Brian Freeman - The Bone House

Delia wiped away her tears and continued with her work. She had a wooden tray draped across her lap, where she crafted her costume jewelry. She'd cut narrow strips from cans of Dr Pepper and Orange Crush, and she had pliers on the tray to bend and twist the strips together into two-tone spiral earrings. She wore a magnifier on a headband over one eye for the close work. She'd done it so many times that the process was mindless now, making metal curls and buffing the edges with steel wool. On eBay, she could sell a pair for ten dollars. The local gift shops charged more, but she had to give the storeowners a cut of the money. In the past year, she'd netted almost two thousand dollars, which was a welcome boost to a budget that never seemed to be in balance. There was always one bill too many.

Even with her extra income, it would never have been enough for Tresa's college tuition. State school or not, she couldn't afford it. Thank God for Peter Hoffman. He'd paid for everything, tuition, room and board, books, spending money. He'd told her he would do the same for Glory when it was her turn, but Delia had never believed that Glory was college material. Tresa was the serious one, the introvert, with the brains to make something of herself. Glory had no patience for school. Delia had grown up the same way. A party girl. Maybe that was why she had always favored Glory, not only because of how the girl had suffered, but because Glory reminded Delia of herself in a way that Tresa never did.

Tresa reminded her of other things. Bad things.

When she saw Tresa, she still thought of Harris Bone, and she wondered. Agonized. Doubted. She'd never pursued the truth, because she didn't want to know one way or another. Some things were better off as questions without answers. She could remember, though, the times when she'd watched Tresa and Jen Bone together as teenagers. The two girls were best friends, inseparable, almost like sisters. She'd tried to see the likeness in their faces.

She'd tried to decipher whether Harris was father to both of them.

The affair with Harris had been an on-again, off-again thing over the years, but when she'd become pregnant with Tresa, it was during a period when they were sleeping together regularly. Delia had never thought of sex with Harris as cheating. After her own rape, she had disconnected sex from her emotions. She'd never really loved her husband in a romantic way; he'd been convenient, a provider, sweet and reliable. When they had sex, it was to fill his needs, not hers. Harris was different. She'd understood him as a man, or she'd thought she had, until the fire. He'd spent his whole life under a woman's thumb, first with his mother, Katherine, and then with a wife who was just as controlling. The only person to whom he ever confided his frustrations was Delia. She'd enjoyed being his confidante, not realizing that there were emotional strings attached to his secrets. Their relationship had spilled over from soul-sharing to bed-sharing in no time at all, and for years, they had used each other in bad times for physical and spiritual release.

People wondered how she'd been able to forgive Harris for the accident in which her husband died. The truth was that his death had been an economic loss more than an emotional loss. She'd felt sorrow but not devastation. In the aftermath, she'd relied on Harris even more for all of her needs. So had the girls. Glory and Tresa loved him, and he loved them back. Delia knew the sacrifices Harris made every day, going on the road for a job he hated, coming home to a wife and sons who despised him. He did it without complaint, and that was what made the end so shocking. In all the time they'd spent together, sharing secrets and having sex, he'd never given her a hint of what he was planning. She hadn't seen how close he was to the breaking point.

She hated Harris now, not just for what he had done, but for leaving her alone in the process. And Tresa and Glory, too. He'd abandoned them, just as he'd abandoned his own daughter. All Delia wanted to do was forget him. She'd never breathed a word about the affair to anyone. She'd never given Tresa any reason to wonder who her father really was or to fear that she had bad blood in her. No one needed to know, especially not Peter Hoffman. If he had known the truth, he never would have been so generous with her and the girls. He would have blamed and resented Delia, rather than using her to massage his guilt and grief.

Now even that source of security had been taken away. Peter was dead. He'd written his last check to her. She wondered how she would break the news to Tresa that she no longer had money to send her back to school. It was one more body blow in a lifetime of disappointments and betrayals.

Delia removed the magnifier from her eyes as she saw an old Grand Am turn from the road into the bumps of their driveway. Troy Geier got out like a plump clown and jogged for the house. The wooden steps, which needed repairs, groaned under his weight. He was breathing hard, gulping down air. She could tell, looking at Troy, that the boy was scared.

'What do you want?' Delia asked impatiently. She wasn't in the mood to deal with his naive gallantry today.

Troy peered through the screen door into the house, is Tresa here?'

'No, she went to the grocery store. Why?'

'I don't want her to hear this. You know how she is about Bradley.'

Delia's eyes narrowed. 'What's going on?'

The boy gestured to the house. 'Let's go inside, OK?'

Delia sighed and handed her jewelry tray to Troy as she pushed herself out of the rocker. Smokey scampered between her legs and disappeared through the cat door into the house. 'Take off your shoes,' she snapped. 'I don't want you tracking dirt on the carpet.'

Troy kicked off his shoes on the mat. He followed Delia inside, and she led him back to the kitchen. She needed to get dinner started. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out an egg and a package of ground beef and dumped it into a metal bowl, where she separated the meat with her fingers. She cracked the egg into the bowl and poured in breadcrumbs.

'So what do you want?' she asked Troy again.

Troy sat at the kitchen table and fidgeted. 'You heard about Peter Hoffman?'

'Of course.'

'The word is Bradley did it.'

'I heard about the fight. So?'

'We have to do something,' Troy said.

Delia shot him a look of disdain. She didn't need false hope now. 'Troy, do you really think you're some kind of hero? You? Let it go. Leave this for the men.'

'I can do this,' Troy insisted. 'Bradley has to be stopped.'

'And you're the one to stop him?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, quit kidding yourself and go home,' Delia said.

Troy shook his head. 'I'm going to do this, and it has to be tonight.'

Delia stopped kneading the beef. 'What are you saying?'

'My friend Keith called. He saw Bradley's wife leaving the island on the four o'clock ferry. He's going to be alone.'

Delia realized that something was different about Troy. He was older. Determined. She'd assumed all along that the boy was puffing out his chest with his threats, but now he'd gone from talk to action.

'Troy, you don't know what you're saying,' Delia said, hesitating. 'This isn't a game. It's serious business.'

Troy reached inside his coat and laid his gun on the table. It was the same gun he'd shown her at the lake, a silver revolver with a fat black grip that must have been thirty years old. 'I am serious.'

'All you're going to do is get yourself killed. That gun looks like it would blow up in your face if you pull the trigger.'

'It's old, but it works fine. Look, I know where I can steal a boat from a summer house, and I can get to the island myself. I'll stay overnight at Keith's and go back in the morning.'

'Why are you telling me this? Do you want me to talk you out of it?'