Rise--How a House Built a Family

by Cara Brookins

  The strange lady in the yellow hat didn’t set off alarm bells, but I walked down and checked out the for-sale sign by the mailbox. It was bright and cheerful, with red and blue bubble letters, but the idea of selling the house still made me sad. My kids had learned to crawl and walk there; we had celebrated a dozen Christmas, Easter, and Halloween parties there. And I wasn’t leaving willingly for greener pastures. I was running away.

  I opened the mailbox and flipped through the top few pieces of mail. A loose credit card slipped out and landed in the flower circle around the mailbox. Part of me wanted to leave it there in the petunias. I knew it was bad news.

  A sale ad from the local grocery had a black line through “Current Resident,” and a frightening name written above with a fine-tipped Sharpie. Adam Petrovic. The ink bled in little veins on the cheap newsprint as if a spider had written it with tiny webs. It didn’t matter anymore that Adam didn’t mean to be scary or dangerous. It didn’t matter that madness had robbed him of his mind by no fault of his own. The only thing that mattered was the threat he represented to the kids and me. He was a very dangerous man.

  My heart squeezed so tight it hurt. I understood how a person could really die of fright, their heart contracting tight enough to lock right up into a stone.

  The next envelope, a Capital One application, had been cut open with something as sharp as a razor blade. The dark Sharpie letters of Adam’s neat, all-caps handwriting were visible through the envelope.

  “Car coming,” Hope called from the front door.

  A rush of blood flooded my face, and I blinked rapidly as I stepped away from the mailbox. I leaned down and grabbed the credit card that had perched in the branches as naturally as if money did grow on trees. All at once I was furious instead of terrified. If he had done anything to the house, anything the kids would see, I would call the police, let them enforce the damn restraining order—aka the most useless five-thousand-dollar piece of paper on the planet.

  I wanted to ask Drew more about the yellow-hat lady, but I didn’t want him to know it probably hadn’t been a woman at all. It had been a disguise, something the voices had instructed him to wear. The credit card was shiny and new, and the name stamped on it was a combination of mine and his, Mrs. Adam Brookins. He had signed it in cursive with the same stitched-together Frankenstein of a name.

  Adam was living with his sister about fifteen miles from my house. The only contact I had with the family was when he fooled them and quit taking his medication long enough for the voices to shout louder than his logic. The cycle repeated every couple of months, with him coming around the house and doing crazy things until I called his sister or the police and he was carted off to the state hospital until he was released over a promise to take his meds. Rinse. Repeat.

  He wanted to believe he still owned me, and for all intents and purposes, he did. He owned us all, and his insanity was as alive in our minds as it was the first day we learned he was descending into paranoid schizophrenia.

  I carried the mail to my room. “I’ll change and then start supper,” I sang over my shoulder, imagining they wouldn’t notice the way fear had turned my voice high and trilling. I never realized how often I still watched for him until I found evidence that he had been nearby. Later I would inspect every inch of the mail. There would be clues there, hidden messages and underlined words, things he needed to tell me without letting Them know. Of course I’d never decipher the secrets. I was a terrible code breaker—he’d told me so for years. But it wouldn’t stop me from trying, from hoping there would be a clue to what he might try next. Maybe, against all odds, a hint of how to stop it all for good.

  He had been in the house again, and that was why we were moving. My clothes had been rearranged in the closet, color-coordinated from cools to warms. Taking a few seconds to mix things up made me feel better before I changed into shorts and a sweatshirt, my fall go-to casual wear. I checked my panty drawer, then laughed, not even sure what I expected to find there. Everything looked in order.

  But in my bathroom, a long line of products had been arranged across the double vanity. If I combined the second or third letters of the shampoo, lotion, shaving cream, panty liners, and shower gel in just the right way, they would spell something, reveal something true only to Adam. I quickly rearranged them so I wouldn’t be tempted to try.

  All at once a knife blade of pain stabbed above my right eye. A pain like that would turn into a migraine if I didn’t get control of it. Ten minutes. If I could just lie down for ten minutes.

