My Darkest Rose

Chapter 29

The House That Jack Built

With the confession of Robbie Bernardi, the town settled back into a somewhat normal routine. School started up, cooler weather and changing leaves brought in tourists, and Jack became more of a local legend than someone to fear.

He had the driveway paved and expanded as well as a new motorized gate installed, with an intercom so he knew who he was letting in.

A landscaping crew worked seven days a week to pull vegetation from around the house and clean up years of tree debris and fallen limbs. The sound of the woodchipper was so constant that even at night, after everyone was gone and it was just Jack in the house, he still heard it.

There was a new roof and siding. Once the tree was removed from the deck, the railing was repaired and painted.

By October, the exterior of the house looked better than it had when Jack was a child. But the real transformation took place inside.

Jack painted every interior wall in the house. He painted the creature in various forms, sometimes deep in shadow, other times hiding in the corner of a room. He painted the fish in their dark cave underground. He painted Theodore with a can of tuna; Mandy as a young girl on a bike and again as a woman standing on the deck with a cup of coffee.

He painted Eric and his friends hiding among the ferns and fallen trees.

He painted Fauna. Sometimes she was alone, but in one particularly poignant image, they were together on a boat in the lake, holding a small bowl of their mother's ashes.

And one cool morning, when the first hints of autumn arrived, he took the rowboat out to the center of the lake and spread her ashes over the water. He didn't think of fish or anything else, only of how he hoped she had found that place he'd visited with Rose, and that their mother was with her.

He also painted himself and it was those images that brought the most healing. In the master bedroom he painted himself in the moonlit lake with Rose wrapped around him, her hair fanned out in the water.

He eventually bought a bed and moved into the master bedroom. Every night he stared up at the wall and wondered if he would ever see her again. It seemed she had somehow rid Moonwood of the creature, or maybe he had, he didn't know. All he knew was it seemed to be gone, despite his occasional twinge of nervousness as he passed a dark window, or a flutter of movement between the trees just out of the corner of his eye.

When he remembered Rose and their last hours together, he knew he would see her again. She was waiting for him.

The phone rang as he stood in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal at the end of the day. He'd decided he preferred the old phone over his cellular, and hadn't turned it on in weeks. The news was depressing, anyway, and his work consumed him.

"Hello?"

"Jack," Andrea said, "The million dollar man. How does it feel?"

His last show had finally sold, making both he and his agent very wealthy. Even Adam and his boyfriend, Bran, who had given him a ride from town, had been able to get a new painting for their growing collection. They sent him a thank you card in the mail, complete with a photo of them with their three paintings.

He had it taped to the fridge for a while, but the painting of the empty bed still chilled him every time he looked at it, so he eventually took it down and tucked it in a drawer.

"Oh, you know me," he said, "I'm just happy to have my bowl of cereal."

He hadn't thought much about the money, really. He was still alone, and now that Mandy had made her move from Tacoma to Indianapolis permanent, there were few interruptions that might otherwise make him think about his life beyond the walls of his house and Moonwood.

"Bullshit," she laughed. "Hey, give me your address again. Maps isn't pulling it up."

"778 E 1000 S. So you're really coming? I thought you were scared," he teased.

"Please," she said, "Those white boys need to see a real live black woman every once in a while."

He laughed and imagined Andrea in the Dollar General. She would give the people of Tacoma something to talk about, that was for sure.

"Besides," she said, "Annie's coming with me. I told her you might be able to hook us up with some country boys."

"Annie?" He hadn't heard from her since he left Chicago, but Andrea had asked her to do an update on Jack's story now that he was officially declared innocent.

Detective Hernandez had delivered the news to Jack himself. When Anderson finally made it to Tacoma, he convinced Robbie to tell the truth. Robbie gave a full confession, not just to killing Eric, but of how he'd watched Jack, followed him, and used Mandy to plant evidence.

Hernandez said it was likely he killed Fauna as well, but since she'd been cremated, they may never be able to prove it. Jack knew Robbie didn't kill Fauna, but didn't argue. Some monsters were real, he knew that now, but not many people believed that. He guessed Robbie probably believed it now, but not the detective.

"She thinks we should do a show at the house. What do you think? Jackies camping around the house and shit. Are there hotels in Tacoma?"

"One," he said.

"Thank God."

"Caming, in Moonwood? LIke Burning Man or something?"

"Something like that."

"Not really my style," he said.

"Let's circle back to that tomorrow. We'll be there around one, I'm guessing. I'll call you at some point so you know where we are. And make dinner plans. My treat."

"Sounds great," he said. "I'm excited to see you both."

"Me too. You know, when you left, I thought you wouldn't come back. When I heard you took your cat, I thought, well, another one bites the dust."

"I'm glad you have such faith in me."

"Seriously, Jack, I was worried. We all were."

"Me too," he said.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow. I'll want coffee."

"OK, see you then. You might want to bring a mug, I only have styrofoam." He still hadn't washed out Fauna's cups, and didn't plan to.

She made a disgusted sound. "Fine. Byyeee."

"Bye." For a moment, just a breath, he wanted to tell her not to come. That it might not be safe. But as he heard the line click off, he swallowed that worry and remembered what his mom had taught him.

"Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is."

And he remembered Rose's last words, "Don't be afraid."

But that night, as darkness came early and warm air rushed in from the south to meet with cold air from the north, a storm developed. Lightning flashed throughout the early hours of the next day, illuminating the surrounding images of Rose and the creature in bright, sudden clarity. And in the quiet, in-between moments, when the wind blew debris against the windows and thunder shook the ground, Jack thought he heard movement just outside the window.

He didn't get up to check. Instead, he closed his eyes and thought of other things, of painting, of Annie, who would be there the next day. He really had enjoyed their night together. He wondered if she had too, and thought he would figure out some way to ask her. He fell asleep as the storm moved away.