Chapter Seven
He’s not coming.
Sarah sits in the parlor on the florid orange and brown sofa, her jeans squeaking against the vinyl slipcover, one leg crossed over the other and jiggling impatiently. She’s been waiting an hour and Graham isn’t coming.
It would be just like him to let her stew in the mess she’s made, to punish her for leaving Ben.
A perverse way of getting back at his ex-wife.
Something she said must have hit a nerve and dredged up the pain of losing Angie.
All because she didn’t talk to Ben. She bets Graham has never tried to reason with a compulsive liar.
Sarah’s socks slide on the plastic floor runners as she switches legs.
So many artifacts of death in the parlor.
Desiccated plants and animals, living things plucked in their prime by long-dead hands.
A bouquet of dried grass springs from a vase on the low coffee table.
The antlers perch on a side table, the pointed prongs curved and polished like driftwood, reminding her of Elijah’s pale fingers.
Framed pressed flowers line the wood panel walls, and the stag’s head sneers, judging her, telling her she doesn’t belong.
Elijah prowls back and forth by the front window like a cat, occasionally peeking between the curtains. “I’m sorry to keep you from your painting,” Sarah says, although she’s not sorry. She’s glad to have his company.
“There’s always the chance to paint. Rarely the chance to meet someone new.”
“You should go to art school. Then you can do both.”
His face falls. “I wanted to go to OCAD after high school, but Caleb said he needed me to help run the motel.”
She bites her lip in sympathy. “I’m sorry. You could take online classes?”
“Caleb would never install wifi up at the house. And anyway, he wouldn’t like it. I don’t do things Caleb doesn’t like.”
“You’re talking to me now, aren’t you?” she says, smiling.
“I try not to do things Caleb doesn’t like.” He looks down at his dirty fingernails. “But it’s hard.”
Sarah wants so much to give him a hug. First under the thumb of his father, and now Caleb.
She identifies with him more than he knows.
She’ll regret leaving him here, this sad boy raised by men in a house of old, dead things.
“You probably don’t need art classes anyway.
Have you shown your work anywhere besides the motel? ”
“A gallery in Bracebridge wanted to put on a show a couple years ago, but Caleb wouldn’t let me.”
“That’s ridiculous. You’re what—in your mid-twenties? You’re not a kid.”
Elijah’s mouth droops. “No, he’s right. I’m better off at home.”
“Do you want me to talk to him? I know I’m leaving, but I could call when I get to my brother’s place. He might need an outsider’s point of view.”
“Well, you don’t have to go right away. You could show your brother around. Does he like fishing or hiking? He might like to stay at the motel when it opens again.”
She laughs. “Free advertising, huh? Caleb said he was planning to renovate the house and put it on Airbnb.”
“Did he?” Elijah purses his lips. “That’s strange. He’s not good with visitors.”
Sarah blinks, bewildered. “Really? He’s been a very good host. Both of you have.”
“You don’t know him like I do. He’s not as good with people as he seems.”
Maybe Elijah’s right. In the morning, Caleb was masked again and didn’t mention her nightmare, only dropped off her breakfast and hastily excused himself to run errands. If he’d noticed her backpack zipped up and ready to go, he said nothing.
Sarah leans back, the sofa squeaking beneath her thighs.
Elijah continues to pace. She wishes her phone worked so she could check the time.
This ridiculous granny hunting lodge makes her feel like she’s stuck in the past. Any minute, Grandma Sweet will totter into the room and tell her to sit up straight.
Or worse, Jacob Vass will storm in with his hunting rifle and order her to get out.
Who’s to say it wasn’t Jacob who crept out of the woods and painted that slur across her motel room?
Anything to get the intruder to leave Sweetside.
Or at least disappear from the Suicide Motel.
She can see why Caleb never took off the floor runners, the way Elijah skitters back and forth.
He would’ve worn the varnish off the hardwood by now.
Every movement Caleb makes is decisive, but Elijah is a coiled spring anxious to bounce.