  When I lifted the sheets on my bed, two long columns of books slept peacefully. It was less terrifying than the knives he’d lined up there in the past while I slept, but only because I hadn’t yet figured out what the books meant. The titles or the subjects would all add up to something in Adam’s mind, and it could be sharper than knives. Could be a promise, a memory, an apology, or a threat. I would never be sure which.

  I took a photo of the books—an even dozen. They weren’t arranged alphabetically, and the first letters of the titles didn’t spell anything. Eleven authors in a mixture of fiction and non-, with no obvious connection between the topics or genre. I had the idea that The Art of War was significant, and not only because copies of it occupied both the top-left and top-right corners. Blank yellow Post-it notes had been pushed between the pages at points in the text.

  More hidden messages. More codes to break.

  I cried a little because no matter what I did it wasn’t enough to save us from the constant fear.

  “Mommy!”

  I threw the blankets back over the books and ran to Drew’s room without taking a breath. He yelled again and I realized he was in Jada’s room. I sucked in air, seeing spots and trying to ignore how bad the back of my head hurt, pain radiating down my neck and to my right shoulder. Adam’s messages were almost always to me alone, and I could usually hide them from the kids. But this time, he’d gone further.

  “Any idea what this is?” Drew pushed the toe of his shoe against one of Jada’s shirts that had been laid out flat on the floor above a pair of her leggings, socks, and shoes. A primitive smiley face drawn on a sheet of plain white paper rested between the neck of the floral shirt and a sun hat. It would have been damned eerie just to see the clothes stretched out like a mini person, a two-dimensional Jada, but the smiley face took it up a notch to something terrifying. The blood drained out of my face and settled in my toes. For a minute, I thought I might actually pass out.

  “Same in the each of our rooms.”

  I wavered again. I hadn’t gotten used to the idea yet of just one of my kids laid out like a paper doll.

  “I took pictures,” Drew said, “and put the stuff away in Hope’s room before she saw.”

  I could only nod. He was a step ahead and behaving like an adult even though he wasn’t a teenager yet. He shouldn’t have to think this way, gathering evidence and protecting his sisters from a glimpse of madness.

  “Should we call someone?” he asked. “The police, or his mom?”

  I shook my head. “I would if it would change anything, but it won’t. There’s nothing we can do.”

  If I told, he would punish me. Things could get a whole lot worse; I had seen them worse. My restraining order was useless. Even if they put him in jail, or back in the state hospital, they wouldn’t hold him long. It was best to hold my tongue and my cool.

  “We’re going out for Chinese tonight,” I said. “And I’ll call his sister. I’ll try to get her to do something. I don’t want to keep calling the police. Boy-who-cried-wolf syndrome. We need them to take us seriously if we really need them.” When. When we need them.

  Drew nodded, looking around the room instead of at me. Running away was the last thing he wanted to do. But we were both as afraid to be in the house as we were to leave it empty. There were no solutions. No answers. We had no way out. Even selling the house and moving was no guarantee that he wouldn’t just follow us.

  For a long time, I
had felt so sorry for Adam. Watching someone go insane was the most horrible thing I’d ever experienced. Despite all the things that were stolen from him, the knowledge that he had once had a family and loved them remained. But so did the realization that he couldn’t be with them, and it was all shadowed over with voices whispering conspiracies and frightening solutions. My pity had long since been overwhelmed by my mama-bear protective instincts.

  I had always known I would go to great lengths to keep my kids safe. But I’d never realized how hypothetical protection scenarios would feel in real life. Forget about going to great lengths. This was more than just what I would do to keep them safe, it was who I was willing to become.

  The next afternoon I stopped at a sporting-goods shop on the way home, went directly to the gun counter, and rang the old-fashioned bell. I hadn’t researched weapons for personal use, but I already knew what I wanted from the research I had done for the books Adam threw away with my hard drive. I had even taken a gun-safety class at this shop a few years ago to learn exactly what it felt like to load and shoot a handgun.

