The TV turns on, the volume loud. The kids are probably glad we aren’t downstairs. Normally, we do not watch TV on Sunday mornings, so for them this is a treat. They flip between cartoons and a movie with explosions.
“I bet they’re eating cereal,” Millicent says.
“We have cereal?”
“Organic. No sugar.”
“We have milk?”
“Soy.”
I do not say “yuck” out loud, but I think it. “That’s not bad, then.”
“I guess not.”
She snuggles a little closer.
This is what life was like before Holly. Everything moved a bit slower, less frantically, without much excitement.
The days blended together, punctuated only by big events. Our first house was so tiny, but it felt huge, at least until we outgrew it—followed by Millicent’s first huge sale, Jenna’s first day of school, our bigger house and bigger mortgage. The paper cut on Rory’s hand.
When Jenna was four, she got sick with a cold that turned into bronchitis. She could sleep for only an hour or so before the coughing would wake her up. Millicent and I spent three nights sleeping in her room, me on the floor and Millicent in Jenna’s little bed. Between the two of us, we helped Jenna get more sleep than us.
I taught Rory how to ride a bike. He would never admit it, but he used training wheels for an extended period of time. Balance was not his thing. Still isn’t.
None of this was exciting, not at the time. They were routines and responsibilities, with an occasional smile or even a laugh. Moments of happiness followed by long stretches of blurry, repetitive days.
Now, I want it all back. Maybe I have had too much excitement, or this is too exciting, but either way it is not what I want.
“Hey,” Millicent says. She sits up in bed, covered by the sheet. Her red hair is tangled. “You hear that?”
Downstairs, the breaking-news music blares out of the TV. It cuts off when one of the kids changes the channel to a cartoon.
I roll my eyes. “News breaks every five minutes.” I pull Millicent back down on the bed, into my arms, with no intention of moving unless the police break down our door. “Probably some celebrity got arrested.”
“Or died.”
“Or a politician got caught cheating,” I say.
“That’s not even newsworthy.”
I laugh and bury myself deeper under the covers.
My hope is that they have arrested someone for the murders. It would not be Naomi and Lindsay’s killer, but it would be someone who has done other bad things. Someone who deserves to be locked up before he hurts someone. I imagine him as a disheveled, slovenly man who has crazy eyes.
“Okay, that’s it,” Millicent says. “I’m getting up.” She throws off the covers all at once, like the old Band-Aid trick. It works. The bed isn’t cozy without her.
She throws on a robe and heads downstairs. I jump in the shower first.
The kids are on the couch, watching a teenage show about aliens. Their empty cereal bowls are on the coffee table, and I am surprised Millicent has let them stay there. I find her in the kitchen, standing next to the coffee maker. Her cup is tipped over, and the coffee is running off the side of the counter, onto the floor. She isn’t even looking at it. Her eyes are focused on the little TV set she keeps in the kitchen.
Josh is on the screen. He is standing in front of a woodsy area so thick with bushes I cannot see the building behind him, just the steeple high above the trees. I do not know the place or where it’s located. The wooden sign in front of the church is weather-beaten and faded. Josh’s mouth is moving, but no sound comes out. The volume is too low.
I do not need it anyway. The news is plastered across the bottom of the screen, in red.
HOUSE OF GOD OR HOUSE OF HORRORS?
UNDERGROUND DUNGEON FOUND IN ABANDONED CHURCH
Fifty-six
For a second, I believed Millicent was upset because the news was horrific, because it was shocking, because it had nothing to do with us. Or I like to think I believed that.
Within another second, I knew it was her. The church was where she’d brought Lindsay and Naomi.
“A church?”
We are back upstairs, in our bedroom, but the mood could not be more different. There is nothing sexy about a dungeon in a church.
Our family does not go to church, and never has. Millicent was raised agnostic; I was raised Catholic and lapsed early. Church is where we attend weddings, funerals, and bake sales. And even I think this location is one of the most disturbing choices Millicent could have made. The only place worse would have been a preschool.
Millicent is no longer shocked by the discovery, nor is she scared. She has turned defensive. “I needed a place. Somewhere they wouldn’t even search.”
“Keep your voice down.” The kids are downstairs watching TV, but I am still afraid they will hear.
“No one found it, did they? Not when they were still alive.”
“No. No one found the church until Claire came to town.” According to Josh, they found the church because of a tip. Someone had seen a car in what used to be the parking lot but was now full of weeds.
Millicent stood in front of me, hands on hips. She is still wearing her robe.
Behind her, the TV is on in our bedroom. The press has not been let into the church, nor have any pictures been released, so Josh is repeating what his unnamed sources have said.
“A vile scene … chains attached to the walls … iron cuffs drenched in blood … even a veteran police officer was brought to tears … like something out of a movie.”
Millicent flipped her hand, brushing the words away. “It is not drenched with blood. That room isn’t a vault. It’s a basement. And the church has to be a hundred years old. Who knows what’s taken place in there?”
“But you cleaned it?”
Her eyes narrow. “Are you really asking me that?”
I throw up my hands as an answer.
Millicent walks up to me, her face closer to mine than when we were still in bed, but there is nothing cozy or warm about her. “Don’t you dare second-guess me. Not now.”
“I’m not—”
“You are. Stop.”
Her robe swishes as she turns around and disappears into the bathroom.
I can understand her anger. She is angry the church was discovered and angry I am questioning her. But I would not have left that basement with a speck of blood in it. The whole thing would have been doused in ammonia or bleach or whatever gets rid of blood and fluids and DNA of any kind. Maybe I would have left behind a lit cigarette inside and let it burn, making it look like an accident.
I never got the chance to do any of that, because I did not know about the church. I could never bring myself to ask.
* * *
• • •
Millicent decides we should all go to the movies this afternoon. Given the circumstances, the suggestion is absurd, but I tell myself it has to be better than watching the news all day. Yes, it’s a good idea to get out of the house. Out of my head. Away from Josh. I repeat this as I get dressed, trying to shove aside that church and its basement. It almost works.
“I’m not feeling very well.” For emphasis, I hold my stomach.