A Slow Ruin Read online

  I traced my father’s handsome face with my fingertip. A face made for the big screen. Cheekbones like a tiny mountain ridge. A Denzel Washington smile of perfectly aligned chiclets. My father had shoved most traces of my mother’s sun-hating genetics aside, giving me all of the best parts of him.

  A surge of emotion tugged on my heart as I stared into the past, back when my family was whole. Like so many young men in the months after 9-11, my father had joined the service in a patriotic fervor and had been killed in action in Operation Enduring Freedom on his first tour of duty. I was nine at the time. We met the military aircraft bearing his remains at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for the dignified transfer, as the solemn ritual is called, and wept openly. Mom had received a personal letter of condolence from then President George W. Bush; the respectful gesture did absolutely nothing to assuage her grief.

  My father’s homecoming, taking place upon the sprawling sylvan grounds of Allegheny Cemetery with its magnificent gatehouses, statuary, and mausoleums, had seemed like a scene out of a storybook to my young and innocent eyes. After a lone bugler played “Taps,” the American flag was carefully removed from Dad’s casket and two soldiers, in full dress uniform, folded it with mesmerizing precision into the symbolic tri-cornered shape, and reverently presented it to my tearful mother. My gaze strayed to a starling singing in the dense tree canopy. I thought that was my daddy, saying goodbye.

  Which reminded me, it had been too long since I visited his grave.

  I flipped through several more pictures, each one chronicling a different part of my life. Me sitting on Dad’s shoulders with a Kennywood Amusement Park sign above me, hair braided in neat rows and decorated with a rainbow of beads. Me snuggled on Mom’s lap as she read from a stolen copy of A Wrinkle in Time, the borrower’s card tucked inside the front endpaper pocket inscribed with the names of children who had checked it out over the years, the last one being Josie (smiley face). Mom had chuckled over the astronomical library fees she had probably accrued over the years while I was sure the Library Police would show up at any moment and haul her off to jail. Pictures of birthdays, Christmases, Fourth of Julys. Most were of just me, the only child, with Mom presumably behind the lens. But on occasion there was Dad, home on leave, or Mom, on the few occasions she found a third party to hold the camera.

  As the years slid by in each image, my mother’s pink-cheeked beauty slowly faded. She wore the toll of life as a military wife in the lines of her face. Later, after Dad died in battle, she wore military widowhood on her spirit and mind. She was never the same after my father died. But I liked to think that she was reunited up in heaven with him now, spending endless days in perfect contentment and fellowship, free from all earthly care, with her first love, her best friend. Devin and Josie forever.

  In the bottom of the box was a picture frame, empty. Holding it in my hand, I couldn’t quite remember what picture had been behind the glass. The one of Dad holding me as a newborn? I remembered a baby picture had been here, but which one? And why had I taken it out? It felt important for some reason.

  I closed my eyes, pushed my memory into a jog. Flashes of moments flew by. I recalled the day I moved in with Cody, unpacking boxes. This specific box. Opening it and seeing this picture frame. Then I remembered. I knew what had been in the frame. A picture worth a thousand words, blackmail if ever I needed it, a life insurance policy. There was no way I would have removed the picture without knowing where I put it. Somewhere safe. Somewhere hidden. Somewhere Cody would never find it. Because if he ever saw it…I didn’t want to think what would happen then.

  But if I hadn’t removed it, who had? And why?

  Footsteps in the hallway yanked me out of the questions fizzing in my brain. Scooping up the pictures, I dropped them haphazardly in the box. Cody peeked around the doorframe just as I shoved the box into a cubby.

  “What’cha doing awake, babe?” he asked.

  I still hated babe just as much as yesterday. I rose to my feet a little too quickly. “Nothing. Just cleaning. I couldn’t sleep after everything that happened at family dinner.”

  “It’s pretty awful, isn’t it? A body found. Honestly, I don’t know how Felicity is still standing.”

  I met him at the doorframe and slipped under his arm. “I’m done in here. I made coffee, if you want some.”