  “Well, if it isn’t little Miss Murder Book! Haven’t seen you around in a while.” A tall, heavy man with a mountain-man beard walked around behind the glass display case. His beard wiggled like maybe he was smiling somewhere beneath it.

  “Hi, Bill. Good to see you, too.” I smiled, surprised by how calm I felt given the reason I was there. “This time, I’m buying.”

  His eyebrows, or maybe “eyebrow” was more appropriate, rose. “Whoa, I didn’t think you believed in having guns around. You sure about that?”

  “What kind of price can you give me on a .38 Special?”

  “Well ya see, I got more than one of them.” His eyes lit up, eyebrow lifting further toward his hairline, which had been running from that brow for a few years now. “I know just the one. Don’t go nowhere. I’ll get it from the front. Have it on display.”

  He kept talking while he walked, and I took a deep breath. I wasn’t in the mood to shop around. The one I wanted was the least expensive weapon that would reliably shoot bullets.

  Bill was so thrilled with the little box he carried back that he practically danced his considerable bulk back behind the counter. “Looky here!” He was breathing heavily, a little bead of sweat sliding down his left temple. He opened the black plastic case to reveal the tackiest pink gun I’d ever seen. “Costs a little more because of the color. Women love it. It’s a .38, too. Special gun for a special lady. Isn’t that something? That’s what the papers say. See here?” He held up a little brochure to prove that some advertising guy, probably someone with a college education, had actually come up with that catchy slogan.

  I smiled, aware that it was a flat, meaningless smile but unable to even pretend that this was what I wanted. “Maybe something like this another time. Right now I want something plain. What can you give me the best deal on? Money’s tight.”

  He narrowed his eyes and popped a blue Bic pen in the corner of his mouth like it was a piece of straw. “You all right, Miss Murder Book?”

  “Just home protection. I’m fine, Bill. Thanks for asking.” I pointed to a solid black .38 through the glass. “What will that one cost?”

  “That’s a little polymer frame. I could give it to you for three hundred fifty.” He registered my sigh like a good salesperson. It’s practically a lost art, the weighing of the sigh. “Had a guy trade a used .38 last week. Shoots fine. Tried it out myself and cleaned it up. It’s in the back.”

  “Thanks, a used one would be perfect.”

  “Now it ain’t nothing to look at,” he said over his shoulder. “Been dinged up some.” He disappeared through a swinging door.

  I shifted my weight and slowed my breathing. Did I really want to do this? It was a point of no return. I shouldn’t buy a gun unless I could really shoot someone with it. Could I do that?

  “Like I said, not much to look at.” Bill hurried back, or hurried by his definition, and pushed a half-crushed cardboard shoebox toward me.

  I lifted the lid. It looked more dangerous than the pink one had. And Bill was right: This one had been tossed around enough to earn scratches and dings. I played it cool even though I really wanted it. “Looks like it’s been rattling around in a toolbox for ten years, doesn’t it? How much?” I looked away at the wall, trying to feign disinterest.

  “It’s a Smith and Wesson, and that’s a good name even if it is old. But for you, Murder Book, let’s say one-eighty.”

  I dropped the lid and tried a sigh, but wasn’t loud enough to be heard over his own breathing. That was a lot less than I had expected. “I can give you a hundred fifty cash today.”

  He tugged his beard, but we both knew he would hold on to this one for a long time before just the right cheapskate came along. “Just for you, little lady. Just for you. And when you’re rolling in cash over your next book, you come back and I’ll give you some trade-in on that pretty pink lady? Special gun for a special lady. Okay?”

  I smiled, although I was no longer sure I had another book in me. “When I’m ready to trade up, I’ll come back by.” On the way to the front, I added a twenty-dollar lockbox and a box of ammunition to the tab.

  The drive home was too fast for the slow thoughts I had hoped to sort out. I paused after I opened the car door, holding my breath until I heard Hershey barking a happy welcome. Old habits, I thought, carrying my gun cradled like a baby. I liked the way she felt in my hands, heavy, powerful, and dangerous. The very same reasons I hadn’t liked guns during my safety class. Things had changed a lot in the past few months. Not only things, though; I had changed a lot, too.

