Chapter 14
I climb the hill back to the house and try to push Olivia’s warning out of my mind.
The trouble is, she’s right. Every alarm bell in my body tells me I should leave.
The hairs on my neck. Knot in my stomach.
Tightness in my chest. It would be so simple.
Just ask Eric to take me to my car, and I could be in Chicago tonight. Just the thought of it slows my pulse.
Then my mom’s words echo in my ears: “You don’t have to control everything.
” And she’s right. I do have a bit of a control problem.
But this isn’t that. It’s everything else.
The history of this house. The note on the front door.
The trees grasping toward any open space like they’re trying to suffocate the air.
The vines crawling and twisting along the ground.
It’s as though human beings never should have set foot here, and the forest is crouching, waiting to reclaim its rightful place.
As I reach the patio screen door, I press the dark thoughts down.
The scene in front of me looks like a screenshot from the Country Living website.
Eric and Laelynn sit at a sun-splashed, rustic wood farm table with their eight-year-old twins, Emma and Penelope.
Paul Simon plays in the background. Laelynn sports a soft-pink yoga outfit, while Eric lounges in a tattered gray Georgetown T-shirt.
The girls wear matching red-and-white-striped dresses, identical down to their thick, black braided hair and cherubic faces.
The only difference is one has a mole on her left cheek like her mother, a tiny but telling marker.
Eric serves up cornflake-crusted French toast topped with strawberries while Laelynn pours fresh-squeezed orange juice into little beaded juice glasses—the picture of the American nuclear family.
But when I analyze their faces, the illusion shatters.
Neither of them has noticed I’m here yet, and whatever they’re discussing, it’s not amicable.
“This was a bad idea, Eric,” Laelynn says, her deep, raspy voice gouging the air.
“Give it time, honey. It’ll get better.”
“I doubt that. But regardless, I’m leaving tomorrow, so it’s your call.”
“Don’t put this on me, Laelynn. This isn’t my call. This is for both of us.”
She opens her mouth to fire back, but I swing open the screen door and interject, so it doesn’t look like I’ve been eavesdropping.
“Morning, everyone,” I say, waving awkwardly.
Eric turns, his mouth curving into a welcoming smile. “Charlotte! Good morning. Perfect timing. We’re just sitting down for breakfast.”
The seating arrangement is tricky. Laelynn’s throned at the table’s head, flanked by the twins on one side and Eric on the other.
After her stay-away-from-my-man kiss the other night, I’d like to keep my distance from Eric.
But I’m also not about to square off with her at the other end of the table like we’re in an M I follow closely.
My heart sprints and my mind fires with possibilities of what could have happened.
Did she step on a nail? Discover another note on the door?
It’s not that. I know it’s not that. The scream was something deeper.
A visceral agony. A scream I’ve heard before.
We dash around the house, Eric just steps ahead of me. When he turns the corner, he freezes and gasps. I stop beside him, and my mouth falls open in horror at what’s in front of me.
Heathcliff lies sprawled on the gravel path, unnaturally still.
His bright, beautiful brown eyes closed.
His magnificent coat of coffee-and-cream fur motionless.
I watch his chest. It’s not moving.
I see foam gathered around the corners of his mouth. Vomit on the gravel.
Flies buzz around his head, crawling toward his teardrop eyelids, trying to burrow underneath.
Those eyes.
They remind me of my father’s eyes.
I try to shake the memory, but it captures me.