The Boarding House (5 page)

Garrett had had a long,
miserable day at work. The stock market was down and clients had been calling all day, demanding to sell certain stocks while others were trying to buy the same stocks at an all-time low.

Doris eyed him curiously when he’d walked into the kitchen, then quickly looked away.

Garrett frowned. That was weird. She usually spoke. He bypassed the cookie he’d been about to sample and headed straight for his room to change. But as he started down the hall, he realized the house was too quiet.
Ah
. This might explain Doris’s odd behavior. He stopped, cocking his head to listen.

Usually Fern’s television was blaring, and he should be hearing Ellie chattering away to Wyatt. Even though she was his special girl, her bond to her twin was one thing he had never been able to break. He paused outside her door and knocked.

“Ellie? Are you there?”

Wyatt put his hand over Ellie’s mouth.

Garrett was reaching for the doorknob when he heard a sound behind him. He turned just as Fern lurched through the doorway. Her face was splotched, her eyes nearly swollen shut, but she was standing with her feet apart in a fighting stance and her shoulders thrust back as if bracing herself for a blow.

“Get away from that door,” she shouted.

Garrett frowned. “How dare you—”

Fern launched herself at him like a guided missile and hit him with a fist to the jaw before he could end the sentence. He went down like a felled ox.

Inside the bedroom, Ellie flinched. “What was that?”

Wyatt headed for the door. “I’m gonna see.”

“Wait, what if—”

Wyatt had already opened the door. Ellie had no choice but to follow. The last thing they expected to see was Daddy on the floor with blood pouring from his nose and Momma standing over him, her hands curled into fists.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? I think you broke my nose,” Garrett yelled, and grabbed his handkerchief to stop the blood.

Fern drew back her foot and kicked him in the balls. She would have preferred to cut them off, but she’d made a deal with God.

“With me? What the fuck is wrong with you?” she screamed. “Pervert! Child molester! Devil’s spawn!”

Garrett moaned and retched as he grabbed his crotch and rolled, desperate to get away from Fern’s wrath. What the hell just happened? As he did he caught sight of Ellie and knew from the look on her face that he’d been betrayed. He caught a glimpse of Ellie’s expression and suddenly, he knew.

“You told,” he said accusingly, then grunted as another of Fern’s kicks caught him in the balls.

“Hell yes, she told,” Fern screamed. “Ellie. Get back in your room.”

But Ellie couldn’t move. “I had to tell, Daddy,” she announced. “I got my period today. That means I can make babies. And that means you can’t play the game with me again.”

“Jesus Christ,” Garrett muttered, staring at her anew. That she would have drawn all of these conclusions on her own had never entered his head.

“Do not even mention the name of our Lord and Savior,” Fern shrieked and grabbed him by the back of his suit coat and spun him around. “You need to hear my words, Garrett Wayne, and hear them good. God told me not to kill you. If He had not, you’d already be dead. You’re still breathing because I’m following God’s command. But if you ever go near that child again, it will be the last thing you do. I’ll gladly go to prison for life, just to know you’re already in hell.” She let him go and pointed at her daughter. “Ellie. Get in your room and don’t come out until I tell you to.”

Ellie ducked back, slamming the door behind her, then ran for the farthest corner of the room and hid between the wall and her bed.

“I’m here,” Wyatt said, and slid down beside her.

Ellie wrapped her arms around her knees and stared over the mattress toward the door, praying it wouldn’t open.

Out in the hall, Garrett had managed to crawl to his feet, but he was a sorry lot, standing with one hand on his crotch and the other trying to stop the flow of blood coming out his nose. “Fern, I didn’t mean—”

Fern slapped him across the face, splattering blood across the wall. “Shut your mouth. You’re evil. Nothing comes out of you but lies. The only thing you didn’t mean to do was to get caught. Go clean yourself up and come down to dinner.”

“I can’t eat. You need to take me to the emergency room. My nose is broken.”

“Take yourself,” Fern snapped. “When you go back to work on Monday, you tell them whatever you want, as long as it’s not the truth. The only reason I haven’t already called the police is because if the news got out about what you’ve done, Ellie would be subjected to ridicule and pity for the rest of her life.”

Then she shoved him away from Ellie’s doorway and stood guard in front of it until Garrett staggered back toward the kitchen.

Doris had just walked back in the house from carrying trash out to the curb and heard only enough commotion to suspect trouble was brewing. When she saw her employer come stumbling back through the kitchen holding a bloody handkerchief to his nose, she knew she’d been right.

She stepped back in shock. “Oh my, Mr. Wayne, do you need me to—”

Garrett held up his hand then put a finger to his lips.

Doris clasped her hands over her mouth.

He walked out the door.

She heard the car start up then drive away. Moments later Fern came striding through the kitchen with her purse over her arm. “I’ve got to run an errand. I won’t be long. Feed Ellie when dinner’s ready. I’ll eat when I get back.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Doris said.

