She ran off the porch and began tearing off fistfuls of the hydrangeas that had hidden her so well. She ripped them from the bushes, hysterically, throwing and stomping the petals and leaves to pieces. She tore up petals in disgust, thinking of her sister’s body, misused in ways that left permanent scars. She wept for the innocence ripped away from Anne, who seemed, unaware of how off- course her life had become. She stomped at the hateful words her mother spoke to her, because she didn’t know any better, and finally, she thrashed at all the chaos her father had brought on them all -through the years. Lucy did this while not realizing that John was standing on the side of the house, watching his youngest daughter have a complete mental breakdown.
Once it was all out, Lucy collapsed, defeated on the grass, and eventually willed her body to slow its ragged breathing. She drew both shaky, dirty knees into her chest and rested her head lightly on her forearms, pulling her hair back to the side and closing her eyes to the unfair, ruthless world around her.
“Lucy, what’s going on?” her dad asked. “Is this about last night?”
“Yes, Lucy said flatly. “Anne has been dating Mark next door for about four years, dad.”
6
Mark
He could not remember how long John had been sitting there, with his shotgun, but eventually, Charlotte would come home from work, and things would go from bad to worse.
Mark had not said much when John asked him about Anne. There wasn’t much he figured John would like to hear him say about the relationship he was having with his oldest daughter. Mark couldn’t even explain it to himself sometimes, and there wasn’t any concrete reason it had started in the first place. They didn’t see each other that much anymore, and now that she was going to have a baby, it was even more complicated.
Anne was hot, young, fun, and slightly edgy; that had probably been about all there ever was to it for him, right from the beginning. He had never loved her the way he still loved Charlotte. He had also never meant to hurt her or anyone, but he knew that he had hurt everyone. He had become his father, a selfish, unfaithful shadow of a man.
“What do you plan to do with that shotgun, John?” Mark asked, pointing his finger at the rifle lying across the top of John’s crossed legs.
“I don’t know, blow your brains out so you can’t ruin any more little girl’s lives, Mark-that makes me something like a good Samaritan really if you think about it,” John replied in a high-pitched voice, grinning wickedly.
“I mean, how old was my daughter when you started having sex with her? You know you could go to jail for this - it’s a criminal offense to have sex with a minor, you know, asshole!”
“Wait, John, I know this is bad, and I have no right to ask you to hear me out, but she was seventeen years old before anything like that….”
John crossed the room before Mark could finish the sentence and rammed the barrel of the gun right under Mark’s chin, jamming his knee hard in between his legs. Mark gasped for air and met John’s gaze for mercy and forgiveness.
“Listen to me very carefully, Mark,” John whispered. “Tomorrow, I’m going to call your work and tell them that you are a child molester because in this state, if a girl is under the age of 18, they are still considered a minor. How old were you, John, 40? They will fire you -which you deserve- and then, I’m going to call and report you to the police so that we can prosecute you, and EVERYONE here in this community will know what you have done.”
Mark’s eyes widened and then closed, as John released the barrel from his chin and stepped back across the room. He leaned forward, dropped his head in his hands, and after a few moments, began to sob. John stood looking at him, motionless, disgusted and exhausted.
“Stay the hell away from both my daughters, Mark,” John said, “Far away!”
Mark listened to John walking away from him, and the slam of the screen door as he left. How had he gotten here, he wondered? He kept telling himself he would stop, but he never did. Not when Anne had told him she was pregnant, not even when Finn had started to hate him. What was his motive for destroying everything he touched? Charlotte was too good for him; she always had been. She would never look at him the way Anne did, like a hero-someone to be proud of. He was not proud of himself. He hated himself, had for a very long time.
What would they say to him at work tomorrow? Lots of men had affairs on their wives, that part wouldn’t be so bad. It was the child molester verbiage that terrified him. Was he a child molester? Anne had never seemed like a child to him, her body like that of a woman, her mindset, determined to make him want her. But now, that his son was almost seventeen, the past sickened him. She had been, basically, a child, and it was all very wrong and disturbing. They were all better off without him. He had become a stain that needed to be removed.
Several hours later, Charlotte pulled into the driveway and turned off the car lights. She sat there, listening to the radio and resting her head on the back of the car seat. Mark’s truck was home, and a single lamp in the living room reflected an empty sofa.
There was nothing to say anymore, and it was almost worse than the fighting. Finn and Lucy had texted earlier that they were going to the mall so the house would be extra quiet and lonely tonight. When had their marriage died, she wondered?
She remembered how the keys to their getaway car had unexpectedly gone missing on the day of their wedding.
The vehicle had been a newer convertible that belonged to one of Mark’s friends. Her bridesmaids had playfully decorated it with silver streamers, and painted, clunky soup cans, tied neatly across the back bumper. But when the time had come for them to have their big send-off, the keys had seemed to vanish-everyone remembering that someone else had been the last to have them.
Mark took this minor, vehicular hiccup in stride. Still, Charlotte, already maxed out from being in the spotlight for hours, had nearly lost it- thinking they would be stuck at the reception party indefinitely. Just when the one-hundredth person asked to have their picture taken with her, Mark rode up beside Charlotte on a cute beach cruiser, winked, and asked her to hop on.
