The Boarding House (7 page)

“Why not? Momma doesn’t want us. Daddy doesn’t like you, and I don’t like Daddy.”

“We can’t drive a car. We don’t have any money or anywhere to go.”

Ellie covered her face and fell backward onto her bed. “I hate my life. I hate everyone.”

“Even me?”

Ellie gasped. “Not you. I don’t hate you, Wyatt. I love you more than anyone else. You’re part of me, remember?”

“I know. That’s what makes us twins.”

They sat together, listening to the sound of Daddy’s footsteps moving away from their door. Distance between them was all that mattered.

But by morning, it became apparent that the hell they’d been living had been elevated to a whole new level.

Daddy moaned and scooped her up into his arms as the paramedics encircled the bed. “You shouldn’t be in here,” he said and carried her back out into the hall.

But Ellie could see over his shoulder. “What are they doing to Momma?”

Garrett knew the next few hours were going to be crucial to their relationship. He set her down, then got down on his knees and reached for her hands.

Ellie was starting to get scared. She’d never seen Daddy act like this. “Why won’t Momma wake up?”

Garrett’s chin quivered as his eyes filled with tears. It was easy to cry. There were all kinds of tears. Who would know the difference between tears of sadness and joy?

“Ellie, darling, Momma can’t wake up anymore. She went to sleep last night and didn’t wake up because she died. Momma’s gone to heaven, Ellie, and we can’t get her back.”

“You lie,” Ellie whispered and covered her ears, but it didn’t help. Photo-like images of Momma started popping through her head. The way Momma wrinkled up her mouth when she was mad. The way her nostrils wiggled when she laughed. The scent of her perfume. The pillowy softness of her breasts. The drop of spit at the corner of her mouth when she’d slapped Ellie’s face.

Momma was dead. She’d been mad at Ellie when she went to bed and now she’d be mad at her forever.

Ellie’s eyes rolled back in her head.

When Ellie woke up,
Doris was sitting in a chair by Ellie’s bed and patting her hand like she was trying to put out a fire. Doris was crying. Ellie had never seen Doris cry.

“Are you sick?” Ellie asked.

Doris shook her head. “No, baby, I’m not sick.”

“Then why are you crying?”

Doris choked and pressed a hand to her lips.

Ellie frowned. She hated it when she asked questions and adults didn’t answer. It wasn’t fair. They sure expected an answer when they asked her one.

Fine, Ellie thought. She sat up, then looked down at her clothes. They didn’t match. She never wore stuff that didn’t match.

“I need to change my clothes.”

“It doesn’t matter about your clothes,” Doris said and grabbed a fresh tissue.

At that point, Ellie zeroed in on the voices out in the hall. “Where’s Wyatt? Who are those people out in the hall?”

Doris shrugged. She couldn’t account for the missing Wyatt and wasn’t going to be the one to tell this child that her mother had committed suicide and the house was crawling with cops.

Ellie’s bedroom door opened. It was like someone turned up the volume. All the voices and noises became louder, but it wasn’t until she saw her Daddy’s face that she remembered—Daddy on his knees out in the hall—telling her Momma went to sleep and never woke up. He said Momma was dead, but she was pretty sure that he lied. Daddy did whatever he needed to make things work in his world.

“Where’s my Momma?” Ellie asked.

Garrett looked like he’d shrunk a foot as he crossed the room to her bed. His eyes were red-rimmed and his hands shook as he touched Doris on the shoulder. “Thank you so much for coming in on your day off. If you don’t mind, I need a few minutes alone with Ellie.”

“Is she
 . . .
is the body
 . . .
?”

Garrett shook his head. “The people from the crime lab are still in there.”

Ellie stood up on the bed. Her voice rose with her. “Where’s my Momma?”

Garrett’s mouth crumpled. “I already told you, remember?”

Doris stood up and left the room, closing the door behind her.

The moment the door shut it dawned on Ellie that she and her father were alone. A shaft of panic shot through her so fast she had to sit down. This time, the challenge was gone from her voice.

“Momma said you can’t be in here with me anymore.”

Garrett sat down in the chair Doris had vacated, making sure to keep some distance between them. The last thing he needed was for her to start talking about their games with a house full of cops.

“I know, Ellie, and I wouldn’t be, I promise, except I needed to check on you.”

“Momma can check on me,” Ellie whispered, but reality was beginning to set in.

