Home for the Haunting(30)

“I’ve heard a little bit,” I said, thinking that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know much more.

“I was lucky enough to have slept through most of it. It was my sis—” His voice choked up for a moment. He held a fist up to his mouth, swallowed loudly, then resumed his story. “My sister Linda was the one who looked down and saw my father at the foot of the stairs. My father, who used to take us fishing. Who taught me to ride a bike, to play ball . . . Did you hear about Linda?”

“I, um . . .”

“She passed. A couple of days ago, but I didn’t even know. Amazing to think that someone so important in my life could pass, and I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel a thing. Had no idea until Ray called me last night. Then the police came. We talked for a long time.”

“I’m so very sorry, Hugh. Is there anything I can do?”

“Do you know our story?”

“I’ve heard a couple of versions. . . .”

“On that night, I remember the smell of dinner cooking. I think it was chicken casserole. My favorite. There was someone at the door, and my oldest sister Bridget went down to answer it, but I guess Mom got there first . . . There was the sound of a tussle, and Linda was headed downstairs to check it out when she saw my father at the foot of the stairs, plain as day in the entryway, a gun in his hand, pointed at our mother. Linda was about to say something when . . .”

He held his hand out and pointed as though it were a gun, then pulled the trigger, his eyes taking on that now familiar faraway look.

“Boom. Boom. Two shots. One in the back”—he reached behind himself and patted a spot behind his left shoulder, then tapped the side of his neck—“one in the neck. The neck. Carotid artery. No chance.”

There was a long pause. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“And your sister, Bridget?”

“Blunt force trauma. He used a big log for the fire. Up against the side of the head.”

“But you escaped.”

“Linda saved me. She came into my room and barricaded the door behind her, then made me go out the window with her. I fought her; I didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t want to go.”

“How old were you?”

“Linda was fourteen, I was ten. Almost eleven. My parents had agreed to have my birthday at the beach that weekend. It was his last promise to me. Broken, of course, when he killed half my family, then himself.”

“I’m so sorry, Hugh. It’s . . .” Unimaginable was what I was going to say, but this man had not only imagined it but lived through it. “It’s awful. No one should have to go through something like that.”

“It was my fault, really. Please”—he held up a pale hand—“don’t say it wasn’t. I’ve heard it from one therapist after another, but the truth is that if I hadn’t gotten sick, Mom would have taken us all to the beach house. I suppose my father still would have killed himself, but at the very least Mom and Bridget would have been spared. But I’ve always been the sickly sort. . . .”

He pulled out a drawer of the file cabinet and brought out a big box of photos. He grabbed a handful and shuffled through them, picking and choosing some to show to me.

“Here’s my father and mother on their wedding day.” He gazed at the photo for a long moment before handing it over. The photo was faded; they were both dashing in sixties-era clothing, she in a simple white shift and small veil, he in a dark suit. They were laughing and pushing wedding cake into each other’s mouths. I looked up to see Hugh’s sad, distracted eyes fixed on me. “Hard to imagine what he would do to her later, isn’t it?”

There were no words. He passed more photos to me: babies, little children on the beach, his father holding a boy about two years old in strong arms.

“Is this you?” I asked.

He nodded.

“You look a lot like your father,” I said, before realizing perhaps I shouldn’t underscore his resemblance to a killer.

He smiled faintly.

“Yes, I took after his side of the family. There was a strong family resemblance between him and my grandfather, as well. I used to think I would grow up to be just like him, and I was proud. Of course, now that I look like him . . . well, it’s a dubious honor.”

“It doesn’t mean you’re anything like him.”

“It’s funny—the last time Linda and I were in the house, just a few days ago, she saw me at the bottom of the stairs, and she thought she was seeing our father’s ghost. But it was just me. But I thought to myself, that’s a poem: ‘I am my father’s ghost.’”