Charlotte smiled, thinking about that little bike, with the single tin can tied on the back. Mark had whisked them four blocks away to their honeymoon suite where they had made Finn. They had been so happy before her, that was what hurt the most. Some couples were never really happy, but they had found it and lost it. Charlotte never gave up hope that they would find it again, the happiness they had lost.
Their front door was usually unlocked, so without keys in hand, she pulled open the screen door, letting it slap loudly shut behind her, a signal that she was home from work. Mark was not sitting in his usual spot on the living room couch, which was odd, but the thought came and left just as quickly when she noticed his wallet lying open on the coffee table. Charlotte put down her purse, took off her sweater, and mindlessly flipped on the television.
As she stood there flipping quickly through channels, she wondered what Mark had eaten for dinner, and the wondering made her stomach growl. As she rounded the corner to the kitchen, Charlotte noticed right away that something was not right. Suddenly, she froze and let her eyes adjust to an image she never imagined she would see. Mark’s body lay face down on the kitchen floor at an angle nobody should be able to make. A massive pool of crimson, black liquid covered most of the tile floor surrounding him. Charlotte went very still and lowered herself to sit down on the kitchen floor, staring across the pool of blood at her husband.
“Shit,” she whispered shakily, her hands coming up to her mouth. “Please, God, no, no, no…no Mark, get up baby, get up.”
She looked pointedly at his hands and saw they were not moving. She looked intently at his back and saw it was not rising. She looked at the floor and noticed his handgun. She started to scream, but could not hear any noises coming out. Charlotte stood up and anxiously walked towards Mark, but as she got closer, her shoes began to smear through the blood, which frightened her. She kicked them off
frantically and ran out to her car, but she did not have any keys when she got there. Charlotte stood in their driveway, in socks, and looked around. She saw Mark’s truck and her car parked neatly, side by side. Outside their house, it looked like things were fine, but things were not okay. Things would never be okay again, she thought.
She walked unsteadily over to Lucy’s house and knocked, softly, on the front door. Eventually, a porch light came on, and John, oblivious to the nightmare next door, easily let her come inside. At first, he couldn’t understand her, but in time her fragmented words painted the scene of what she had just witnessed, and John, who had gone very cold inside, gave Charlotte his phone to dial 911.
7
Before the Funeral
Lucy stood in a black dress, looking at herself, carefully, in the mirror. This was not the cute formal she had purchased for the sophomore dance the night Mark committed suicide, but a dress she picked out for his funeral.
As many times as she said the word funeral, it still sounded like a stranger talking. Mark’s funeral, no, that could not be right. Mark was their neighbor; his red truck was parked outside Lucy’s bedroom window right this second. He had not had a creepy affair with Anne for four years and then ended his life after her parents found out; after she told her dad.
The reality of today was overwhelming, and Lucy made herself sit down. On top of all of it, Finn was not speaking to her. Lucy got it or could at least empathize with how her best friend must feel about her. Finn kept saying he wished she would have told him first, before telling her parents. Lucy had stopped trying to consider the order in which things should have happened. It seemed pointless to hash it out now that the truth lit a way for them to move forward. But as she was keenly aware, most people did not share her perspectives on life. She sat in silence on her bed, thinking about the long day ahead, trying to imagine how they all would cope.
Dianna sat restlessly on her bed, fervently texting Anne, who was a complete basket case. Today would be the first time her daughter would have to face Charlotte since the news of the affair, and she was terrified. Dianna assured Anne that Charlotte would be heavily medicated and highly unlikely to give her the time of day; today, it was not about anybody other than Mark and his family.
Anne had taken offense to this, which had mildly irritated Dianna, but they had worked it out in the end, and things seemed smooth between them. John, on the other hand, was fidgety and in a foul mood. He did not want to go to the funeral and did not see the point in any of them going beyond Lucy, to support Finn and Charlotte. He and Dianna had gotten into a shouting match this morning about his last conversation with Mark, and John had grabbed both her wrists when she tried to walk away. Lucy, feeling like she needed to intervene, had pushed John off Dianna and, in turn, had taken a hard knock to her elbow as her dad stormed by her, forcing her into the wall. This was followed by a stern directive to mind her own business and go get ready for the “damn” funeral. That incident had been hours ago, and now, they were all in different rooms of the house waiting on Anne.
Anne’s car rolled loudly into their gravel driveway, and Lucy felt a sharp catch in her stomach. She had not seen her sister since the night she overheard her mom and Anne talking in the kitchen about the affair. She had texted Anne the night Mark died, and all the days after, but her sister had gone quiet.
It was likely Anne was utterly heartbroken and would lash out at her like Finn had, grief hiding behind thin veils of hot anger. She decided to stay safely put in her room and let her parents field the first wave of whatever her sister was going to throw at them. Lucy lay still on top of her soft, wrinkled comforter; ankles crossed, waiting for it, knowing all of them were heading into a dark cloud of emotion.
