Page 29 of Deeper Than the Dead

Deep breath. Focus on the facts. Say no more than necessary.

“When Sheree first arrived,” Vera began, “Daddy was overjoyed. She pretended to want to fulfill his every wish. She’d take credit for whatever dinner Eve and I had prepared and practically hand-feed him. Then they would disappear into the bedroom and leave us to figure out how to avoid the sounds they made.”

The memories sickened her.

For those first two months after her mother died, Vera had been devastated. Lost. But so had Eve and their father. Somehow, the shared suffering made going on easier. They were a team—still a family. Then Sheree became a part of their family, and everything changed. Eve’s and Vera’s lives became the stuff bad fairy tales were made of. If not for Eve, Vera would have taken off. But she couldn’t leave her sister alone with their wicked stepmother.

And where would she have gone? Vera had never gotten that far in the what-if process because she’d realized it was an impossible idea.

“How long before things changed between Sheree and your father?” Bent tested the coffee again and this time took a long swallow.

“Sheree had Luna six months after they married.” Vera rolled her eyes. Which meant their father was sleeping with her at least a whole month before their mother died. Even at sixteen, the reality was a huge letdown. He wasn’t the superhero they’d believed. His immature behavior all those months with his new wife stole the remainder of their happy, innocent childhoods ... prompted feelings that she and Eve had never felt before. Hatred. Disgust.

Their mother would have been disappointed by that most of all.

“Anyway,” Vera continued, “after Luna was born, she—Sheree—was suddenly unable to do anything but lay around on the sofa and be waited on hand and foot.” Which really wasn’t a change other than the fact that she continued this behavior after their father came home each evening. “Daddy treated her like a helpless princess.”

“I’m sure it was difficult for you and Eve to watch.”

He had no idea. “We survived.”

“Did she ever show any real affection for Luna?” he prodded.

“At first,” Vera admitted—though she hated giving the woman any sort of credit—“Sheree was sort of captivated with the baby. But the fascination didn’t last long. Within a few weeks Eve and I were taking care of the baby, and Sheree was MIA. I can remember coming home from school and finding Luna screaming in her crib. Alone. She would be hungry, and it was obvious she’d been wearing the same diaper for hours. Sheree would just leave her. We told Daddy, but Sheree always insisted we were lying, and he took her side.”

Bent grimaced. “Not exactly the sort of childhood you were accustomed to.”

He knew it wasn’t. This was another thing that had drawn Vera to Bent. He had known her mother. She hired him to help with the gardening that final summer of her life. Sometimes he wouldn’t show up, and Vera would tell her mother she should hire someone else, because everyone knew Gray Benton was no good. Vera had heard rumors about him. But her mama would always smile and say Bent was a good man, he just needed someone to show him how to be as good as he really was.

The truth was that Vera had been attracted to him on so many levels that it had terrified her. He represented everything she had been taught to avoid. No matter that he was the most handsome guy she had ever seen and that just being in the same room with him made her shiver, she sensed that he was dangerous somehow ... maybe only to her innocence.

After that summer, Vera hadn’t really seen Bent more than twice. Once in town hanging with his buddies, then another time when he’d been standing outside the house, staring up at her mother’s bedroom window. Vera had stayed home from school to take care of her. Her mother insisted she would be fine, but Vera knew better. She was really, really sick from the chemo. She asked Vera to push back the curtains and open the window so she could smell the air. Vera did so, and that was when she spotted Bent standing under the big oak her mother loved so much. She told her about him being there, and her mother asked Vera to let him in.

When he came into the bedroom, her mother insisted Vera give them a few minutes alone. Vera was, of course, incensed, but she did as her mother asked. Though she didn’t go far. She had stayed right outside the door, and to this day she would swear that she heard Bent sobbing like a child. At first she thought it was her mother, but when she started to come into the room, her mother had asked her to wait outside. Her voice didn’t sound like she’d been crying.

She didn’t see Bent again after that ... not until months later. Her mother had been dead and buried, and her father and Sheree were married, and Luna had been born. Everything had so abruptly and so dramatically changed, and Vera wanted to glom on to anything that connected to her mother. She had missed her so much.

The memories flooded her now ... sending so many emotions whirling through her that it took a moment for her to find her voice again.

“Why did you come to see my mama that last time?”

She’d never asked him about that day. Talking about her mother had been far too difficult for her to bring up the subject. Besides, they didn’t spend very much time talking when they were together. This was actually the first time Vera had thought about that day in all this time. How strange for the memory to pop into her head at this precise moment.

“Your mama was nice to me. Mine died when I was just a little boy, and my dad, well you know what a mean bastard he was. Evelyn wanted to help me, I think. She kept telling me what a good person I was. Always had. As far back as I can remember, whenever I would see her, she would smile and tell me how handsome or smart or good I was.” He breathed a sound, a sort of gutted laugh. “I just let her say whatever she wanted. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her she was wrong. That my no-good daddy had beat all the good out of me by the time I was old enough to go to school.”

The confession startled Vera ... struck some place deep inside her that still dared to feel compassion for this man. She tried to think of some meaningful response, but nothing came.

He looked away, blinked as if he, too, was overwhelmed by some powerful emotion. And all this time she had been certain he was not capable of such a thing.

“Evelyn was very good to me,” he repeated. “She treated me like I mattered, and I appreciated that kindness more than you can imagine.”

Vera blocked the second round of emotion that wanted to rise inside her. Damn it, she would not allow herself to be pulled into a compromising position by the past. Not to mention it was too bad his appreciation hadn’t filtered down to Vera. He’d sure as hell left her high and dry no matter how good her mother had been to him. She forced the thought away. Refused to acknowledge how he’d devastated her.

“So, yes,” she said, going back to his question, which now felt like a much safer place, “everything about our lives changed with Sheree and Luna. Eve and I lost our father, really, but we dealt with it. What else could we do?”

“Did you ever hear your father and Sheree arguing?”

Voices and images filtered through her mind. “Obviously. He eventually saw through her lies and started demanding she stay home and take care of Luna. This resulted in several ugly confrontations.”

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