by Rena Olsen
“Harriet.”
“Harriet. You can call me Julia.” I sent her a tentative smile. “I’m trying to find out some information about my husband, and I think you might be able to help me.”
She frowned. “What did you say his name was?”
“Bryce, but—”
“Don’t know no Bryce. Sorry, Julia.” She stepped back as if to close the door. I reached into my purse, pulling out the letter I’d stuffed in there before leaving.
“Wait,” I said, waving the envelope at her. “Do you recognize this? Did you send this?”
Harriet froze, eyes wide as she looked at the envelope, then she snatched it from my hand. “Where’d you get this?”
“In a box of my husband’s things,” I said. “It was with what looked like childhood memorabilia.” I paused. I already sounded like the sneaky wife. I probably was the sneaky wife. “My husband is very closed about his past. I used these letters to track you down in hopes that you could help.”
“Your husband’s name is Bryce?” she whispered, still staring at the envelope.
“It is.”
“Anything stand out about him?”
I tried to decipher what she meant. “Dark hair, two dimples . . . his eyes are the exact color of yours.”
She clutched the envelope to her chest. “Bruce,” she gasped. “That’s why I couldn’t find him. He changed his name. Of course.”
Her eyes were miles away, as if I wasn’t even standing there. “Harriet,” I said, trying to bring her back. I reached out and touched her hand softly, and she jumped. “Harriet. If Bryce and Bruce are the same person, I think you can help me.”
She nodded and turned, as if in a trance, walking back into the house. I followed, looking behind me, feeling watched, though I knew nobody was there.
* * *
—
Harriet set the tray with iced tea and cookies on the coffee table, and her hands shook, clinking the glasses together. “Sorry it’s not more fancy,” she said, hands fluttering uselessly. “I wasn’t expecting no one.”
I infused my voice with as much sincerity as possible. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. It’s my fault for catching you off guard.”
I perched on the couch as she sank into the recliner next to me. Everything was covered in blankets, and a thick layer of dark dog hair carpeted the floor and every surface. I regretted wearing yellow and white even more. I’d have to get home and get a load of laundry started before Bryce returned.
Harriet sat back and stared at me, her eyes roving over every feature. “So you’re Bruce’s wife. He got himself a pretty one.”
I averted my gaze, focusing on a particularly large clump of dog hair under the TV. “Thank you. He’s a very handsome man.”
She pursed her lips. “Do you . . . I mean, can I . . .”
I pulled out my phone. “Would you like to see a picture?”
Nodding, she wrung her hands anxiously. I pulled up a picture from our wedding and showed it to her. She stared, tears filling her eyes and spilling over. I scrolled through several pictures of the two of us, and soon she was smiling, tears flowing freely. “He was always so handsome,” she said. “Scrawny, but mostly because he was always runnin’ and we didn’t have much to give him to bulk up.” She looked at me. “Is he a good husband?”
I hesitated. This was not the time to get into my marital issues. “The happiest day of my life was when I married your son.”
A smile split her face. “You guys have any kids?”
My heart stuttered. “Um, actually, we just found out we’re expecting our first.”
Harriet glanced down at my stomach. “You can’t tell.”
“It’s still early,” I said, rubbing my abdomen. “But he’s in there. Or she.”
She reached out to clasp my hand. “Bruce will be such a great daddy.”
Squeezing her hand back, I didn’t comment. “You said that he was always running? Was he on the track team?”
“Oh no, nothing like that.” She laughed. “He was always gettin’ picked on by this group o’ boys. They picked on the little ’uns. He didn’t think I knew, but I knew.”
“What else can you tell me about him?” I asked, leaning forward. Already this was helping. Poor Bryce, picked on. No wonder he worked so hard to stay at the top and in control.
“He was always workin’ on his homework, always writin’ somethin’. He was such a mama’s boy when he was little, but after Sissy came along, he grew up fast. Had to.” She shrugged, guilt radiating from her entire body. “I wasn’t the best mama to him. I let a lot of bad people into this house. Maybe if I’d done a better job, he woulda stuck around.”
