11. Haley
HALEY
E ver since I was a kid, I liked to listen to the local news. Half-listen, really, since I don’t pay full attention to whatever they’re saying. In the evenings they run out of crime stories pretty early on and move to human interest pieces. Last week I saw one about a woman who was turning a hundred years old and had lived in the same house for over half a century. Tonight, they’re interviewing a man who lost his house in a fire and ended up buying a food truck. Now he drives around to different towns and sells people lunch after the local farmer’s market.
Maybe I’m a busy body, maybe I just want to know how much bad there is compared to how much good. I’m not sure.
I take a sip of my wine, cuddled up on my sofa, and scroll on my phone. I’m not really paying attention to the online shopping I’m doing, either. New art for my office, maybe. The abstract piece I’ve had in there could use a change. There are hundreds of prints to choose from.
A landscape could be good.
This is a habit of mine I’m aware has its pros and cons. Mindlessly scrolling, half paying attention, unwinding with a glass of wine and then I sleep, deeply and soundly.
I flip through different prints of the countryside on some art site that came up as an ad. A painting of a lake catches my eye. Oh—the artist has done a ton of different paintings at all times throughout the day and night.
The sound from the food truck segment cuts off as I take another sip of my wine.
“We’re interrupting our previous segment to bring you breaking news.” There’s a tension in the anchor’s voice that isn’t usually there. My body stills. I’ve never seen this particular anchor get shaken up over anything, but now she stares into the camera like she’s trying to hide her shock. “The body of a man was discovered early this morning by members of the local police department. Darell Hunt was found?—”
Darell Hunt. They flash his picture up on the screen. It’s a headshot taken at his most recent job—not the school I went to, but a different private school. He still looks the same in the photo. Perfectly recognizable. He aged around his eyes and has more gray to his hair… but when I look at him, the memory of what he used to be is all that I see.
My body stills, the trauma taking hold and I have to remind myself I’m not there, he has no control over me. In fact, the bastard is dead.
Footage of an alley with yellow police tape across the entrance flashes on the screen as the anchor recaps how a call came in from a concerned citizen. By then, Mr. Hunt, a husband and uncle to three children, had been dead for hours, his body found early in the morning.
I swallow thickly, my heart racing. And the flash of who I thought I saw yesterday outside of my office comes to mind. Thump, thump , it’s hard to hear over the pounding in my chest.
The broadcast cuts to a press conference led by the local police chief.
He looks down at his notes, blinking in the bright lights. “We’re prepared to announce to the public that several recent homicides appear to be connected. The manner of death?—”
Thump, thump, thump. I cling to the glass of wine, not daring to take my eyes off the screen.
Lots of cameras flash. People shout questions. The police chief repeats several times that he can’t give out certain details of an active investigation.
“One more question.” He points into the crowd of reporters.
“Thank you, sir,” a man calls from the reporters off-camera. “Does the police department have reason to believe that these homicides might have been committed by the same individual? In other words, are we looking for a serial killer?”
Chills run down my spine and panic runs through me.
“That’s certainly a possibility,” the police chief answers.
It cuts back to the anchor, who’s joined by her co-host, and they immediately pick up the thread. People must have been working at top speed behind the scenes at the station, because nobody suggests going back to the segment about the food truck.
Serial killers are guaranteed to get more attention after all. Pictures of famous serial killers in history flash up on the screen. The anchors compare the local homicides—the information they have, anyway—and discuss things the public can do.
“Keep your doors locked,” the first anchor says. “If you see suspicious activity near your home, please call and report it. Staying vigilant is the best way to stay safe.”
“The best thing we can do,” her co-host says, “is to stay alert. Have the police informed the public of any connections between the victims?”
“Not as of this broadcast, no. That information would certainly represent a turning point in the investigation. Even if no suspects have been taken into custody, a solid connection between the victims would point law enforcement in the direction of?—”
They keep posing questions to each other, reading and re-reading the statement from the police department. All the while, I sit perfectly still, unable to move and I don’t know if it’s the previous learned condition from being in that hellish place, or if it’s simply shock.
A serial killer.
My chest is tight and cold, and so are my fingers.
By then, the news anchors have decided that there’s definitely a serial killer on the loose. They’re predicting that the police will confirm that within the next few days.
