Page 45 of Too Old for This
“Can’t.”
Right then, another girl walked up. Her name was Diane, we’d known each other since kindergarten, and her dad was a lawyer for the county. She lived on the other side of town. The nice part.
“Your dad wasarrested.” She said it in that hushed, awful way that was reserved for things that were either evil or sexual. “He went tojail.”
Jail was a big, scary place at the age of eight. My friends and classmates were torn between being fascinated and scared. So was I. But asking about it at home wasn’t an option. My parents had started fighting every night. My father was drinking at home now, too. Within a week, I learned he had lost his job at the auto body shop.
“Your dad isunemployed.” Diane said this in our classroom, where everyone could hear. I knew what the word meant. I don’t know about the other kids, though. At the time, I didn’t realize that the things Diane said were coming from her parents. She was repeating what was being said about my family.
More big words were thrown around, things about payingthe bills, collecting unemployment, being homeless. Other kids joined in, no doubt hearing the same sort of things in their home.
Like I said, the town was small.
It didn’t make sense to me. I was the same Lorena, and I hadn’t changed since my father had gone to jail. I still liked to play with my favorite doll and my favorite stuffed animal, and I still coveted Molly’s fancy pencil box.
But something had changed. My friends didn’t look at me the same way. Judgment is one of those things you can feel before you know what it is. Kids I had known basically since birth had cast me aside. I had been dismissed.
It didn’t end there. Everything got a lot worse when the police were called to my house. My parents had argued many times before, and it never became violent. But one of the neighbors got nervous. Because of my father’s arrest, they thought hemightget violent.
After that, things were never the same in town. The kids at school were bad enough, but they were also easily distracted. The adults were so much worse. The way they looked at me, the way they whispered. I was branded, so to speak. The Lansdales werethatfamily. The one you talked about but didn’t talkto.
Being judged is bad enough when it’s correct. But being wrongly judged is the worst.
Eventually, I started going out to the backyard and using my dad’s batting cage. The anger had to go somewhere. It couldn’t stay inside; that was impossible. The problem was when it stopped working, which I think is what happened to my father. He replaced it with drinking.
I did not.
CHAPTER 25
Perhaps I was wrong about the stalking. While it can be tedious, and sitting in the car makes my body hurt, it isn’t always boring. Kelsie made it feel that way because she never did anything worth watching.
Stalking Detective Tula is different. His ex, Geoff Burns, is a structural engineer. Together they co-parent three children who range in age from around nine to fourteen, all of whom have busy schedules. Today, I follow Tula from the police station to the elementary school, then the middle school, and one kid is dropped off at music class while another one goes to Geoff’s house.
Tula’s active life seems like good news for me. With three kids and an ex-husband, he doesn’t have time for more work or extra investigations.
At least, it seemed that way at first.
Unlike Archie, Tula does not have someone new in his life. Not younger or older, or anyone at any age. This week, he has been alone and without the kids for three nights. He doesn’t stay at home by himself. He doesn’t go to the gym, to the movies, or out with friends. What Tula does is worse.
The first night, I thought he was heading somewhere specific. And he was. He drove from Salem all the way to my house.
Tula turned around at the end of Bluebell Lane, drove backtoward the highway, and headed back toward Salem. He exited twice, stopping at gas stations. But he did not buy fuel. He went inside and talked to the cashier, came back out, and left. I followed him all the way to the Salem airport.
He was driving Plum’s route. The one she would’ve taken from my house to the airport, if she had been alive. And he was stopping at gas stations to ask about her.
Of all the people to be obsessed with, Tula picked her.
Tonight, the kids are back with him, and he’s at home. I can see them through the window. The house is filled with activities and video games and all the kids. Tula claps his hands together, trying to get their attention, before he resorts to grabbing their phones.
From the outside, I can’t tell how upset he is about Kelsie. Or ifherdeath will be his new obsession, replacing Plum’s when he’s home alone.
What I do know is that Tula needs something else to do.
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Obituaries
Kelsie Elizabeth Harlow, 1995–2024