“He has a sister?”
Another smile. “Brenda. Though we all called her Sissy.” The smile fell, and the difference in her face when she was smiling and when she was frowning was dramatic. She’d been a beautiful woman once. “She calls every few months now. Ran off with her high school boyfriend. She was never the same after Bruce left. Nightmares for months. Course, that could have more to do with Dwayne.”
“Dwayne?”
She looked at me, almost seeming startled to see me there, as if she’d been sucked into the past for a short time. “Guy I dated back when Bruce was still here. Let him move in and everything. I did that a lot back when Bruce’s dad and me were on the rocks. He’d move out and I’d move in a replacement. Hard on the kids, I suppose, but I needed help.”
My heart hurt as the picture of Bryce’s childhood became a little clearer, and I had to work to keep a neutral expression on my face. I didn’t want Harriet to feel that I was judging her in any way. All I wanted were answers. “Why did Bruce leave?” Using his real name felt strange on my tongue, but it was how she remembered him.
Her brows veed, and her eyes turned stormy, just like Bryce’s did when he got angry, but her anger wasn’t directed toward me. “It was that man.”
“Dwayne?” I guessed.
“No,” she said, her voice taking on a protective note. “I mean. Sure. Dwayne wasn’t the best guy, but he didn’t deserve that. And that man got hold of Bruce and he changed.”
“What man?”
“He was a church man. A pastor or something. Showed up in town one day and ’fore you knew it Bruce was with him all the time. It wasn’t right, a grown man and a teenage boy hangin’ out. But Bruce seemed happier and I had my own issues. And then that night . . .”
I’d scooted so far forward on the couch that I was in danger of falling off. “What night?”
“The night Bruce left.” Harriet was answering my questions, but she had drifted off again. I was sure she was back at that night, and tears spilled down her cheeks at whatever she was remembering. “It was the night Dwayne died.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, reaching over and covering her hand with mine. Her cigarette burned between her fingers, forgotten, and I reached over and plucked it out of her hand, resting it in an overflowing ashtray. “You lost Dwayne and Bruce in the same night? What—what happened to Dwayne?”
Harriet’s eyes found mine and focused in. “Bruce killed him.”
* * *
—
An hour later, I was speeding home, my mind a jumble of everything I had learned from Harriet. She’d told me about how Dwayne’s death was an accident, that Bryce had been defending her. She’d told the cops he hadn’t even been there, that she’d wielded the bat that struck the deadly blow in self-defense. It was a pretty open-and-shut case, but by the time all the dust had cleared, there was no trace of Bruce.
Her voice shook as she told me about how the Reverend showed up, in that calm way of his, and took her son away without so much as a note to tell her where he was. How, months later, she’d jumped for joy to receive a letter from Bruce with some money in it and vague assurances that he was doing well. He’d kept a
PO box for a while, which is where she’d sent all the letters, but then they started coming back to her and she hadn’t heard from him again. There’d been no explanation from him and no contact since.
She’d begged me to stay when I stood to leave, and asked for some sort of contact information. I regretted giving my real name, and Bryce’s, and counted on Harriet’s apparently patchy memory to forget our last name, at least. If she tracked him down now, it would all be over. He’d find out what I’d done.
I wished more than anything that Bryce could have confided this to me himself. How much better might I have understood him if I’d known how he grew up? He didn’t have the family relationships I had, despite what he said about the Reverend and Nancy. I might have been more patient, more understanding, helped him learn rather than expecting him to know how to be a husband automatically.
Insistent beeping brought me out of my reverie, and I saw the low-tire-pressure light blink on two seconds before a loud bang caused my car to swerve back and forth across the road. My heart beating out of my chest, I managed to guide the car to a stop on the shoulder. The road was deserted, so I got out to see that my front tire had blown.
“Shit.”
