The Devil Casts a Long Shadow- Chapter Seventeen: Give Me My Due
The following morning, Jena awoke feeling remarkably refreshed.
For the first time in months, she had slept without dreams. No nightmares, no frantic awakenings, no reaching across the bed for a husband who was no longer there. The oppressive dread that had settled over her life seemed to have lifted overnight, leaving behind a peculiar lightness.
She knew what she had become. She had made her peace with being an alibi for Nate and Turner's crimes, and now, by her own choosing, an accomplice.
There was no point pretending otherwise.
Yet as the morning wore on, that lightness began to sour. Jena found herself listening for unfamiliar vehicles on the road and watching the windows whenever a shadow passed across them. Every noise suggested someone coming to ask about Thallea. Every silence seemed to imply that someone already knew.
Beau's missed calls were accumulating. She had stopped listening to his messages after the first several, but the notifications continued appearing, one after another, like someone knocking from the other side of a locked door.
She considered calling Turner, then thought better of it. Roman, too. Neither man appreciated unnecessary communication, particularly when there was nothing useful to report.
By noon, the house had become intolerable.
Jena packed a large canvas tote with a change of clothes, her identification, cash, and pepper spray. She told herself it was sensible to be prepared. She was not planning to run away.
Not yet, anyway.
Instead, she drove to visit her father, Murray.
It was the one place she could think of where no one from her present life would come looking for her. She briefly considered visiting Nate but dismissed the idea. The possibility of encountering someone investigating Thallea's disappearance was enough to discourage her.
The nursing home smelled as it always had: feces, vomit, bleach, and the sickeningly sweet fragrance of diffusers that only made the underlying odors more apparent. It reminded Jena of flowers left too long beside a coffin.
She entered without attracting much attention, although she signed the visitor's register out of habit.
The midday staff were changing shifts or returning from lunch. Somewhere down the corridor, a woman was crying for her mother. Another patient laughed repeatedly at something no one else could see.
Murray lay in bed with his mouth slightly open, his eyes fixed on a patch of ceiling discolored by an old water leak.
Jena settled into the chair beside him. She had left her phone in the car, and for once, the world could not reach her.
She studied her father's face.
There had been a time when that face could make an entire household fall silent. Murray had been a drinker, a bully, and a man who seemed to derive particular satisfaction from frightening those who depended upon him. He had tormented Sue throughout their marriage, smiling whenever he managed to make her cry.
Jena had spent years wondering whether his cruelty had been an early manifestation of dementia or whether he had simply been a rotten man who eventually developed a disease.
She had never arrived at a satisfactory answer.
His deterioration had brought no great tragedy into her life. Quite the opposite. When his behavior became too difficult to manage, the nursing home took him in. His treatment had been adjusted repeatedly as his aggression worsened, until the man who had once terrorized everyone around him spent most of his days motionless.
The facility's staff had documented the difficulties of managing him, the falls, the agitation, the episodes of aggression, and the increasingly complicated decisions about his care.
Now a stranger might have mistaken him for a gentle old man.
Jena knew better.
"Look at you," she murmured.
Murray did not respond.
"You finally learned how to behave."
For a moment, she thought his eyes moved toward her. She leaned forward, searching his expression for some remnant of recognition.
Nothing.
The afternoon dragged into evening.
Outside his window, the sunlight gradually retreated from the grounds, leaving the bare trees black against a bruised purple sky. Their branches looked like fingers scratching at the glass.
Jena watched her father breathe.
He reminded her of Nate. Both men were alive in the most technical sense, their bodies continuing an existence that seemed to have little to do with the people they had once been.
Occasionally, Murray mumbled a few incoherent words.
Once, he said something that sounded remarkably like her name.
She waited for him to say it again.
He never did.
By the time the evening staff had settled into their routines, Jena realized she had stayed far longer than intended. She had been hoping for some revelation, some great understanding that would tell her what to do next.
Instead, she had spent the better part of a day watching a man who could no longer offer her anything.
Perhaps that was the revelation.
As she rose to leave, a nurse she had never seen before approached Murray's room with a medication cart.
His name tag read Mol.
"Sorry," he said, maneuvering around her.
Jena swung her canvas tote over her shoulder, but the strap caught awkwardly against her arm. The bag slipped, striking the cart as Mol attempted to move past.
There was a tremendous clatter.
