She Wouldn't Change a Thing

by Sarah Adlakha

  “I don’t want a dog.”

  She stopped so abruptly that Hank almost barreled over her, and when she turned to face him, their bodies just inches apart, it was his eyes that ceased her rant. The beauty of his eyes was a mystery to her. Green was the official color listed on his driver’s license, but they shifted through hues of aqua and blue as effortlessly as a chameleon. If anything about her husband could render her defenseless, it was his eyes. Amid his rugged exterior were the most inviting and soulful eyes she had ever seen, and if eyes really were a window to the soul, then Hank’s were wide open. He was a good man, an honorable man, who had loved her son unconditionally and provided her with more than she deserved.

  “Just forget it,” she mumbled, before turning back around.

  Hank was still on her heels, though, and paused just long enough to scoop up his duffel bag. He trailed behind his wife over the gravel, raced ahead of her, and had the passenger door open before she even reached the truck. He was a gentleman to the point of excess.

  With her head turned away from him, Jenny gazed out the passenger-side window and watched her home fly by. Spanish moss hung from the colossal oaks that dotted the fields between bayous, great herons and egrets meandered through the marshes, and an osprey soared from its nest among the tallest trees.

  After all these years, Calebasse was still foreign to her. Someone else’s home. She’d never forget how Hank had clutched her hand and proudly introduced her to his family, nineteen years earlier. She had been seven months pregnant with another man’s baby, scared and insecure.

  “Why don’t we stop in to see your cousin Nick when I get back to New Orleans in a couple weeks?” Hank said. “Is he still breeding German shepherds? I wouldn’t mind having one around the property, now that Dean’s not here with you.”

  “For the last time, Hank, I don’t want a dog. And the last person I want to see is Nick.”

  Nick was the only person from her family she still had contact with, but she limited her visits with him as much as possible. He was an emotional drain on anyone who spent more than five minutes with him, and he was just shrewd enough to outwit and manipulate even his closest friends and family. The last time they spoke was at his son’s funeral, six months earlier, when she’d left an open invitation for him to call or stop by any time, which she considered more than congenial.

  “Come on, Jen.” Hank leaned a weathered and muscular arm against the window. “I don’t want you to be sad about this. If you don’t want a dog, we can always try for another baby. You know I’m always up for the challenge.” He was trying to be funny, so Jenny laughed for his sake, but she didn’t find much humor in his words.

  “I’m too old for a baby,” she muttered, watching an egret skim over the bayou as their car glided over a bridge. She wondered what her husband would do if he knew the secret she’d been harboring all those years. Hank had always wanted a house full of kids, but motherhood hadn’t come easily to Jenny, so she’d made sure Dean was an only child. She loved her son unconditionally, but there was no denying that her husband was the more nurturing parent, and while Hank was certainly not the kind of man to play favorites, especially between children, she wasn’t willing to test his devotion with a biological child of his own in the house.

  They festered in a lengthy silence before Hank’s hand found her leg, and she wondered, as she stared at it, if it felt as awkward to him as it did to her. Her natural reaction should have been to lay her hand over his, but the more she stared at the dried calluses of her husband’s massive hands, the less familiar they were to her. At one time in their marriage, Hank’s hands had been a safe harbor. The world could crumble around her, and sometimes it did, but those hands would always be there to pick her back up and keep her safe. Now it was like a stranger’s hand sitting upon her leg, and she couldn’t force herself to give one little bit to her husband.

  How easy it would have been, and how valuable to their marriage, if she could have just reached out and taken his hand. But that vulnerability was more than she could bear, so with her arms crossed before her, Jenny watched the city’s horizon emerge through the windshield. The marshes and oak trees had turned into alleys and housing projects, but Jenny watched with the same fascination, remembering a time before Hank, a time when the voodoo priestess on Bourbon Street had warned her about the bayou.

  CHAPTER SIX

  maria

  “I’M SORRY, MARIA. I THOUGHT IT would end differently.”

  Sylvia’s words bounced off the walls of Maria’s office as they sat face-to-face in the same chairs they’d occupied just days earlier, on the last day of Sylvia’s life. The impossibility of their encounter didn’t elude her, but a calming sensation washed over her as she took in the tranquility of Sylvia’s face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, peering into Sylvia’s eyes, so alive with a depth she’d overlooked until that moment. “I should have done something to protect you. To stop you from wanting to hurt yourself.”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference.” Sylvia’s smile held the warmth of a summer sun shining through a westward window, giving Maria a glimpse of the woman she must have been before psychosis stole her life. “The ending wouldn’t have changed.”

  Words were lost on her as she took in the shifting shapes of Sylvia’s face, as if the woman before her and the woman she would one day become were melded into one, with the lines of her face coursing through years of sorrow and joy.

  “You’re just like they described you,” she said, pulling Maria from her trance.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your patients. They loved you.”

  “How do you know my patients?”

  “I don’t,” Sylvia said. “I just heard their stories.” She slid forward to the edge of the chair, graceful and silent, her gaze on Maria’s face untiring. “I’ve known you for ages, Maria. Your memory was laced into my life so many years ago, shaping my character and inspiring my faith, and I wanted so badly to make it right for you.”