It’s in his walk, and the frenetic power of his paintings.
She can almost understand why his father hurt him.
To control him, or maybe to try to harness that energy to his advantage.
Tires crunch on the driveway outside. Sarah jumps up. Elijah peeks out the window and freezes. “Oh no!”
Sarah’s knees wobble. It’s the police, finally. Or worse. “What is it?”
“Caleb’s back. Go, before he sees you!”
Sarah whips up the stairs and into the main bedroom.
She grabs the note and the cash she’d left that morning on the vanity and scrunches them into her pocket.
Seizing a random book, she flops onto the recliner, her heartbeat scurrying at an unhappy pace.
Why did Caleb have to come back early? He’s not good with visitors, Elijah had said.
She doesn’t want to imagine what will happen when Graham shows up.
“Hi, Caleb!” Elijah calls out from downstairs, a little too loudly. He’s letting her know Caleb’s in the house. As if she doesn’t recognize the whine of the front door and the strong, confident footfalls.
She doesn’t hear Caleb’s answer, remembering she forgot to lock the door, and he’ll surely be up soon with her lunch. She scoots off the recliner and twists the lock, just as the stairs announce his movement.
The knock sounds on the door. Sarah counts to five, unlocks it, and flings it open. “Hi!” she says, a little too brightly. Her breath catches. He’s not wearing a mask, and she’d never expected to see those cheekbones again.
His brow furrows. “You okay? You look a little flushed.”
“Jumping jacks. I was feeling restless.”
“Want to go out for a quick walk before lunch?”
“Sure.”
Downstairs, she and Caleb pass Elijah as he slips into the kitchen. “Oh, hi Sarah,” he says casually, as if they’d never spent the morning together. “I’m about to make sandwiches. Smoked turkey, okay?”
She nods. Caleb helps her into the parka, and then she laces up the borrowed boots and follows him out the door.
Outside, the air is clear and sharp as glass, cooling her heated cheeks.
Her breath puffs into a white cloud, and she’s suddenly very tired.
Tired of having to wear a mask for people all the time.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d wanted Graham to show up, not just to take her away, but so she can be with someone with whom she doesn’t have to pretend.
As infuriating as he can be, she doesn’t have to be nice to him.
She can be herself, whoever that is. She’s worn a mask for so long she doesn’t know herself anymore.
“Is everything all right?” Caleb asks.
She forces a smile. She only has to be nice for a little while longer, until Graham comes. “I’m fine.”
“How’s your foot today?”
“It seems all right. I took the gauze off.”
“Good. And your wrist?”
The skin is darkening like a winter sky, but she doesn’t want to show him. “Can’t do anything about bruises,” she says, and stalks ahead to the backyard.
“Listen,” Caleb says, catching up to her.
“I know this is a scary time for you. Thrown in with a couple of strangers in a hostile town, right after you’ve left a bad relationship.
You probably feel pretty powerless. I know I did, when—” He presses his lips together.
“But if it helps, I want you to know you did the right thing, to leave. That took courage.”
It’s easy to be honest with him, now that she’s going. “It didn’t feel like courage.” Only desperation. But maybe that’s what courage is, doing the thing anyway, even though the blood pounds under your skin so hard you shake.
“It still was. I admire you for it. I wish I’d had it.”
Sarah cranes her neck up at the woods. If you disappeared, no one could hurt you anymore, the trees seem to whisper as they sway in the wind. You wouldn’t have to figure out who to trust. You can trust us.
Cottony clumps of snow float off the branches, so gently it’s almost as if it’s snowing again. She realizes she’s never seen Caleb walk into the woods, only Elijah. Maybe Caleb knows if he goes in, he’ll never come out. Like his father and the other victims of the Suicide Motel.
“You did the right thing, too,” she says. She wonders if anyone ever told him that. Probably not. Maybe no one believed that Jacob Vass was hurting his sons, despite the evidence. There are so many ways for a pair of rambunctious boys to get hurt in the country. “You came back for Elijah.”