A plastic organizer fell, followed by several sealed medication packets and a collection of supplies. The cart lurched sideways, and Mol caught it before it overturned completely.
"Oh, God, I'm sorry!" Jena exclaimed.
She crouched to gather her belongings while Mol began sorting through the mess.
"It's all right, ma'am. Just give me a minute."
Jena had already overstayed visiting hours. She could imagine the inevitable questions if another employee found her still there.
She hurriedly stuffed her possessions back into the tote.
"Really, I'm terribly sorry."
Mol barely looked up.
"Have a good night."
She left before he could say anything else.
Outside, the parking lot lights had come on. Their pale halos shimmered through the mist collecting above the asphalt.
Jena glanced back at the building.
For one absurd moment, she thought the illuminated windows resembled the openings of an enormous furnace.
Then she got into her car and drove home.
The following day, Jena decided to remain inside.
Beau's calls had become increasingly frantic.
Where was Thallea? Why hadn't she come home? Why wasn't Jena answering? What had happened the last time they were together?
His messages shifted between pleading and accusation. At one point, he threatened to come over himself.
Jena listened to that particular message twice.
She could have answered him. She could have explained that she had no idea where Thallea
was, which, depending upon how carefully one defined knowing, was not entirely a lie.
But every time she considered returning his calls, something inside her seemed to freeze.
She told herself it was shock.
That explanation was becoming useful for all sorts of things.
She was so accustomed to dismissing incoming calls that she nearly ignored the one from
Nate's care facility.
A coordinator reminded her that she needed to be present the following morning to complete the final authorization for Nate's transfer to Kansas.
The transfer had been discussed for months.
Nate's insurer had exhausted the available coverage under his current arrangement, and the facility could no longer continue providing the same level of care without a different source of payment. Jena had pursued every extension and appeal that had been suggested to her, although she had long since stopped believing any of them would change his prognosis.
Turner had eventually mentioned a nonprofit facility in Kansas, operated by a religious organization committed to long-term care for patients with severe neurological disabilities.
It was, supposedly, willing to accept Nate.
Jena could no longer remember exactly how Turner had discovered the place. She only knew that the arrangements had been made with remarkable efficiency.
The coordinator explained what she needed to bring and when she should arrive.
Jena agreed to everything.
Afterward, she sat with the phone in her hand, staring at the dark television screen.
There she was, reflected in the glass.
A wife arranging the transfer of her incapacitated husband.
A devoted woman doing everything she could.
The reflection almost made her laugh.
That evening, Jena unpacked her getaway bag.
She had decided she was not going anywhere.
Running would mean uncertainty, inconvenience, and the possibility of having to provide for herself. Staying meant a familiar house, familiar routines, and the quiet financial security Turner had offered her.
She could live with the arrangement.
Indeed, she suspected she could live with almost anything, provided the bills were paid.
She selected an outfit for the following morning: a muted chiffon blouse, tailored twill slacks, and low-heeled shoes.
Something respectable. Something appropriately subdued.
As she hung the clothes beside her bathroom vanity, she had the strange impression that she was preparing an outfit for her own funeral.
She dismissed the thought.
Back in her bedroom, she emptied the canvas tote onto the bed.
Her extra clothes went into the hamper. The cash went into the locked desk drawer. She placed the pepper spray beside her bed and swept away several bits of accumulated debris: old gum wrappers, a dirt-caked tube of outdated lip gloss, and a handful of miscellaneous papers.
Then she noticed the prescription bottle.
It had rolled beneath the folds of her spare blouse.
Jena picked it up.
Murray's name was printed on the label.
For several seconds, she simply stared.
She remembered the collision with Mol's medication cart, the scattered supplies, and her own frantic efforts to gather everything before leaving.
Apparently, she had brought home something that did not belong to her.
She checked her phone.
There were no missed calls from the nursing home.
"Well, that's reassuring," she muttered.
She wondered whether Mol had discovered the discrepancy. Perhaps he had reported it. Perhaps someone was already investigating. Or perhaps, like so many people Jena had encountered lately, he had decided that admitting a mistake would create more trouble than concealing one.
She considered returning the bottle.
Then she imagined explaining how she had come to possess it.
No, she decided. That would only invite questions.
Curiosity eventually overcame her.
