20. In Which Juniper Refuses to Live in Fear #2
It’s a good question, and I don’t know if I have an answer. Will I be okay? Yes. I will emerge from the end of this day in one piece. But will I feel comfortable here alone, knowing that someone out there knows where I live and likes to play ding-dong-ditch with dead chickens?
No.
“I’ll be fine,” I say, smiling at him.
He pauses, like he doesn’t quite believe me, and then grunts, turning his attention back to his hands.
I don’t even think they got any chicken blood on them, but I don’t blame him.
I’m going to do the same when I take a shower.
Scrub the top layer of skin off my body, watch it swirl down the drain, convince myself that the only sound I’m hearing is the thundering of the water as it beats against the glass.
“Why did you cry earlier?” He shuts the water off, shaking his hands over the sink before grabbing a towel from the counter and patting them dry. They’re the same red as my skin when I’ve been in a hot tub for too long.
“I just remembered something,” I say, keeping my voice light. “A bad memory. I’m fine.”
Aiden’s eyes fix on me for one long moment. I lie to him with my smile until finally he nods and heads to his bedroom, leaving me alone.
I don’t bother washing my hands at the sink.
I just rush to the bathroom and strip immediately, kicking my clothes over to the corner of the tiled floor.
I’ll wash them and then decide if I’m keeping them.
Like Aiden’s hands, they didn’t get any blood on them, but they still feel irredeemably dirty right now.
Then I bolt into the shower like I’m the side character in a B horror film searching for the most obvious hiding spot she can find.
You hide in the shower, you’re going to die, Side Character, but that never stops you.
The shower is my salvation, though, and I turn the water all the way up to scalding, darting in and out of its path until I’m used to the temperature.
Then I immerse myself as completely as possible, grabbing my citrus shampoo and squeezing out way more than I actually need.
Lather, rinse, repeat; lather, rinse, repeat; lather, rinse, repeat.
And as the water rains down, cleansing everything it touches, I tell myself I’m crying because I have soap in my eye.
When I emerge from the bathroom thirty minutes later, I’m a woman on a mission.
Once my shower tears subsided, I started getting really, really angry. I’ve worked hard for my entire adult life to provide a safe space for myself—my home. It’s something I didn’t have as a child, so safety is priceless to me now.
And someone has come and trampled it under their stupid, stinky, chicken-wielding feet.
I am not okay with that. And I refuse to live in fear.
I stomp my way into my room and get dressed, pulling out clothing at random and wrestling it over my sticky, shower-damp skin. Then I march back downstairs with my phone in hand and make a call.
“Matilda,” I say when she picks up. “How’s it going?”
“Oh, hi!” she says, her voice cheerful. “It’s going well. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” I say. Like the contestants on every reality show ever, I’m not here to make friends, so I get right down to business. “I was actually calling to see if you’ve found anything about Thomas Freese.”
“As a matter of fact, I have. I was going to call you tonight,” she says, her voice suddenly lower. “Hang on.”
I listen to a series of shuffles and clatters and clanks until finally she returns.
“Okay. Juniper,” she says, a whispering, out-of-breath sound that makes me wonder if she’s lowering her voice on purpose. “Is this guy really your dad?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” I say. “Why? What did you find?”
“Okay, so, first of all,” Matilda says, “I had to pull several strings to find this information, so I hope you’re grateful.”
“Very,” I say. “What did you find?”
There’s a pause, and then she says, “It’s just weird, Juniper.”
I wait for her to elaborate, but she doesn’t.
Good grief. I’m going to have to pry every detail from her at this rate. Matilda likes the drama of a good reveal, but I wish she’d save it for a less-important conversation.
I rub my temples, taking a deep breath. Patience, patience, patience.
“Weird how?” I say— patiently .
“Well, so, okay. Didn’t your mom die six years ago?”
“Six and a half, yeah.”
“In May, right?”
Rarely does Matilda surprise me, but every so often, it happens. “How did you remember that?” I say.
“Because you texted me to tell me when I was online bidding for that vintage Givenchy bag—the black one, remember? And I got the notification that I won, like, literally three seconds after your text. That was in May.”
Ah. That makes far more sense. “Yes, okay. What about it?”
“This guy died like a week later. Suicide.”
I shiver at her words, rubbing my arms for warmth. Did Aiden turn on the AC or something?
“I read a bit about that. Tell me more.”
“Well, he was fine, for one. His wife and his coworkers said he didn’t show any signs of depression or suicidal ideation.
It sounds like he was pretty stressed at work, there were going to be layoffs and he was trying to be extra productive to make sure his position stayed safe, but other than that?—”
“Why did they call it a suicide, then?” I say, looking around the room and trying to decide where to sit.
My eyes catch on Aiden’s reading chair in the corner, empty and inviting, and I hurry over.
I want a turn sitting next to the bust of Shakespeare and feeling generally superior to everyone in the vicinity.
That might help ease some of the turmoil I’m experiencing.
“Because he left a note.”
She drops this piece of information right as I’m trying to seat myself elegantly—a must when wearing a shorter skirt—but when her words register, I abandon that desire and let myself free-fall into the chair, squirming around to get comfortable.
I end up with my legs crossed criss-cross-applesauce, and anyone standing in front of me would definitely see things they did not have permission to see.
But Aiden’s not here anyway. It’s fine. I need to settle in for this conversation.
“He left a note?” I say, just to make sure I heard her correctly. “The reports I saw never mentioned that.”
