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Karen can't help but ask the same question over and over. She sits there in the plain white room, eyes vacant, looking back at her in the mirror. Who knows how long she's in there, a plastic cup of water sits on the table.
What did she miss?
It's not the most important question. It's not what the police will ask when they return. But it's been haunting her since she found them. Rattled in her head, as her shaky hand dialed 911, as they drove her down to the station, as she watched their bodies be carted off.
"They need to be together," she said, emotionless and matter of fact. The detective raised a brow, and Karen raised her hand. Pointed to the body bags being rolled away towards separate vans. "They're family. You can't separate them. Gracie won't want that... She loves her father, let her go with him."
They ignored her request. She'd stared as the two vans drove away. They took her to the station soon after, and left her in this room. She hadn't been arrested, but she can't worry about that. Not when...
"Mrs. Chasity." The detective from earlier steps into the room. She pulls out the chair from across Karen, sits down with a weary look. "How are you feeling?"
Karen drags her eyes to meet the woman's face. Blinks, slow and tired. She should be in bed by now. She'll have to make breakfast for Mark and Grace tomorrow. It's school night, she needs to tuck Gracie in and make sure her bag is ready.
"I want to go home."
The detective sighs, nods and shuts her eyes for a moment. Her hand reaches across the table, closes over the top of one of Karen's resting on the table. "I understand this is a lot. We won't push you any further than you can go. You just need to answer some questions for me. Can you do that?"
She shakes her head, tuts and snaps her gaze back to the mirror. Her hair is a mess, she needs to have it ready to go for tomorrow. If she's getting up later, she'll need all the time she can to make breakfast. "My daughter is waiting for me," she says. "I really need to go."
"Your daughter?" the detective questions. "Mrs. Chasity... Do you know why you're here?"
Of course Karen knows why she's here. Because of that mess she found in the garage. That's why she called them in the first place.
"I understand the mess and the urgency, but I can't wait around here forever. Has Mark called for me yet? He'll get worried, I'm not usually out so late alone."
The detective swallows. Leans back in her chair and stares at Karen for a long moment. With a sigh Karen reaches for the plastic cup, takes a short sip of the water. She looks back at the detective expectantly.
"I think it's best we discuss this tomorrow. You're tired, Mrs. Chasity. I'll have one of my officers drive you home." The detective stands, and Karen follows after her. She lets herself be guided through the room, a gentle hand pressed to her back.
"My husband can pick me up," she says with a smile, shaking her head as they step out into the hall. "I don't want to bother your officers."
The detective nods. "Of course, Mrs. Chasity. Let's go outside, you could use some fresh air."
Two days later Pastor Scott comes to visit.
"I'm... Sorry, I don't mean to be crass," he says, holding her hand between her own. "I'm not sure what your budget is, but we have a few different plans. You can have Grace and Mark laid to rest together."
Karen nods. She likes the sound of that.
The bed has been cold on one side. She wakes with her hand resting across Mark's pillow, the smell of his cologne lingers in the air. Yesterday morning she sat in Grace's room for a long while. Pulled a dirty sweater vest, forgotten under her bed for some time. Karen holds it in her lap now, hands resting atop it.
"They'll like that," she says with a smile, encouraged by the look Luke gives her. "They both have the same favorite color. Blue. Could I incorporate that too?"
Luke nods, a soft, humorless laugh leaving his nose. More of a huff, and he squeezes her hand softly. "Of course. We can do whatever you'd like, Karen. Whatever Mark and Grace want."
He offers to stay the night after tea. She rinses their cups in the sink, shakes her head with a bashful laugh. "Oh, Luke. I have a husband, what would people think if I were letting other men stay in my house?"
Luke smiles. It doesn't quite meet his eyes. He leaves her alone with a hug, a promise he'll be back soon. They have the details to iron out anyway.
The smell of daisies follows Karen around. A light blue fabric bound tight around her hands as she cooks dinner, cleans the house, takes off her make up for the day. It's the scent of her old perfume, she remembers Grace sneakily using it a couple times.
It doesn't smell like Grace. The sweater. It smells like Karen.
What does Grace smell like?
Karen sits in her room again, trying to figure it out. Sweet, her daughter was a sweetheart, of course she smelled sweet. Her love of flowers and lying in meadows. Grace had loved family picnics when she was a kid, it's been too long since they've done that. Earthy, too. Her daughter had never been afraid of getting her hands dirty—digging up worms and running back to Karen and Mark with hands and clothes and her face covered in muck.
But a specific scent doesn't come to mind. She sniffs the pink pillow sitting on her bed. Daisies hit her again. Each item of clothing in her closet, old halloween costumes, hats and coats and the rug on the floor.
Did Grace ever smell like anything?
If she did, Karen doesn't think she can remember it.
She falls asleep that night with blue fabric stuck under head, hand resting on the cold pillow next to her own. Daisies hang around her.
Karen thinks she might be sick of the smell.
They are buried together. Everyone watches Karen at the funeral as if she might break, might sob or scream or react. She remains still. It's the only way she knows how to be. Her head held high, face serene, hands folding neatly together.
Mark had always been loud. Made for the stage, with bright eyes and a beautiful voice and an infectious grin. He said “I love you” easily, and said it everyday. To Karen, to Grace, to his friends at church and their neighbor. He hugged Grace with open arms, would tell her everything would be okay.
"I love you, sweetheart," he would say. "To the moon and back."
Grace would grin. "And I love you with the fury of a dozen stars, dad!"
But Karen's love was quiet and gentle, more of a whisper than a shout. It’s how she was raised. All through her childhood it was drilled in her head, "don't be too loud, that's not ladylike," and "girls dont yell, Karen, they talk."
