Chapter 11
A Mother's Wrath
"What on earth were you thinking, Fern?"
Fern sat in the passenger seat while her mother drove, her hands clenched around the wheel so tightly that her knuckles were bulging through her skin. She was driving Fern home, pushing the speed limit so that she could make it back to Ivy Drive in time to do her job.
"I wasn't going to bother anything," Fern said. "You have to believe me."
"I don't think you were up to anything malicious, but what would possess you to break into a house in the first place?"
"I—"
"I wasn't supposed to be the one running that open house today. You're very, very lucky that I was the one who caught you. I don't think you realize that. It could have easily been another agent instead of me."
Fern opened her mouth to speak, but her mother cut her off again.
"What if the neighbors had seen you and called the police? Did you even consider that?"
Of course, Fern had considered that, along with several other things. But her mother, or any Karabagli agent, for that matter, popping in unannounced was a scenario that had never entered her mind.
I got too confident in my abilities. My confidence led to arrogance, and my arrogance made me stupid. That was my mistake.
"Not really, no," was all Fern could say in response.
"Why did you break in?" her mother said again.
"You're going to think this sounds bad, but…just to see if I could."
"You are absolutely right. I do think that sounds bad—really, really bad, Fern."
"But there's more to it than that. I spent some time researching lock picking for a story I'm working on, and I thought I'd try in out on an unoccupied place to see if it worked."
This had not been Fern's reason for breaking into the Baxter cottage, but it had not exactly been untrue, either. She had first honed her lock-picking skills on a cabinet in her father's office, with the Baxter cottage being the real challenge. She had played it cool for Buster, but in all honesty, she was surprised that it had actually worked.
Thanks to the experience, she felt she would be able to perfectly describe what it was like to pick a lock under pressure, which was an added bonus. This was not the first time she had done something like this. Over the past year, Fern had gradually grown accustomed to doing practical research for her stories. She felt it added something to them if she could relay her experiences through her descriptions rather than having to rely solely on her imagination to do it. She owed a lot to things like sneaking into a mausoleum or chancing a peek into the funeral home embalming room for providing her with information she never would have known had she not adopted this method. It just made her writing better, she thought.
"You know, for the sake of realism," she added timidly.
"There you go again with your stories…" Her mother shook her head. "That's all they are, Fern—just silly little stories. It's all made up! Who cares if you can actually pick a lock?"
I care.
Fern said nothing. Writing was the most important thing in her life. Her mother had long been dismissive of it, and now here she sat, insulting it outright. Fern felt close to tears, but she would have to wait until she was in her room for that.
"Real-world actions have real-world consequences. If you mess around with something you have no business messing with, it can turn around and bite you. Do you understand?"
Fern had more or less stopped listening to her at this point and was waiting for her to stop talking so she could give a perfunctory response. "I understand. I suppose I'm grounded now?"
"And let you stay inside your hidey-hole, right where you want to be? Not a chance. You are not to set foot in your room until after dinner, and you had better find ways to occupy yourself in the meantime that doesn't involve your computer."
Her mother's big idea was to ban her from her computer so she would not be able to write? While that certainly sucked donkey, as Francine liked to say, Fern did not think it was the end of the world. She could already see loopholes in her mother's stipulations that would still allow her to write longhand, if she got creative enough.
"So I'm un-grounded. That's my punishment?"
"I never said that was your punishment. That's going to be your day-to-day life until I say otherwise. No, I'll have to think of a different way to punish you. But make no mistake, you will be punished. Are we clear?"
Her mother was already forcing her to do things she did not want to do, which sounded like punishment to Fern. How could she reserve the right to issue further punishment on a TBD basis? That hardly seemed fair, but Fern was not going to argue.
"Yeah."
"Did you just 'yeah' me?"
"I meant 'yes'. Yes, we're clear."
Fern sighed and looked out the window at the passing houses as they continued their journey home. If there was a silver lining to be found in this situation, she supposed it was that Buster was still free to investigate as he wished. And given what he had just revealed to her about the photo of his mom, she sincerely hoped that he would not stop until he got the answers she knew he deserved, even if he was afraid of them.
Yes, she thought. At least there's that.
It had taken a good while for Buster to get his bearings inside the nursery closet. When he was sure that Mrs. Walters was well away from Ivy Drive, he slowly crept back to the kitchen door. He gave a look toward the Schott residence, then to the McDowell house. When he was sure that no one was watching him, he bolted toward the thicket, pausing only to wipe his fingerprints from the door handle using the tail of his I'M WITH STUPID shirt.
All the way home, he kept his head down and his pace even. He could not help but feel guilty after Mrs. Walters had unleashed her fury on Fern. He was sure that it had not suddenly stopped once they had gotten into Mrs. Walters's car. He had learned in his travels that the Brits had a great word for that kind of parental fury: bollocking. It just seemed to say so much. He imagined that Fern was getting a right bollocking in Mrs. Walters's car right about now. He hoped that she would be okay.
He was also nervous about his part in it. Would Fern rat him out? He did not think so, not if she had a choice. Otherwise, she probably would not have left him behind like that. Still, he had found it hard to make eye contact with people on the street as he traveled home, sure that they would see something in him that screamed "DIRTY CRIMINAL".
It had not felt dirty while he was doing it. The cottage had, after all, been his home at one point. It had felt like home while he was there. And the memories had been…beautiful? There was a word that was foreign to him, certainly not part of his regular vocabulary. But that was what they had been. Well, until that one ugly memory had shown up. Then it was as if someone had thrown a wrench into the gear works of a complex machine, bringing it to a smoking, screeching halt. He was feeling more and more confused as he thought about things.
