Her mother, with her jingling gold bracelet, black cigarette pants, and crisp sleeveless white top with the collar arranged just so, looked like a cross between Audrey Hepburn and a tall and younger Sally Field as she dashed away to reappear with a bottle of air freshener that she held high and pumped.
Something new added to the repertoire.
It smelled like evergreens, and Reni’s stomach churned for a moment before she got it under control. Halting the physical response was a trick she’d been working on. If she could freeze it, back it up, the emotional jolt stopped along with it.
She didn’t tell her mother the spray bothered her. Because just as Reni hid her deeper feelings, her mother battled the past with things she could spray and melt and light.
Elegant and polished, with dyed hair, never any roots, never left the house without makeup, went to yoga classes and paint classes and ate healthy, heavily influenced by her location and her philanthropic life as a supporter of the local arts and artists, her home a refuge for women in need of a safe place and a bed. That was Rosalind Fisher.
“You should have told me you were coming.” She set the spray aside and with a flick of the thermostat turned on the air-conditioning to circulate the scent through the house. “I would have aired things out for you. I know how sensitive you are. You and those headaches.”
Reni had explained it all away as migraines. Easier than saying scent-triggered flashbacks. What happened would always be a cloud over them and between them, but by silent and unspoken agreement that reached back years, neither talked about it. Even now it didn’t seem real. It would never seem real. But she tried not to let her mother see how much it had damaged her, maybe because Rosalind had suffered enough, maybe because Reni didn’t want her fussing over her. Yet knowing she’d be seeing her father soon made Reni acutely aware of how raw she herself was.
As a child, her world had revolved around her father. Their home had been her safe place, her family often boring. But even the most boring people could harbor deep and ugly secrets. She’d found that to be true in her profiling work too. Serial killers weren’t typically interesting in real life. Fact. Her father had been a respected psychology professor with a counseling business on the side that he ran from their home. Her mother had played the role of upper-class Palm Springs wife who wasn’t rich enough to run with the rich but did so anyway because she was a force. Some might be inclined to think her charity work was a way to soften the sting of her husband’s misdeeds, but Rosalind had been into humanitarian work before she’d met Benjamin Fisher in college when taking the same psychology course. As it turned out, Benjamin had a sick urge to cause pain. Rosalind had an urge to stop it.
“I need to talk to you about something,” Reni said. Might as well get this over with. She headed for the kitchen, a room that should have been inviting, but one she found no less disturbing than any other part of the house due to the sliding glass doors that looked out to a small pool where her father had taught her to swim and had tossed her in the air while she shrieked in delight.
She closed her eyes, wishing the earth would swallow her, imagining jumping into the pool and releasing her breath and letting herself drift to the bottom, away from everything. At the same time she thought about her cabin an hour away. She thought about the can of ashes on the mantel and the way sunlight fell through the windows. She would be back there very soon. That was her promise to herself.
When she opened her eyes, she was still in the place she didn’t want to be. A place of evil and sick secrets where Reni had watched from her bedroom window as the police took her father away, wondering when they’d come for her.
Later, when things died down and she returned to school, children whispered about her behind their hands while avoiding her. And most of the kids she’d grown up with never spoke to her again. There had been a petition to get her removed from the school, the reason being that she was “a disruption to the educational environment.” They lost, but Reni left anyway, because, as her mother put it, “They were disrupting her ability to get a good education.”
No amount of time would lessen the guilt Reni felt over her role in her father’s sick game. Yes, she’d tried to tell her mother, but she’d presented it as something vague and easy for an adult to brush off as a child’s paranoia or even a dream. Because Reni didn’t truly understand what was happening, and deep down she hadn’t wanted to get her father in trouble. She hadn’t wanted to cause friction between her parents.
“Daddy likes to play games,” she’d told Rosalind all those years ago.
“I’m glad you have a daddy who plays games with you.”
“Daddy takes me to the park at night.”
“Darkness isn’t a reason to stay inside. Darkness isn’t anything to be afraid of.”
“Daddy acts funny.”
“He sometimes drinks too much and that can cause a grown-up to act funny.”
Now, in the kitchen, arms crossed, Reni quietly told her mother about the deal Benjamin wanted to strike.
“He’s made these bargains before,” Rosalind said, always so practical. “And they went nowhere.”
“This seems different.” Mouth dry, Reni filled a glass with tap water and settled into a chair at the table with her mother.
She’d sat in the same spot as a child.
Why had her mother kept so much of the furniture? Even the bed she’d shared with Benjamin? Reni would have dragged the damn thing outside and set fire to it on the front lawn. Years ago, Reni had even tried to talk her mother into selling the whole place. At one point it seemed Rosalind was on board with the idea, but then she changed her mind.
“I like it here,” she’d said. “I don’t want to move. And I don’t know what I’d do without Maurice. Or what he’d do without me.”
Maurice, their friend and neighbor, had been a constant in their lives, sitting with them after her father was arrested, never pulling away like so many people had done. He’d taken them to movies and out to eat, and he never cared if people stared and whispered. She was pretty sure he’d been enamored with her mother. And still was.
Reni also recognized that for her mother to leave her home would only mean her father had caused even more damage to their lives. And she understood that what her mother had done was brave. She’d remained and had held her head high And, after a time, people quit reacting to seeing her in public. The whispers and glances had stopped years ago. New people moved in, and many didn’t even know their history. And now Rosalind was even being honored with a community service award for her volunteer work. She deserved it.
“I think he might be serious this time,” Reni said. “I’ve never been part of the equation before. I just wanted to warn you.”
“Who is this detective?” Rosalind asked. “Are you sure he’s legitimate? Maybe he’s someone looking for a story. You know how reporters have popped up throughout the years. Someone was here not long ago and I sent her away.”
“She might be the person who showed up at my place too. The detective’s name is Daniel Ellis. I checked out his department page. He’s legit.”
Her mother pulled out her phone, typed awkwardly with one finger, scrolled, then turned the screen around. “He’s just a baby.”