And some of it I brought on myself by agreeing to do a TV interview. I’m not really sure what tipped Norton residents over to utter dislike maybe it was Sam’s unintentional but ongoing feud with a bunch of drug-dealing but influential hill folk. If not for the fact that town itself has closed ranks against us. Now we do it as a family once every other week, and I dare to think things are. I started the kids in individual therapy for a few months, then together, while Sam and I met with another counselor as a couple. I want them to learn how to handle it now, not hit eighteen as protected little china dolls.Ĭounseling has done all of us some good. Their lives are going to be incredibly difficult given our family history. Neither of them will want to get up, and still less head to school, but they’re used to facing unpleasant situations. They have to be up at seven, but an extra hour of sleep to a teenager is like ten to me. I’ll text and let you know when I’m on my way.” I want to let my kids sleep. I can’t trust her to hear the alarm and get Connor up too. You want me to wake up Lanny when I leave?” “You going to be home before six?” he asks me, and I sigh. They’ve spent half their lives now with the horrifying knowledge that their father was a serial killer, and with the equally heavy burden of having people unfairly hate them by association. My son, Connor, is too adult for his age at thirteen and too young for it at the same time. My daughter, Lanny, is at a difficult sixteen-feels-like-twenty. Sam’s also well aware that he’s one of a very select group of people I trust with my children. I checked.” My kids are my life, and he knows that. Just getting some paperwork ready for the day,” he says. “You’re not going to tell me?” He sounds amused. It’s three thirty in the morning, and I’ve been sitting in this chilly rental car for three hours, not counting a quick dash into the convenience store down the road for a pee and a giant coffee I’m going to regret. “Right now? Exactly nothing,” I say, and yawn. I hear the purr in the back of my throat. A little bubble of warmth explodes inside me as I hit the button and lift the phone to my ear.

There are only six people in the world I take calls from on this number. When my personal phone rings, I check the caller ID.

Stillhouselake