The South Side Tour Guide by Shelter Somerset

Author:Shelter Somerset [Somerset, Shelter]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter 20

MASON and Olivia remained sealed behind their bedroom doors. They ignored Harden’s knocking until he insisted they answer. Curt, murmured responses indicated they continued to breathe. Harden allowed them to sulk without finishing their dinners.

Downstairs, Andy lowered himself to his knees and wiped the spilt plum juice from the linoleum. He figured bleach would take out the stubborn stain. He walked for the laundry room past Harden, who was rinsing the dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher. He seemed shaken beyond anything Andy had ever seen of him—seen of anyone. A man marred from old battle scars that had emerged to assail him again.

They remained detached and quiet throughout the evening. Any words Andy longed to express wedged somewhere between his mind and throat. What might he say? Harden’s flimsy attempts to smile and act as if nothing had happened exacerbated Andy’s torment. Shadows replaced the setting sunlight that had filtered through the windowpanes and fixed the furnishings into rock hard uncertainty.

Over and over, Andy rehashed in his mind the ugly scene that had played out on the driveway. Harden’s fighting Lillian to keep her from the kids had both shocked and excited him. But he could not speak his thoughts. The silence stood impenetrable, like a steel wall. With the swish of shuffling feet and the occasional opening and closing of the refrigerator, Andy also feigned he’d witnessed nothing more than a movie. A terrible and ghastly tragedy.

By nine, Harden, weakened and battered, pulled himself upstairs by the railing and uttered a pathetic, “Good night, Andy.” Andy remained downstairs alone, sitting at the cold and austere kitchen table, sipping beer without tasting it.

As a brother, Andy had experienced the disappointment and sadness of losing a sister. But Lillian’s drug addiction had ripped the soul from her children and ex-husband. Her sickness weighed on Harden more than any of them, for no more reason than he was cognizant of its awfulness and had stood helpless against it. He had resided cheek to cheek with the demons.

The last time Harden and Lillian had visited Streamwood, four years ago, Andy had realized something was wrong. Unable to hold a person’s stare, Lillian had seemed agitated, distracted. She had lost discernible weight and looked wild-eyed, and had smoked her mentholated Virginia Slims to excess. The children seemed to sidetrack her more than concern her. At that time, he’d chosen to reject the warning signs.

Harden had telephoned Andy a year later and confessed he too had understood the symptoms but refused acting. He’d gone to work each day while Lillian had gotten high in her “happy place” in the barn loft. She’d begun an open-door policy with paying tricks she’d met on the Internet (some traveling from as far as southern Minnesota), often while the children were at home. That’s when Harden had butted heads with reality and intervened.

Neither Harden nor Andy had been successful in convincing her. She’d refused treatment and had run away. Two weeks later, she’d turned up in Streamwood, disheveled and pitiable.

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