She took the bottle into the kitchen and looked up the medication on her phone. The information she found was more complicated than she expected. It concerned a prescription used under medical supervision for a condition that was not dementia itself, and the warnings were sufficiently serious to make her uneasy.
She remembered her father lying in bed, his face vacant, his body scarcely moving.
She wondered how much of what she had seen was the disease and how much was the burden of everything prescribed to manage him.
For the first time that evening, she felt a faint flicker of pity.
It disappeared almost immediately.
Jena set her phone down and began making coffee.
The powdered creamer in her pantry had hardened into unpleasant little clumps. Thallea had broken her electric stirrer, so Jena dug out Nate's expensive handheld emulsifier and used it to make the drink presentable.
She had just begun clearing the countertop when someone started pounding on the front door.
"Jena!"
Beau.
"Jena, open the damned door!"
She closed her eyes.
Another blow rattled the doorframe.
"Where is she?"
Jena looked toward the kitchen window. Ms. Flossie lived farther up the road, and the last thing Jena wanted was for her brother's theatrics to attract the attention of the neighborhood.
She put the prescription bottle aside and went to answer the door.
Beau shoved past her before she could speak.
"Babe? Babe, are you here?"
He pushed Jena hard enough that she struck the wall.
She steadied herself while Beau charged down the hallway, throwing open doors and calling Thallea's name.
"She's not here," Jena said.
He ignored her.
She watched him search the rooms with an almost childish desperation. He looked beneath furniture, opened closets, and even checked the laundry room.
It was ridiculous.
Thallea had disappeared, and Beau seemed to believe she might be hiding behind a stack of towels.
Jena returned to the kitchen.
"When you're finished behaving like a lunatic," she called, "you can come have a drink and speak to me like an adult."
Beau slammed another door.
Jena took a second mug from the cabinet.
By the time he returned, he was breathing heavily.
"She said she was going with you," he snapped. "What did you do?"
Jena gestured toward the chair opposite her.
"Sit down."
"Answer me!"
"I will answer you honestly if you answer me honestly."
Beau stared at her.
For a moment, she thought he might strike her.
Then he pulled out the chair and sat.
Jena placed a mug of coffee before him.
"Good. We can be civil."
He took a drink and grimaced.
"This coffee tastes like shit."
"The creamer's probably expired."
"Jesus, Jena."
"Would you prefer something stronger?"
She brought out the bottle of KOVAL liquor Thallea had left behind.
"Found this when I was cleaning out her room."
Beau watched her pour a little into her own coffee.
"Cleaning out her room?"
"She wasn't paying rent."
"Where is she?"
"I don't know."
"Did you hurt her?"
Jena laughed softly.
"Not I."
There was something delicious about answering him truthfully while knowing that the truth would do him no good.
Beau leaned forward.
"Then who did?"
"Why are you assuming someone hurt her?"
"Because she wouldn't just leave!"
"Wouldn't she?"
His expression darkened.
Jena studied him over the rim of her mug.
She had spent much of her life watching Sue excuse Beau's behavior. Every tantrum had been somebody else's fault. Every cruelty had been a misunderstanding. Every woman who disappointed him had somehow wronged him first.
Even now, Beau seemed incapable of imagining that Thallea might have made a decision without consulting him.
"It's Joel," he said suddenly. "He knows something. I know he does."
Jena shrugged.
"I doubt that."
"He's got her."
"Last I saw Turner, he was at home. Thallea wasn't there."
Beau narrowed his eyes.
"You're sleeping with him."
Jena smiled.
"You could say that. Most of the town probably is."
"You're disgusting."
"That's rich, coming from you."
Beau looked away.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Jena heard the refrigerator humming. Somewhere inside the walls, the plumbing made a faint knocking sound.
She thought of the wine cellar beneath the house.
Of the ground that had been disturbed and concealed.
Of the things she had learned and decided never to mention.
Beau began talking again, but she was no longer listening to every word.
She found herself studying him with an unfamiliar detachment.
He was her brother. She had known him all her life. She remembered him as a boy, remembered the sound of his laughter, remembered Sue fussing over him as though he
were something precious the world might damage.
Now she saw a grown man whose appetites had consumed nearly everyone who loved him.
Tawny was dead.
Sue had surrendered much of herself to preserving the illusion that her son was good.
The boys were growing up in a household where their father's desires came before everything else.
And Thallea—
Well.
Thallea had wanted more than she was entitled to.
Beau rubbed his face.