  I pushed six rounds in and clicked the barrel into place, careful to point it at the floor. There was no safety on this model, and even if I liked the way the gun felt, I had a healthy respect for firearms.

  “You need a name,” I told her, tucking her in tight on a high shelf. I smiled grimly, knowing I had just the right one.

  “Karma.”

  –13–

  Rise

  A Little to the Left

  The kids and I had been to the house only once all week. A series of spring rains blew across the Midwest, threatening tornadoes and hail but not delivering anything more than minor floods. We fretted and fussed over how long we had spent drawing chalk lines and what might happen to our lone wall, flat in a pool of water on the slab. But whining about it got us nowhere, and we resigned ourselves to planning and watching how-to videos in the evenings.

  Saturday morning I tiptoed into the kitchen and started the coffee. Either our pot was shrinking or my son had become a coffee hog. Whatever the problem, I refused to believe it had anything to do with my own consumption. A part of me—I mean a huge part—wanted to curl up and waste the morning away reading a novel. Something far removed from real life. But I wanted things to improve on a permanent basis, and hiding wouldn’t make that happen. I plugged in the waffle maker and put Hershey out before going upstairs.

  Drew’s door was locked. I knew this without trying the handle, and thumped my knuckles on the door. “Sunshine in the forecast. Let’s go build a house!” My voice was barely above a whisper, but I knew he had heard. In houses like ours, being a light sleeper was a well-honed survival skill.

  Hope woke with a yawn and groan. She didn’t like coffee, and hadn’t yet learned that sometimes taste was irrelevant. In the adjoining room, Jada was awake, chewing her bottom lip and poking her finger at the old phone Drew had passed down to her. “Come help me make waffles,” I said. “We’ve got a busy day.”

  “Is it raining?” she asked, jumping out of bed with a grin. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, my mom would have said.

  “No rain. We’re going to Inkwell!”

  When we had filled up on waffles with cherry-pie filling on top and coffee with real cream, we loaded the cooler with an odd assortment of snacks and sandwich fixings and piled in the car.

  The time away from the job site had everyone eager for physi
cal work. Hershey was as happy as we were to see our mud-surrounded slab.

  “I’m fishin’ for frogs and fire,” Roman said, arms up and eyes alight.

  “Can I help with the walls?” Jada asked. “I want to build something.”

  “We’ll take turns with Roman. Everyone gets to build.” I felt a little like I was talking them into painting a fence, but there was no sense complaining about happy helpers. I would enjoy the mood while it lasted.

  Sheets of plastic had kept most of our wood piles dry, but the slab had a few dips that held puddles. Roman pulled an inverted bucket over and sat on it, setting up a prime fishing spot between the den and the bathroom. He threw a tantrum when Hope swept his puddle over the side of the slab, but snuffled the tears away when Jada caught two tiny frogs in a muddy sippy cup we had left on site a week ago.

  The one wall we’d built was swollen and twisted from soaking all week. “We could probably still use it,” Drew said, scratching his head and chewing the inside of his cheek.

  “Seems like a bad way to begin,” I said, and that made the decision. “We’re not settling for this. Let’s drag it to the side. Once it dries out we’ll see what we can salvage. Fresh start.”

  We rebuilt the wall, with Drew mastering the settings on the nail gun by the fifth or sixth nail. The next wall, the front wall of my library, had a window. We built the header and remembered fairly well how the half dozen YouTube videos had said to frame it. Drew couldn’t stop grinning. By the time we had a handful of the exterior walls built, we had a system. Hope carried two-by-sixes over, and I marked the top and bottom plates every sixteen inches and made any cuts with the miter saw, forming headers, sills, and cripples for windows and doors. Drew and I worked together to assemble each wall, and then I knelt on the studs to hold them in place while he hit each joint with the nail gun. The entire slab was covered in sections of walls.