  “As long as it’s not that flavored crap.” He kissed my forehead.

  I shut the door behind me and followed him downstairs to the kitchen. “You didn’t happen to go through my stuff in there, did you?” I asked.

  “I’ve learned the hard way never to go near your things, Mare.”

  It wasn’t exactly an answer.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He chuckled lightly. “You know how protective you are about your possessions. Remember that one time I used your face moisturizer? I got a two-hour lecture about it afterwards. Besides, God knows what you’re hiding in there.”

  I knew exactly what I had been hiding. And it was now missing.

  “So no one was in that room?”

  “Why are you so worried about it?”

  Another non-answer.

  “Because I’m missing something that’s pretty important to me.”

  “What—a pair of shoes?”

  I closed my eyes and inhaled, summoning patience. A wheeze of air slipped through the window, chilly with night barely hanging on.

  “Does it matter what I’m missing? I just need to know if someone was going through my stuff, Cody.”

  “Hey, calm down.” Cody filled my mug with coffee and handed it to me. “Nothing is irreplaceable, Marin. Whatever it was that got misplaced, I’ll get you a new one. Unless it’s those expensive boots you own. Unfortunately we can’t afford to replace those.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and sipped. Slurped. I cringed at the sound.

  “Not this—this I can’t replace. It was something my mother gave me.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. What are we looking for? I’ll help you find it.”

  I couldn’t involve him. He could never find out. Unless he already knew but wasn’t telling me.

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s gone.”

  “I’m sure whatever it is will turn up.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Even if you don’t find it, nothing meaningful is ever really gone because it stays right here.” He patted my heart, lifted my hand, pressed his lips to my knuckles.

  But some things could be torn out of there too. My mother made sure of that before she died.

  My pocket beeped, and I pulled out my phone. I recognized the fake name that dropped down from the edge of my screen, then pressed the phone against my thigh.

  “Everything okay?” Cody asked. “You don’t look so good.”

  I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until the room swayed. I could only imagine what kind of shock passed over my face right now.

  “Um, yeah. Just the boss texting me about something I forgot to do.”

  Cody huffed. “That man has too much time on his hands.”

  “That’s how rich people are, so bored they need to make up stuff to do.” I leaned toward the dining room, looking for an escape. “I’ve got to make a quick call, then I’ll make breakfast. Western omelet okay with you?”

  “Sounds great.” Cody slid a scrutinizing glance over me. “You sure you’re okay?”

  I grinned, but I didn’t know if he was buying it. As he walked out of the kitchen, I swiped to read the text message, and my heart stalled:

  Vera isn’t coming back.

  Chapter 8

  Felicity

  The moon and stars were hiding tonight, sweeping the porch in a cosmic blackness. I could barely make out the figure of Brutus lying at my feet, his beefy black body absorbed into the shadow. The night felt bitter, circling my legs, nipping at my lips and ears. I wrapped my blanket tighter around my shoulders, but the air sn
uck through the folds, drugged with cold.

  Tonight would have been book club, I realized as I shifted against the hard seat of the rocking chair. It squeaked against dead silence as I leaned forward, back, forward, back, listening to the nothingness in the yard and beyond, wondering what book the girls had picked to read and discuss for October. A thriller, Little Does She Know, I remembered seeing on our Facebook group page. The title resonated a little too much with my own life. Although I read each month’s selections, I had stopped attending book club the week Vera disappeared. I cancelled meetups with friends two weeks after that. Church went out the window a couple weeks later.

  My faith didn’t die quickly. The first few weeks after Vera went missing I attended church and support groups as if her life depended on it. Maybe if I proved to God I was good enough, believed in Him enough, He’d give me my daughter back. But eventually I had lost all hope. I didn’t know how other mothers did it, clung to God when they lost a child or faced a life-threatening illness that would leave their motherless children behind. I wanted that kind of relentless trust in a higher power, but I didn’t know where to find it or how to cling to it.