"I love her so much," he said.
Jena looked at him.
It was the same declaration he had made about Tawny once.
She remembered that distinctly.
For reasons she could not explain, the memory made her feel terribly tired.
The conversation dragged on. Beau's anger gave way to rambling accusations, then to miserable recollections of his relationship with Thallea. He seemed determined to convince Jena that no one had ever loved another person as deeply as he loved her.
At some point, Jena stopped arguing.
The evening passed into a strange, shapeless interval.
Later, when she tried to recall the precise order of events, she found that certain moments stood out with unnatural clarity while others seemed to have vanished entirely.
Beau's mug on the table.
The sound of his voice becoming indistinct.
His hand slipping from the edge of the chair.
The sudden silence.
When Jena finally understood that something was seriously wrong, Beau was slumped forward and no longer responding to her.
She stood beside him.
"Beau?"
Nothing.
She touched his shoulder.
His body shifted heavily against the table.
For a moment, she felt a cold sensation spread through her stomach.
Then she remembered Murray lying motionless in his bed.
She remembered Nate.
And, with a clarity that startled her, she remembered the arrangement Turner had wanted all along.
Jena stepped backward.
She knew she should call for medical assistance.
Instead, she reached for her phone.
Turner answered almost immediately.
"What?"
Jena smiled at the sound of his voice.
"I've been thinking about the house."
There was a pause.
"What about it?"
"I'd like an outdoor kitchen."
"Jena—"
"A nice one. Something permanent. I think I've earned it."
Turner said nothing.
She looked toward Beau.
"My brother came over. He's in the kitchen."
Another silence.
This one lasted longer.
"And?" Turner asked.
"He wanted to help."
Turner's voice changed.
"Is he alive?"
Jena looked at Beau again.
"I don't know."
"Did you call an ambulance?"
"No."
"Jena."
She waited.
Finally, Turner spoke again.
"Don't do anything else. I'm coming over."
He ended the call.
Jena lowered the phone.
The refrigerator continued humming.
Outside, the evening sky had turned the color of old blood.
She thought of the old religious paintings in which the damned were dragged into enormous mouths beneath the earth. As a child, she had always imagined hell as a place of flames and screaming.
It had never occurred to her that damnation might begin in a perfectly ordinary kitchen, with clean countertops and a coffee mug cooling beside the sink.
By the following morning, the house was quiet.
Jena did not ask Turner to explain everything that had happened after his arrival.
He had been furious with her at first, although his anger seemed less concerned with Beau's condition than with the unnecessary complications she had introduced into his affairs.
They had spoken privately for a long time.
When Turner finally left, he had assured her that the matter would be handled.
Jena understood enough not to request details.
Her brother was gone.
She had no intention of seeing him again.
She dressed in the chiffon blouse and twill slacks she had selected the previous evening.
Her reflection looked tired but otherwise unremarkable.
A respectable woman on her way to complete some unpleasant family business.
She drove to Nate's care facility and arrived in time for the final paperwork.
Roman had already been informed that she would be there.
The staff were sympathetic. Several employees expressed their hope that the Kansas facility might offer Nate a better quality of life.
Jena thanked them.
She signed where indicated, accepted copies of the documents, and listened politely to the coordinator's explanation of the transfer.
A medical transport service operating under the Belt-State network, one of the many enterprises affiliated with KT, had been assigned to the journey.
Jena watched as Nate was prepared for departure.
He lay motionless beneath a pale blanket.
She looked at his face and wondered whether she had ever truly loved him.
Perhaps she had.
Perhaps she had simply loved the life he made possible.
The distinction seemed increasingly unimportant.
"Goodbye, Nate," she whispered.
The attendant closed the ambulance doors.
Jena waved as the vehicle pulled away.
She had no intention of returning to the facility.
The call came while she was driving home.
A representative from a local hospital informed her that Nate had suffered a catastrophic medical emergency during transport. The ambulance had diverted to the nearest emergency department, where resuscitation had been unsuccessful.
He had been pronounced dead.
The woman on the telephone expressed her condolences and explained that someone from the hospital's bereavement services could help Jena understand the next steps.
Jena pulled into a parking lot.
She had expected the news.
She had even rehearsed her response.
Nevertheless, hearing the words spoken aloud gave her a strange sensation, as though a door had closed somewhere deep beneath the earth.
"My husband wanted to be cremated," she said.