“It’s only a matter of time,” the anchor says. She’s settled into the story now and doesn’t seem to be affected. Her professional mask is on. “With similarities of this kind, it seems unlikely that this would be the work of many different individuals, or individuals from different groups. Now, the police haven’t said as much, but it’s possible the bodies were discovered with evidence that would reveal the motive.”
“We’ll have more on that at ten,” her co-host says into the camera, his smile wide, and the broadcast goes to commercial.
A car dealership commercial blares from the screen, and I grab for the remote to turn down the TV.
Panic races through me and I have to close my eyes and focus on my breathing.
If one glass of wine didn’t work, I should have another one. I get up automatically and refill my glass, then stop at my front windows. I peek out the gap between the curtains.
As if he’ll be there. As if he knows I’m thinking of him.
There’s nobody in front of my house. I didn’t think there would be, but my empty yard is a relief. I tug the curtains shut tight so that there’s no gap at all. Nobody can look in on me now.
Then—although I know I locked it earlier—I double-check all the locks. They’re all exactly how I left them. My house is safe and sound.
I sip my wine, making a point to savor it as I go back to the living room. The commercial break is still going. A movie trailer plays on the screen, the explosions almost too quiet to hear.
I’ve just sat back down on the couch and pulled a blanket over my lap when my phone rings.
It’s a blocked number.
I hesitate, hovering my thumb over the button to decline the call. It’s a fifty-fifty chance with calls like these. Sometimes, patients call me from blocked numbers, and I want to be available to them whenever I can.
Other times…
I hit the button to accept the call.
“Hello?”
“I saw the news.”
My mother’s voice doesn’t make adrenaline spike in my body anymore. It did for a long time. Now it’s the opposite. When I hear her speak, I get extremely calm and still.
“Mother,” I answer and I can’t hide the chill in my tone.
I know that’s a protective response. That’s my body reacting to the trauma of my past. I want to be ready for anything she might say or do, so all my senses prepare to take in every word.
“The news, Haley. Have you been watching?”
I take a deep breath, even though I know she’s waiting for me to respond. I can choose to do that however I want. I can hang up the phone, if I want. I can refuse to answer. But that feels like running away without addressing the problem, and I don’t want to do that.
“I’ve asked you to leave me alone,” I tell her, as calmly as I can. “If you call me again, I’ll have the protective order enforced. I’ll go to the judge and tell them you violated it. You know the terms.”
My mom scoffs. There’s a small shake in her voice. “That restraining order is bullshit and you know it, Haley.”
“It’s not bullshit, and you know that, too. We’ve had this conversation before, and I’m getting tired of having to repeat it over and over again.”
“I want to help.” Her voice quavers even more. “I want to help you, Haley. I want to be there for you.”
“That’s not an option for you.”
“But it should be. I’ve apologized. I’ve told you so many times that I didn’t?—”
“And I’ve told you that I don’t want to hear from you. You can help me by leaving me alone. If you really care about what I want, you’ll stop violating the restraining order.”
“That order isn’t right.” Her tone turns pleading and defeated, like she really thought I’d change my mind this time. There’s no doubt in my mind that my mom watched the same news broadcast I just did. I don’t know how it made her think she should call me. “It kills me that I can’t be there for you when?—”
“When what, Mom? There’s nothing to help me with. You watched whatever you watched, and I’m still not interested in having any contact with you. I’ll never want to have contact with you again. That’s because of what you did.”
“Haley—”
“You can’t go back and change what you’ve done, and I can’t change what I went through and how you didn’t believe me. How you tried to send me back! Now I’m choosing to move forward with my life. That means moving forward without you. That’s my decision, and it’s final.”
“I saw that man outside your office,” her voice cuts through, as if she didn’t hear what I said. She never hears me. She never has.
“Why were you at my office?” I question although a voice at the back of my head is screaming, what man?
My heart races and I have to stand up, I have to move. I can’t sit still any longer.
“Because I wanted to see you. And your boyfriend, don’t think I don’t know,” she adds.
“Are you stalking me?” I question, my voice hitching.
“You should stay away from him, Haley. He’s no good! A mother knows.”
No good? My heart drops. A mother knows?
“You know nothing and you don’t listen. You need to stop!” I tell her and my throat tightens at the last word. Tears prick my eyes. “You’re the one who said I was rotten, let me be by myself and leave me alone.