Anne sat in her car, staring down at her shiny, black pumps. She hated them. She hated this day and that there would be no one who would understand the depth of what she had lost. They might pity her or judge her, speculate about her, and even hate her, but no one would ever understand. For the first time, ever, she wished she had told Lucy about Mark. Lucy might have understood. Anne had always believed she would have just turned her into their parents, but if she had taken the time to explain things, to tell her little sister about the kind words that Mark spoke and the way he made her feel like she was the most special girl in the world, Lucy might have seen in him what she had seen in him. Lucy might have gotten it, and then, Mark would still be alive.
If she had Lucy on her side, it would have felt like having an army of people, but she had shut Lucy out, afraid of what she would think of her. She would never be a Lucy, she thought, upstanding, a goody-goody in every way. What was the point of trying to do the right thing when the world was so hard and disappointing, anyway? Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, Anne thought sadly, thinking of something that had happened with Alex that morning.
Anne reluctantly turned off the car and reached for her black handbag. As she stretched across the passenger seat, she looked up to see Mark’s red truck sitting in the next driveway over. Bolts of electricity raced down her spine, and suddenly, she felt very cold. Hurriedly, she crossed the front yard and made her way safely into her parent’s house.
“Thank God you are here,” Dianna said. “We were going to have to leave without you soon; do you even have a watch?”
Anne ignored her mother’s dramatic overtures and walked shakily to the coffee pot, hoping to thaw the icy chill that had just settled over her body.
“How is Dad doing since he talked to the police?”Anne asked. “Did they go through his phone, like they did mine?”
“We haven’t talked much about his police report,” Dianna replied. “They thanked him for being honest about going over there with the shotgun, said that might have caused your dad a lot of problems if a neighbor would have reported seeing it first.”
Anne thought about her dad holding a shotgun pointed at Mark all because they had fallen in love, and angry feelings jumped on top of the heap of other emotions she had been carrying around for the past few days.
“I wonder if Dad feels responsible for his death, you know,” Anne said defiantly, tears starting to pour from the corners of her eyes. “I wonder if he cares about anyone in the whole damn world besides himself?”
Dianna grabbed Anne’s cold hand, drawing her oldest daughter close to her own body, wrapping her tightly against her chest- giving her permission to be seen. Anne sobbed violently as her mother softly stroked her long, brown hair, and whispered consolations only they could hear. They stayed this way for a long time, the two matching bookends, meshing as one when they needed to- when the stakes were high.
John walked into the kitchen and saw immediately from Dianna’s scowl, that he was not welcome. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he decided that half of them better be ready to go to the funeral, so he turned and headed back down the hall to find Lucy. Her door was locked, but she answered it, seconds after he knocked.
“Are you ready to go to this thing?” he said nervously, looking around her room as though he had never seen it before. He was trying to find something to focus on to calm his nerves.
“Yes, I don’t really want to go, but I’m dressed and ready,” Lucy said. “How is Anne doing?”
“She’s balled up in your mom’s arms, crying her eyes out at the moment,” John said. “I just don’t know if I can do this thing, Lucy.”
Lucy thought about this for a moment. Did any of them have a choice to not go to the funeral? In just a few months, Lucy would be seventeen years old, the same age as Anne, when she started sleeping with Mark. When did your choices begin to belong to just you, she wondered? Dad was going to the funeral because he was part of their family, and their family was choosing to go. Anne dated Mark because she wanted to, regardless of what the family thought. What if the things your family did were wrong? Could you say no, do something different, and still belong in that family? Dad was an adult, but he wasn’t saying no. There was certainly nothing easy about growin
g up and learning where you stop, and other people start. Since nothing jumped out as a clear, definitive solution, Lucy said the best thing she could think of to say to her dad.
“I think today is going to be hard and that you might feel different than almost everyone else at the funeral, but that doesn’t mean that your feelings are wrong or less important,” Lucy said, reaching out to straighten her dad’s tie. “I think you can do it.”
John smiled shyly at his youngest daughter, and after a brief pause, he said, “You look beautiful in that dress, Lucy; I mean, you’re always pretty, but your hair and the dress- its just nice together, you know.”
8
The Funeral
The white stucco church sat squarely off the main highway, and down at the foot of a hill, Lucy could count how many cars needed to turn before they would be able to pull in and park.
It was odd driving in the car, like old times with the two adults riding in the front and two sisters sitting in the back. Anne was asleep or pretending to be sleeping, with her face pressed deep into a sweater, balled up tightly between her neck and the window. Lucy strained her eyes, looking for Finn, who might be standing outside the building, but she could not find him. Her stomach ached when she thought about seeing him. The image of him standing over Mark's body in their kitchen, burned into her mind.
If there was one person in the world who had not deserved that kind of hurt, it was Finn, and then the next would have been Charlotte. But here they both were, somewhere inside that building, breathing and walking and talking to people, making decisions and signing papers- living through the worst day a person can survive. Lucy started to pray that somehow, today would turn out okay and that there would be a time when she and Finn could talk, uninterrupted, get things resolved between the two of them, have things go back to how they had always been.
The Truth Lucy Spoke (The Truth Turned Upside Down Book 2) Page 4