The representative assured her that the funeral home could coordinate the necessary arrangements once the required documentation and authorizations were complete.
The woman repeated the name.
Jena confirmed it.
When the call ended, she sat motionless behind the steering wheel.
She tried to summon tears.
None came.
She thought of Nate's body, the long months of pretending he might recover, the endless discussions about treatment, rehabilitation, and what constituted a meaningful existence.
All that effort.
All that money.
And now, with a few sentences spoken over the telephone, she was a widow.
She glanced at herself in the rearview mirror.
Then she began to laugh.
It was a small laugh at first, barely more than a breath.
She stopped when another car entered the parking lot.
There would be time for that later.
The next several days brought a remarkable succession of resolutions.
Nate's death was formally documented, and Dutiful Rainbow began coordinating his cremation and memorial arrangements.
Gus and Ivy-Mae were informed.
Gus wept.
Ivy-Mae immediately began discussing the estate.
She was especially interested in the life insurance policy, which named her as beneficiary.
The proceeds would take time to process, but she spoke of them as though the money were already in her account.
Roman contacted her about the property.
The barndominium presented a far less attractive prospect than she had imagined. There were outstanding expenses, unresolved ownership matters, and serious questions concerning the cost of bringing the structure into compliance with applicable requirements.
She was advised to seek independent legal counsel before signing anything.
Ivy-Mae had no patience for that.
She wanted money, not another property requiring maintenance and taxes.
After several exchanges, she agreed to relinquish the interest she had been asserting in the house as part of a broader settlement.
Jena learned of the arrangement from Roman.
"She signed?" Jena asked.
"She did."
"Without fighting?"
"She complained about the paperwork."
Jena smiled.
"That sounds like her."
Roman did not laugh.
He merely told her that the matter was settled and that she would receive copies of the relevant documents.
It was almost disappointing how little resistance Ivy-Mae had offered.
For so long, she had been an obstacle. Now, presented with the prospect of an immediate financial benefit and freedom from future expenses, she had willingly abandoned the very thing she had spent so much time demanding.
Jena supposed everyone had a price.
Some were simply cheaper than others.
The outdoor kitchen arrived in stages.
First came the contractors, then the materials, followed by several days of construction.
Turner had apparently approved an expensive design without consulting her further.
There was a covered cooking area, handsome stonework, generous counter space, and a substantial grill. The finishes were far nicer than anything Jena would have selected for herself.
She watched the work from the back porch.
The men were efficient and generally uninterested in conversation.
Once, she asked whether they had encountered any problems with the property.
The foreman shook his head.
"Nothing we couldn't handle."
She did not ask what he meant.
The completed kitchen was beautiful.
It overlooked the yard, and in the evening, the lights beneath its roof cast a warm golden glow over the patio.
Jena imagined entertaining guests there.
She could almost hear laughter, the clinking of glasses, the comfortable conversations of people who had never done anything particularly wicked.
It was a pleasant thought.
She knew it would never happen.
Nate's memorial service took place after the cremation arrangements were completed.
Gus delivered a tearful speech about his son, describing a thoughtful, generous young man whose virtues seemed to exist chiefly in the imagination of the father speaking about him.
Jena found that almost touching.
Gus had loved the idea of Nate far more consistently than he had ever understood the man himself.
Ivy-Mae was considerably more theatrical.
She spoke at length about the plans she and Nate had supposedly made, the future they had envisioned, and the unbearable cruelty of having him taken from her.
At one point, she declared that she wished she could be buried beside him.
Someone reminded her afterward that Nate had been cremated.
She was deeply offended.
At Ivy-Mae's insistence, Jena was excluded from the service.
She attended anyway, standing at a distance where she could observe the proceedings without attracting attention.
There were flowers, photographs, and an urn positioned beneath a tasteful arrangement of white lilies.
Jena looked at the urn for a long time.
She knew what everyone else believed it contained.
She also knew that Turner had never been particularly interested in what other people believed, provided their beliefs served his purposes.
A peculiar thought came to her.
Perhaps the urn contained Nate.
Perhaps it contained Beau.
Perhaps it contained neither.
She could have asked.
She did not.
The important thing was that Nate had been declared dead, Beau had disappeared, and the world was proceeding as though everything had happened exactly as it should.
Jena turned away before the service ended.
On the drive home, she passed a church whose sign read:
THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE.
