Sara Shepard - Everything We Ever Wanted

But lately, something in her had changed, and she’d begun to see the house as, well… old. Unkempt, even. The rooms were always too cold, especially the bathrooms. The cushions on the living room couch were kind of uncomfortable, a sharp spring managing to press into her butt no matter which position she tried. Some of the unused rooms smelled overwhelmingly like mothballs, others like sour milk, and there were visible gaps amidst many of the bathroom floor tiles, desperate for grout. The most unsettling thing, though, was that when Joanna walked into certain rooms, it was as if someone – or something – was following her. The house and everything in it seemed human, if she really got down to it. And not like a sprightly young girl, either, but a crotchety, elderly man. The pipes rattled like creaky bones and joints. When she sat down in a chair – any chair – there was an abrupt huffing sound, like a tired laborer collapsing from a long day’s work. The radiators wheezed and coughed, and even spat out strange hints of smells that seemed to be coming from the house’s human core. A whisper of soapy jasmine seeped from its plaster skin. An odor of ham and cloves belched out of an esophageal vent.

She stepped down the hall now, gazing at the black-and-white photographs that lined the walls. Sylvie had taken the pictures during a trip to the beach when the children were young. In some of them, Charles and Scott, probably about eight and six, were flying a kite. Charles had such a look of concentration as he held the kite’s string, as if a judging committee was watching. Scott was looking disdainfully off toward the waves. In the pictures of them in the ocean, Scott ran happily toward the waves, his arms and legs outstretched like a starfish, his skin so dark against the white sand. It was startling to see a photo of Scott so young and carefree, enjoying the same simple pleasures everyone loved. James skipped out to the ocean, too, equally exuberant, but Charles hung back, his expression timid and penitent. The last photo in the row was a close-up of the three of them. Scott and their father were soaked, but Charles’s hair still neatlycombed, bone-dry. Two smiles were genuine, the third seemed forced.

‘See anything interesting?’

Joanna jumped. Scott stood at the bottom of the stairs. His hands were hidden in his sweatshirt pouch. His eyes glowed, like she’d turned a flashlight on some wild animal in the woods.

Joanna pressed her hand to her breastbone. She could feel her heart through her thin sweater. ‘H–How did you get here?’

Scott gestured with his thumb toward the front door. The easiest way to get to the main house from his quarters was to exit through the door of his suite, walk all of four steps, and enter the house through the mud room, which led to the kitchen. Instead, Scott had walked the whole way around the outside of the house to this door, the front door. He had to know that Joanna and Sylvie and Charles had convened in the kitchen. The smell of banana bread was overpowering, even penetrating the thick walls.

So he’d avoided them. Of course he had. He didn’t want to see them. Was it because he didn’t want to answer their questions about the schoolboy? Although that was laughable – they wouldn’t ask him questions. One never asked Scott questions. Sylvie would flutter about, shove a piece of bread at Scott and hover over him obsequiously until he ate it. Joanna would make small talk, busying her hands with the bread knife or the catalogues. And Charles would sit silent, seething. Scott wouldn’t have to face anything. They tiptoed around him even when he hadn’t done anything wrong.

Scott raised his chin, gazing at her unflinchingly. Perhaps he knew what was going through her mind, what she was trying to figure out. She dared to peek back. He looked the same as he always did, disheveled and self-assured and lazily handsome. He obviously looked nothing like the other Bates-McAllisters, with their wide eyes and thin lips and ears that stuck out slightly. While Charles and Sylvie’s skin was pale, Scott’s was more of an olive tone, always easily tanned, never blotchy. And his facial features were a curious, intriguing mix of cultures, too. It was among one of the many things the family never talked about – that Scott, when it came down to it, wasn’t one hundred per cent white. It both was and wasn’t there for them. They acted as though it didn’t matter, yet Joanna wondered if, subconsciously, it affected their every reaction.

Scott didn’t seem any different, either. Certainly not weighted down by a boy’s death. Certainly not guilty about anything. The shame would be written all over his face, wouldn’t it?

Joanna lowered her eyes, realizing she’d been staring for too long. ‘I should…’ she said, ducking her head and grappling, idiotically, toward the kitchen.

‘Leaving because of me?’ he teased. When he smiled, he showed off long, wolf-like incisors.

‘Oh, no. No!’ Joanna halted. Her face felt hot. She scrambled for a pressing reason to be back in the kitchen but came up with nothing. That was the thing about people like Scott, she’d learned: they knew exactly how intimidating they were. And they seemed to thrive on it, predatorily, gleefully.

Then Scott stepped forward until he was just inches from her. He remained there, appraising Joanna, making up his mind about something. He was so close that Joanna could smell cigarettes and soap on him. She could see the v-shaped fibers in his sweatshirt, and that the drawstring for the hood was tipped with silvery metal. He breathed in and out. She barely breathed at all. He could so easily reach out and grab her wrist and push her down. She felt very small next to him. Hummingbird-frail.

‘Boo,’ Scott whispered.

‘Ha!’ Joanna exclaimed, like she thought it was a joke. She jumped a little.

Scott receded, turning away from her fast. In seconds, he was at the front door. When his back was to her, he held up a dismissive hand over his head. ‘Later.’

The door banged shut. Joanna listened to his footsteps walking down the flagstone path. A car door slammed, the tires screeched. The heat kicked on, and an unsavory mix of dust, clove cigarettes, and varnish wafted through the vents. She remained in the hallway a moment, raking her fingernails up and down her bare arms. There was a wet prickle of sweat on the back of her neck. Her heart clunked in her chest.

Boo.

When Joanna returned toward the kitchen, she expected Charles and Sylvie to look up, instantly aware that something about her was askew. But their heads were pressed together close. They were whispering.

‘But, Mom,’ Charles was saying. ‘The call. Don’t you think—’

‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ Sylvie interrupted.

Joanna took a step back and dipped behind the wall. They hadn’t seen her.

‘Still. You should call a lawyer,’ Charles hissed.

Joanna widened her eyes. So he did think the lawyer idea was a good one.

There was the sound of rustling papers. ‘What’s the point of that?’ Sylvie asked.

‘Protection, obviously. It could mitigate things.’

She murmured something Joanna couldn’t hear. Then Charles sighed. ‘But what about how Scott jumped me at the graduation party?’ he whispered. ‘In front of Bronwyn? Remember? Do you think there could be a link to this thing with Scott and the boys?’

‘No,’ his mother interrupted fast. ‘There’s no link between this and that.’

‘How can you be so sure?’ he cried. Sylvie didn’t answer.

Joanna couldn’t stand it anymore. She tiptoed back to the bathroom, flushed the toilet, opened the sink taps the whole way so that Charles and Sylvie would hear them gushing. She stared at herself in the mirror. Her mouth was a small, crinkled O. Her skin was pallid, almost yellowish.