“Mm-hmm,” Matilda says, and I can hear in her voice how much she’s enjoying this.
She’s not a bad person, but she does love being the one to pass along anything juicy—frequently without considering how her news might be received.
She’s not mean, she’s just careless and self-centered. “There was a note.”
If it were anyone else telling me this, I might stay quiet, assuming they were naturally going to tell me what the note said. But I know Matilda; she’s going to wait for me to ask. And I want to know badly enough that I’ll humor her.
“What did it say?” I drape my legs over the arm of the chair, still trying to find a position that’s comfortable. How does Aiden sit in this thing all the time? It has no lounging capabilities at all.
“Among other things, he said he was distraught over the death of his lifelong love .”
“His lifelong…?”
“Yes!” she squeals, so loudly that I yank the phone away from my ear. “That has to mean your mom, right?”
“What?” I say as my thoughts spin. “No. That doesn’t make sense. He was married to someone else. He hadn’t seen my mom in?—”
“How do you know?” she cuts me off. There’s a challenge in her voice, one that I don’t have the energy to deal with. “How do you know he wasn’t at least in touch with your mom? She wouldn’t have told you. She never told you anything about her past.”
“What about the other things in the note?”
“Right, yeah. So he said his lifelong love had died and he’d never gotten to atone for his sins against her and he couldn’t stand the guilt.”
My brain continues to hum with every piece of new information she feeds me, my thoughts becoming louder and more tangled until I shake my head violently—like that’s going to help.
This all feels too…neat, I guess. Too perfect.
Was my mom in touch with her old boyfriend? What were his sins against her?
Or— or —did Thomas Freese even kill himself at all? Did someone murder him and try to make it look like a suicide? Why?
“Juniper?” Matilda’s voice yanks me from my thoughts.
“Yeah,” I say.
“So you don’t know anything more about this guy? Or where you could find more information about him, or about your mom?”
I sigh. There’s a little thought eating at the edge of my mind, a caterpillar nibbling on the edge of a leaf. But that thought worms its way in, further and further, until it’s all I can see.
“I might be able to,” I say with another sigh. “Thank you so much, Matilda. I appreciate all the trouble you went to.”
“No problem!” she says cheerfully. “You know I love hot goss. Anything else?”
“Uh, maybe,” I say. “If you’re able to find anything about someone named Cam Verido, that might be helpful?”
“Spell it.”
“I’ll just text it to you.”
“Sounds good. This is fun; I feel like a PI or something.”
I have no response for this, so I just thank her one more time and then hang up, texting her Cam’s name and then setting my phone aside.
My eyes drift up, up, up, until I’m staring at the ceiling, as though I can see through it and into my room. As though I can spot the small cardboard box on the floor of my closet, the one that contains my mother’s few remaining belongings…
And her laptop.
I’m not ready. I don’t feel ready. That box has been living an out-of-sight-out-of-mind existence, and I’m happy to leave it out of my mind. Thinking about the stories my mother told herself in feverish bouts of writing…I don’t want to know more.
But I’m not sure I have a choice. So up the stairs I climb, a woman in a trance of dread and anticipation.
I think I probably look possessed or something, but I can’t bring myself to snap out of it.
I’m building last-minute reinforcements in my mind, patching the roof before the storm hits.
When I arrive in my room, I stare at the closet for a good five minutes before finally moving forward and opening it.
Pull out the box. Remove the lid. Shuffle past old legal documents and folders until my fingers meet cool plastic casing wrapped boa constrictor style by a charge cord.
Heft it out, plug it in, and wait. Pace restlessly.
Wait. Pace some more. Until finally the welcome screen pops up, the tinny sound of that opening chord filling the room.
I know exactly where the file is; on her desktop. I let the cursor hover over the icon only a moment before clicking. And then I dive in, my eyes finding the first line:
Once upon a time there was a girl. She had three friends… ? *
When Aiden finds me two hours later, I’m curled up on my bedroom floor, snot and tears covering my face. My head is pounding from crying so hard; my body aches and protests the hard wood beneath me.
Aiden curses when he sees me, but he doesn’t say anything else. He simply leans down and lifts me, hefting me up until I’m bridal style in his arms. He smells like the woods and crisp, fresh air, and I press my face into his neck, breathing him in more deeply.
He carries me down the small stairs, around the corner, down the big stairs, and finally to his bedroom.
There he sets me gently on his bed, propping pillows up behind me and spreading a large blanket over my legs.
Then he hurries to the chest of drawers, opens thefourth drawer down, and digs around for a moment.
I have just enough presence of mind to keep my eyes on him; this is the elusive fourth drawer, the one whose contents he won’t reveal.
But now he pulls out three things: a packet of crackers, a protein bar, and a miniature piece of chocolate.
Food , I realize dazedly. He keeps food in there.
For…me?
My eyes flutter closed as a fresh wave of tears finds me, and I burrow back into the pillows. This blanket is so warm, and the bed is so soft, and there’s food nearby so I’m not going to starve.
Safe. I feel safe.
It’s the last thought that flutters across my mind before I drift off, finding sleep easily for once in my life.
* ? This was another point in the manuscript where I wanted to give up because keeping track of the story and writing everything felt so overwhelming.
I remember this chapter especially was a struggle.
It was here that I realized while I had plotted Juniper and Aiden’s part of the story, I had done no plotting for my culprit.
I had to go back and do a lot of adjustment and outlining.
* ? Listen to All Good Things (Come to an End) by Nelly Furtado here.