“I hope you’re right,” he says, looking down at his hands.
“I actually wanted to talk to you about him.”
He frowns. “Why?”
“He’s such a gifted artist. I don’t think he belongs here.”
“Elijah’s better off here. Trust me.”
“Where he has bad memories? You must, too. You don’t need to stay.”
His jaw hardens. “This house belonged to Mom’s family. I can’t let Dad chase us away. It means he wins.”
“You could at least let Elijah exhibit his work outside of Sweetside.”
“I need him to help me with the motel.”
“You could find someone else.”
Caleb’s nostrils flare. “I told you, they treat us like outsiders here. We’re the town weirdos, and no one wants to work at the Suicide Motel. Our last housekeeper only stayed as long as she did because she was friends with Mom.”
“Hire someone from outside of town.”
“Why would anyone outside of town want to live in Sweetside?” He spins to face her. “Would you want to stay here?”
She knows it’s a hypothetical question, but it knocks the breath out of her lungs. She freezes, her eyes locked with his.
The sound of a car pulling up out front interrupts her answer.
Graham. Finally. He must’ve gotten lost, or delayed by his students. Sarah turns away from Caleb and rushes around the house, shoulders slumping with relief because she would’ve said yes. If Caleb asked her to stay again with those blue, blue eyes, she would say yes.
She falls back when she sees the black and white of a police cruiser.
Caleb comes up behind her, so close his breath skims her ear as he swears. “Shit.” Then he strides forward. “Uncle Isaac!”
The driver-side door opens. The policeman who’d confronted her when her car had broken down unfolds himself from the seat.
He’s wearing a mask, but she reads suspicion in his face anyway.
Now that she’s seen the photo of Jacob Vass, she can tell Isaac is his brother.
His eyes are deep-set, like Caleb’s, and they share Jacob’s long, hard squint.
“Caleb. What’s she doing outside? And why are neither of you wearing masks?”
“She needed to stretch her legs. Don’t worry, we’re taking precautions. Do you want some lunch? Elijah’s making sandwiches. Or can we get you a coffee?”
Isaac shakes his head. “I’m good. This isn’t a social call.”
Dread pools in the pit of Sarah’s belly. Isaac sticks his thumbs in his belt loops, calling attention to the gun holster at his hip. “There’s been an incident in town. An Oriental man—”
“Uncle Isaac, you can’t say ‘Oriental.’ It’s Asian.”
Isaac gives Caleb a hard look. “An Asian man stopped at the Timmy’s drive-thru and got himself mobbed. Jerry smashed his back windshield, and Old Man Doherty shot out a tail light.”
Sarah’s hand flies to her mouth. Isaac’s gaze flits towards her, and she drops her arm, lacing her fingers together in a demure posture.
“Needless to say, the Asian high-tailed it out of there, going north. Dumbfuck should’ve known better than to drop into a strange town. Anyway, I dropped by to see if the young lady here knows anything about this visitor.”
“Uncle Isaac, just because Sarah’s Asian too doesn’t mean—”
“She did say she was heading north to visit family.”
Sarah pastes on a pleasant but puzzled smile. “My phone’s dead. I haven’t been able to call anyone.”
“It’s true. I don’t have the right charging cable. She’s been under radio silence,” Caleb says.
“You swear?”
“I swear, Uncle Isaac.”
Isaac nods. “All right. I believe you, Caleb. But if I catch her outside again, we will have to take measures.”
“Uncle Isaac—”
Isaac jabs a finger at him. “Measures. And I will consider you and Elijah compromised, too. I can’t show favoritism, even if it’ll break your Aunt Judy’s heart.”
Caleb bows his head. “Yes, sir.”
“Good boy.” Isaac tips his hat. “Take her inside now. Tell Elijah I said hi.”
“Go,” Caleb murmurs.
Sarah scurries up the porch steps and into the house. The door swings shut behind her, but she can still feel Isaac’s glare on her back, measuring the target she can never take off.