Reckless Promise
Tara
Kellen leaves early again the next day. “Sleep in,” he says as he gets dressed in the dark. “I have more meetings and more men to kill.”
“Don’t come back hurt and covered in blood again.”
“Why not? You enjoyed the shower.”
I smile and pull the covers over my face. He laughs softly and leaves, the door clicking shut behind him.
I don’t fall back asleep. Instead, I wait until he’s gone, get up, get myself showered and dressed, and head into the house.
It’s early, barely past seven. Most of the staff hasn’t arrived yet—the overnight skeleton shift left an hour ago and the day shift starts at eight. It’s the golden period, where silence reigns and the house feels sleepy and comfortable. I walk through the halls, taking my time, lingering near windows that overlook the gardens I’ve spent so much love and time and effort cultivating, until I find myself outside of Kellen’s mother’s door.
He’s not in there. I checked the driveway to make sure his car was gone. It might be in the garage, but he’s been leaving it outside these days so he has ready and easy access. I reach my hand up and knock softly and wait until Eunika appears, looking sleepy.
Does this woman ever go home?
“Yes?” she asks, frowning and squinting at me.
“I’d like to speak with Mrs. Hayle, if I can.”
“She only just woke. Come back later.”
“Now, please. It’s important.”
Eunika’s frown deepens but she turns and disappears inside without a word. I wait and after a minute, she returns to hold the door open for me.
I pad quietly into Mrs. Hayle’s chambers. The blinds are pushed back and sunlight streams inside. A TV is on playing an old Western, and Mrs. Hayle is still in her nightclothes, watching a cowboy ride a horse hard, chasing after bank robbers or just general bandits. I drift over to the chair beside her bed and sit down and she looks at me, confusion momentarily on her face, before it slips away and she smiles.
“Tara,” she says, and a pulse of hope blooms in my stomach. Maybe she’s having a good day and she’ll remember.
“Hello, Mrs. Hayle. How are you feeling this morning?”
“Good, dear, good. Please, call me Goldie.” She fusses with the blankets. “Might as well use our first names if you’re going to see me in bed like this.”
I smile at her and shift closer to the bed. “I’d like that.”
“Good, good. I heard that you married my son, which makes you my daughter-in-law. Congratulations, I’m very happy for you two. I only wish I could have been there. Eunika says you had a lovely ceremony but it was just too far away. Kellen must be so happy, I know he’s been wanting this for a long time.”
My stomach twists and I look away toward the TV where the cowboy fires off rounds from his revolver, yelling at his horse to go faster. Eunika is nowhere to be seen and the giant room is otherwise quiet.
“We’re very happy,” I say trying to make myself believe it.
“Very good dear, very good. I’m happy you came to visit me. I can be so forgetful sometimes, you know, and I worry that I wouldn’t remember if you did before.”
“That’s okay, Goldie. I actually came to ask you about something.” I hesitate, wondering if this is maybe not the best idea, maybe I shouldn’t bother a sick old woman with this stuff, but I have to do it. There’s nobody else in this house I can turn to right now and I’m terrified that if I don’t talk to someone, I won’t know how to handle this with Kellen.
“What’s wrong, dear?”
I blink a few times and realize there are tears in my eyes. “I’m sorry, Mrs.— I mean, Goldie. I came to ask you about your husband.”
“Ah,” she says and lets out a long sigh. “You know, it always comes back to that man. He was a bad person, you know. A very angry, dangerous man, and he only got worse over the years. But back when we first met, I liked the anger and the danger. It was exciting, being with a guy like him. I was so young and pretty back then and he was so handsome and charming and had more money than any other guy I knew. I thought I could smooth out his edges and calm down his temper, but it didn’t work that way, it didn’t work at all.” She sighs, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, honey, what we were talking about?”
“Orin, your husband,” I prompt, putting my hands on the edge of the bed. “Do you remember anything from the last few years? Anything about the way he’d—” I stop myself, reaching for the words and tasting them on the edge of my tongue but I can’t bring myself to speak them. “The way he’d go for walks around the garden when I was working.” That’s hard enough to say and my heart’s racing as sweat beads along my back, a cold and gross sweat oozing from my pores.
She frowns at me, head tilted. “He did that a lot, didn’t he?”
“Sometimes,” I say, looking away, over at the TV where the cowboy is tying up the bandits and lecturing them on the difference between right and wrong, honor and justice, and I wonder what the hell a guy like him knows about either thing, a guy so quick to reach for a gun, to turn to violence to solve a problem. A man who can see through the lens of a bullet and no further.