“What were you doing?” Sarah asked. She had never seen a picture of Jack that young. He said it was taken the summer before his parents died. No wonder he looked so happy, so carefree.
“We were walking beans for my dad. God, I hated that job, but we earned good money. Six hours of bending over and weeding acres of soybeans.” Jack grimaced at the memory.
“You look like you’re having fun,” Sarah said.
“Dean made it fun. He was always screwing around, throwing clumps of dirt, picking up snakes. He’d sneak wine coolers into our water bottles and we’d be half-hammered by the time we were finished for the day. It’s a miracle that we got any work done.”
Jack examined the wall and pointed to another photo. “There’s Amy. When she was ten, I think. She was such a cute kid.” Sarah could see what he meant. The girl in the photo had eyes that sparkled brightly and a disarming smile, nothing like the pale, withered woman she had seen earlier that evening. “She was a good sport, too. She never ratted on Dean and me when we got ourselves into trouble. She could keep a secret.”
“She seems so different now,” Sarah observed. “How did she go from that sweet little girl to being so angry and guarded? Was it your parents’ accident?”
“Amy was a lot younger than I was when they died.” Jack ran his finger along the top of the picture frame, wiping away a thin layer of dust. She felt Jack bristle beside her. “Of course it changed her. It changed both of us.”
Sarah knew she was broaching dangerous territory and returned her gaze to the wall. “Who’s that?” she asked, nodding toward a small black-and-white photo of a young man in a military uniform. He looked somberly at the camera but his eyes snapped with mischief.
Jack shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned in to get a better look. “It’s my dad.”
“Wow,” Sarah said. Jack and his father looked so much alike it was uncanny. If not for the navy uniform and a tear-shaped birthmark on his father’s cheek, she would have thought the man in the picture was Jack. “You look so much like him.”
Jack opened his mouth as if he was going to argue the point but didn’t speak.
“Is there a picture of your mom here?” Sarah asked, scanning the wall in hopes of finally catching a glimpse of her.
“I don’t see one,” Jack said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Do you think it’s too late to call the girls?”
Sarah looked at her watch and shrugged. “They usually stay up late. I’m sure it’s fine,” she said, and Jack sat on the couch and began dialing.
While Jack spoke with the girls, Sarah joined him on the couch. She took off her shoes and rubbed her feet, the exhaustion of the day finally hitting her. Jack engaged in his comfortable father-daughter banter, and for the first time that day he seemed relaxed.
Jack handed Sarah the phone and returned to the wall of photos. As she spoke with her daughters, she watched as Jack scanned the pictures with a smile she could only interpret as nostalgic. The memories weren’t all bad, she thought; he’d had a lot of good times here, as well.
She listened as Emma recounted her day, keeping her eyes fixed on Jack. His gaze moved high and low across the wall until suddenly something caught his attention in the far corner of the wall. From the couch she couldn’t see what he was looking at, but clearly it hit a nerve. He leaned into the wall more closely and she noticed the expression on his face grow serious. He looked over at Sarah and realized she was looking at him and quickly turned his attention to their luggage.
“You ready to go upstairs?” he asked after she ended the call and hung up. “I’m exhausted.”
Sarah looked at the grandfather clock standing in the corner. It was only nine o’clock. “You’re not hungry? You haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.”
“No, but help yourself to whatever you can find in the cupboards.” Jack embraced Sarah and kissed her on the lips. “Thanks again for being here. I know things got a little tense earlier at the hospital.”
Sarah leaned into his arms, the heat from his body warming her cold limbs. “It was tense,” she echoed. “And that whole argument in the waiting room between Dean and Amy. Dean got so upset when Amy mentioned the house of horrors. Did something happen in Dean and Celia’s house?”
“I told you Amy was just stirring up trouble. It’s nothing,” Jack said shortly, pulling away from her. He took a suitcase in each hand and started toward the stairs.
“It’s not nothing,” Sarah pressed, and grabbed the handle of the suitcase to keep Jack from fleeing. “Just tell me why?” Sarah didn’t know what she expected Jack to say. Would he tell her some creepy urban legend about the house? Maybe a terrible crime was committed there a hundred years ago, but would that be enough to keep him from staying at the house? She didn’t know Jack to be skittish about anything.
Jack looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. “Dean and Celia live in the house that Amy and I grew up in before our parents died.” He tugged the suitcase away from Sarah. “Is that enough of an explanation for you? Can I please go to bed now?”
This was sometimes how it was with Jack. She knew that his wall was up and the conversation was over, and she watched in stunned silence as he hefted the suitcases and lugged them up the steps with difficulty.
She was exhausted, too. Her eyes were gritty with lack of sleep and her mind was spinning from the extreme emotions of the day. Why did Dean and Celia live on the farm where Amy and Jack grew up? And why was it such a big deal? More importantly, why couldn’t he talk to her about it? And there was still the niggling question as to why Amy called it the house of horrors?
She went to the photographs and studied the wall where Jack had been fixated earlier. There was a picture of children splashing in a small wading pool, an old sepia photo of a stern-looking couple in wedding garb and a picture of two women smiling happily into the camera. Sarah stood on tiptoe to get a better look. One of the women was clearly Jack’s aunt Julia, thirty years younger. Could the other woman be his mother? She scrutinized the woman’s face, searching for any hint of resemblance to Jack or Amy. Maybe in the shape of their eyes, the tilt of their heads. It was difficult to tell.
Obviously, she wasn’t going to be able to ask Jack about the photo. At least not tonight. There was no way that she’d be able to sleep anytime soon. She looked around the room. She didn’t want to turn on the television and disturb Hal or Jack, and she had forgotten to pack a book to read. She realized it had been over a day since she’d last checked her work email, so she grabbed her laptop and made her way to the kitchen.
Sarah’s job as an advice columnist for the Midwest Messenger, a prominent newspaper in Montana, was an opportunity that had come to her unexpectedly seven years ago when a former colleague and the paper’s editor, Gabe Downing, contacted her out of the blue. Sarah had once been a hard-news reporter, the kind that traveled all over the world to places like Bangkok and Eastern Turkey, covering major international news stories. But she’d made the difficult decision to leave after the girls were born, and she adapted to her new life as a stay-at-home mother.
When the offer to write for the Messenger’s popular Dear Astrid advice column arose, it felt like a step down. She’d once covered wars and political upheavals, and now she’d be telling people how to confront a difficult neighbor or ask a girl on a date. But by then the girls were much more independent and, with college tuition looming, Sarah decided to swallow her pride and take the job. She’d be helping people, she convinced herself. And now, seven years later, here she was.
Only a handful of people knew Astrid’s true identity: Sarah’s editor, Gabe; Jack, of course; and her mother and sister. Not even Emma and Elizabeth knew. Not that it was some big secret, but it never came up. They knew their mother wrote for a newspaper but were too immersed in their own lives to pay much attention.
Sarah