She didn't say I love you. She would brush Grace's hair everyday, until she grew too old to tolerate it—insisted she was a big girl now, that high school kids did their own hair. Grace was fourteen the last time Karen touched her hair. She didn't say it, but she hid it in her actions. Baked into packed lunches and home cooked meals, pressed into the clothes Karen ironed every morning, stitched into the fixed holes of Grace's favorite sweaters. She muttered it, soft as she tucked Grace in for bed.
Perhaps she thought being too loud would shatter everything she had built. Karen wasn't the type to regret. She cut off her family to protect Grace, and Mark, and herself. She worked hard to keep up their facade. Karen was a mother, a better mother than her own had ever been. That had been the most important thing.
That she could be a good mother to Grace,
She let Grace be loud where she couldn't. Held her as a baby as she cried and wailed, softly rocking her in her arms, with softly hummed hymns and gentle touches. She never told Grace her laugh was too loud, let her yell and scream and speak at volumes considered impolite. Even at church, with the glares when Grace would get too excited about a sermon, she kept her mouth shut. A gentle hand pressed to her daughter's shoulder. The ghost of a touch, any words left unsaid imprinted onto the palm of her hand.
I love you.
That's why she doesn't cry at the funeral. She is a good daughter. Dutiful and quiet, because women do not yell. Women do not scream. They don't cry, they don't let their family down. She slips back into the label of daughter too easily.
Karen leaves soon after the burial. Back home, where she can lie next to the ghost of best friend, and hug her daughter. Where everything is the same as it had been before the mess. Home. She built this home, it's safe, it belongs to her.
She won't let it go now.
Karen Chasity doesn't like to reminisce. She's never been the type of person to carry regrets. Of course, she's made many mistakes, but dwelling never helped anyone. Besides, her life had been happy. She had a beautiful daughter, a loving husband. Finally, a family of her own.
She could stomach abandoning her true love and marrying Mark, she was harsh and tough to protect her family. She cut off her parents and her siblings, she hurt people. None of it mattered, not when she had home. When she had a family.
Much of her energy had been focused on teaching Grace how to be safe, teaching her good values. Home schooling focused on the bible, on HIs teachings, on sin and purity and how to stay safe. She taught Grace so much in those first fourteen years, loved her from a distance for the next four.
But, did Karen ever keep a hold of what really mattered?
She wasn't sure, as she lingered by Grace's bookshelf, which of the many spines belonged to her favorite book. There were no photos in her room, Karen isn't sure if her daughter had friends. Did she have friends and Karen just didn't notice?
What did she miss?
Those last few weeks Grace had seemed so happy. She and Karen had picked out her homecoming dress together, blue. Just like hers and her father's favorite color. Karen told her to have fun, to be herself. Grace had been flirting with the poor Jagerman boy before he passed, she had come home with smiles and happy humming.
Was Karen not looking hard enough?
The questions plague her. She walks, and she walks, and she finds herself standing before Grace.
The values she taught mean nothing now, because she no longer has her daughter. Karen will never see her face again—the face of her baby girl. She saw that face every day. She didn't pay enough attention to the details. To the way she smiled less, the things she was hiding.
She focused on protection, she worked so hard to keep her family safe, and now she stands at her daughter's grave. The grave of her daughter, decimated with red spray paint.
Murderer.
Karen loved quietly.
She can say I love you as many times as she wants here, but it's too late. It was too late eighteen years ago. Karen has always been quiet, and so she stays silent. She places a bouquet of daisies there, attempting to wipe away the paint with the sleeve of her cardigan.
It doesn't work.
What more is there to say when your daughter is dead and she never got to know you loved her more than anyone or anything alive?
Karen Chasity. Mother, wife, Christian.
Karen Meyer. Daughter, sister, Christian.
Karen. Alone.
She returns to her home. To the home she built, because it is safe and it never changes. If she doesn't leave, then she can't regret. Karen doesn't regret.
Mark and Grace grin at her each day on the mantel. Her hair grows longer, grays from the roots first, her hands wrinkle and then her face. Their faces remain frozen. Locked in time. The lawn grows and grows until it's more of a jungle, because it was Mark who always trimmed the lawn. Flowers wilts and die out there—it was Grace's job to water them. Newspaper clippings stick to the wall of her bedroom.
Murderer. Injustice. Evil.
Grace's school portrait in black and white. It watches her sleep.
The house is haunted. Haunted by the memories of a young girl finally growing into her own. With a heart too big, and a capacity to love more than anyone. Cheeky smiles and sweater vests, and undying faith. Haunted by a father who would do anything for his family, who loved loudly and proud—even as he hid his truth to protect those he loves.
Haunted by a woman who wanted nothing more than to protect her family.
Karen grows older, but the house remains the same as years pass. A snapshot of a time lost long ago. A tomb of her own making—once filled with childish laughter and singing and dancing, eggs and bacon for breakfast, piano and prayers and love. Now dead silent.
The Chasity family. Untouched ghosts of Hatchetfield.
Her hand shakes around the pale blue phone, eyes locked on her family lying before her.
Gore. Viscera. Blood seeps across the concrete, sticks to the bottom of her pumps and stinks of metal. Her daughter stares at her with a blank stare, and Karen can do nothing but stare back. She shivers and waits, ring, ring, ring, in her ears.
Mark's hand lays across Grace's back. A light touch, gentle and loving. As if he'd been protecting her. Crimson leaks from his eyes, splattered across his glasses and mouth wide open in an unfinished scream. His body is twisted, contorted into an unnatural position along the garage floor.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
"Hello this nine-one-one, what's your emergency?"
"They're dead," Karen gets out, breathless and empty. Her heart hammers in her chest, her throat dry and head spinning. "My family is dead."
"Ma'am did you say dead?"