House Broken by Sonja Yoerg Page B

by that husband of hers, a family man through and through, and good-looking besides. Geneva had been lucky to land him, with her so fixated on her career and spending more time running after animals than men.
    Helen was hard on Geneva—she confessed to that. Didn’t help that her youngest daughter was the spitting image of Eustace.If you took him and prettied him up a little, you’d end up with Geneva. She had the same thick dark hair, strong chin, and squared-off shoulders, and was tall to boot. Carried it well—she gave her that. Problem was, Helen didn’t want reminding of Eustace. She didn’t want it right after he died and she didn’t want it now. It wasn’t Geneva’s fault, but a ghost was a ghost.
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    They’d put her in the boy’s room. She’d expected the girl’s room but Geneva said the other was closer to the bathroom. When they came into the house, Tom wheeled her past the girl’s room. She’d caught a glimpse of all the paper hanging from the ceiling and decided she could tolerate the posters of sports cars and the musty scent of boys coming into their manhood. The boy—Charlie, she remembered now—was sent off to sleep in the den. He didn’t grouse. On the face of it, he resembled Tom, but nevertheless reminded her of Dublin. She hadn’t spent much time with Geneva’s children, but Charlie, at least, might help these weeks pass.
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    She woke up the first morning at Geneva’s with a crick in her neck. Same thing happened most mornings since the accident. Between strange beds, her arm in a sling, and her sore leg, she couldn’t get comfortable. At least in the hospital and the rehab center they’d given her a healthy dose of pain meds—until they suspected she might be exaggerating her suffering. She wasn’t counting on her daughter handing out pills like candy. No, she’d have her fist tight around that, same as everything else. Helen hadbeen craving a drink since her first moment of consciousness in the hospital and couldn’t see surviving at Geneva’s house—or anywhere else for that matter—sober as a judge. Charlie, with that long, smooth smile, appeared the sort who could work out real quick which side the butter was on. Maybe he’d be willing to help—for a price. There was always a price.
    She could see out one corner of the window without moving her head. The weather was much as she’d left it the night before: fog thicker than day-old porridge. She wished she’d brought sunshine and a palm tree with her. And it was so quiet here. No street noise, no ambulances, no miscreants yelling at children by the pool. Big trees and wide, wide quiet. Some folks would call it peaceful, but she wasn’t one of them. Reminded her of Aliceville—the house she’d been born in, not Eustace’s. Stuck on the edge of the woods, with all manner of critters traipsing through the yard, her daddy lifting his shotgun at them from the narrow porch, swaying with drink, as likely to kick up a clod of dirt as kill anything. The ramshackle house never looked like it meant to stay. Any moment it might get strangled by vines or sucked into the woods by a fierce wind. She had been relieved to move into Eustace’s house in town, where the streetlights shone nice and bright. Of course that was before the trouble started, when her idea of scared became the things you couldn’t see.
    Still, her childish notions stuck. The redwoods surrounding Geneva’s house made her anxious in a way L.A. never did. Sure, L.A. was full of no good—any fool could see that—but it was no good you could lock your door against, not the kind that comes sniffing under your window while you sleep.
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    Someone pushed open the door. The light was dim, but she couldn’t mistake the dog’s boxy head. What was his name? Daisy? No. Dazzle?