This was how I spent my days. Every morning, sat on the deck, trying my damnedest to break this ugly chair with as little force as possible, thinking of the people who lived their lives without me in them, and plotting ways to kill Hawthorne.
My only reprieve from these four walls was each time Six came and allowed me out of the house. This was a repeat of seven years ago, except I had no losses to mourn then. Six spent his days working as best as he could, despite the remoteness of our surroundings. When he returned from working each day, he seemed haggard, weighed down by obligations. Or, rather, one obligation: me.
Which is why I was trying to break this chair without seeming like it was on purpose. I needed to get out of this house. I rationalized that if the chair broke, Six would either let me wander down to the shore or send me into town for a new chair. One way or another, I’d get out of this cage. He didn’t want the neighbors to see me, to have them become curious about the new neighbor, which I always laughed at. Our nearest neighbors were a mile down the beach. And they were retirees. It was Bingo and bedtime before sun down for them.
I treated this time like prison; I worked out every single day. Six bought me a treadmill, probably sick of me lamenting my lack of opportunity to run outside. I hated the treadmill. I was a rat in a cage, running on a revolving track, running until I couldn’t run any more, but going nowhere.
Six positioned the treadmill to face the window that faced the ocean. The world outside mocked me when I ran, logging miles with an unchanging landscape.
Rage fueled my workouts. I ran, I lifted, and I pushed, snarling with the anger that coursed through my veins. Because if it wasn’t rage pulsing through me, it was grief. And grief labored my breathing worse than physical exertion, grief weighed my legs down with excruciating sadness, and then I absolutely could not run.
But I needed to run, I needed to lift, I needed to push my body to its breaking point. My one and only goal was to see Hawthorne dead, and I couldn’t fight him if I was curled up into a ball of sadness and weak with sorrow.
After Six had placed the treadmill in front of the window, I’d sent him to the local home improvement store with a list. He’d delivered my supplies and during one of my sleepless nights, I had dipped the paintbrush into the paint can and let the wall bleed with the color of rage. Now, the wall with the window that faces the sea was a deep, blood red. And it was a rage red, so when my feet were aching and my muscles were strained and my mind started slipping into memories of the people I’d left, I’d yell “RED!” at the top of my lungs.
RED.
RED.
RED.
I leaned back again in my rickety, wooden lounge chair, with my feet resting on the railing of the back deck. The sound of the waves rolling over each other roared in the distance while the smell of sand and sea blew through my hair. It was peaceful and quiet, the calm only occasionally interrupted by the sea gulls that cawed as they clambered for washed up trash. The beach was beautiful, but it wasn’t home. It was a different kind of calm, of quiet, foreign to me. I hated it.
Six knew I hated it, but there was nothing he could do about it. As soon as we’d left Colorado, we’d traveled by car all the way here. We had moved in under the cover of darkness, though there wasn’t an active neighbor for miles. We didn’t talk much, Six and I. He knew I hated it here, but so far the only knowledge he had imparted on me had been that he’d looked into Julian’s background, to make sure he was good for me. I hadn’t told Six that Julian knew who I was, so Six didn’t truly understand how important Julian was to me.
Six didn’t tell me anything about Hawthorne. Once we got here, he didn’t talk about why we came here. A week earlier, he’d shown me the pistol he kept under the loose floorboard of the bottom step of the stairs. He’d shown me how to use it, but hadn’t told me why. It made me feel antsy, knowing that gun was under the stairs. Not because guns made me uncomfortable, but because I wanted to use it. I wanted to find Hawthorne and take his life. That scared me a little, the intensity of my desire to kill him. But I felt justified in taking his life, when I strongly suspected he’d taken my mother’s.
It’d only taken me a month or so after I arrived to this beach house to reflect on the nine days I spent with Julian. I recalled all our conversations. One that stood out in particular had been when he’d told me about his new book, while we rowed on the lake. A book about a single mom, living a modest life, despite having a fortune in the bank. And then she’d died, leaving her only child an orphan. Except in Julian’s words she’d been murdered. Not the presumed suicide of my memories. My mother taking her own life had never made sense to me. And since I knew Julian’s novels were partially based on truth, I searched my brain for more clues.
