One Hundred Candles [2] (18 page)

Then I opened the door.

twenty-five

We sat on the front porch of Avery’s house, listening to a thousand unseen crickets fill the warm night with their rhythmic chattering. I rested against Noah, careful not to get too close to his neck. It was difficult to look at him and not immediately see the bruises. Sitting next to him made it easier.

“When do you think they’ll leave?” I asked.

We watched the lights up the hill, the ones that flooded the entire downstairs of my house. White vans cluttered the driveway. Every few minutes, someone would exit the house and slide open a van door to put something in or take more equipment out.

“Should be soon,” Noah said. “They’ve been there for hours now.”

The front door opened and Avery joined us on the steps. “They’re still working?”

“Yes. I want to stay out here until they leave, if that’s okay.”

“Stay as long as you like. We’re roommates, so this is your house, too.” She slipped off her shoes and let her bare feet rest in the grass.

“You guys don’t need to sit with me,” I said. “I know it’s depressing.”

Noah kissed the top of my head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Me, neither,” Avery said. “Besides, there are too many people inside right now.”

Shane and Trisha were cleaning up the dinner dishes. They had ordered Avery’s mom out of the kitchen, insisting she had done more than enough for one day. And she had. It wasn’t simply that she had hosted dinner for all of us, which included Annalise, Mills, Beth and Jared. She had taken care of so many details over the past week, things that never would have occurred to me. She was the one who contacted professional cleaners to go into my house, the same cleaners we were now watching from Avery’s front porch.

They had their work cut out for them.

Since being released from the hospital, I had been inside my house only one time. Beth went with me so we could pack an overnight bag for Dad, but she understood that I needed a moment by myself, in the room where everything had happened. So while she was upstairs going through the closet, I had a chance to confront the aftermath of that night. I stood in the foyer, which was still cordoned off with limp yellow police tape, and wondered why the police and paramedics didn’t clean up after themselves. That was my initial thought after seeing my house for the first time: what a mess.

I put my hand on the tape, wondering if it was illegal to rip it down. Was it still considered a crime scene? But, no, the officer I had spoken with that morning said I had permission to be there. I had never before needed authorization to enter my own home, but now I could see why they had kept me away.

I stepped under the police tape, unwilling to be the one responsible for tearing it down, and surveyed the dining room. The sofa remained where it had always been, but the coffee table had been pushed against a wall and a lamp was tipped over. It wasn’t so bad, I thought.

Then I looked down. My eyes followed a path of muddy footprints to the corner of the room where Dad had fallen. Smeared on the pale wall was a single bloody handprint.

Dad had regained consciousness before the paramedics had arrived. He had seen my mother, and tried to stand up and walk to her. He hadn’t had the strength, though, and had ended up crawling across the carpet, leaving a trail of dark blood. The police had found him cradling her motionless body. I’d overheard a nurse describe how the paramedics had to pry him off her, that he’d refused to let go.

The trail of Dad’s blood ended across the room. A larger stain marked the spot where Mom had been hit, and all around it were strips of gauze and plastic casings the paramedics had ripped open and discarded. I could only stare at the scene, unable to grasp that everything had really happened right here, in my house.

I thought about that as I sat on Avery’s porch and saw a man exiting my house with a long roll of carpet balanced on his shoulder. He tossed the carpet into a van and removed a newer roll, still wrapped in plastic. I took it to mean that they had finished painting over the bloody walls and were moving on to installing the new flooring.

“Making progress,” I murmured.

I only wished my mother could make progress of her own. My visit to her hospital room had been brief. I was overwhelmed by the sight of her, sleeping and still, with her head heavily bandaged. Clear tubes connected her pale arms to different machines. She did not look like herself, I thought, but more like a wax figure.

A nurse had entered the room. She gave me a brisk nod and checked Mom’s chart, adjusted the IV and quietly left. I stood at the foot of Mom’s bed, desperately trying to think of something to say to her.

I managed to choke out two words before fleeing the room. “Love you.”

I had spent the past three nights in Avery’s room. Her mother tended to me as if I was a wounded animal, bringing me lentil soup and constantly covering me with blankets.

The front door of Avery’s house opened again. Annalise poked her head out. “Dad called—he wants to talk to you,” she said. I got up and took the phone from her. “Hey, Dad.”

“Charlotte! Good news. I’m being released tomorrow.”

“That’s great.” His voice didn’t sound as hoarse as it had a few days earlier, but his enthusiasm was definitely forced. I knew he was trying to stay positive for us. I also knew it couldn’t last.