  After last night’s visit from Detective Montgomery, my family was afraid to leave me alone. Unsupervised. Like I was a reckless child running with scissors. One trip and oops, she cut herself. Yet even I didn’t trust myself alone with such hopeless thoughts. Every night they darkened my bedroom door. Every morning they rose from shallow graves. There were lots of guns in the house, World War I relics Oliver collected over the years. Oliver kept them under lock and key, lest they fall into the children’s hands. Or so he said. He was probably more afraid I would take one and bang! Instant widower. But I’d never shoot myself; the old gun would probably misfire and instead leave me disfigured for life. Whatever way out I took, it would need to be quick, painless, and guaranteed.

  Not that I was plotting my own death or anything. I tried my best to shoo away such impulses.

  My neck ached with a shooting pain that jumped from the base of my skull up to my temples. Oliver had given me a relaxing neck and shoulder massage, but despite his best efforts, I didn’t sleep. Couldn’t rest. So Oliver had sent me upstairs to bed—where I spent a few short hours soaking my pillow with tears while soaking up Vera’s journal—while I’m sure my family whispered late into the night assurances that it wasn’t Vera’s body they found, that everything would be okay.

  This morning Debra and Joe showed up before the sun did, ready to prepare a full breakfast that I didn’t dare eat. My stomach clenched in painful knots, resisting anything that would sustain me. It was as if my body had already surrendered. By early afternoon a shift change as Cody arrived bringing alcohol and sympathy. No one wanted to speak the words that would surely break me—the police had found a body—or ask me the question I couldn’t bear to answer—did I think it was Vera? Only the dogs seemed to respect my self-indulgent torment as they hung back just enough to give me space, but close enough to offer fur-between-my-fingers comfort. Though Brutus, being an American Bully that we saved from a dog-fighting ring, had less fur and more slobber than the average breed and a tail shaped like a lightning bolt. He groaned as he rested his jowls and a string of saliva on my lap, like he understood my sadness. Dogs have a sixth sense, I’ve always believed.

  I sipped my dinner of Kahlua and cream, wondering if Sydney and Eliot were keeping my in-laws awake. Oliver had sent the kids home with his parents to give me—meaning the kids—a reprieve. I was difficult to be around; I knew this. What mother wouldn’t be while waiting for autopsy results that determined if her daughter was dead? I had come out here on the porch to brood alone, until Cody joined me, sitting in the chair to my left and matching the rhythm of my back-and-forth rocking. A little later Oliver joined us, taking the rocker on my right. Apparently I needed constant supervision.

  “Comfy, boys?” I huffed. The brothers made caveman-like grunts of contentment.

  The sickly sweet scent of gutted pumpkins and decaying leaves hung in the air, chilly with the promise of winter. A couple of weeks after Vera had gone missing, Oliver had taken it upon himself to start a pumpkin patch for Eliot and Sydney—to distract them, he said, from all the crap. He threw himself into the project, renting a rototiller to break up a garden in the side yard and planting seedlings in mounds according to YouTube instructional videos. He enlisted the kids in the watering and fertilizing, and they took to the task with eagerness and pride.

  Sydney was hopeful of growing a humongous pumpkin—as big as Cinderella’s coach, she said—and was no less pleased when the garden yielded nine gorgeous, plump pumpkins. The kids picked their two favorite specimens and, with Oliver’s help, carved a pair of jack-o’-lanterns—Syd’s with traditional triangular features, Eliot’s a rather grotesque attempt at the orange-skinned Thing from the Fantastic Four. The kids’ pumpkins, along with several more that hadn’t been massacred, graced the front porch. The rest had been left to rot in the patch, becoming midnight snacks for the abundant foxes, opossums, and raccoons. That pumpkin patch had done wonders for lifting everyone’s spirits, if only for a while.