I remembered the papers I’d found in Hawthorne’s office when I’d broken in. There was correspondence from my mother’s law office. Why else would Hawthorne be contacting them if there wasn’t a trust of some kind set up?
And when Julian admitted that he knew I was Cora, he’d said Hawthorne had lost of lot of money when I’d disappeared. What else could he have meant by that, if there hadn’t been a trust in place, with Hawthorne receiving allocations for my living expenses? The more I thought about it, the more I believed that Hawthorne had killed my mother. I wasn’t sure how. But I could figure out the why. It only made me wish more that I had Julian to turn to for answers.
When the breeze blew in harder, I stood up and walked back into the house, running up to the second floor, where my treadmill sat. I eyed it with contempt but slipped my tennis shoes on and began my run. I ran until sweat ran down my legs, soaking my socks, until the sweat ran into my eyes, burning them to the point of tears.
After showering off the sweat, my limbs felt wobbly, so I grabbed one of the books from my bedside table and curled into bed. It was one of Julian’s novels. I’d read almost all of them since leaving Colorado.
I awoke in the dark. Something had roused me from sleep. I heard a noise outside. Six?
I reached for my new phone. Six always texted when he was on his way back to beach house.
There was nothing on my phone. I rolled over on my stomach and pulled myself up, gripping the wrought iron headboard. I pulled the blinds down. There was a car in the street, black, large. It didn’t belong to Six.
I heard the noise again, and a then low voice. My stomach clenched in fear and I rolled off the bed. The moment my bare feet hit the wood floor, I was running towards the stairs.
I heard the squeak of the screen door opening. The trespasser heard it too, and they returned the door to closing. I crept down the stairs, jumping down after the last step and crouching in front of the hiding place.
I pulled out the handgun and the magazine, my hands shaking as I slid the magazine into the butt of the gun. With my back to the wall opposite the stairs, I walked down the hallway towards the front door, carefully putting my ear to the wood. There were no sounds. It was completely silent. If anything, that only quickened my heart rate as I tiptoed to the living room, adjacent to the entryway. I slowly approached one of the windows and quickly peeked through the blinds.
I saw nothing, no one.
I held the gun in front of me, pointed to the ground as I crept towards the back of the house, into the dining room. The entire bottom level of this beach house was made up of four rooms, entryways connecting one to the other. When I couldn’t make anything out in the darkness of the windows there, I walked across the hall that separated the living and dining room from the kitchen and den. I passed the staircase in the hall and kept going, peeking out the kitchen window. When I still saw nothing, I started to really feel the panic. My heart thundered, my hands shook. There was someone trespassing on the property and I couldn’t find them.
I heard my phone ringing upstairs and cursed myself for not bringing it with me. Without thinking, I dashed up the stairs towards my bedroom. I dove on my bed and ran my hands over the sheets, searching for my phone. I had a missed call. It was Six.
I frantically hit the call back button, holding the phone to my ear as I climbed off the bed and pressed my back against the wall next to my bedroom door, the gun in my free hand. “Hurry up and answer!” I whispered under my breath.
“Andra,” his voice answered.
“Where are you?” I hissed.
“What is it?”
“Someone’s here,” I whispered.
There was silence for only a moment. “Grab the gun,” he said, his voice harsh.
“I already have it. Are you far?”
“About twenty minutes away. Where are they?”
“I’m not sure. They tried coming through the front door, but now I can’t find them. I don’t know where they went.”
“Fuck!” Knowing that Six was worried was more concerning to me than a stranger trying to enter the house.
“Do you know who it could be?”
“No,” he said, vehemently. “It’s probably a burglar.” I heard the unmistakable sound of the back door opening. I’d forgotten to lock it after coming into the house.
“Shh,” I hissed. I tiptoed away from the door, towards my bedroom closet. “They’re inside.” I said it so quietly, I couldn’t even hear myself over the pounding in my ears.
“What?”
I breathed hard into the phone. “They. Are. Inside.”
I could practically feel Six’s panic through the phone. “Don’t hang up the phone. Put it in your pocket and hide.”
I didn’t say a word, just did as he asked. I couldn’t hear any noise downstairs. I sat crouched in my closet for several minutes, until I heard steps ascend the stairs. Each step creaked under the intruder’s weight.