Wyatt came in, glanced at his Daddy then positioned himself between them. “Leave her alone.”

Garrett flinched. “Ever the protector, aren’t you?”

“Someone had to be,” Wyatt said.

Garrett leaned back in the rocker, eyeing his progeny and wondering if he was going to be able to pull this off. He was older and smarter, but he’d yet to find anyone more pigheaded than his own seed.

“Ellie, talk to me,” he said.

Her head came up and the look in her eyes caught him off guard. “You’re lying to me, aren’t you, Daddy?”

“I’m not lying about anything.”

“Where’s Momma?”

Garrett exhaled slowly. The only way this was going to end was for her to see the ugly truth for herself. “The police are here. They haven’t moved her body yet, so she’s still in her room.”

Ellie started to shake. Police were a big deal. It would be hard for Daddy to lie about that, especially if she was to see them for herself.

“Ellie needs to see,” Wyatt said.

Garrett eyed him curiously. “Did you look?”

Wyatt nodded. There were tears in his eyes, but his jaw was set. Garrett knew he wouldn’t cry.

Ellie gasped. “Did you really see her, Wyatt?”

“Yes.”

“I need to see, too,” Ellie said. “I think you just need to wake her up. Sometimes Momma takes too many pills, remember?”

Garrett’s heart leaped. This was exactly what the cops needed to hear. “Come with me, baby,” he said softly.

“Wyatt too.”

He sighed. “Wyatt too, but no talking, do you hear me?”

Wyatt nodded.

Ellie crawled off the bed, and when Garrett might have picked her up, she pulled away and walked out of the room on her own. Within seconds, she was backed into a wall by a group of policemen who hadn’t seen her.

“’Scuse me. I need to get by,” she said loudly.

They jumped at the sound of a kid’s voice, then stared at Garrett in disbelief. “Man, she doesn’t have any business here.”

Ellie frowned. “This is my house. I know the law. You can’t make me leave my own house.”

Ellie didn’t really know the law, but it sounded good, and she was going to see her Momma. She needed to tell Momma she was sorry that she didn’t help carry in the groceries, and she was sorry that she didn’t tell Momma good night.

“She refuses to believe me,” Garrett told the police. “I think she needs to see this for herself.”

“Momma’s just asleep. All you have to do is shake her hard to wake her up, ’cause sometimes she takes too many sleeping pills.”

Bingo
. It was all Garrett could do not to smile. Ellie couldn’t have done any better if he’d fed her the line.

The officers looked startled, then eyed Garrett with a different air as he took Ellie by the hand and led her into the room.

At first Ellie couldn’t see past the men standing around the bed, but someone was taking pictures. When he stepped back to take a photo from a different angle, she realized they’d turned Momma onto her back.

“Look, Daddy. I told you she’d wake up. She turned over.”

Garrett put his hand on Ellie’s shoulder. When she walked out from under his touch, he didn’t push it.

“They turned her over,” he said softly. “She’s dead, Ellie. She took too many pills and it killed her.”

Ellie pushed past the photographer, then past another policeman until she was standing at the foot of Momma’s bed. Only this didn’t look like Momma.

“What’s wrong with her face? Why is it so purple?” Ellie asked.

“Because she died face down, Ellie, and that’s where all the blood in her body went when her heart stopped beating.”

Ellie reeled as if she’d been slapped. She looked up. Everyone was staring at her. She looked back at her Momma, then poked the toe of her shoe. It flopped lifelessly.

She heard someone whisper the word suicide. She frowned, uncertain of what that meant.

“Momma?” Ellie said it again, and louder. “Momma.”

The room was so quiet Ellie could hear the blood rushing through her body. Her shoulders slumped. For once, Daddy hadn’t lied. There was no way to describe what she felt, but the bottom line was that she’d just been abandoned.

“I’m sorry I made you mad, Momma,” Ellie said softly, then turned around and walked out of the room.

Garrett followed, taking care that they all see his concern for his child. As he’d hoped, Ellie had played right into his plan. She’d confirmed what he’d told the police about Fern’s drinking and prescription drug addiction, and the apology in Fern’s suicide note fit perfectly with what Ellie had just said. For all intents and purposes, Fern Wayne and her daughter had a fight last night. Despondent, Fern had taken her own life, leaving behind a note to explain the act. No one would suspect the nonspecific note referred to her dereliction as a parent that had led to her daughter’s molestation.