“Come home.”
“Soon. I promise.”
“I didn’t find the mommy today.” Will wanted the same thing other kids had, a mother.
“Finding the right mom isn’t easy, but I hope we find one for you.” Choked up, he thought of Jessie, her life cut short before she’d ever really lived.
“Maybe tomorrow.” Will yawned.
Dylan didn’t want to get Will’s hopes up, so he dropped the subject. “Sleep good. I’ll be there soon. I’ll see you first thing in the morning.”
“Smiley-face waffles.”
“Yes, I promise.”
Will loved it when Dylan cut up strawberries and made a face on his waffles. Dylan loved the boy’s enthusiasm for the simple things in life. He wished with every breath he took Jessie was here and he could introduce her to his adopted son. He’d tell her about his job, how it led him to a young girl in need and a boy he loved more each day. He’d dedicated his life to helping people like Jess. He tried every day to make up for abandoning her.
“I love you,” he said to his son, and meant it to Jessie too.
“I love you, too, Daddy. See you in the morning.”
“See you in the morning, buddy.”
Dylan hung up and slid from the car, feeling better but dreading walking back into his past. He took the cracked and broken path bordered on both sides by overgrown and mostly dead grass and weeds to the front porch. Reaching above one of the side windows, he ran his fingers along the edge until he found the spare key. He snatched it, stepped back to the door to unlock it before replacing the key. He stepped inside the house and into his past and what had been Jessie’s hell.
With a flip of a switch, a single lamp came on in the family room just beyond the tiled entry. Buddy’s housekeeping skills left a lot to be desired. Beer bottles, two empty bottles of whiskey, a tumbler glass, and a dozen or more newspapers and food wrappers littered the coffee table and floor. A dead plant sat in the corner and the fireplace hadn’t been cleaned in a decade of fires. Ashes spilled out onto the hearth.
Dylan didn’t come to see this. No. He needed to see Jessie’s room, see if there was anything left of her. Walking through the family room toward the kitchen, he stopped in the archway looking in before he proceeded down the hall to his left.
Liquor and beer bottles covered the kitchen table. A single chair faced the archway. Almost precisely where Dylan stood. He imagined the pool of blood Brian saw on the floor. He glanced back into the family room and the couch with the coffee table littered with bottles. Buddy could have sat there and seen into the kitchen to this very spot.
The butcher block on the counter had several empty slots. Searching the kitchen, he found one steak knife in the sink and several in the dishwasher along with a long cutting knife. He checked the drawers and cabinets, but couldn’t find the other three missing knives. To his dismay, he couldn’t find the butcher knife that fit the largest slot. He hoped that wasn’t the bloody knife Buddy used on Jessie and threw away.
His mind played every scenario imaginable of how Jessie and Buddy went at it that night. No matter how he ran the scene, his mind conjured Jessie’s image on the floor in a pool of blood with a knife stuck in her.
Shivering, he walked out of the kitchen and down the hall, skipping over Brian’s old room and stopping in front of Jessie’s closed door. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and stood looking at her deserted room. Everything appeared untouched, like she’d never left, though a thick layer of dust covered every surface. A green quilt lay over the bed. Her backpack and schoolbooks sat scattered on her desk, along with makeup and hair bands. The dresser and night table had a few trinkets and mementos. Alongside some discarded change and a pack of gum sat a picture of her mother. Dylan took special notice of the woman he’d never met.
Jessie was the image of her mother, with long, dark wavy hair, hazel eyes, and that flawless satin skin. He wondered how a beautiful woman like Jessie’s mother ended up with a man like Buddy. Maybe Buddy had been a different man when they were young. Time had slipped away, until Jessie’s mother couldn’t deal with the consequences of marrying an alcoholic.
Always a neat freak, none of Jessie’s clothes littered the wood floor or hung from the drawers. Nothing out of place except the black gown she’d worn to the prom hanging on the closet door. Her high heels sat on the floor, one tipped on its side. He imagined her lying on the bed looking at the dress and remembering the night they’d shared together. He wondered if the few short days she’d had left after the prom were happy or sad. Did she miss him? Curse him? Hate him?