I decided I couldn’t cower in my closet and wait to face them. I stood, albeit on shaky legs, and took small steps from the closet, along the wall to the door.
I kept the gun pointed to the floor, closed my eyes and breathed in through my nose. The gun felt like a hundred pounds of dead weight in my hands. I heard the intruder reach the top of the steps. I could hear breathing and knew it wasn’t my own.
I realized then that I hadn’t prepared the gun to shoot. I knew pulling back the slide would signal my presence, but it was do it now, or wait until I was face to face with the intruder. My hands were already slick with sweat so waiting would only make my actions less successful. I lifted one shaky hand and placed it on the barrel, feeling the grooves beneath my fingers. I sucked in a breath and quickly pulled the slide until it stopped, then released it, chambering a round.
The noise was loud and unmistakable. There was no way the person at the top of the stairs couldn’t have heard it.
“Andra.” The voice was soft, almost overpowered by the sound of my strained breathing.
And then I smelled him. Sandalwood and cinnamon. My heart tripped over itself, beating to another beat and I knew.
“Julian.” It wasn’t a question. With shaky legs, I crouched down, setting the gun on the ground. I heard his steps approach my doorway and I stood back up, the blood coming back to my legs. Holding onto the wall for support, I stood in the doorway and squinted my eyes into the darkness. There he was. “Julian,” I said again, this time with relief, with gratitude. With love. He stepped out of the darkness and I leapt onto him, our arms crushing each other, his body rocking with me.
He found me.
The end…for now.
First and foremost, I must thank my husband Stephen for encouraging me to continue, even when I felt defeated. Also, thanks for all the meals you prepared alone and all the nights you fell asleep with the light of my laptop glaring on your face. I hope you look forward to doing it again!
In the same breath, I need to thank my two baby boys. You are my light, my love, my inspiration. Thank you for suffering through a month of grilled cheese and cereal dinners. And thank you, Dub, for the high-five when I told you I was writing a book.
I want to thank my family for their support, especially my mom. Thank you for reading early, messy drafts, and for your honesty. You taught me to read, thus you taught me to write.
This book would not have come to fruition were it not for the encouragement of Christine Janes. Your belief in my ability gave me the courage to put words onto paper. You listened to me bitch and moan and gave me a Starbucks gift card – the caffeine from that gift inspired some of my favorite scenes in this novel. I appreciate your advice and your friendship more than you know.
To Sona Babani, my best friend and the most honest and hilarious person I know. Thank you for every positive thing you said, and for the dozens of screenshots of my many mistakes. Thanks for being excited for me, for reading every draft I sent you and the incredible amount of feedback through every step of the way. Our fourteen year friendship is one of the most treasured things in my life and I cannot imagine my life without you in it. Can’t wait to tackle you again.
To Wilma Bristol, my supervisor and friend – your enthusiasm for this project made a huge impact on my desire to finish. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me whenever you were giddy with excitement to read more, especially knowing that you do not like to read. Thank you for treating my family like your own and for celebrating every small step I made with his book.
Early drafts of my book were sent to only a handful of people, but one of them, Tracie Ingram, returned an email LOADED with important feedback. I was feeling so much conflict with some parts of Chapter Two and Tracie, your suggestions were invaluable. Thank you for reading this and providing me your thoughts along the way, and for making me feel like I could do this.
Thank you to my good friends for your encouragement and excitement, especially my Army wife friends. Debbie Snyder, thank you for delivering me Twizzlers in my time of need and for going to the movies with my boys so I could write uninterrupted. And for being such an excellent human being in general.
Tarryn Fisher, you don’t know me, but you inspire me. I read Mud Vein towards the end of finishing this manuscript and felt ripped open. I fueled that pain into one scene in this novel and walked away feeling free. Thank you for inspiring me, for unknowingly making me try harder, do better. Your talent for writing is unparalleled, your storytelling is flawless. I have this feeling that you radiate power, and I hope to meet you one day and feel it for myself.
I thank you, the reader, for picking up my book and giving it a chance. I know there are so many novels out there to read, and I’m honored you chose mine. Please email me if you want to talk, and I hope you follow me along this ride.
And finally, I have to thank my Savior above. I hope to always seek you, and to always grow in my relationship with you. Thank you for my many blessings.
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