House on Briar Hill Road Read online

  She wished she had family to call on, but it was only her and Brian and some distant relatives in Southampton, Ontario. All her friends were part of pairs, married and blissful. Some blatantly avoided her, and others made sympathetic noises, but she sensed distance, as if her divorce were somehow contagious. She hadn’t kept up with any of them since her move from Upper St. Clair to Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, just outside Pittsburgh.

  She’d started forging new friendships at St. Bartholomew Hospital, where she worked on the med-surg floor, but they were still new and tentative.

  Maybe it was that sense of isolation that drew her to the little girl. It was clear from the few things Brian had said that she came from a hard situation at home.

  Brian ran from the house to Kathleen, the small girl tripping along at his heels. “Mom, guess what, they were giving away the big Hershey bars at that house. Right, Hayden?”

  The ghost nodded her agreement silently.

  “We’re goin’ to the next one,” Brian said, then they raced off before Kathleen could correct his grammar.

  Hayden turned to follow Brian, but her sheet slipped off, stopping her in her tracks. As she tugged it back in place, Hayden looked over and grinned at Kathleen. Then she hurried after Brian.

  It was obvious that Hayden wasn’t thinking about her threadbare ghost costume, or a mother who drank too much. She was living in the moment. Happy to have found a house that gave out the big Hershey bars.

  Maybe there was a lesson in that.

  Kathleen realized that right now, at this very moment, she was totally content to watch the kids race from house to house.

  More than content.

  She was happy.

  It was a good evening.

  Maybe if she could figure out a way to hang on to it, to all the good moments, she’d learn to let go of the rest. She was tired of being depressed, of wondering if she could have done something different and made her marriage work. She wanted to be happy again. She wanted to enjoy what she had rather than pine for what she’d lost.

  “Mom, Mom, hurry up. We’ve got to cross the street. That whole side’s got their lights on.”

  Kathleen smiled. “I’m hurrying, kids. We’ll go to all the houses you want. There’s nothing else I’d rather do.”

  “See, she’s comin’, kid.” Brian paused, looked at his mom and grinned. “Ing. She’s coming, kid.”

  Hayden pulled up her sheet and grinned at Kathleen as she parroted, “Yep, she’s coming.”

  Kathleen laughed and took Brian’s hand in one of hers and Hayden’s in the other.

  The world seemed brighter already.

  Chapter 2

  “That Halloween when you came to our house, everything changed. It was as if you’d always belonged with us.” Kathleen’s eyes were closed, as if she, indeed, were lost in that long-ago Halloween.

  The van hit yet another pothole. Either the transport driver was aiming for every one on I-279 or the road that circled Pittsburgh was littered with them.

  “Hey, take it easy,” Brian yelled up at the man.

  The driver mumbled some apology.

  “Thanks, Brian.” Hayden’s hand slid across the bench seat, until it was almost touching his.

  For a moment, Brian thought she was going to bridge the small gap that remained, but she didn’t. And he didn’t. The months of watching his mother’s illness get worse had taken its toll on them both.

  They’d each pulled away from the other, lost in their own misery. There didn’t seem to be any emotion left as they sat on the same seat across from Kathleen’s wheelchair.

  Hayden kept to her own end of the bench and he kept to his. Those inches separating them seemed like miles and he didn’t know how to fix it.

  “I think it’s going to snow,” Kathleen said.

  “Do you remember the snow day that first winter after you moved to Briar Hill Road?”

  Brian remembered that after Hayden came trick-or-treating with them, his mom had changed. She seemed happier. Almost like her old self.

  “I went to catch the bus,” Hayden continued, “but Brian came out and got me. He said school was canceled and took me back to your house. You said it wasn’t fair we got a day off and you didn’t, so you called in sick to work.”

  Kathleen nodded. “When you get older, you’ll have regrets, but I promise they won’t be for the days you play hooky.”

  “It was a good day.” Hayden used his mom’s pet phrase. “You didn’t have any sleds, so we used garbage bags and the three of us spent the afternoon out on the hill.”

  Hayden looked at him, waiting for him to join in. Needing him to help keep the conversation going.

  “I refused to call it sledding. I called it bagging.” He shrugged. “It sounds stupid now, but to a twelve-year-old it was an important difference.”

  His mom laughed.

  “You called off work again that first winter Brian was at college when we got another big snow,” Hayden continued. “We didn’t go bagging, but we took that long walk down the road. Snowy days make me think of spending time with you.”

  “It was such a comfort having you with me when Brian left for TSU. Tennessee seemed so far away.”

  His mom had graduated from Tennessee State and she’d encouraged him to apply. They’d been so thrilled when he got in, until the realization hit them that he’d have to leave Pennsylvania. “It made it easier for me to leave, knowing you moved in with Mom.”

  Hayden chuckled. “I never really moved in. One day, I just didn’t go home…No, I take that back. The house I grew up in, the house my mother still lived in then, had never been home. I left it without a backward glance and moved in with you. My mother didn’t even come looking for me. I’ve often wondered how long it took her to discover I was gone. She never said and I never asked. Before she went into the nursing home, we’d bump into each other on occasion, but we were strangers. That was fine with me. With you and Brian I’d found my home and my family.”