  While some trees surrounding our yard clung to their fiery oranges and buttery yellows and bloody burgundy, others had already dropped their leaves. Oliver swore he was going to get around to raking them up; our on-call gardener could take care of it, but Oliver claimed it was good therapy. Our property was an island among the suburbs, our house shrouded by six acres of forest, no other dwelling in sight. There was something both eerily serene and terrifying about it. The isolation. The mysteries. The secrets we could bury with no one watching.

  We had privacy to spare, but every now and then a curiosity-seeker would defy the wry “Trespassers Will Be Shot, Survivors Will Be Shot Again” sign Cody had erected on our property line at the end of the road, hell-bent on seeing the Execution Estate up close.

  Today happened to be one of those days.

  A beam of headlights swung across the driveway, and a minute later a rattletrap Corolla with two suicide tires and no hubcaps pulled in front of the porch. Two unkempt slackers in their early twenties got out and stood brazenly gawking at the house in all its grandiose glory.

  “Oh no, not again,” Oliver grumbled. He stood and walked to the edge of the porch. “Can I help you…gentlemen?”

  “Is this the Execution Estate?” said one of the boys.

  “What if it is?” said Oliver with more restraint than I gave him credit for.

  “Dude, we just drove up from Perryopolis—”

  “And saw Buffalo Bill’s house from Silence of the Lambs,” the other finished. “It was frickin’ awesome. But not half as awesome as this joint.”

  “Yeah, we’re on a tour of cool murder manses, and the Execution Estate was next on our list. This place is the shit!”

  Oliver took a sip of his drink. “Gee, thanks.”

  “Some couple’s gonna turn Buffalo Bill’s house into a hotel,” the first boy said. “You guys gonna turn this place into a hotel? That would be—”

  “Frickin’ awesome?” Oliver supplied. “No, no plans like that. Guess you boys didn’t see the sign about trespassing.”

  “Yeah, we saw it. Figured it was a joke.”

  “No joke,” said Oliver. “I’ve got a loaded shotgun just inside the door. I’m going to walk back to my chair now, and if you two douchenozzles aren’t back in your heap by the time I sit down, you’ll find out the hard way the real reason this house is called the Execution Estate.”

  The slackers tripped all over each other clambering back into their clunker and hauling ass down the driveway. Once they were a safe distance away, the driver flipped Oliver the bird.

  “You handled that remarkably well,” I said.

  “Sometimes I wish I did have a shotgun.” Oliver sighed, easing into his rocker. “And a trophy room.”

  “What you really need is a gate, bro,” said Cody.

  “Yeah. You
’re probably right.”

  The evening wore on. On one side of me, Cody attempted tipsy conversation. On the other, Oliver downed glass after glass of vodka, rum and Coke, whiskey. Pretty soon he began to give off a vinegary reek, and I scooted my chair away from him. Bitterness burrowed inside me that he could so easily numb himself on alcohol while I felt every damn emotion.

  When Oliver cracked a joke about his newest hire—predictably a bumbleheaded blonde whose breasts got her the job—and Cody laughed, I had had enough. Only yesterday the police had found a body. There would be no laughing today.

  “I think it’s time to cut you off,” I said, standing up and grabbing Oliver’s half-full tumbler from his hand.

  He grabbed it back, glaring at me. “Who made you in charge? I’m allowed to drink if I want to.” His voice was high-pitched with a nasally twang, a sure sign he was drunk.

  “Not if you’re going to be partying the day after we found out our daughter might be dead.”

  “Partying? You think I’m partying? We don’t all want to steep in the pain like you do, Felicity. I think about our daughter every damn moment of every damn day! For once I’m trying not to think about it. I just want to feel…nothing.” He saluted with his glass, sloshing the contents on his shirt.

  My mouth dropped open, and the creak of Cody’s chair stopped. Not even a cricket dared chirp. Oliver shoved himself up from the rocking chair, dizzily circled to the front door, and slammed it shut behind him. Curse words wafted outside.

  Cody placed a hand on my arm. “Felicity, I get what you’re going through, you know I do, but you need to relax. Let Oliver process this the way he needs to. Besides, you don’t know that it’s Vera. It could be anyone.”