“I’ll be staying with Shane for a while,” he continued. “Do you think Avery will mind having you for another week?”

“Not at all.” I waited for him to mention Mom, but I already knew from my sister that there had been no change in her condition.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay, Dad. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I returned to the porch. One of the vans was gone, and it looked like the cleaners were loading the other vans with their stuff. “Are they done?” I asked.

“I think so,” said Avery.

We watched as the rest of the vans pulled away. My house was dark except for the porch light. I wanted to walk up the hill. I wanted to step into my house and smell new carpet and fresh paint instead of the iron tang of old blood.

Beth put her arms on my shoulders and I jumped. “I didn’t realize you were out here,” I mumbled.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Ready for what?”

She walked down the porch steps. “It’s time to help your mother.”

We sat in a small circle, a hundred unlit candles in front of us. They were the same kind of white votives we had used at Gwyn’s, only these were brand new. I looked at the people sitting with me. Shane and Trisha were across the circle, along with Annalise and Mills. Jared, Avery and Noah were there, too. Beth held a box of matches in her hand as she addressed us.

“This is not a game. It is a sacred ceremony, one that was created to help the living grieve for their dead.” She picked up a candle. “It is also a way to reach out to those who are suffering and need strength.”

At first, I had resisted the idea of returning to my house with everyone. But Beth explained that it was necessary to reclaim the space, to bless it in order to diminish some of the horror that had occurred there. And she believed the best way to do that was to surround ourselves with people who knew and loved Mom.

It was good to see the dining room back to a more normal state. The new paint was a shade darker, the carpet a little softer. Beth was careful to arrange us so that none of us were sitting in the exact spots where the heaviest bloodstains had been. Instead, we occupied the middle of the room.

“After you describe a memory of Karen Silver, you will light one of the candles,” Beth said. “It should be a good memory, something that happened with her. After all the candles have been lit, we will send her our good wishes and prayers for her recovery.”

I remembered the original one hundred candles, and how the night had dragged on as people had searched for stories. I knew it would not be as difficult to conjure one hundred memories of my mother. We could light a thousand candles and it would not be enough.

Jared went first, which surprised me. He’d only met my mother a couple times that I knew of. “I came to see Mrs. Silver a few months ago,” he said. “I asked her for advice on what I could do for Adam. The memorial was her idea.”

I listened to the others tell some of their stories first. I loved hearing about the different ways she’d helped people or made them laugh or simply maintained a kind and supportive nature. I could picture her clearly when Shane described an outing to an old school where the sound of children laughing had been reported. When Mom heard an unmistakable giggling coming from behind her, she turned around and laughed along with the energy, and when Shane said the sound gave him the creeps, Mom tickled him until he laughed, too.

Half the candles had been lit by the time I found my voice and chose a story I wanted to tell.

“When I was seven I decided it was time for me to accompany my family on a night investigation.” I explained that up until that point, I’d only gone with them during the daytime. My dad wasn’t sure that I was ready to handle a trip at night, even though he was the one who always pointed out that if a place was supposedly haunted at night, then it was just as haunted in the daytime. Still, he didn’t want me to get scared at such a young age. He thought one bad experience would scar me for life. Mom disagreed. She said it was my choice, and if I wanted to go, I could.

We pulled up to a Victorian mansion just as the sun was setting. I bounded out of the van, ready to prove myself. But as soon as I walked inside the cavernous house, my bravery crumbled. I wanted to hide in the van with the doors locked and never come out. Before I could confess my fears, Mom pulled me aside.

“I know it’s dark in here,” she said. Her soft voice echoed off the dusty walls. “But always remember this—we’re all here together, even in the dark, even when you can’t see us.”

She held my hand for a long time. When I was finally ready to let go, it was only because I knew she was still there, even if I couldn’t see her.

I lit my candle and nudged it toward the others. Before long, all one hundred were lit. The dining room filled with the warm light of the flickering votives. I closed my eyes, willing myself to stay strong for her sake. I knew the days and weeks in front of me would be filled with waiting. My world would never return to the normal I once knew.

I reached for the necklace I had grown so familiar with wearing and, once again, realized it was not there. Beth would give me a new one if I asked. I wondered if there was a stone for hope. And I wondered, as I opened my eyes and looked around at everyone in the room, if I even needed to depend upon a small rock when I was lucky enough to have strong friends instead.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-8776-5

ONE HUNDRED CANDLES

Copyright © 2011 by Mara Purnhagen

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