Helena Hunting - Inked Armour

In the second album babies appeared for the maid of honor and the best man, and the carefree faces of youth showed the harder angles of adulthood. Tenley’s mom held those little bundles of poop with the fascinated awe reserved for infants. First there was a dark-haired boy, and a few years later a fair-haired one appeared. The names Trey and Connor were written elegantly at the bottom. Tenley had known the guy she was supposed to marry her entire life. I put the album back and withdrew the next one.

On the first page, Tenley’s mother stood on the back porch of a clapboard house, a pink streak of cloud hovering along the horizon. A small smile played on her lips, and her hand rested low on her stomach, a soft swell barely hidden under her dress.

Then Tenley arrived. The pictures of her as a baby, a toddler, a little girl, were endless. Every so often, the other family would appear in the albums. As the kids aged, it became obvious which one was that dick Trey. He had the same hard look about him, as if the world were a pain in the ass and he couldn’t stand dealing with the people in it. His smiles were forced, his stare disengaged. Connor, the blond one, was his antithesis. His smile was bright and open, his fascination with the world and Tenley clear from an early age.

I pulled the rest of the albums off the shelf and pieced together a more comprehensive picture of Tenley’s life. She grew up in a middle-class family, passing through her teen years with no gawky phase. She clearly spent a lot of time with her family, or at least they captured those moments as often as they could.

Photos showed her with her father sitting in the front seat of a fire truck, his pride and her excitement obvious. In others, Tenley and her mother stood side by side in the kitchen baking cupcakes, or planting flowers in the garden. One even showed Tenley working on homework at the kitchen table, her finger pressed against her lip in fabricated concentration as she flipped off the camera. I had to look for the subversion to catch it. A glimmer of mischief was always present in her eyes. It gave the impression she was waiting for the camera to leave so she could get up to no good.

I leafed through pictures of her graduation from high school and her transition to adulthood. At prom she wore beat-up running shoes and a hideous dress while her date wore a tux. Those photo albums were vinyl instead of leather, covered in band stickers and filled with pictures of Tenley and her friends. Her outfits were grew more outrageous once she hit college. Nothing ever matched. She often paired vintage with frilly. Self-portraits showed her with each addition of steel up the shell of her ear, and in others she was with Connor. So many of her with Connor.

He was broad-shouldered and blond, a pretty boy who played sports and wore polos emblazoned with a Cornell Law School logo. When she was with him, her style changed completely. Apart from her shoes. She was forever wearing ratty sneakers. She was always smiling in those pictures, eyes on the camera as she stood within his protective embrace. His expression bordered on a smirk, coveting a trophy no one else could have.

Near the end of one album Connor disappeared for a while, and some of the girlfriends I’d seen interspersed throughout figured more prominently. Connor reappeared in the last album, around the time Tenley graduated from college. The genuine happiness I’d seen on her face before was gone; she smiled but seemed distant, preoccupied.

The engagement photos made me feel betrayed. The ones of her trying on wedding dresses and laughing with girlfriends made me livid. Nine memorial photos at the end turned me inside out. No way in hell would she have ended up with someone like me if she hadn’t been in that plane crash. The knowledge was caustic on so many levels.

I reshelved the albums one by one, sliding the last one into place. Then I noticed the one on the shelf below.

Bound in black leather, it was brand new. I picked it up hesitantly. The first pages contained pictures of Northwestern’s campus, and the storefronts of Serendipity and Inked Armor. Shots of her life in Chicago followed. Cassie, Lisa, Sarah, Jamie, and Chris all appeared in various photos. Others were of her peers at school, even that douche bag Ian. But those were few and far between.

There were lots of shots of TK—and even more of me. Pages and pages dedicated to me. Me in her kitchen, washing dishes. Me glaring at the pile of books on her coffee table; another of me arranging them. My arms appeared in several close-ups, with even more of my profile, particularly the side with the viper bites. She’d even taken pictures of me in Inked Armor. She took such care to label them all with dates and explanations. I didn’t know what to think.

The album was only half-full. The last page had been titled “Date Night,” but there were no pictures.

I shelved the album and headed down the hall to her bedroom. TK was in her favorite place; snoozing between the pillows. I lay down beside her, more drained than I remembered being in my life.

Unable to stop my eyes from closing, I let the memories of being here with her wash over me. When my parents died, I missed the little things, those small reminders that they were gone and never coming back. With Tenley I missed everything, all the time. Right now I missed the feel of her body beside mine. I missed waking up sweaty because we’d been spooning for hours. I missed rolling over and pulling her into me, the tickle of her hair on my face, the smell of her skin. As I was sucked into the void of sleep, I wondered if I’d ever get any of that back.

Death had a distinct odor. I didn’t recognize it when I snuck in through the front door, but the heavy, metallic tang in the air made me pause. With a frown, I stepped inside the foyer, moving right to avoid the creaky floorboard. The smell was all wrong. My drug-hazed mind couldn’t process the sensory information as it zipped through my neural receptors, heading straight to the black abyss of narcotic numbness and into mass confusion.

The door closed with a quiet click; in my paranoid state it sounded like a bomb detonating. I cringed and waited to be blinded by the living room light. Nothing happened, though. The house stayed silent. Mom occasionally waited up in the rocking chair, the most uncomfortable piece of furniture in the house. It ensured she wouldn’t fall asleep.

I shed one sneaker and then the other, arranging them neatly beside Dad’s polished black dress shoes. They weren’t supposed to be there. My parents weren’t due home for another hour, and I wasn’t supposed to be out since I was grounded. The decoy I’d set up in my bed must have worked.

I treaded stealthily down the hall, taking great care not to make any noise. Something was off, though. The nauseating odor grew more pervasive as I moved deeper into the house, and a sense of dread settled in the pit of my stomach. It had to be the pot. And the booze.

I hit the staircase slowly, just lucid enough to know my balance was shoddy. A shadow moved across the landing, scaring the piss out of me. Mischief, the ancient family cat, padded down the hallway, meowing loudly.

“ Shh, shut up, Mis,” I hissed. I leaned down and stroked her back in hopes of quieting her, but the wailing continued. “Shut it!”

Worried she would wake my parents, I scooped her up. She burrowed into my arms, her little body trembling, nails digging into my skin. I should have known then. Mischief never came to me, not even when her food bowl was empty.

No muted glow came from the bathroom, where a tiny night-light usually shone the way. The metallic odor saturated the air now, cloying.

Pale light seeped out from under my parents’ bedroom door. Through the pot-induced haze of denial, the unwelcome truth surfaced. The smell was disturbingly familiar. Copper. Iron. Salt.