Climbing back in my car, I pulled out my phone. Normally I would call Bryce, but I couldn’t tell him where I was. I dug through my purse for the AAA card, breathing a sigh of relief when I found it. Hopefully I could get the tow set up before I let Bryce know I would be late.
Thanks to GPS, I was able to tell AAA exactly where I was. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be able to get a truck out to me for a couple of hours. They suggested I call a friend to pick me up and leave the key.
“Thanks for nothing,” I grumbled into the phone after hanging up. At that moment, my phone dinged with an incoming text. Bryce. Shit shit shit.
Where are you?
Went for a drive. Had some car trouble. Everything okay?
Fine. What’s wrong with the car?
Flat tire. Called tow truck.
Need me to come?
No, I’ll wait. Dinner may be late.
I’ll pick something up.
Thank you. See you at home.
Love you, Julia.
I love you, Bryce.
I breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t seem to suspect anything, and he was downright cheerful compared to his usual texting style lately. If I could get home and smooth things over, maybe we could get back in rhythm. At least now I had an excuse to smell like cigarette smoke. Bryce didn’t have to know whether my tow truck guy was a cigarette-smoking dog owner.
It was almost three hours before the tow truck came. I’d hoped he’d just change the tire there, but he insisted on towing it to the garage and having the guys there change it. Thankfully, they did a much quicker job and had me on my way twenty minutes after arriving.
Still, darkness had fallen by the time I pulled into the garage, feeling dirty, smelly, and emotionally spent. I didn’t care what Bryce had brought home. I had missed lunch and I was famished. I was ready to eat and then soak in the tub for an hour before falling into bed. I hoped Bryce wasn’t in the mood for more than sleeping.
No lights were on downstairs when I walked in, which I found strange. I expected Bryce to at least have left a couple of lights on, even if he got distracted in his study. Cold Chinese sat on the table, several containers tipped as if they’d been tossed there carelessly.
“Bryce?” I called. The study was empty as well, but I heard a creak from upstairs, so I headed in that direction, hoping I wasn’t walking in on an intruder. My heart beat rapidly in my chest, and my breaths came in short gasps. The only light upstairs spilled from my parlor door and my heart stuttered as I came to the doorway.
Bryce sat in the middle of the room, spinning in my chair. The room looked as if it had been hit by a tornado. Every drawer had been dumped, every book thrown off the shelves, and on the desk sat the stack of letters and the tiny wrinkled card Dr. Leeland had given me so long ago I’d almost forgotten about it.
Torn between wanting to explain and wanting to flee, I stood frozen in the doorway, watching as Bryce planted his feet to bring the spinning chair to a stop. He rose, and every muscle in his body was coiled tight. He advanced toward me, and the look in his eyes was pure rage. Spinning on my heel, I ran back into the hallway and down the stairs. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I had to get away. I pulled open the front door and slammed it behind me, sprinting down the stairs and cutting across the grass. I stumbled through the shadows created by the large overhanging branches of the giant trees lining the driveway. The moon peeked through in small patches like spotlights, illuminating my path. I’d almost reached the gate when the front door slammed again.
My shaking fingers took three tries to punch in the correct code, and at the sound of the gate creaking open, the steady footfalls heading in my direction became faster, more urgent. I slipped through the gate, catching my blouse on the rough metal. Wrenching myself free, I hazarded a glance back, and saw that he was no longer far behind. As I began to run again, so did he, his large steps dwarfing my own. As he pursued me down the street, he closed the gap, and it felt as if I were running in slow motion. I glanced over my shoulder once more, and it cost me. I tripped over the edge of the sidewalk and fell into the soft grass of a carefully manicured lawn. He was on me in seconds.
He pinned me to the ground facedown, breathing hard. “How dare you run out on me,” he hissed, his breath hot on my ear.
