The Bone House - Brian Freeman [46]
'This isn't just about Mark,' Terri confided, speaking louder as the wind roared and covered her voice. 'You understand that, right?'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean, it's about Glory, too. It would be bad with any local girl, but it's worse because it's Glory. We all felt sorry because of what happened to her.'
'What happened?' Hilary said.
Terri stopped. 'You don't know about the fire?'
'No, what are you talking about?'
'Oh, hell.' Terri checked her watch again.
'Tell me,' Hilary said. 'Please.'
'I'll give you the short version. It was six years ago. Glory was ten. You know that Delia has an old place over near Kangaroo Lake, right? Well, she and the kids lived right across the road from a house owned by a man named Harris Bone. Does that name ring a bell?'
Hilary thought about it and shook her head. 'I don't think so.'
'I'm surprised. I figured it would have made the papers, even in Chicago, because it was so horrible.'
'What happened?'
Terri sighed. 'Harris Bone was married to a local girl named Nettie. She was a native from a prominent family, the Hoffmans. They go back decades here in Door County. It was kind of an odd match. Harris was an only child from Sturgeon Bay, lived with his mom above a little liquor store there. Not exactly a catch, but he was a good-looking guy, and I think Nettie wanted a mama's boy she could push around. She was a piece of work. Always treated Harris like crap, but it got ten times worse after she wound up paralyzed in a car accident. She got angry at the world and took it out on Harris. I'd hear their kids talk about what it was like in the house. The arguments. The screaming. Not pretty.'
'What does this have to do with Glory?' Hilary asked.
'Glory stumbled into the middle of it on the wrong night,' Terri replied. 'She found a kitten in the Bone garage and began sneaking out at night to feed it. One of those nights, Harris Bone came home while Glory was hiding in the garage. The son of a bitch doused the entire house in gasoline, inside and out, lit up the place like a torch. Nettie and the boys died. Harris sat there and watched them burn. No shame, no regret, no guilt. I remember Sheriff Reich saying it was like he was in a trance.'
'What about Glory?'
'Glory was in the garage, and the fire almost got her, too. She crawled out through a hole in the wall, but she'd inhaled a lot of smoke. She spent weeks in the hospital. She made it, but that's the kind of thing that does as much damage to the head as it does to the body. People always said the fire made Glory the kind of girl she was. Wild. Reckless. Promiscuous. Like she was running from the past.'
Hilary found it hard to breathe. Terri was right. It would have been bad with any girl, but she understood now what it meant to this community to lose Glory. She remembered what Delia had said in Florida. I almost lost her once, and I thought I got a second chance.
This was the girl that everyone thought Mark had murdered.
'I'm sorry,' Hilary murmured. 'Tresa never mentioned it to us.'
'Well, I'm not surprised. We all treated it like it had never happened. I think the idea was, if you didn't talk about it, it didn't exist. Everyone was trying to spare Glory. Who wants to remember listening to a family burn to death?'
'Did she go through therapy?'
'I hope so, but people aren't big on that around here. It's like a character flaw if you have to see a shrink.'
'It must have been hard on Tresa, too,' Hilary said.
'Sure it was. She became the forgotten sister.'
Hilary shook her head as she considered the wreckage of the Fischers and Bones. People were fragile things. You scratched the surface and found pain everywhere. When something bad happened to someone, it had a ripple effect, washing away other lives as the circles got larger.
The two women continued walking slowly toward the school building. They were already late for the next class.