Page 54 of Such a Quiet Place
CHAPTER 18
NOTHING WAS ANY CLEARERby the morning. Whether I was safe; whether I was in danger.
Alone, in the middle of my kitchen, with the chill of the tile floor under my feet, the emptiness, the quiet—I felt the need to call someone. To tell someone else what was happening here and what I was afraid of. So someone would come looking for me should I disappear. So it wouldn’t take a barking dog for people to realize that something was wrong.
My friends from work would be home from their trip by now, unpacking their luggage. But what could I say?Ruby came back while you were gone, and now she’s dead, and I’m afraid.They’d missed too much, were too connected to Brandon. And my position at work made that type of confessional friendship no longer possible.
My dad had always been the person I went to for advice—I’d stayed primarily with him after my parents separated—but we’d distanced since Aidan. I couldn’t stand that he was right. That he’d seen the worst in Aidan, and it had played out exactly as he’d predicted. When I called him after Ruby’s arrest, I could feel his words, so close to the phone:Jesus Christ, Harper, you’ve got to stop taking in people like this. You’ve got to cut out this affinity for people whowalk all over you. And look now. Look who you were living with. I could’ve gotten a call from some stranger telling me my daughter isdead—
He’d choked on his words, half anger, half fear, and I saw myself as my brother then. Understood that my father could never handle this sort of role, could not accept a future of uncertainty. He spoke like there were pieces of me that existed outside my own control. Forces at work that were always looking for a weakness. He seemed to feel that the world endangered you just by your existing within it, and it would look for your faults to exploit.
And I hadn’t even told my mom about Ruby’s arrest in the first place. Wasn’t sure how much she knew, either from my father or from Kellen. I’d always worried she had too much on her plate with Kellen, and I’d never wanted to add to it.
I laughed to myself, close to delirium, thinking how the most unreliable person I knew was suddenly the only person I could trust.
Maybe this was why I’d told him about Ruby and the trial the first time, at Christmas. Maybe it wasn’t the eggnog or the lack of sleep but this need for someone else to know—just like now. Maybe I’d needed someone else to tell me I had done the right thing. But instead, all I’d gotten was a questioning look, a questioning statement:Shouldn’t you be sure?Something that had kept me from confiding in anyone else.
I held the phone with two hands as it rang. My stomach dropped as the call went to voicemail. I was about to leave a message when my phone chimed with an incoming text. Thinking it was my brother—Why are you calling me so damn early, Harp??—I hung up.
But it was from Charlotte:Just making sure you saw the note on the boards about the meeting.
How different things were now from last weekend. When I had been kept out of the loop, not part of their meetings.
I’ll be there,I responded, dropping my shoulders back, starting the coffee.
I SPENT THE FIRSThalf of the day doing a deep clean, as if I could purge everything that had happened over the last week. Everything felt unsafe and stagnant, and this scent kept lingering as I cleaned—like wood and drywall. Like the bones of the house.
Just before noon, I saw Tina Monahan through the front window, arms crossed, head down as she strode quickly past my house, as if moving through a rainstorm.
I threw open the front door. “Hey,” I called after her. “Wait up.”
She flinched, then put her hand on her chest as she turned my way. A flush rose to her cheeks, in sharp contrast to the ashen tone of the rest of her face. “I didn’t see you there,” she said. “Sorry.”
“You heading to the meeting?” I asked, jogging to catch up with her.
She nodded too fast, still flustered. “Sorry, everything’s just…” She moved her hands around, searching for words.
“Yeah, me, too,” I said.
Up close, her eyes were bloodshot and hollowed, her short hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, her bangs clung to her forehead from the humidity. When she frowned, I could see the shadow of her father in her.
“I haven’t had to do that before,” she explained with a shudder. “Guess I should count myself lucky that I made it this far without…”
I placed a hand on her shoulder briefly, remembering the nightmares I had after we found the Truetts. The image I couldn’t shake of them in their bed, faces turned toward each other. The unearthly stillness that looked neither peaceful nor real. I wondered what image would haunt Tina.
“Your parents okay?” I asked, walking side by side with her toward the Seaver brothers’ place on the corner.
She took a slow breath in, then let it out. “As okay as any of us, I guess. My mom wants us to move. Like that’s an option right now. She’s demanding an alarm system, at the very least.” She paused and squeezed her eyes shut at the base of the Seavers’ front porch steps. “I can’t believe this is happening again.”
The front door opened above us, and Charlotte appeared in the entrance, like she was the hostess. “Tina, Harper. Good, come on in.”
I wondered if she had an attendance list. She was the only one of the three of us who didn’t look like she’d been through hell since the last time we saw one another.
When I stepped inside, a small group was already gathered in the family room, hovering between the sofas and the television, like some awkward middle school party. Chase sat on the arm of the sofa, glancing periodically out the side window like he feared someone might be watching.
Mac waved me over from the kitchen, where he was opening a beer. For however much he was trying to channel calm and controlled, his hand was shaking as he twisted off the cap.
“Sleep okay?” he asked.