I struggled against him, straining to rid myself of his oppressive weight, but soon I realized it was useless, and I allowed myself to go limp. Sensing surrender, he eased himself off me and rolled me onto my back, holding my wrists as he loomed over me. Bryce pulled me into a sitting position and crouched in front of me. “Come back to the house on your own, or I’ll carry you back,” he said in a calm voice that didn’t match the expression on his face or the weight of his words.
I didn’t doubt that he would do just that, and my head dropped in defeat. I allowed him to help me to my feet. He brushed the grass off our clothes and ran a gentle hand down my cheek, lingering on a spot that was tender after being pushed into the grass.
“Let’s go inside, darling,” Bryce said. “We have important things to talk about.”
I allowed my husband to tuck my arm under his own and lead me back toward the beautiful house that in that moment felt more like a prison. As he closed the gate behind us, I realized that the gate wasn’t there so much to keep people from getting in, but to keep them from getting out.
His door bangs open and Sissy runs into his bedroom, skidding under the bed before he can register anything more than the terror on her face. This fight is worse than the others. Sounds of his mother begging float through his open door. She never begs. She gives as good as she gets, and he never feels sorry for her. This time, concern he didn’t know existed in his body flares to life, along with the need to protect his family. He tells his sister to stay where she is and closes the door behind him as he rushes out to the living room.
He rarely comes into this room, so he’s not sure if the mess is from the altercation or if it’s just how his mother and her boyfriend live. The argument is about his father, who has popped up in town again. Not that the boy would know. He is inconsequential to his biological father. But his father always goes after his mother, and always runs whatever man she has living with her out of town. He’ll move in for a while before abandoning them again.
The boyfriend growls at the boy to leave. Their fight is their personal business. He calls the boy’s mother a series of degrading names, and swipes at her with a baseball bat. The boy approaches, putting himself between his mother and her boyfriend. The man swings a warning shot, catching the boy on the arm as he raises it in defense, knocking him to the ground. The boy is surprised at the pain, and he is sure his arm is broken. A rage fills him, and as the boyfri
end towers over him, threatening to rain more blows on him as his mother screams in the background, the boy is also filled with calm. He welcomes the rage. And he knows the calm comes from elsewhere. It is similar to being One, and he knows his next moves are divinely ordained.
As the bat falls, the boy reaches up with both hands, wrenching it from the man, whose face fills with surprise and confusion as he stumbles back. He grabs for the bat as the boy rises, but his reflexes are dulled by alcohol and the boy steps neatly out of the way. More threatening words fly from the boyfriend’s mouth, but they wash over the boy like a summer rain. His arm doesn’t even hurt anymore. He smiles at the man, who stops talking and looks at him dumbly.
His vacant look turns to terror as the boy raises the bat, and the expression pulls a laugh from the boy’s belly. He was never much good at baseball, but the bat swings true and catches the man on the side of the head. He tumbles like a giant oak, catching the other side of his head on the coffee table as he goes down, and is still. Home run.
His mother’s screams change as she rushes to her boyfriend’s side. Not her son’s. She doesn’t look for her daughter. She screams and tries to wake her boyfriend, but he won’t wake. His eyes are open, dark orbs staring into nothingness. His dad won’t have to run this one out of town. The boy has taken care of it. Protected his family, ungrateful as they will be. He gazes at his mother in disgust before heading back to his room. He pulls Sissy from under his bed and comforts her before tucking her in.
He digs through his bag to find the phone the Reverend gave him and dials a number. In ten minutes, the Reverend walks into the room. Sissy is asleep. He tells the boy to pack what he wants to take. He has taken care of his mother and she will sleep until morning. She hasn’t called the police yet. The Reverend holds the bat, the only evidence of the boy’s involvement.
The boy doesn’t look back as they drive away from the shack. It was never really home. His only twinge of regret is for Sissy, who will have to deal with the aftermath without him. The Reverend would not allow him to bring her along. He vows to take care of her from afar, as the Reverend had planned to do for him. They drive out of town, and as the lights from the place of nightmares blink out in the rearview mirror, the boy sleeps, deep and dreamless.