  “Make what right?”

  “One purpose,” she said. “You get one chance.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Every day people make choices without knowing the outcome. Can you imagine, though, if you knew the outcome before you made the choice? Wouldn’t you bear the responsibility of it, even if it didn’t happen by your hand? It’s important to always do the right thing, Maria, even if you have to suffer the consequences.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Come on,” she said, rising from her chair. “I’ll show you.”

  The wind picked up and night invaded the sky as they made their way from Maria’s office into a dusky shadow. The park across the street, once lined with flowers and paths, now held a field sprouting with tombstones and weeds. A flurry of birds taking flight caught Maria’s eye, and in the midst of the commotion stood a little girl, her cobalt blue eyes piercing the darkness.

  It was her husband’s sister, the little girl who never made it past eight.

  “Beth?” Maria’s feet stepped cautiously toward her. “Is that you, Beth?”

  A giggle rang through the air as the little girl darted farther into the cemetery, and without hesitation Maria gave chase. Behind bushes and between headstones they ran, like a game of hide-and-seek, until the patter of feet ceased and the wind stilled.

  “Beth?” Maria’s eyes searched the perimeter of the cemetery as her words resonated in the emptiness.

  “She’s over there.” A skeletal hand emerged from Sylvia’s burlap dress, pointing Maria toward the grave at her back. Through the gloom of night, the headstone was clearly visible.

  ELIZABETH ROSE DANIELS

  A cavernous hole stretched from the headstone, and as Maria approached, Beth’s discolored and distorted face came into focus. The bruises on her neck glowed through the darkness, and her lifeless stare bored through Maria’s eyes.

  “Oh, God!” She spun back toward Sylvia. “You have to
help me save her!”

  The marble-like eyes that stared back from Sylvia’s sunken face were unseeing, though, as her body crumpled to the ground and disappeared.

  “No! No! No! This is not real!” With her face buried in her hands, Maria fought to drive the images out of her mind, but as her knees sank into the soft ground and her hands fell from her face, the dirt surrounding Beth began to cave in.

  “Oh, God, no!”

  She stumbled into the grave, digging and clawing at the earth piling up around Beth, as blood seeped down her hands. It dripped from her fingertips, soaking into the dirt, and then Maria realized it was pouring from the gashes running down the insides of her own wrists.

  “No!”

  The stillness of her bedroom was shattered by the screams that followed her from sleep and the gripping pain that gnawed at her belly. Her heart pounded against her chest like a percussion mallet beating a rhythm into a bass drum, commanding and unyielding.

  “No,” she whimpered, pushing sweat-soaked strands of matted hair from her face and examining the soft, supple skin of her wrists. There were no wounds, just the icy memory of a nightmare that lingered like a ghost. Her arms searched the bed for her husband, but the sheets were cold.

  “Will?” Her voice was frail and pitiful, and her mind couldn’t vanquish the images of Sylvia and Beth that were branded into it.

  Sunlight filtered through the cracks in the blinds as morning forced its way into the room, and by the time Maria hauled herself from the bed, the chills from her sweat-drenched nightgown had settled in. Her body knew her intentions before her mind, and as she reached for Will’s wallet on the bureau across from their bed, her skin was rife with goose bumps. Her hands fumbled with the cards and photos stuffed into the tiny compartments until she found the one she sought.

  The eight-year-old little girl with the cobalt blue eyes smiled back at her from the twenty-three-year-old picture, but Maria could only see the haunted eyes that had found her in the night, and the blue tinge of Beth’s lifeless body.

  “What are you doing?” Will’s silhouette hovered in the doorway, a coffee mug resting in his hand, and for a moment she couldn’t be sure he was real.

  “I don’t know.” The shivers surging through her body rendered her hands useless as she tried to shove the photo of Beth back into its slot. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just wanted to see the picture of your sister.”

  The steam from the coffee billowed between them as he set the mug on the bureau, easing the wallet from her trembling hands and pushing the lingering strands of hair from her forehead.

  “My God,” he said. “You’re drenched. Come sit down.” The strength of his grip saved her from collapsing as he ushered her back to the bed, his hands palpating the roundness of her belly. “Are you in labor?”

  Maria managed to shake her head before the tears broke through, unintelligible words spilling from her mouth as she struggled to convey her dream.

  “Come here.” He slipped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her to his side. “What happened? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so upset.”

  “It was horrible…” Her words were scattered with sobs. “Beth was … and the ground was caving in … and Sylvia … and my wrists…”

  “Wait. Start over,” he said. “You had a nightmare about Beth?”

  “What was her last name? It wasn’t Forssmann, was it?”

  She kept seeing the image of the headstone behind the hole where Beth’s body was sinking into the ground. Elizabeth Rose Daniels. She’d always assumed Will and his sister shared the last name Forssmann, but it would make sense that they didn’t; they didn’t have the same father.

  “Her last name was Daniels,” he said. “I thought you knew that.”

  Did she? It seemed like something she would know. She’d visited the grave site with her husband a handful of times before they left Ohio, but the little girl shared a headstone with her mother and there was no sign of the name Daniels on it, no mention of the man they all wanted to forget.

