Page 71 of For the Love of Layla

Grace Lynette Curran

May Peace Never Find You

It’s small and unfashionable, closer to a pauper grave than anything. The privately owned cemetery threw a hissy about my inscription, refusing downright to add what I really wanted. At the end of the day, they let me have most of my way, I am a Curran after all. It’s my right, my duty to give ‘my mother-in-law’ a sendoff befitting of her legacy. The grand, proud heiress of the Curran family fortune rotting in a pine box. I didn’t even bother having them vault her in. No protection from water or insects, just like she offered no protection to her son or his true mother. No warm hugs, bedtime stories or kisses. She wasn’t a mother at all. At least I had that… for a while. Liam never had a chance and when he got it, it was ripped from him. I stand, reaching back to Brandon as he shakes the can rigorously, the metal ball inside clanging loudly against the walls. I grasp it, feeling the first remotely positive thing I’ve felt in what feels like a lifetime. The canister is cold in my hand, only half as satisfying as I imagined it would be. The bright red spray paint looks jarring against the white of the snow as it picks up. I toss the can on top of her grave, backing up beside Brandon as we admire my handiwork.

Rapist

I almost smile. Turns out Liam was just as thorough as a child as he was as a man. He documented everything. Wrote down everything. Compiled what he saw since that day. Grace Curran was not only a terrible mother, but she was a rapist too. Her and her boyfriends raped Katla Einarasson brutally over the course of her stay with them. She endured every assault to remain with Liam, to shelter him from it. He found out and because of that Grace banished her from the little boy she loved, only minutes before that little boy shoved her to her death from the attic balcony of a home that had become her prison. The private investigator Liam told to release the file to me was one of them. As of yesterday he’s also being indicted as an accessory after the fact, perverting the course of justice, unlawful abandonment of a body and unlawful captivity. Turns out he survived Grace all these years because he taped it, all of it. Even before he was a participant.

Liam planned it all, every moment, down to the last detail. Every gut-wrenching confession, every shred of evidence he compiled over the years was released minutes before his lawyers received his advanced directive, a tendril of anger slips into my chest.

Did you ever plan to make it out of that house, Liam? Did you even want to? Was it always part of your plan to leave me here to pick up the pieces of your fucked family?

Chapter nineteen

The Ghost of You

OneMonthAfterLiam

Peaches runs past me towards the house, her tail going a mile a minute, I can’t seem to pull my eyes from the dark wood line. The same way I’ve gotten stuck here every single time I step outside. I stare so long I begin to see what I want in those shadows as the sun lowers behind the trees. A tuff of copper hair, the silhouette of a tall man ducking behind a tree.

It’s all lies and rationally, I know that. It doesn’t stop from filling my chest with a dangerous breed of hope.

My body remembers the way it felt barreling through those thick trees, a cold shotgun that did me no good at all gripped in my hand. My heart hammering in my chest ashechased me. The way I hoped he would catch up, mark me in the dirt.

When my eyes finally part from the woods I follow Peaches around to the front of the house. Again I get stuck on the ghost of him. I stare at my midnight black front door, remembering the way Liam spilled a cup of paint onto the porch as he rocked on the latter touching up the trim. He was more than tall enough to reach it without one, but he insisted he would be more precise at eye level. That was after he had relived me of my painting rights. My side of the door looked like a hyperactive toddler had painted it. Him dropping that cup of black paint was the only reason we ended up replacing the whole porch.

By we I mean I came home from work one day and Liam already had it torn up, new lumber stacked beside the house, his hair tousled as he ran his hand through it, looking over the building plans. Not that it didn’t need done eventually, anyway. Towards the end, grandpa was too weak to do much of anything. Before this past month, I thought watching the dementia take over his mind was the worst thing I ever experienced.

That was before Liam…

Even while we were apart, he consumed me. I spent those months believing he hadn’t spared me a second thought. Wasted months our lives being so fucking angry and torn up about it all. He was right here, waiting in the dark, watching me.

Loving me.

After I finally stop staring blankly around my property like a fucking idiot I head inside, popping some of my anxiety medication into my mouth, ignoring the bitter taste of the pill when they sit on my tongue, waiting to be swallowed as I search for a clean glass for water. My only goal for actually bothering to take them is to combat at least half of what I’m feeling. Just half and I’ll be okay for another day.

Not that they seem to be incredibly effective these days.

I run my fingers over the rough edges of the hole that still sits in the wall opposite of my security system, one I never arm anymore. Remembering how his muscles rippled underneath his shirt as he dispatched the system hub that had once hung here. I continue the process the same one I carry out more times than I care to admit, every day. Feeling way too fucking much as I run my fingers along everything he destroyed downstairs. Most of it long cleaned up, but I hadn’t bothered with repairs. The idea of changing it now makes the raw wound festering in my chest throb. I stop when I reach my grandma’s favorite chair, the only thing I attempted to fix. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to feel staring at the lumpy poorly mended seat cushion, but I’m pretty sure it's not supposed to be anything positive.

Guess we’re both pretty fucked, huh?

I glance at the piles of paperwork that line the couch and coffee table. It’s everything he’s ever done. His finances, his properties, writings, notes. It’s dots I haven’t managed to connect yet. A puzzle he left for me. I could speak up to ask for help, tell them I refuse to accept he’s gone. I tried that those first few days and it got me nowhere good. So I switched tactics telling myself over and over he was dead. The freckled body I loved was burned past recognition, which is why I had an involuntary slumber party at Fairview. I could tell them I can’t stop checking everywhere for a sign from him, anything. I could tell them that my heart breaks each time I don’t find one. I could tell them I have a plan.

That I have a year.

A year left to find him, to find something of him, a trace before I follow the Burke family tradition. My grandmother, my dad… I can’t even look at the pictures of my grandpa anymore. Shame fills me, but it doesn’t last long. Nothing does except the hole in my chest. I head upstairs, the only part of the house… of my world I keep free from any trace of what happened. When I’m up here, I’m safe and he’s in the woods again. I rub my hand slowly over Peaches' back as she hops up on my bed, the sheets still crumpled from the last time I laid in them. It's strange and wonderful being up here, the sensation of eyes prickling my skin. The haven I’ve created is a convincing one. Walking over to the window repeatedly as I hit play on that god awful song. It’s only about 7 p.m., I haven’t eaten since breakfast, but that doesn’t stop me from popping in a sleeping pill and peeling myself from the three-day-old clothes I haven’t bothered to change. The visual of the beautiful mahogany coffin being lowered into the ground plays through my mind, the cold air blowing the scent of decaying leaves and roses through the headstones. His standing out among the others with its opulent midnight black oval shape.

Liam Theodore Curran

Beloved fiancé and friend

Founder of Curran Enterprises

June 6th1996—November 17th2021

Madman, serial killer, stalker, master manipulator, dog lover, craftsmen, mediocre gamer, cunniling expert.

---