Fern drove away, leaving Doris in the kitchen shaking her head. The money was good, and she felt sorry for little Ellie, all alone in this house except for Wyatt. This had to be the strangest family she’d ever worked for.

By the time the food was ready to eat, Doris was worried. Fern was gone. Garrett was gone, and Ellie and Wyatt were nowhere to be found. Remembering how shook up Ellie had been earlier by starting her monthlies, Doris wondered if she was ashamed to face her. She knocked on Ellie’s door then peeked in.

At first Doris didn’t see her, then Ellie moved, and it was the motion that caught her attention.

“My goodness, child, what are you doing over there in the corner? Are you ill?”

“No, ma’am,” Ellie said as she got to her feet.

“Then it’s time for you and Wyatt to come eat.”

Ellie shook her head. “Wyatt’s in his room, and Momma told me not to come out until she came to get me.”

Doris frowned. “Well she told me not to wait dinner on her, and for you two to eat. She said she’d eat when she got back.”

Although it wasn’t cold, Ellie wrapped her arms around herself to keep from shivering. “I’m not disobeying Momma,” Ellie whispered. “I can’t.”

Doris frowned. “Would you eat if I brought your dinner to your room?”

Ellie nodded.

Doris resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I’ll be back.”

Ellie was finishing up her food
when she heard footsteps and guessed it was Doris coming to get the tray. But it wasn’t Doris who came in, it was Momma. She had a sack in one hand and a screwdriver and hammer in the other.

“Why are you eating in your room?” Fern demanded.

Ellie jumped up. Momma still sounded mad.

“You told me not to come out of my room until you came to get me.”

Fern sighed. At least the child had the good sense to mind her. “It’s just as well,” she said, and then began digging stuff out of the sack.

“What’s that?” Ellie asked as Fern shoved a small metal plate onto one side of her door.

“I’m putting a lock called a slide bolt on the door. When you come into this room, you lock this door behind you every time. Do you understand?”

Ellie’s eyes widened. Her heart thumped once out of rhythm then curiosity got the better of her as she watched Momma working. “I didn’t know you knew how to use tools.”

“There are a lot of things I can do,” Fern said.

“Are you mad at me, Momma?”

Fern stopped. The quaver in Ellie’s voice was a shaft to her heart. “Lord, no, child. Why would you think that?”

“You yelled at me and now that.” She pointed at the lock. “Are you putting me in jail, too?”

Fern gasped. “No! Oh my goodness, no. You don’t understand. This lock isn’t to keep you in your room. It’s to keep your
 . . .
to keep people out.”

Ellie’s eyes widened as the ramifications of this new piece of information soaked in. Of course Wyatt showed up when he’d heard all the commotion, then moved closer, watching to see how the lock was going to work, and how the screw ate into the wood bit by bit until it was flat against the plate.

Fern glanced down just as Wyatt looked up. Their gazes met. Fern blinked.

Wyatt glared. “You should have taken better care of Ellie.”

Fern shuddered and reached for her daughter.

Wyatt pulled her back. “I’ve been taking care of her longer than you have. You can put all the locks in the world on all the doors, but it’s not gonna stop Daddy if he wants in.”

Fern covered her mouth to keep from screaming. The look in Wyatt’s eyes was frightening.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Fern mumbled. “Look, look, the lock works. Come try it.”

Ellie slid the bolt back and forth a few times as Fern showed her.

“I can do it,” Ellie said. “But if I get scared, Wyatt will do it for me.”

Knowing she’d failed her child, Fern shook her head in a gesture of sadness, grabbed her things, and left the room as if the Devil himself was at her heels.

Wyatt glanced at Ellie. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

“Oh. Right,” Ellie said. She carried their food trays out into the hall then ran back inside and locked the door behind her.

“Now what?” Wyatt asked.

Ellie tugged at the back of her panties. The unfamiliar feel of the pad between her thighs kept making her think she was walking with a wedgie.

“There’s no school tomorrow,” she offered.

Wyatt grinned. “There’s no school all summer.”

“And no more playing games with Daddy,” Ellie added.

“Damn straight,” Wyatt muttered.

Ellie gasped. “You cussed.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one who’s growing up,” Wyatt stated, and swaggered toward the television to get the remote.

It was after dark before Garrett
got back to the house. He had a splint on his nose, and his balls were throbbing. But he’d had plenty of time to think.

It had been a shock finding out that his little Ellie was turning into a woman. He’d noticed the way her breasts were budding, but she was still so small that he’d never assumed the rest of her body was about to follow suit.

The bigger shock had come upon learning she’d actually told about their games. He would have bet his life she’d never tell. His anger at Fern grew as he walked into the house and locked the door behind him. That’s exactly what he had done—bet his life, and if it hadn’t been for his wife’s fucking piety, it would have already been over.