  “Did Beth come to visit you last night?” Will reached for a box of tissues as Maria wiped her nose with the sleeve of her shirt.

  “It wasn’t a visit,” she said, brushing away his words. “It wasn’t real.”

  She could still smell the fresh dirt on her hands and see the blood trickling from her fingertips. The pain in her wrists was almost palpable as she checked again to be sure there were no wounds. She’d never felt anything so real, except life itself, but there was little Will could do to convince her it was anything other than a nightmare. There had to be a reasonable explanation for it. Didn’t there?

  “It was just a dream,” she said. “I think I’m just a little overwhelmed. There’s so much going on right now, and maybe my mind was just trying to sort it all out in my sleep.”

  “You know you can talk to me, right?” Will brushed his lips over the skin of her knuckles. His hands were soft, almost delicate, as if they’d been designed to guide intricate wires and catheters through tiny blood vessels in the heart, and as Maria pictured Detective Andrews’s hard and calloused hands, she was struck by how well suited both men were to their particular professions. “You’re not alone, Maria. If you don’t want to take time off work, you don’t have to, but at least let me help you.” Will pulled himself from the bed, crossed the room to the dresser, and pulled out some dry clothes for her. “I think you should stay in bed today. Get some rest. I’ll take care of the girls.”

  Maria didn’t answer him, but he was right. She needed a break. Her body was fatigued and swollen, craving rest like a hibernating bear, but she’d never been good at accepting help, even from her own husband. She was too stubborn to let someone else take the reins, and she certainly wasn’t willing to head back into sleep. She was too afraid that Sylvia and Beth would be waiting for her.

  “I think I’ll take a shower first,” she said. “And then maybe I’ll get some rest.”

  The water cascaded over her head like a summer rain, but a deep chill had settled into her core, peppering her skin with goose bumps. She couldn’t seem to get the temperature hot enough, and by the time the shower was over, her skin was red and splotched. She’d barely gotten a brush through her hair when squeals of laughter echoed through the hallway, following her daughter as she barreled into the room.

  “What are you doing up so early, Emmy?”

  “I didn’t pee, Mommy!”

  “Great job, baby.” Maria hugged her three-year-old as tightly as her belly would allow and followed her daughter’s giggles as they drifted through the air like a flight of butterflies. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “We don’t have food,” Emily said, freeing herself from her mother’s embrace. “Daddy said we need grossies.”

  “It’s groceries.” Charlotte’s words found them before her five-year-old peeked her head around the corner of the bedroom door. The cobalt blue eyes she got from her father, the same ones that had been haunting Maria all morning, sparkled like sapphires in the light. She looked at her little sister. “It’s not grossies.”

  “Hello, beautiful girl.” Maria pressed her lips to the top of Charlotte’s head and inhaled the scent of bubblegum shampoo. “What are you up to this morning?”

  “Daddy’s making us go with him to get groceries.” She stared at her little sister as she emphasized the word. “When we get back, Mommy, can you take me to ride my bike? Please?”

  “I wish I could, sweetie. But I don’t think I’m going to be up for it today.” Maria rubbed her belly as if that would explain it.

  “But you promised, Mommy! It’s not fair!”

  “Let me see how I’m feeling later on.”

  She smoothed her daughter’s hair back out of her face as knots gathered down the length of it. She’d been meaning to take both of her daughters for a haircut before she got this deep into her pregnancy, but time hadn’t been on her side. She didn’t think Will would be able to get a brush through it, or even try, but she
didn’t have the energy to do it herself, and she had other things on her mind.

  The key to the storage unit was where she expected it to be, beneath the journal in her nightstand drawer, the journal that was supposed to be keeping her secrets safe. She wondered if it really had been breached, if Sylvia really had been slinking through her house, rummaging through her drawers, and invading her privacy, or if there had been another way. Was it possible that Sylvia was telling the truth? It was a thought she would never have entertained even three days earlier, but things were different now. It was almost as if Sylvia was trying to tell her something, trying to reach her through her dreams and warn her about something. Whatever it was, Maria had a feeling the answer was in the storage unit.

  She slipped the key into the pocket of her dress just moments before her husband walked in, but she was certain he could see the hardened outline of it burning a hole through the fabric like a glowing red ember. She was sure he could sense the deception in her voice when she told him she would be resting in bed while they ventured out for groceries, but if Will suspected anything, he didn’t let on. He kissed her on the forehead and wrangled their daughters into the car before he drove off and left Maria to do what she’d promised she wouldn’t.

  She felt for the key in her pocket one last time before she slipped out the back door and into the garage. She’d have to hurry if she was going to beat them back from the grocery store, but as she slid into the driver’s seat of her car a contraction gave her pause.

  The skin on her belly was tight and the muscles below it rigid. It was time to head to the hospital, time to meet her son, but she had one more stop to make, one last little thing before she could go.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  jenny

  THE BOAT CARRYING HER HUSBAND WAS a speck in the distance by the time Jenny peeled her eyes from it. She blew Hank one last kiss for luck, like she always did, before she climbed back into his twenty-year-old Ford Ranger and steered it back to their home in Calebasse.