Page 22 of Home Is Where the Bodies Are

“Mom would never...” Nicole’s voice cracks and her bottom lip trembles. “And Dad...” She doesn’t finish that sentence, but I know what she was going to say. Dad would never hurt anyone. But he did. He hurt all of us when he picked up and left.

Michael returns a moment later with three plastic cups stacked on top of one another and the bottle of scotch. He pours more for me and him and less for Nicole, and then passes them out. We each take a gulp before speaking.

“Is that... I mean, do you think that’s why Dad left?” Nicole’s question isn’t directed at either of us.

“Maybe he couldn’t deal with the guilt anymore,” Michael says.

I furrow my brow. “But this happened back in 1999, and he left in 2015. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Michael’s eyes meet mine. “Guilt can eat you slowly or swallow you whole.”

He’s right about that.

Nicole swigs more than a mouthful of scotch. Some of the liquid slithers out of her lips and dribbles down her chin. She doesn’t wipe it away. Either she doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “In the video, Dad said it was an accident,” she says, pointing at the television.

I lean forward in my chair, clutching the cup with both hands. “If it were an accident, why wouldn’t he just call the police?”

“Maybe he thought he’d be held liable because it happened on his property, and he and Mom would lose everything?” Michael offers.

“Or maybe it wasn’t an accident, and he just told Mom it was.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I want to suck them back in. I had the thought but saying it out loud feels wrong. Just because Dad walked out on us doesn’t make him a murderer. But perhaps I didn’t know him after all.

A montage of memories plays out in front of my eyes, a private viewing just for myself. Dad teaching me how to ride a bike. Dad sitting in the bleachers at my track meets. His face painted with my high school colors, blue and yellow, like he was cheering on his Green Bay Packers rather than me run ’round and ’round the track. Dad helping me reel in a bass from the creek. Dad crying with me when I blew my knee out senior year due to overtraining and malnourishment. Dad telling me just because my future wasn’t going to include a full-ride scholarship anymore, that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be bright. Dad walking me down the aisle. Dad holding his granddaughter. And then Dad... standing over the body of Emma Harper.

I shake the memories away and focus on my surroundings, trying to ground myself in the present rather than be overtaken by the past. My parents’ belongings are scattered all over the floor. I wonder if any of them hold clues about what really happened the night of June 15, 1999. And then there are my siblings, who are more like strangers to me than family. Michael sits on the couch, massaging his forehead. Nicole fidgets with her fingers and continues to pace.

She stops suddenly and snaps her head in my direction. “Where’s Emma’s body now?”

I hadn’t thought of that. What could they have possibly done with it? We all look at one another, eyes darting back and forth.

“Wherever it is, it must be long gone, since no one ever found her,” Michael says. “Maybe they buried it, or weighted it and sent it down the creek, or maybe they cut it up and threw her away one piece at a time.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Michael?” I practically spit.

He throws a hand up defensively. “What? Nicole’s the one that asked the question.”

“Yeah, but you’re so crass. Do you really think Mom and Dad would dismember a child’s body?” I narrow my eyes.

“I don’t know, Beth. Clearly, they did something with it,” he huffs.

We all exhale like we’re releasing everything we thought we knew.

“What do we do now?” Nicole asks.

I don’t answer because I really don’t know. On one hand, I think the Harper family deserves to know what happened to Emma. But on the other, will it do them any good? Lucas moved away after high school, and his father died in a hunting accident shortly thereafter. Emma’s mother, Susan, still lives in the house across the street. Her health has been declining for years. I guess it’s hard to stay healthy when you have a broken heart. Mom was close with Susan, and I think knowing what Mom kept from her all these years would kill her. So maybe the truth would do more harm than good at this point.

A knock at the front door startles us, three knocks to be exact. They’re quick and loud, the urgency reverberating through the door. My shoulders practically collide with my ears. Nicole freezes in place, staring wildly at the kitchen. Michael swallows hard, his Adam’s apple rocking up and down, like a snake that’s consumed too large of prey.

Mom and Dad may have buried a body, but they didn’t bury the past... and now, it’s clearly caught up with us.

THIRTEEN

BETH

My hand moves to the door handle almost in slow motion, my frame of reference shaky, like an old horror film being shot in first person. If it were a movie, surely the ghost of Emma Harper would be on the other side of the door, or someone who knows the terrible secret my father ran off with and my mother took to her grave.

“Who is it?” Nicole whispers from the other room.

I shush her and focus on the door, my hand hovering less than an inch away from the knob, cupped, ready to grab, twist, and swing it open. I can see the outline of a person through the four square opaque windows. Our visitor is tall, at least six foot two, with broad shoulders, shifting side to side, seemingly nervous. If they can see me, I’m sure I appear the same way to them... nervous. I don’t think when I switch on the porch light and swing open the door. Shutting off the brain is sometimes the only way to get past fear.

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