Home Is Where the Bodies Are

by Jeneva Rose

My shoulders drop, sinking to a place familiar to those who have faced defeat.

There’s not many things you can count on in life, but that . . . is one thing you can count on. It will rise and it will fall—no matter what. Don’t matter if you’re sick or sad. Don’t matter if there is war or there is peace. Don’t matter if you see it or you don’t. That sun. You can count on it.

I’m trying to say Mom as many times as I possibly can because I know I’ll never call another person that again.

love you, Mom. Thank you for having me, for raising me, for loving me, for being like the sun . . . the one thing I could always count on.”

They have a plethora of their own unresolved problems—Nikki, an addiction to drugs, Beth, an addiction to mediocrity.

I guess you can only grow so much when you’re stuck in the same place—like a house plant that’s never been repotted.

Dad raised us to be strong and stoic. I remember his words, If you can control your emotions, you can control anything. He made it seem like it was some sort of superpower.

I stare back at him, chewing on several sentences before I finally spit one out.

There’s static. We have a bad connection. Then again, we’ve had that for a long time.

I’ve actually never understood that saying. Going crazy . . . because crazy isn’t a place you go, it comes right to you.

Our bedroom doors close, and I make sure to lock mine. I worry about sleeping under the same roof as my sister. I know she can’t be trusted.

He closes the door behind him, leaving me to fend off the monsters on my own. But they’re not under the bed anymore. They’re in me.

“Funerals aren’t for the dead. They’re for the living,”

“You didn’t visit her when she was alive,” I scoff.

back to when I was young, peering up at our mother, thinking she had the answers to all the questions in the world. We all look at our parents that way, until we don’t.

Zero or a hundred makes the middle, where everyday life exists, feel like a slump.

I don’t regret my decisions or the life I’ve made, though if I could go back, I’d dream a little more.

A burst of air escapes my mouth as I try to catch my breath, reeling from what I just witnessed.

It took nearly a hundred pages for something to FINALLY happen

No one knew what happened to Emma Harper, except my parents.

How could Mom take this secret to her grave?

The mom done PMO

“Guilt can eat you slowly or swallow you whole.”

And when you don’t have much in life, there isn’t much you’re able to detest before you run out of things to, well, detest. So, Beth chose crust. Michael chose this town. And I chose myself.

He hangs his head. A single tear runs down his cheek. It falls slowly, like a person trudging through land that has never been traversed. It zigzags a little, touches the corner of his lip, then dribbles the rest of the way to his chin, clinging to his jawline, refusing to drop.

This paragraph felt forced.

She has one of those warm personalities that makes you feel like you’re standing directly under sunlight, even when you’re not.

Susan doesn’t worry like I do, and I envy her for that. She hasn’t encountered loss like I have, so she can’t fathom it. But I know the worst things always happen in an instant, and once you’ve experienced it, you’ll forever be on the lookout, bracing yourself for it to happen again. It’s both a blessing and a curse because it forces you to live in the moment while also fearing the next.

A swarm of butterflies flap their wings inside my stomach. Brian always has that effect on me.

There are only three houses on this road. Ours, the Harpers’, and Charles Gallagher’s.

“It’s been seven years, right?” he asks. It’s specific, too specific. He clearly knows it’s been that long.

...

the night she realized monsters walk among us.

Parents have a blind spot for their children.

Honestly, I don’t think there are any good parts in any town. Some areas just hide their indiscretions better.

“Oh, I didn’t realize the police had a library system for their unsolved case files.” He rolls his eyes and starts off toward the kitchen.

But then again, grief is like an airport. There are no rules or social norms. You just do what you gotta do to pass the time until you reach your next destination.

False hope is the worst kind of hope.

Busy minds don’t wander.

It doesn’t matter if I trust him. It only matters that he thinks I trust him.

I’m not scared because I know that she most likely will. It’s hard to be scared of something you can see coming.

She’s grown into her acceptance of an unexceptional and mundane life,

“You didn’t even visit her when she was alive.”

Beth’s not stupid. She’s just miserable.

Laura and I were just talking the other day. She said she knew where Emma was, that she’d show me.” My eyes go wide.

The moments that change us forever always feel recent, because we carry them with us whether we want to or not.

My eyes go to the tape again. If I played it for him, he’d be transported back to 1999 and finally, after all this time, he’d know exactly what happened to his sister.

No he wouldn't .. The tape doesn't tell enough..

“Can I get a tour?” he asks, pulling me back to the now.

I haven’t told the truth in a while, and my words surprise me.

We could collide with pavement or loose gravel or even a floor covered in Legos, and I wouldn’t care as long as it was him I was falling with.

Nah.

His heart beats slow and steady, but then it starts to race.

Trying to throw romance in the mix at 80%??

I don’t know what happened to her, but I know my parents found her body down by the creek, and they got rid of it.”

If you don't know what happened after you watched the tape, then how would he!?

I hate him and I hate myself, but I don’t blame him . . . because I would have done the exact same thing.

You’re not the child I wanted, but you’re the one I deserved. –Regretfully, your mother

WTF