She laughed so hard she nearly missed her turn.
What an absurd proposition.
The truth had never set anyone she knew free.
It had merely changed who held the keys.
Sue remained at the cabin with Beau's sons.
In the beginning, Jena wondered whether her mother would call to demand an explanation for Beau's disappearance.
She never did.
Sue had always been willing to accept almost anything if it allowed her to preserve the image of her beloved son. She had spent years making excuses for him, protecting him, and sacrificing her own judgment whenever it threatened to contradict his wishes.
Now there was no Beau to protect.
There was only the life he had left behind.
Sue withdrew further into herself. Whatever medications she was taking seemed to leave her tired and distant, and she showed little interest in discussing anything beyond the boys' immediate needs.
Jena occasionally sent money.
She did not visit.
The older boy, Gage, gradually assumed responsibilities no child his age should have been expected to carry. He looked after his younger brother, managed small household problems, and contacted Jena when something was needed.
She always answered those requests when they concerned money.
Money was simple.
It did not require explanations or apologies. It could be sent without looking anyone in the eye.
Sometimes Gage thanked her.
Sometimes he did not.
Jena preferred it when he did not.
Sue never accused her of anything.
In fact, Sue never spoke to her again.
Jena eventually came to understand that her mother had made a choice of her own. Whatever Sue suspected, whatever she believed had happened to Beau, she had no intention of acknowledging a reality in which her son might have been anything other than a victim.
Perhaps she knew.
Perhaps she did not.
Jena had stopped caring about the distinction.
The cabin remained occupied. The boys continued growing. The seasons passed.
From a distance, it looked very much like a family carrying on after a tragedy.
That was good enough.
Turner kept his word.
Jena remained on the payroll. Her household expenses were covered, and the necessary
payments appeared in her account with mechanical regularity.
He rarely contacted her.
When he did, the conversations were brief and practical.
He had no interest in her feelings, her loneliness, or her opinions about what had happened.
She understood the arrangement perfectly.
Turner had wanted Nate to remain in the house as a compliant custodian of a terrible secret.
He had provided him with security, money, and the appearance of a respectable life.
Nate had mistaken those privileges for power.
He had demanded more.
Jena would not make the same mistake.
She asked for nothing beyond what Turner had already agreed to provide. She maintained the property, kept her affairs private, and never spoke about Emily, Thallea, Beau, or the circumstances of Nate's death.
In exchange, she was allowed to live comfortably.
The house was hers to occupy.
The secret was hers to keep.
And the silence belonged to Turner.
Occasionally, Jena wondered whether he might someday decide she was no longer useful.
The thought frightened her.
But not enough to leave.
She had seen what became of people who challenged Turner. She had also seen what became of people who tried to survive without the protection of someone more powerful.
Neither prospect appealed to her.
She preferred the familiar terror of dependence to the unfamiliar terror of freedom.
There were worse things than being kept, she reasoned.
She had become very good at reasoning.
Autumn settled over Meadow Partings.
The leaves turned brittle and brown, and the mornings grew cold enough for frost to collect along the edges of the windows.
Jena developed a routine.
She rose at a reasonable hour, made coffee, checked her accounts, and occupied herself with the maintenance of the house.
Sometimes she read.
Sometimes she watched television.
On pleasant afternoons, she sat beneath the roof of her new outdoor kitchen and admired the yard.
She kept the house immaculate.
The wine cellar remained undisturbed.
At first, she had found herself looking toward it whenever she passed through the kitchen.
There had been something almost magnetic about the knowledge of what lay beneath the floor.
She remembered the night she had finally understood the irregularities in the house.
The wine cellar.
The work that had been done.
The inconsistencies she had overlooked because acknowledging them would have made her life inconvenient.
She had laughed then, too.
Not because the discovery was funny, but because she had spent so long believing herself an innocent observer in a story whose ending had already been written.
Emily had been beneath her feet all along.
Jena had eaten meals above her, slept above her, and complained about household expenses above her.
She had entertained guests, celebrated holidays, and worried about trivial inconveniences while a murdered woman lay hidden beneath the place she called home.
For a time, the knowledge had seemed almost unbearable.
Then it had become ordinary.
She learned that there was a remarkable difference between knowing something dreadful and being required to do anything about it.
Emily was dead.
Nate was dead.
Thallea was dead.
Beau was gone.
