Pretend You're Mine(91)

She didn’t mention Karen or her trip to the cemetery. They would talk eventually. Face to face.

It was Karen on her mind that had Harper choosing this route. She stopped to catch her breath in front of a tidy two-story duplex. 417 Meadow View. Their home together. Luke and Karen. Behind those walls they had cooked breakfast together, made love, argued, and planned a family.

She didn’t know what she expected to feel being here. What was someone supposed to feel when they stalked ghosts?

Hands on her hips, she paced the sidewalk, glancing every now and then at the house. Did Luke ever do this? Did he come back to the place where there was life? Did he visit the cemetery where there was only death?

Harper felt something. A presence. A ghost?

But it was a woman. Flesh and blood. Haunting the sidewalk. They studied each other from several paces away. The trim figure was dressed casually in shorts and a t-shirt. She had her brown hair with its silver strands pulled back in a short curly stub.

Harper felt like she had been caught in the act. She gave an awkward wave. “Morning,” she called.

The woman simply stared. There was something familiar about her face. It reminded her of Karen. Harper felt her heart skip a beat. “Joni?”

The woman’s face transformed into an impassive mask.

“So you’re her,” she said, her tone soft, but laced with pain.

“I’m who?”

“Luke’s replacement for my daughter.”

Harper froze where she was.

“Joni, I can guarantee there’s no replacement for Karen.”

“That’s not how it looks to me. What it looks like to me is he tried to pretend she never existed until he found someone new to help him forget.”

Harper started toward her. “Now hang on a minute —”

“I’ve been hanging on for five years.” Her voice broke. “I lost my family because of him. He never loved her enough. His country came first and my daughter came a distant second. He’ll do it to you, too.”

Harper could see the tears now. She shook her head. “I think we need to talk.”

***

It took some coaxing and some strong-arming, but Harper got Joni to come home with her. They walked back, the summer humidity teasing a line of sweat down Harper’s back.

“What was Karen like?”

Joni sighed. “She was everything to me. Her father left us when she was very young. He just up and walked out one day. Said he didn’t want to be a husband and a father anymore. So it was just the two of us from then on.”

The abandonment had stung and still did. Harper could hear it in her tone.

“Karen was this driven, ambitious girl. Even when she was eight, she had her entire life mapped out. She was going to go to college to be a scientist and marry a man who would ‘be a good daddy.’ It was amazing to watch her set her sights on a goal and then march toward it until she captured it.” Joni took a breath.

“And now she’s gone. And he pretends she never existed. Did he ever love her? If he did, how could he have walked away from her, from us, so easily?”

Another abandonment.

They arrived home and Joni stopped to take it in. “Karen would have loved this house. That townhouse was just a waypoint. They were going to have a home, a family. They were going to have it all.”

Harper led her up onto the porch. “Are you okay with dogs?”

Joni sighed. “Of course you have a dog.”

Harper pushed the front door open and Lola and Max rushed to greet them.

“Oh my, hello there,” Joni said, crouching to greet the mass of tongues and paws and wiggling rear ends.

“Let me give them some t-r-e-a-t-ses and we can head down to the basement.”

Harper hurried down the hallway to the kitchen and grabbed a bag of bacon treats. She shook the bag and the dogs hurtled down the hall toward her.

“Good puppies. Okay, sit. Good job. Here’s one for you and one for you.”

She found Karen peering into the dining room. “This is all new. Luke was in such a hurry to get out of that townhouse. He sold it for less than they paid and sold or gave away every stick of furniture. He got rid of everything they owned, everything that was hers.”

“And you think he did that because he wanted to move on?”

“There’s no other explanation.”

“I think there might be. I think you’re wrong about Luke. Let me show you something.” Harper opened the basement door.

“You’re not taking me down there to chop me into pieces to feed to the dogs are you? I’m not ready to be one of those ‘missing and never heard from again’ people,” Joni said.

“Very funny. Now let me just go get my rusty axe.”