The House of Deep Water by Jeni McFarland

Author:Jeni McFarland [McFarland, Jeni]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

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Beth is watching television one night, the first time all week she’s had the living room to herself. Whatever happened to her father last week has slowed him down; he’s been spending more time sitting on the couch the past few days. But tonight, he is out in the garage, working. Dan is at band practice, and Jeanette is upstairs doing her homework. Beth flips through the channels, not really paying attention, until a news story catches her. Gilmer Thurber and his sister went on trial today. The screen shows a house, the Thurber house, sitting dark and empty in the October gloom. The shot switches to a reporter outside the county courthouse. In the background, Gilmer is led inside in handcuffs.

Seeing him again causes Beth’s brain to grow fur. She grips the remote so tight it creaks. Too many memories crow at her; she shoves them down into the well with Eliza. Let her sort them out.

She changes the channel, but all of the local stations are covering this story. She turns the television off and sits in silence. The news is nothing but violence and depravity these days. She tries to remember a time when it was different, when the world was less messed up, but she can’t. She just wants to sit in silence and not think. But she can’t sit in silence; upstairs, she hears Linda talking, a low buzz that vibrates the ceiling. Jeanette laughs, and before Beth can think about it, she’s on her way up the stairs. She finds Jeanette and Linda in the master bedroom, Linda’s bedroom, bent before the old mahogany vanity. They each have an eyeliner pencil in one hand, an index finger pulling down their lower eyelid. Beth watches her daughter watching Linda apply makeup. Linda’s hair is curled, thick from prenatal vitamins. She’s having trouble seeing the mirror, careful not to lean her bump of a belly against the vanity. Jeanette runs the pencil along her own eyelid, her eyes flicking back and forth between her reflection and Linda’s.

“Give that to me,” Beth says, startling Jeanette so badly she pokes her eye with the pencil, tearing up. When Beth takes the eyeliner from her, she realizes she’s still holding the TV remote.

“I was just trying it out,” Jeanette says simply.

“You can wear makeup when you’re in high school,” Beth says.

“What, are you going to cut my eyelashes off, too?”

“Go to your room,” Beth says. “And hand over your cellphone.” As Jeanette slaps her phone into her mother’s hand and huffs past, Beth says, “I don’t want to hear your stereo, either.” Beth waits for her door to slam, but of course it doesn’t. Jeanette is too reserved for that.

“Leave my daughter alone,” Beth says.

“She’s been left alone plenty.”

“You sure have all the answers, don’t you?”

“Your daughter is lonely, Beth. I was just trying to cheer her up.”

“Jeanette has lots of friends,” Beth says, but the look Linda gives says she knows it’s a lie as much as Beth does.

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