“But, Haley...” Her breath hitches on the other end of the line. I feel nothing in response. When I was a kid, I would have felt guilty for making her cry. I would have been desperate to help her feel better. Now I don’t feel any of that empathy, at least for her. If she wanted me to feel empathy towards her, she should have given some to me when I needed it most. “I love you. I’m your mother, and I?—”
“Don’t contact me again, or I’ll go to the judge. I’m not giving you any more chances.”
I hang up and drop my phone into my lap. It disappears into a fold in the blanket. My chest heaves as I try to steady my breath.
She loves me how she knows how. That part of these conversations—which I never want to have with my mother—is what makes me the most exhausted. My mother claims to love me, but she won’t listen to what I say. All it means is that she feels like I owe her a relationship.
I feel a flicker of hurt. I’m a little sorry for my mother. Not enough to ever want to speak to her again, but sorry that they got sucked in by those people at that school. My father left when I came back, and she was all I had. And I was all she had in many ways too.
The sorry feeling only lasts for a minute or two. Yes, my mother was lied to, but they also had to be the kind of people who would accept those lies. She never looked deeper into what happened at those kinds of places.
They called it a school, and men showed up in the middle of the night to arrest me. What kind of person lets that happen? What kind of mother hides in her bedroom and lets her daughter get dragged out of the house?
My mother, that’s who.
No. I’m never going to want to speak to her again. I’ve done a lot of work to be satisfied with my life, and she bears some of the responsibility for why that was so hard, and why I suffered so much in the process.
Then she didn’t believe me. She tried to send me right back to them. She called me insane. I fucking hate her. I hate what she did to me. What she made me.
I’m done with her. I’m done with my parents. One more phone call, and I will go to the judge.
As if fate heard my thoughts, my phone rings again.
I fish it out from the blankets, ready to unload on a woman who won’t hear a word of it. Just for the sake of hearing myself scream.
This time, the number isn’t blocked. I can see exactly who it is. I’m quick to answer.
“Hi. How are you?”
There’s some noise on the other end of the line, like he’s outside in the breeze. The rustling continues for a few seconds, then clears.
“Haley.”
My heart kicks up, pushing past my calm. The sound of his voice always does this to me. Aden’s voice isn’t something I can teach myself to respond to, not that I’d want to. I can only react on a deep level.
“Did you see?” I ask him, “The news that was just on?”
He’s quiet on the other end of the phone.
“Aden.” I pull the blanket tighter to my body, relishing the warmth. It would be warmer if his arms were around me. “I’m here. Are you alright? Tell me if you’re okay.”
I wait, listening to him breathe. I can tell he’s deciding what to say. The wind blows a little louder, then quiets down again. I push the blanket off and get to my feet. The waiting is easier if I move around a little bit.
I wander across the living room to a low bookshelf and run my fingers over the spines. There are mostly textbooks here, but also a few novels and one other book.
Sometimes he needs time to think of what to say. He needs a moment of just knowing I’m there. I get that. More than anything, I get that we need a moment sometimes to understand what’s going on in our heads.
I pull that book off of the shelf, carry it back to the couch, and set it on the coffee table. Then I trace the cover with my fingertips, focusing on the shape.
Down, and over. Down and over. The shape never changes. The lines of the book are always the same. The edges of the cover are getting a little worn from how many times I’ve done this, but that’s okay.
They won’t break completely, just like I didn’t break completely. Lots of people tried, but they couldn’t do it. Like my mother. I almost tell Aden but I bite my tongue.
I survived. I got out. We both got out. I have all the patience Aden needs. For him, and for me. For both of us together.
Down, and over. Down, and over. I trace the corners with my eyes closed.
“Can you—” I can hear him exhale, as if he doesn’t want to ask this of me, but can’t keep the words inside. “Can you come out tonight?”
“I don’t know about tonight. I?—”
I open my eyes, then open the book. The page I flip to is worn down a little, too, because I always flip to this page.
It’s the page with Dean’s picture. I don’t know why I pulled this book out. I wasn’t thinking of it. I was thinking of what seeing him like that would do to me.
I remember when he looked like he does in this picture.
I remember everything about him when this photo was taken.
“I don’t know,” I say softly. “I don’t know.”