Page 44 of Harmony Island Gazette
I didn’t stop when I ran past the weatherworn sign. I was just going to go until my body told me to stop. A left and then a right, and suddenly I was standing in front of mom’s house for the second time since I’d returned home.
I stood on the sidewalk, my chest expanding as I tried to calm my breath and heart. I let my gaze drift over her house. I could hear her call after me as I stormed from her house and didn’t look back. She was weak but stood her ground that she wasn’t going to leave Bob. Her flavor of the week.
I was done trying to get her to see that the men she brought home weren’t good for her. And she was done trying to convince me that I was wrong.
She spat out a slew of curse words before she told me to leave and never come back. I took her up on that offer. I just hadn’t realized that conversation was going to be our last.
I closed my eyes and tipped my face up toward the sky. I’d give anything to go back and just hug her. Tell her that I loved her even if, in that moment, she hated me. To take her with me. Free her of the pain that came with every man who entered her life and left it.
As much as I hated my mom for not being strong enough, I hated myself more for failing her.
I tipped my face forward again and my gaze focused on the front door. The last time I’d come, I’d only been able to make it to the driveway. My feet started to move, and I walked from the sidewalk to the driveway.
The walkway to the front door was crumbling and littered with weeds. My steps felt heavy as I made my way up it and climbed the two steps to the front stoop. I pulled open the storm door and stared at the door handle.
I lifted my hands, my fingers brushing the metal. Was I strong enough to open the door? My fingers curled around the knob and I twisted it. It shifted but didn’t turn fully.
It was locked.
I dropped my hand and glanced around. Mom always had a spare hidden outside the front door for me. I wondered if it was still there. I glanced around but didn’t see the hide-a-key rock. I backed up and down the steps, keeping my gaze focused on the river rock in front of the house. There was a patch of weeds that had grown to my hip, so I pushed them down with my foot.
Tucked in the far back of that patch, near the house, I found the familiar grey rock that stuck out if you knew what you were looking for.
I bent down and picked it up. I rotated it, looking for the opening, and heard the key shifting inside. I pressed on the release, and the little door swung open. I could see the key nestled inside, so I tipped it into my hand.
I stared at the key as it lay on my palm.
Was I really going to do this? Was I going to walk into my mother’s house?
I steeled my nerves and returned to the stoop. I held onto the key as I slid it into the lock and turned. I could hear the lock disengaging. It was a soft click. But with the way my nerves were feeling, it echoed in my mind. I stared at the doorknob now, knowing that all I had to do was turn it and push, and I would be inside my mother’s house. Facing the past that I’d spent so long running from.
I lifted my hand, my fingers brushing the metal before they curled around the knob.
One. Two. Three…
I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to face what was inside of this house. I wasn’t ready to face the place I should have stayed.
I should have saved my mom.
My chest felt restricted as I reengaged the lock and pulled the key from the knob. I slipped it back into the hide-a-key and buried it deep into the patch of weeds.
I needed to get out of here. It was a mistake to come.
I hurried down the sidewalk and crossed the driveway. Just as I made it to the sidewalk, the sound of someone clearing their throat startled me. An older man was standing on the sidewalk with a curious terrier sniffing my shoes. The man’s eyebrows were raised, and he was staring at me.
“Geez,” I said, clutching my chest as I leaned forward to catch my breath. “You scared me.”
“You from around here?”
I glanced up before I straightened. “Kind of.”
He frowned. “What are you doing poking around Hannah Lewis’s house?” He folded his arms. “I haven’t seen anyone come or go from that house in years.”
“I, um…er.” I didn’t know what to say. This man didn’t seem to know that I was her son, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that information to get out there.
The man sighed, loud and pointed, while pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. “I’m going to be grateful when all you investment companies get the hell out of our small community.” He opened his eyes to stare at me. “We just want to be left alone.”
Did he think I was with the Proctors? My stomach churned. There was no way I wanted to be associated with those people. “I’m not?—”