Just like with the ducks. He was sure that there had been ducks, but he had hard photographic evidence that there had actually been bears in the room instead. How could he have mixed that up? It seemed like the more he discovered, the less he understood. It was enough to make his head hurt.
The condo was in view now, a sight for sore eyes. He picked up his pace, aching to finally be inside the safety of his own home where he could at least drown his sorrows in chicken pot pie. He opened the door and called, "Mom?"
"Kitchen!" came her reply.
He made a beeline toward the kitchen while he spoke to her. "If it's not too late to make a dinner request, I'm craving your chicken pot pie. Not the fancy curry one. The classic, with lots of peas. And if it's okay, for dessert I'd like—"
The words caught in his throat as he entered the kitchen. Whatever hunger he had been experiencing was completely gone now, replaced with a fathomless sinking feeling in his stomach.
His mother stood at the kitchen table, her hands clasped firmly atop the back of one of its chairs. She wore a serious yet unreadable expression as she looked down on the table, on top of which lay the wedding album, opened to the page where Buster had left off the night before. The placeholder, the photograph of his mother in the mint green robe, lay neatly above the album. It was a stark contrast to the vibrant, healthy, and happy images of her that lay below.
"Well, Buster," she said evenly. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
I am super dead, he thought. She's going to kill me, reanimate my corpse, then kill me all over again.
"I'm waiting." She had crossed her arms now.
Buster's first impulse was to begin begging for his life, confessing everything that had transpired over the past few days. But a feeling rose up inside him and overrode his panic. It was indignation.
"You snooped through my room?" he said incredulously. He did not know that this was a thing she did. He thought that, since he had gotten old enough to bathe and dress himself, his mother had respected his privacy, all of his privacy. But if she had been going through his things all along, then she had likely come across everything he had ever hidden in his top bunk, including some particularly embarrassing things once he had reached the twelve-year mark or so. He shuddered to think about it. His mother looked anything but guilty over it.
"I got a call from the furniture store today," she said. "Guess whose bed is no longer on backorder? I'll be taking an early lunch tomorrow so they can deliver it at eleven sharp. I thought I would go up, remove the bed linens, and clear out your room a bit to help speed things along when they get here, when what should I find?"
This was just like in the cop procedurals, when the detectives had the perp in the interrogation room, circling him like sharks. Intimidating did not begin to describe it.
"Mom," he began in a small voice, not knowing how he should follow up.
"Where did you get this? You went into my storage unit and took it, didn't you? Why?"
"Do you mean why did I go into the storage unit, or do you mean why did I take the album?"
"Both," she said dangerously.
He needed to think of something and fast. But he was not particularly gifted at talking his way out of situations, especially situations that were this dire. He decided to take a page out of the book of the most talented detective he knew and play on his mother's sympathy. He sent up a silent prayer.
Fern, give me strength.
And he proceeded.
"If I had known it was going to upset you, I wouldn't have done it. It's just—well, I was at the Sugar Bowl one day, bored out of my skull. But then Ladonna and Arthur brought the kids in while they were baby-sitting, and Bud Compson saw the keys on my table and asked about the Superior Storage key ring. I'd never paid attention to it before, but I got kind of curious and decided to check it out. You know, because I was bored. I peeked into the storage dealie and was about to leave when I saw the album and the pictures, and—and I just couldn't help myself, okay? I had never seen pictures of you and Dad together like that. I kept the album so I could look at them for a little while longer. I was going to put everything back, I swear."
Elements of truth, woven into a new story and served fresh to his mother. If she wanted to ask Ladonna, or Arthur, or even Bud, they all would be able to corroborate everything he had told her. Fern would be proud.
His mother considered this confession for a moment, and then her stern expression softened. "Oh, Buster, sweetie," she said quietly.
She crossed over to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "I understand how it must feel for you, coming across something like that. Of course you'd be curious about it. To be honest, it was a bit of a shock for me as well when I saw it today, even after all these years, and in your room, of all places. I'm sorry if I sounded angry when you got home. I'm not angry. It's just been an emotional afternoon for me."
"No, it's okay. I'm sorry, too, Mom."
She pulled him into a hug that he gladly returned.
I am getting away with this and it's so awesome.
"Now," she said, "time to discuss your punishment."
"My what?" Buster pulled away from her. "Punishment? What for?"
"For going into my storage unit without my permission."
"But that—that doesn't make any sense. You can't punish me for something I didn't even know I wasn't supposed to do. Wait—did I say that right?"
"Really?" she said in mockingly shocked fashion. "That's so weird, because I thought being your mother would allow me to do exactly that." She switched to a normal tone. "You're grounded, of course. For two weeks, starting now. The usual: house arrest. You know the drill. Come straight home from school and get your homework done. Use the landline phone to check in with me at work, first thing. No exceptions."
Two whole weeks? he thought. For nothing?
She went back to the table. She put the photo back between the album pages as she closed it and tucked it under her arm. "Oh, and I need your keys," she said, holding her hand out expectantly.
Buster unclasped the carabiner from his belt loop and handed them to her. His mother worked the condo key off the loop and handed it back to Buster.
"The locks will be changed this week, so be extra careful not to lose that one in the meantime," she said, counting the rest of the keys as if she were making sure they all were still there. "You can use my card to order a pizza—whatever you want, okay? I'm going up to have a bath and then to bed."
"Bed?" He was genuinely concerned now. "It's not even three in the afternoon."
"I know, hon. But I'm getting a monster headache. I'm exhausted, and tomorrow's a big day." She kissed him on the cheek and headed for the stairs, only to stop halfway up when Buster said, "Mom? This punishment…it just doesn't seem fair to me."
His mother thought for a moment and said, "Life often isn't, dear. You should probably learn to deal with it." She continued her ascent, leaving Buster feeling uneasy, helpless, and completely alone.
To be continued…
