought you were doing for Harmony back then and what she did, the way she ended things, isn’t your fault.”

  Charity shrugged. “Isn’t it? It was my sickness that pushed her over the edge, either because she couldn’t stand living with mine or because she inherited her own. I was too busy not dealing with my own problems to even see hers. What happened, I should have seen it coming. I was always too late to protect her. I think what she did would have happened sooner if it wasn’t for you. You were like her sister.” Neither of them used the word “suicide.” Charity set the backpack she’d been carrying down next to the bed. “I talked to your mom. She says you can
have these. It’s what’s left of Harmony’s things.”

  Brea felt uncomfortable accepting it. “You don’t want them?”

  “I never did right by that girl. She’d want you to have them. Besides, I’m leaving soon and I need to travel light.”

  “Leaving?”

  “I’m checking into a treatment facility up north. I’ll be gone a while.”

  Brea reached for Charity’s hand. “Harmony would’ve been proud.”

  “Adam, too,” Charity said. “He was a good guy. A lot of people were against me letting him be with Harmony because of his age and all, but he loved her and he protected her better than I ever did. I should’ve…” She wiped the mascara-stained tears with a one-ply tissue from the box on Brea’s tray. “What kind of mother doesn’t take care of her own daughter’s funeral?”

  “The kind of mother that didn’t recognize that she needed help and that loved her daughter so much that she’d kill anyone she thought had hurt her.”

  Charity leaned over Brea’s casted arm and hugged her. “That’s our secret, okay? Jim, Pat, all of them that helped me, there’s no evidence if none of us says anything. Better we leave that in the past.” Brea agreed. “Do you have your phone with you?” Charity asked.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Expect a call,” she said and waved behind her as she walked out the door. “Goodbye, Brea.”

  “Bye, Charity.”

  40.

  Dressed in her going home clothes, Brea swallowed the pain pills on her tray. Harmony’s washed and ironed flannel hung on the bed rail—a peace offering from her mother.

  Brea fumbled with her hospital bracelet and checked her cell phone every couple of minutes for reception.

  “You about ready?” The discharge nurse sat down on the black stool and scribbled out her dosing schedule for her pain meds.

  “I’m more than ready.” Her arm was awkward in the sling and the cast made her itch.

  Jaxon showed up and offered her a go cup of coffee. Things were slowly normalizing between them and he’d been at her side as long as visiting hours had allowed it.

  “Thank you. The food in here is terrible.”

  The nurse smiled. “Your mom already signed this morning, so I’m just going to quick go over these directions and you’re out of here.” She went over how much and how often to take her meds, how to shower with the cast, and what kind of follow-up she needed to schedule. She gave her a carbon of the checklist and the operating surgeon’s business card.

  Just then, her phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m looking for Brea Miller, please.”

  She didn’t recognize the older male voice at the other end. “This is her.”

  “This is Jack O’Connor calling from O’Connor’s funeral home. Mrs. Charity Wolcott requested that I call and inform you that arrangements have been made for Mr. Adam Krier. A small service is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. with interment directly following at Oakwood Cemetery.”

  “Thank you,” she said softly and closed her phone.

  Jaxon hugged her, rubbing her back until she pulled away. “It’s going to be okay,” he said and collected the few things of Brea’s that Joan had left.

  “I know it will be.” Brea slid off the edge of the bed, her legs weak beneath her, and sat in the oversized, burgundy wheelchair. “Do I really have to go out in this thing? It’s so embarrassing.”

  The transporter nodded. “I’m sorry, it’s hospital policy.”

  41.

  The morning air was damp and smelled of worms and decaying leaves. The sky was a mass of gray clouds that warned of the rain turning to first snow. For Brea, the reality of the deaths had settled in, had found its place in her sadness. It loomed in the residual emptiness, waiting to be healed.

  Adam’s service and interment were over and there was one more stop before Jaxon could take her home.

  Brea slid into the passenger’s seat of Jaxon’s car with her mother holding an umbrella over her. Jaxon straightened her coat slipping off the shoulder of her casted arm and Joan tried to help.

  Brea shrugged away from her. “Mom, I’m fine. Really.”

  Her mother shook her head. Her father stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. Brea couldn’t help but to think that something good might come out of this mess. “Jaxon, make sure she keeps that cast dry,” Joan said.

  He held up an umbrella from the side door pocket. “I’m on it.”

  “I still hate this car,” Brea said.

  He kissed her and said, “I know.”

  * * * * *

  Jaxon and Brea pulled up to the house at 6 Maple in time to watch the last tree fall. Brea shuddered at the sight of the basement open to the darkening sky, the rest of the house having already been devoured.

  The man in the yellow rain slicker wielding the chainsaw took no notice of her and Jaxon as he carved the sizeable oak into logs small enough to haul. A bulldozer carried away a load of what had once been the house—splintered boards and old shattered windows, the remnants of a small deck, and the wild brush that devoured it all. All that was left was a furrowed, muddy yard and the basement whose secrets washed away in the rain.

  “Looks like your dad gets to finish his development,” Brea said.

  Jaxon shrugged. “I told you, we don’t talk business.”

  “He’s probably been trying to buy this land off her forever.”

  “Could have been. I don’t know.”

  “I bet she used the money from selling the house to pay for Adam’s funeral. They didn’t waste any time leveling the place, did they?”

  “Did you want them to fix it up?”

  There was a loud noise and the car shook as the bulldozer pushed dirt in the basement.

  “No,” she said shaking her head. “Some things are better off buried.”