Page 52 of Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter

She rolls her eyes. She starts to make a grand gesture with her arms, but the handcuffs stop her short, chains quivering with tension. “It can’t just be blasphemy. Murder, rape, torture, animal abuse—and God picks blasphemy to be the bridge too far?”

“When are you going to tell me why you’re here? How did you even get my number?”

“I like watching you chase your tail.”

It is pointless to whisper, but I cling to our final vestige of secrecy. “You didn’t kill her.”

“You don’t know shit, Providence.”

“You expect me to believe you can’t forgive me for what I did when you did the exact same thing? Why would you still be holding it over my head all these years later?”

“I always was a hypocrite,” she says with a shrug.

“Did you get a lawyer?”

“I don’t need one. I confessed. It’s over. It’s done. Best thing you can do for me now is give me pointers for prison.”

“Why did you waste your phone call on me?”

“I called you because I need someone to go home and get my meds. I’ll start bugging out if I don’t have them. The sheriff said someone can bring them for me. I’m sure they’ll confiscate it first to make sure it’s not cyanide so I don’t Eva Braun myself.”

“Call your fiancé.”

Another eyeroll. She’s more nonchalant than Grace during her meeting with the principal, like this is all one big joke and she’s waiting for me to finally laugh. “It’d take him forever to get here from Alliance. I couldn’t call the old man because I don’t trust him to actually bring me my meds, and I couldn’t call Grace because she’s still a kid. I didn’t want to get her involved.”

Something isn’t right, but under the watchful eye of the sheriff, there is only so much prodding I can do. My gaze falls to her handcuffed wrists. “Where am I going?” I ask.

“I live in the apartments on Nilsen Road. Remember those ugly blue ones? Apartment six. Key’s in the flowerpot. My pills are on the dresser in the bedroom. Bring me the Seroquel and the Depakote.”

“Fine,” I mutter.

“And please,please, don’t talk to Grace.”

“You want her to find out on the evening news?”

“In my ideal world, she never finds out at all. I just fade out of existence and she never has to know.”

“She will find out, Harmony,” I say.

“I don’t want to her to hear it from you.”

Her eyes are earnest, waiting for me to promise my silence, but I don’t. I am not in the habit of making promises I have no intention to keep.

A dark, meaty cockroach skitters beneath the refrigerator when I turn the light on. Harmony’s apartment is dank and filthy. The curtains probably haven’t been pulled back in months. Thescent of spoiled food permeates the kitchen, and I cannot tell if it is coming from the refrigerator or the mountain of dishes left in the sink. Her houseplants are all either dead or dying. A cat tree stands in the corner of the living room, its shelves occupied by heaps of dirty clothes and grease-splotched fast food bags, but there is, thank God, no trace of a cat suffering in this hellhole. Each time I turn on a light, I close my eyes and count to three so any cockroaches will be gone by the time I open them.

In the bedroom, she has left a candle burning atop a copy of a self-help tome,its bookmark scarcely ten pages in. It strikes me as odd that the police haven’t beaten me here. But then again, she confessed. They already found our mother’s body. Open and shut case. Perhaps they see no reason to turn over her apartment. Then again, the Tillman County sheriff’s department has never been lauded for its outstanding detective work. Scotland Yard they are not.

I tiptoe around the room like it’s an active crime scene, touching as little as possible. As promised, the pills are on the dresser. They stand beside a picture of Harmony and a man who must be the mystery fiancé—a man I am, quite frankly, surprised to discover exists. They share a kiss in front of a tent and campfire, Harmony’s left hand presenting her ring to the camera. There is a tear near the bottom of the picture, like she started to cut him out one day but thought better of it.

Her pill dispenser catches my attention next. Today is Monday, but her pills from Thursday onward are untouched. The oblong pills stare back at me from their clear pockets, a beast with two white eyes and one pink. She has too many pills left in the bottles too. She can’t be in her right mind if she’s taking her medication this sporadically. One missed antidepressant is enough to make me spiral, give me brain zaps, but these are the heavy hitters of psychiatric medication. I was on Seroquel once upon a time. The psychiatrist thought it might remedy my sleep disturbances. You don’t quit an antipsychotic cold turkey unlessyou want a weekend at an inpatient treatment center. I might know that one from experience.

I sit on the unmade bed before I can worry about bedbugs. I can’t make it add up. Say she killed our mother. Say she did so during a psychotic episode, maybe withdrawal-induced, maybe not. Why confess without a lawyer? Why wouldn’t she capitalize on the one mitigating factor she has? It isn’t like Harmony to fall on her sword out of some warped sense of honor.

Maybe I should let her.

If I really want this to be the end, it can be. This can be my closure. Deep down, I will know it’s a lie, but you learn to live with the lies that help you sleep at night. Sometimes peace is more valuable than truth.

Not this time. No. I have to find out what really happened.

---