And Jena was still here.
She had a house.
She had money.
She had no husband to care for, no brother to endure, no mother demanding that she excuse him, and no Ivy-Mae threatening to take away her security.
In a certain light, it was everything she had ever wanted.
One evening, she carried a glass of wine into the kitchen and stood before the cellar door.
She had not opened it in months.
The house was silent.
She rested her hand against the doorframe.
"Well," she said softly, "I suppose we both got what we deserved."
She waited.
Nothing answered.
Of course nothing answered.
Emily had no more power to disturb Jena than she had possessed in life.
The realization pleased her.
Jena switched off the kitchen light and walked toward the living room.
As she passed the darkened window, she caught sight of her reflection.
For an instant, the woman in the glass appeared older than she remembered, her face pale and her eyes sunken beneath the warm glow of the hallway lamp.
Behind her, the darkness of the kitchen seemed unusually deep.
She turned.
There was nothing there.
When she looked back at the window, her reflection was smiling.
She realized she had been smiling all along.
Winter came.
One particularly cold evening, Jena sat alone at the kitchen table while rain struck the windows.
A storm had been moving through Meadow Partings since afternoon, and the wind occasionally pressed against the house hard enough to make the walls creak.
She had finished dinner and was enjoying a second glass of wine.
Her bills were paid.
The pantry was stocked.
The house was warm.
Everything was exactly as it should be.
A dull sound came from somewhere beneath the floor.
Jena looked up.
The sound came again.
It was probably the heating system, or the old plumbing, or the settling of the foundation.
Houses made noises. She knew that.
Nevertheless, she found herself looking toward the wine cellar.
For a moment, she imagined Emily beneath the concrete, her body folded into the darkness, her mouth filled with earth.
She pictured Nate standing beside her.
Then Thallea.
Then Beau.
The images came without invitation, each face emerging from the darkness like figures illuminated by a passing flame.
Jena blinked.
The kitchen was empty.
She took another sip of wine.
There was a time when such thoughts would have frightened her. She would have searched for some explanation, some reassurance that she remained a decent person despite everything she had allowed to happen.
Now she found the exercise tiresome.
Decency had never paid the mortgage.
It had never protected her from humiliation, betrayal, or the demands of people who expected her to sacrifice herself for their comfort.
Turner had offered her something far more useful.
Security.
She had accepted.
That was all.
Another sound came from beneath the floor.
Jena sighed.
"Oh, do be quiet."
The house settled into silence.
She smiled, satisfied, and finished her wine.
Later, she stood at the kitchen sink and watched the rain distort the lights of the outdoor kitchen.
Beyond the glass, the stone counters glistened beneath the storm. The grill stood beneath its handsome canopy, and the little recessed lights shone through the rain like candles arranged around an altar.
It was beautiful.
Turner had given her a beautiful home.
For a moment, she imagined the whole house sinking slowly into the earth, its windows still glowing, its rooms still furnished, its kitchen still warm. She imagined herself seated at the table as the soil rose past the windows, sealing her inside.
The image did not frighten her.
She supposed there would be no reason to leave.
Everything she needed was already there.
Jena switched off the lights.
The darkness filled the kitchen, swallowing the counters, the chairs, and the narrow doorway leading toward the cellar.
She climbed the stairs without looking back.
In her bedroom, she changed into her nightclothes and settled beneath the blankets. She checked her bank balance once more before placing the phone on the bedside table.
The deposit from Turner had arrived.
Right on schedule.
She smiled.
Outside, the storm continued.
Somewhere beneath the house lay Emily, who had been murdered for knowing too much.
Somewhere in the past lay Nate, who had demanded too much.
Thallea had wanted too much.
Beau had taken too much.
And Jena, who had finally learned to want only what she was given, had been permitted to keep everything.
She closed her eyes.
It occurred to her that perhaps this was what damnation really meant.
Not fire.
Not punishment.
Not the terrible judgment of an angry God.
Perhaps hell was simply a place where every compromise became permanent, where every evil was eventually made comfortable, and where a person could surrender so much of herself that there was nothing left worth saving.
Jena considered the possibility for a moment.
Then she pulled the blankets beneath her chin.
She was warm.
She was comfortable.
And tomorrow, she would wake up in her own bed.
That was enough.
For the first time in her life, she no longer feared going to hell.
She had made a home of it.
The End.
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