Whisper Down the Lane, Clay Chapman [best short books to read txt] 📗

As far as furniture is concerned, I only picked up the essentials. A couch. A TV/DVD player. A set of cutlery for two.

I also got my hands on some art supplies, just for tonight. The Big Night.

When he finally arrives, he takes in the empty canvas surrounding him, four walls waiting for him to attack. “Go to town,” I say. “Paint it however you want.”

“Really? Won’t we get in trouble?”

“So what if I lose the deposit? You better go full-on Jackson Pollock in this joint.”

Eli splashes the bedroom walls with all kinds of color. No need to stay in the lines. Just get it out, all that pent-up emotion. Release whatever might be trapped inside since the car accident. I don’t want him to hold onto his emotions, to bury them—like I did when I was his age.

History will not repeat itself.

There are moments when I see her—Jenna—standing in a crowd. I’ll pass her on the street. Spot her from the corner of my eye. I’ll stop and turn. Wait and see. But she’s never really there.

If it hadn’t been for her, I never would’ve found myself again.

Found Sean.

Jenna helped me rediscover whom I’ve been hiding from. Had I known who she was before she died, I wonder if I would’ve been capable of asking her for forgiveness.

I wonder if she would have been capable of giving it to me.

I guess we’ll never know, will we?

What I put her family through was unforgivable. What she put my family through was unforgivable too, but I hope we would’ve forgiven each other.

I keep asking for forgiveness from ghosts. I need to ask myself the same thing…

Can I begin to forgive myself? For all the things that I’ve done?

How can I atone?

Eli, I think. He’s my second chance.

His bedtime is nine p.m. on weekends. Tamara wanted him in bed no later than nine thirty, but this is his first night here. It’s a special occasion. What’s an extra hour going to hurt? I tell him we can keep it between him and me. Our little secret.

I tuck him in. A splatter pattern of paint still speckles our skin, illuminated by the nightstand lamp. I turn it off and the two of us are left in the dark. The bespattered paint on the walls looks like cobwebs in the shadows.

“Do you think…” Eli hesitates, struggling to find the right words. Once he thinks he’s finally got them, he starts again. “Do you think Sandy’s mom really meant to drown us?”

I choose my words carefully. “We can ask ourselves over and over, racking our brains for some explanation, but…there never will be an answer. Sometimes it’s best to just let it go.”

Forgive and forget, I want to say, even if I’m not sure I believe it. I think about the moment in the car. On the bridge. Jenna started to accelerate, steering for the abutment.

I heard Eli scream from the back seat. That’s when I grabbed the steering wheel.

That’s how it happened. How I remember it happening.

“Do you think you’ll ever come back home?” he asks. “With Mom?”

“I hope so.”

“Me, too.”

“Put in a good word for me. She’ll listen to you.”

He laughs. “Okay…”

It’s clear he’s struggling to put his thoughts into words. Something is still weighing him down. “Is there something else? Something you want to tell me?”

When he finally speaks, his voice is barely there. “It was supposed to be a game…”

I don’t say anything right away, letting his words sink in. “What do you mean?”

“It’s all my fault. I told Sandy I was really mad at Mom for marrying you…I didn’t want a new dad. Then Sandy said her mom had a game we could play. To get back at you. Sandy’s mom told me to do all these things around the house. Little things. She told me to say stuff she knew would scare you. She said if I did it, you’d go away and it’d just be me and Mom again.”

I think back to all those moments in the house, the inexplicable things that kept happening. Eli. The whole time. “You knew?”

“I didn’t think it would end like that…I didn’t know Sandy’s mom would…would…”

Just a game.

“The bruises,” I say. “Your mother told me she found bruises on your arm…”

“I did it—” he swallows “—to myself.”

I realize my fingernails are digging into my palm. “Have you told your mother?”

Eli shakes his head, no. “Nobody was supposed to get hurt. Honest.”

He thinks I’m mad at him. He’s afraid of what I might say, that I’ll give him up to his mother—but what I can’t admit, not to Eli, is that I’ve been feeling the exact same way. This boy has held my fate in his hands for months now. We’ve stalemated each other.

“What do we do now?” I ask.

Eli leans over and fishes through his backpack next to the bed. He pulls out a crumpled envelope. He’s held on to it for a long time, from the looks of it. The paper appears like it was wet, then dried. The ink has blurred a bit across the front, but I can still read the name:

SEAN.

“I found it in my backpack,” Eli says. “After the accident.”

I take the envelope. It’s not sealed. “Did you read it?”

Eli doesn’t answer. Of course he has. Curiosity killed the…but I stop myself. He’s six now. Whatever it says, I have to imagine—I hope—most of the words go right over his head.

This must be Jenna Woodhouse’s final word against me. Her punishment. Did she know this would end with her death? How could she? I push the thought out of my mind. Whatever’s written in here, I’m sure it has the specific intent of poisoning my relationship with Eli. With Tamara.

They’re lies, I hear myself—hear Sean—whisper. Nothing but lies.

I rip up the envelope.

Eli’s eyes widen as I send a flurry of torn paper into the air. I don’t need her words in my head. I will not let her have the final word over my life.

“It’s okay.” I almost