  Brian listened to Hayden and his mom reminisce about Hayden moving in and missing him. He’d missed them both, as well. He remembered coming home after he graduated….

  May 1985

  Brian pulled into the tar-and-chip driveway that led to the small white house he’d lived in since he was twelve.

  He remembered leaving the big house in Upper St. Clair and moving to the much smaller one outside Bridgeville, just fifteen minutes southwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He’d hated leaving his friends, hated the house they’d moved into. But as he sat in the car today and studied the story and a half, Cape Cod-style house with its window boxes, he felt only a sense of coming home.

  Time changed things. He laughed at the less than profound thought.

  The house’s windows were framed by bright green shutters. They were just for show, just a decoration that couldn’t be used to save the windows during a storm. But southwestern Pennsylvania was known for its occasional snowstorms and those rarely broke windows, so it didn’t really matter.

  He wasn’t sure why he was thinking about shutters. Maybe it was easier than reflecting on the fact that the house seemed to have grown smaller since he’d left for college four years ago.

  It seemed smaller now than it had over the holiday break.

  Is that how it worked? When he graduated from high school everything seemed to have changed, and now that he’d graduated from Tennessee State, would everything continue to change even more?

  When would it stop?

  Did that diploma they’d handed him mere weeks ago alter things so drastically? He’d shifted from childhood to a quasimanhood while he was at college. He had to leave for California in three weeks, where he was starting a job working with troubled youths. He’d be the adult working with kids, which meant he’d jumped from quasi, to full-out manhood.

  Grown.

  Independent.

  No longer relying on his mother’s money, or the sporadic child-support checks Adam had sent over the last decade. T
he old pain no longer stabbed at him when he thought about his father. They talked on occasion, but there was no connection. Adam’s focus was on his new family and he seemed eager to forget his past…forget Brian. That was okay with Brian.

  He knew he should get out of the car, but he couldn’t seem to move quite yet. He wanted a few more quiet moments.

  He noticed that the oak tree that sat on the far side of the house was even bigger. It canopied the roof, keeping the house shaded now that the leaves were open again.

  May was a beautiful time of year in Pennsylvania. He’d missed the changing seasons while he was at college. Down south in Tennessee the weather alternated between warm and hot. Things got almost as hot here, but there was more of an ebb and flow; freezing, cold, cool, warm, hot, then back down again.

  Damn, it was good to be home, if only for a little while. He thought again about getting out of the car. Before he could actually move, the front door of the house flew open and Hayden rushed out, saving him from his mental meanderings.

  “Kathleen, he’s here,” she called before she started running toward him.

  He got out of the car and simply took her in.

  She had on a strappy sort of wispy dress that looked totally too grown-up for the kid who’d spent her childhood dogging his heels. Her dark brown hair flew loose at her shoulders. There wasn’t anything left of that girl in the young woman.

  His axis tilted again with another unexpected reminder that things had changed.

  But as she ran he noticed her feet were bare. And his world settled back into place. Some things might change, his perceptions might alter, but there were other things that would always be what they were.

  Hayden was one of those things.

  “Brian,” she cried, throwing herself full-force into his arms. “You made it. I’ve been worried beyond belief.”

  “Worried about what, kid?”

  She let go of him and pushed a thick piece of hair out of her eyes. “That you wouldn’t make it in time.”

  “When have I ever let you down?”

  “Never.” She laughed then. That sound—more than the house, the shutters that didn’t work or the tree that had grown—said home to him. It was the sound that had punctuated his teens.

  When they were young, Hayden would follow him so stealthily he frequently forgot she was there. But then she’d laugh like that and everything else would fade.

  At first the sound was sporadic, but as time went on, as their house became more and more her home, Hayden’s laughter was frequent.

  His mom came out of the house with a little less speed, but not a bit less pleased to see him. She smiled as she hurried to join them.

  God, he’d missed them both. It seemed like an eternity since he’d been here over Christmas. He’d spent the spring break with friends down in Florida. At the time it had seemed like a great idea, but now, seeing these two women who meant so much to him, he realized he’d have probably had more fun here than he’d had there.

  His mom looked more the same than Hayden did. Her hair, which had once been flaming red, had faded over the years. She was what now? In her midforties? Her hair no longer shouted red, just whispered the color it used to be under the increasing amount of soft gray. Other women might try to deny their age. But not his mom.

  Kathleen Conway remained proud of what she was—who she was. She’d tried to pass that self-assurance on to both Hayden and himself. He’d like to think she’d succeeded with both of them.

  “Brian.” That’s all she said as she reached him and stood in front of him—just his name. But he could read so much into those two syllables.

  Hayden moved aside and let his mother have a turn at hugging him.

  “It’s good to have you home. Someone was nervous you’d be late.” She glanced sideways at Hayden and smiled.

  There was something between his mom and Hayden. It had been there that first night when the ghost of a girl had come trick-or-treating with them, and the connection had grown over the years. It had seemed right, knowing his mother and Hayden were together while he was so far away, busy growing up.

