Page 4 of All the Things We Buried

THREE

LENORE

M ommy is sick again.

Daddy says she might not make it through next month. But I don’t believe him. I think she’s stronger than that. Stronger than he knows.

I ran down the hall to her room. She was sitting in her wobbly old chair, the one with the loose leg that always creaked when she leaned too far. Her eyes were fixed on the window, watching the outside like she was waiting for someone to show up.

“Mommy,” I said, throwing my arms around her waist and resting my head in her lap. “Look what I made.”

I opened my little hand to show her.

“Walnut man,” I said with a proud smile.

It was a tiny figure I had put together with a toothpick body and a walnut for a head. One of its twig arms had already fallen off in my pocket, but it didn’t matter. I made it for her.

But Mommy didn’t say anything.

She just kept staring through the glass, out at the old walnut tree in the front yard. The one with the crooked swings that moved gently in the breeze, even when there was no wind.

“Mommy,” I asked, trying to climb onto her lap, “can you sing for me?”

Nothing. Not even a blink.

She sat so still. So peaceful. Too peaceful.

I looked up at her face. Her eyes were open, but they weren’t looking . I raised my finger toward her, slowly, just to see if she’d move. Just before I touched her eye, her hand snapped up and grabbed my wrist.

I gasped.

“Mommy,” I whispered, “that hurts.”

Still, she said nothing.

She shoved my hand away, not roughly, but not gently, either. That’s when Daddy stepped into the room.

“Lenore,” he said, grabbing my shoulders and pulling me back. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to bring Walnut Man to Mommy,” I said, bending down to pick him up where he’d fallen. I held it out to Daddy in my open palm.

He took it, but didn’t even look at it, just held it there for a second.

“You have a piano lesson in ten minutes,” he said as he crushed the walnut in his hand.

I nodded.

I didn’t want to make him mad.

I never wanted to make him mad.

So I turned and walked toward the hallway, my loafers dragging against the wooden floorboards. I was afraid the house might hear me.

At the staircase, Vivienne passed by. Her skirt was shorter than before. I noticed.

I didn’t like it.

But Daddy did.

I kept walking.

At the bottom of the stairs, my piano tutor Dominic was already seated at the bench, his long fingers resting quietly on the keys. He looked up when he saw me and gave a nod.

I hurried toward him and sat beside him on the bench.

I tried hard to focus. Harder to listen.

Because Mommy played the piano once, too.

And if I played well enough, maybe she would remember how to sing to me again.

Dominic’s fingers pressed the keys, playing the Für Elise lullaby he had been teaching me for weeks. The notes felt softer today. I played it so many times that my fingers started to remember, but then I stopped.

“Begin again,” he said quietly.

I tried. I placed my fingers on the keys, but now they felt stiff, like they weren’t mine. My wrist trembled. My mind wandered.

“Focus, Lenore.”

I blinked.

Outside the window, I saw the swing moving again, faster now, though there was no wind. The walnut tree creaked, like old wood settling, but it sounded too much like a voice.

“She used to play that song,” I said, keeping my eyes on the tree.

Dominic paused. His fingers hovered above the piano, motionless.

“I know,” he said. “She was very good.”

“She still is,” I whispered. “She just forgot.”

There was a long silence.

Then, from upstairs, something fell. A dull thud .

I turned toward the hallway.

Dominic didn’t move. He looked straight ahead, jaw tightening slightly, like he was trying not to hear it.

“She’s alright,” he said too quickly.

“But—“

“Keep playing, Lenore.”

My fingers returned to the keys, but the notes came out louder. The lights above us flickered. Just once. But it was enough.

Dominic stood. “That’s enough for today.”

I looked up. “But the lesson just started.”

His face twitched. “It’s over now. Go get some rest.”

He left before I could ask anything else.

I stared at the piano keys. My hands trembled, blood stained my little hands, and I hadn’t felt spilling until now. A broken scream tore from my throat. I blinked, once, then twice, and screamed again, louder. But when I opened my eyes… There was nothing.

No blood. No sound. Just silence.

Daddy woke me up in the middle of the night. His hands were shaking.

He didn’t say much, he just wrapped me in my blanket and whispered, “We have to go.”

His voice didn’t sound like his anymore. It was tight and thin, like it had been wrung dry. He was sad. And he was never sad.

Outside, I could hear a lot of sirens, like in one of the movies he likes to watch.

I didn’t know who they were coming for. I didn’t ask.

I opened my eyes as much as I could. I was still sleepy.

The hallway behind us flickered in shadows, lit only by the blue and red flashes from outside.

As Daddy carried me, I saw something swinging at the top of the stairs.

A thick rope.

Something was hanging there. Something heavy. Something that didn’t move at all. I couldn’t see what exactly, but I didn’t need to.

The green wallpaper along the stairs had started to peel by itself, and behind it, something had been written onto the wall in blood.

I just learned how to read last year, so it took me a minute to spell, “COME HOME.”

I blinked, trying to read it again, but Daddy wouldn’t stop. He kept moving, faster now, like the house was burning. He held me tighter, and I could feel his breath against my forehead.

Outside, everything was too bright. Too loud. Flashing lights, screaming voices, the stench of wet grass.

And faces.

So many faces.

All staring at the house like it had become a grave.

I saw Vivienne standing in the driveway. Crying. Her mouth was opened wide, her eyes red. But it wasn’t real. None of it was real.

She wore Mommy’s white dress. The one with the black buttons she only wore on special nights. When she put on her red lipstick and smiled like she wasn’t sad inside. Vivienne had the same lipstick now.

I looked at Daddy. I looked at the police officer by the open car door. And then I saw the stretcher.

They were wheeling something out, something zipped up in black.

I knew what it was. Even before the wind caught the edge of the bag. The zipper shifted, and a pale hand slipped free.

Her hand. Still clutching her silver medallion with the rose on it. She promised she would give it to me when I turned eighteen. But it might lose meaning now.

“Mommy?” I whispered.

Then my voice broke.

“Mommy!”

I thrashed in Daddy’s arms, trying to get to her, but he wouldn’t let me go.

“Mommy, no!” I screamed again. “She promised, Daddy, she promised —“

But he just held me closer, hiding his face, as if he didn’t see it, it didn’t happen.

My eyes blurred with tears, and as I looked above towards her room, a light flicked on. And she was there. Standing. Still. Watching.

Her skin was pale, lips parted like she wanted to say something to me, but couldn’t, and her eyes met mine. Not glassy. Not dead. Present.

“Daddy,” I cried, tugging at his collar, “ Mommy’s right there! ”

I pointed. My finger trembled.

But as soon as he turned to look, the light blinked out.

She wasn’t there anymore.

The window was just a reflection now. Curtains unmoving. Room silent. Like no one had ever lived there at all.

But I knew what I saw.

I know what I saw.

She wasn’t gone.

She was home.

And she didn’t want to be alone.