Hope and I made breakfast for supper. Eggs fried over easy with a side of toast and bacon had been my comfort food since I was a little girl. We added waffles to the menu, with my secret ingredient of almond extract in the batter. I always made the kids leave the room or turn away when I added it, banging around in the cabinets and knocking jars together like it was a complicated process and a long list of secrets. Waffles had never appealed to me much, but making them always put a smile on my face. Our waffle maker made four heart-shaped waffles, and no one on the planet can make heart-shaped food for their kids without it bringing a smile. Even better, instead of it beeping, singing lovebirds chirped when the waffles were perfectly crisp on the outside but just a step past doughy on the inside. I had dropped the waffle maker in soapy water years ago, meaning only to spot-wash it, and ever since the lovebirds had squawked a terrible, shrill noise that the kids never tired of imitating and I never tired of hearing.
While we consumed too much syrup, butter, and bacon, no one asked for the details of Hershey’s injuries. They could see that I was at the edge of breaking. Even though I had put makeup on my red nose and under my eyes, it was obvious I’d been crying. And I was not one for frivolous crying. They had a general idea that it was something terrible, and Hope and Drew, at least, had no doubt who had done it. Maybe it was a survival mechanism in their own minds that warned them not to ask more, a little voice that warned that they knew all it was safe to know without taking a trip down looney lane.
It didn’t help to remind myself that I had known he would keep coming back, that I should be prepared, that nothing he did was surprising or unexpected. I wanted him locked up. I wanted someone to protect me. But there was no place for him to go, no cure for what drove him, and no one to protect us but Karma.
I went out to fill the bird feeder while the girls did the dishes. I smiled every time I looked at the kids. Yes, I was aware that I was smiling far too much considering the circumstances. I wasn’t sure if it was a fake-it-till-you-make-it mind-set, or if lunacy was already tugging at my fingertips, calling me a step closer, just one more step.
My hands were shaking so badly that I spilled a waterfall of sunflower seeds over the side. The squirrels would be pleased. I brushed seeds from my pant leg and walked toward the door.
Something caught my eye on the little table between our lounge chairs, the one for holding a tall cold drink on a long hot day. What do you know, there was a cup there, too. A clear glass mug half filled with cloudy water and chilled with a dead, white mouse.
Something was written on the mug with a black marker, but it was smeared and melting away. Fingerprints! I thought. They could get fingerprints from those smears. The idea almost made me laugh. It wasn’t as though there were any question about who had been there.
I took a step closer, making out a few letters but intentionally trying not to read any words. The mouse wasn’t solid white after all; it had black spots. No. It had words written on it in black marker, just like the mug. His tiny front paws were stretched up, like he was reaching toward the sky, inches from escape. His eyes were open and those little paws were still.
The blue plastic seed scoop clattered to the concrete, settling in the middle of an ugly brown stain.
After I had cut Hershey free, my goal had been to clean her wounds and apply antibiotic cream. I had been focused and working hard to look forward, not back. There was no doubt that I wanted to block out the memory of finding her there on the porch, but that was no excuse to have forgotten the blood smeared in a foot-wide stripe across the porch. Even worse, I had forgotten to look around for other things. It had never once crossed my mind, even though it should have been top of the list. Adam hadn’t been as clutter-minded as I had. A screaming dog hadn’t knocked him off his purpose. He had remembered to leave a telltale message.
I went inside and Hershey met me at the door, nudging my hand for reassurance after refusing to go onto the back porch. I rubbed her ears and patted her ribs until she lifted her head and tail. Then I grabbed a couple of plastic shopping bags and my phone. I slipped out to take a picture and dispose of the mouse.
“Sorry, little guy,” I said when I tied the second bag closed. “I hope you find a mountain of cheese in mousie heaven.” I hosed off the stain as well as I could, but would have to come back later with peroxide and a scrub brush. Cleaning bloodstains was on every novelist’s list of skills that they researched but never expected to use.
I tried to keep thinking that way, as though this were research for some future novel. But I kept failing and slipping back to reality. Everyone knows that in a novel you shouldn’t hurt the dog. People can be tortured, but never, ever hurt the dog.
Real life is a shade different from the novels, though. Sure, I was horrified and incensed that he had done such a terrible thing. I loved Hershey and felt physical pain over the assault. But the one pervading thought I couldn’t shake was how much worse he could do to my kids. In the grand scheme of things, this was not the worst thing that could happen.
I only hoped that the worst wasn’t yet to come.
–15–
Rise
One Cookie at a Time
Another round of rainstorms kept us away from the house, and I started to panic about the schedule. It was one of the rainiest seasons on record. The foundation had taken so long for us to figure out that we were months behind my original schedule. An experienced crew could have finished the block in a weekend for only a little more than I had paid Pete to help, and the saved time would have been worth ten times that. We had made progress, but I was making more bad decisions than I could afford.
Just when it seemed impossible to grab a stroke of positive luck, an angel showed up to pull us out of our muddy mess. He wasn’t the traditional white-plumed, singing kind; in fact, this man didn’t even believe in angels. But in our weary state, we welcomed the tall, stubborn German man who had raised me. He drove sixteen hours from Wisconsin by himself, his vehicle packed full with supplies and his head with ideas. I had more faith in my father’s ability and knowledge than anyone I knew.
“Grampa Puttkammer is here!” Roman shouted, nailing the pronunciation and enthusiasm even while he hid behind my legs.
But nothing in life is simple. My dad was facing a major health problem.
Not more than a year before, on one of those Sunday afternoons when my Bradford pear trees were turning from sweetly white to electric green, my strong, always-healthy father called me from Wisconsin. “It’s going to fall below freezing again tonight,” he said casually, as though May frost were as common to me as it was to the Yankees. “The windchill might hit five degrees and the cat won’t leave my lap. Did I tell you I ordered heirloom tomato seeds this year? And I guess they finally diagnosed that thing with my leg. Multiple sclerosis. It’ll be a dry summer again. We just haven’t had enough snow for the past few years…”