  “If she looked out the window once, she looked a couple dozen times,” his mom continued.

  “You’re exaggerating,” Hayden said to Kathleen, before turning back to Brian. “It was only a dozen, max. And that was about eleven more times than you deserved. You’re hours late.”

  “The traffic getting out of Nashville was horrible. It put me behind the entire trip. There was an accident on I-70 that left me standing pretty much still for an hour. But I made it.” Hayden started toward the back of the car, as if she were going to help him unload. He shook his head. “Just leave it. I’ll unpack what I need later.”

  Four years’ worth of college life was stowed in his car and the trailer he’d rented. Most of his belongings were going to stay in the trailer for the few weeks he had here before driving out to California.

  Tonight was Hayden’s night.

  With her on one side, his mother on the other, Brian headed into the house. Stepping over the threshold, he felt the last remains of tightness loosen in his chest.

  Home.

  “Nothing’s changed.” The sentence was at odds with the thoughts that had plagued him as he sat in his car and studied the house. But as he walked into the place, he couldn’t remember what those differences were. All he saw was home. The hardwood floor, the light tan walls. Maybe the curtains were new, but they fit and didn’t change the feel of the house. And it was that feel that he remembered most.

  “Everything’s changed,” Hayden corrected. “I graduate from high school in just an hour and a half. That means it’s all different. And I don’t want to be late, so go get your shower. Your suit’s hanging in the closet. I went with your mom to pick out the tie.” One hand was on her hip—when did she get hips? In his mind she was still board straight from top to bottom, but somewhere along the line she’d grown hips. Hips and other new curves he didn’t remember noticing at Christmas.

  Her free hand was waving in front of his face. “You’re in a fog, Bri. Maybe you should have some coffee before you go get that shower.”

  “She’s bossy. Was she always this bossy?” he asked his mother with deliberate mock seriousness.

  “I think she learned from the best. It was always so amusing watching the two of you trying to direct the other. There was never a definitive leader. King of the Mountain was always up for grabs.”

  “Well, since I’m graduating today, I’m grabbing. I win. I’m the boss. The top dog. The King of the Mountain. The queen of all I survey. You—” she pointed at him, wagging a finger at his chest “—coffee, shower, change.”

  He smiled. “Fine. I’ll let you have tonight, but I don’t guarantee anything for the rest of my visit.”

  “I’ll take tonight then and we’ll debate who’s boss for the rest of your visit later.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, I’ve got to run.”

  Without another word, she turned and sprinted up the stairs, her bare feet slapping on the wooden treads. She stopped at the top. “I’m glad you’re home. We missed you.”

  “Me, too, kid,” he said. He watched as she turned the twist in the stairs and disappeared from sight, though they could still hear her thumping down the hall. Her bedroom door slammed and her music came on. Brian recognized REO Speedwagon.

  “She never slows down,” his mom said, a smile playing on her lips. “She only has one speed—mach one.”

  “She’s all grown up now. I didn’t notice that at Christmas, though there must have been some signs then. But in the last five months…Well, she ran out to the car, and there it was. The kid who spent years tormenting me is no longer a kid. It feels weird.”

  “It amazes me, as well, but not only her. You, too. Sometimes I look at you and can hardly remember the small, gap-toothed boy with his messy black hair who thought I hung the moon.”

  “He still thinks you hung the moon.”

  “Oh, Bri, that was
an unbelievably cheesy thing to say, but it was just what I needed. Thanks.”

  His mom studied him a moment, as if she were truly looking for that gap-toothed boy he once was. She sighed. He wondered if that meant she’d found what she was looking for, or hadn’t.

  She reached out and lightly touched his cheek. “I’ve spent my day thinking about the past. Feeling old. The last of my kids—and she is mine, there’s no mistaking that—is officially grown. Do you remember that day she decided to climb the oak tree and hang a rope swing?”

  “I still have nightmares about spotting our old ladder, the one that was missing all those rungs, up against the oak, then looking up and seeing her feet dangling below the branch.” He paused, remembering how scared he’d been as he held the ladder and watched her climb down. “I was doing the same kind of thing, remembering, on the drive here. The very, very long drive here.”

  “What sort of things were you remembering, specifically?”

  “Oh, different things in different cities. I was outside Columbus and remembered her father’s funeral. No one but us and her mom came. Hayden never cried. I don’t know why I remembered that, but I got this mental image of her standing there in front of the casket, not shedding a tear, unlike her mother who put on a huge show for a man she hadn’t seen in years. And speak of the devil, is her mom coming tonight?”

  “I don’t know. Hayden went down to their house last week. She wasn’t gone long and didn’t say a word about what happened between them.”

  “And you didn’t press.” That was the beauty of his mom. Maybe it came from being a nurse for so many years, but he suspected it was simply part of her. She had such deep patience. He knew she hadn’t pushed, wouldn’t push. She’d simply wait until Hayden was ready to talk. And when that time came, she’d listen, then offer whatever was needed, hugs, advice or just being there. “So, we’ll see.”

  He was torn, part of him knowing that Hayden would want her mother there, and the bigger part knowing that if her mother came, it wouldn’t turn out like Hayden wanted.