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House of Sighs Five
FIVESneakers wisped over carpet. Aiden was tempted to reach into the dark, but he held off for the time being, letting his eyes adjust instead. The room sketched into form one shade of blue and pink at a time.Aiden found his partner sitting on the bed with his back to him, lit in neon glow.The quiet hotel room. Quiet, except for a curious suckling sound.“Danny?” Aiden said and took another step. His chest seized when he saw a shape on the far wall near the kitchenette, where the drawers had been opened.Just his shadow.You bloody fool, he could almost hear his mother say, leaning over to scold him as she did when he was a kid, bringing with her a wave of scented lady sweat and bush smoke. Pull your shit together.Aiden longed to have her here with him now, even if only to condemn him. That, at least, would be something. He felt so disconnected from his people, from his land. He couldn’t wait, one way or another, for this Hell to be over. Besides, he did need to pull his shi
House of Sighs Four
FOURThe woman who’d made the emergency call had collapsed at the entrance to another room on Kaaron Brennan’s right. Long, red hand streaks also palmed the door there. Blood lathered the handle, grew fat at the bottom of the knob, dropped to the puddle by the woman’s severed ear.Ploink.Ploink.Ploink.Brennan wanted to cry. She didn’t, and kept her pain inside.Stenciled across the ajar door were two words. It must have taken a caring, steady hand to inscribe that lavender printing so well, even going to the effort to put a little heart above the ‘I’. A mother’s touch, if there ever was one.“Timmy’s room,” Kaaron, who had two kids of her own, read aloud.Later, there would be time for weeping. That time was not now.
House of Sighs Three
THREEAiden came around to face his partner head on, Danny’s silhouette outlined in blue and pink. He could see every hair on his head, the fine peach fuzz along his arms, all of it highlighted in vibrant detail. Seeing him, Aiden thought, was to observe a painting, an oil on canvas titled ‘Man on Bed Holding Baby’.The itsy-bitsy-spider within Aiden’s throat bit down. Muscles tensed. Terror filled him and froze, painful cracks appearing in the ice as he brought his hands to his face. Things like this didn’t happen to people like him. This was something from a horror movie, or maybe, tomorrow’s headlines.I’m a good person, Aiden wanted to scream. I—we—don’t deserve this. It’s gone too far. Take it back.Take it back!Too late for that now. Aiden Bonner was in room eleven of the James Bridge Motor Motel, with the carpet beneath his feet and the stink of copper tainting the air. He was in room eleven with Danny as he brought the child to his face to plant a kiss on its cheek. Reali
House of Sighs Two & One
TWOEat the part that hurts, said the voice of the flies.Eat the part that hurts.ONEOutside, fog yielded to the winter wind and moonlight beamed through. That same rush of air swept over the James Bridge Motor Motel to rattle its eaves, blowing dirt against its windows. The night’s breath, so very much like a sigh, eased the door on the second floor shut. Ungreased hinges creaked, creaked, and trapped the new fathers within.Somewhere out there, time moved on. But not here. Not inside room eleven.
House of Sighs HOUSE OF SIGHS
HOUSE OF SIGHSPROLOGUE:It Begins“There is only one Evil: Disunity.”—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin”ONE HUNDRED AND FOURSuzie Marten was ten years old when she died.She lived to dance. Spinning herself sick in search of rhythm, pirouetting until her toes hurt in the ballet shoes her father bought. They were a perfect fit—and let’s not forget the pink ribbon laces. She scuffed and broke the soles of those shoes with a knife spirited from the kitchen drawer, just don’t tell Mum. Yes, Suzie adored them with the pure love only children can muster, or sustain, for inanimate things. And she was wearing them the day she came unsewn.November 12th, 1995.To Suzie, Sunday mornings were the final love-hate pit stop between freedom and being a ‘big girl’. Suzie despised school and feared her raven-faced teacher, a man who sometimes got so mad he threw things. She imagined h
House of Sighs PART ONE - One Hundred and Three
“PART ONE:Boarding“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which,if persevered in, they must lead . . . ”—Charles Dickens”ONE HUNDRED AND THREE:James Bridge“We have two cemeteries and no hospitals—so drive carefully”, read the sign coming into James Bridge. The population at the time was marked at a firm 2022.Outsiders built homes in its vacant lots, leaving neighbors scratching their heads, wondering what spell The Bridge cast over those not born there. Surrounded by vineyards and two hours northwest of Sydney, it was a highway town passed through on the way to somewhere better.Bobby Deakins, the local mail carrier, laughed when he read books about people in small communities knowing everyone and their business. “Not true of The Bridge,” he often said to his son, a boy defined by naivety. Their town was its own schoolyard—with cliques and bullies, princesses and nerds. People didn’t ming
House of Sighs One Hundred and Two:
ONE HUNDRED AND TWO:Liz“The girl’s nothing but skin and bone.” Laughter, the electric crackle of the wicker chair under his weight. “I’ve seen scarecrows with more stuffing.” Liz shied away, dug her toes into the lawn and closed her eyes. In the dark—the smell of grass and cooked onions, the wind growling until her father’s voice faded away.Safe.At fourteen, her mother measured Liz at five feet against the kitchen doorframe. “God’s stretching you like taffy,” Reggie said, tucking the permanent marker into her blouse pocket. “I’m going to have to put a brick on your head to slow you down.” A shy smile on Liz’s face as her mother ruffled her bangs. “Out you go.” She gestured towards the back door, a hand on the seat of her daughter’s overalls to get her moving, and within seconds Liz was outside with two tennis rackets in hand. She gave one to her younger brother.“Here you go, weed.”“That ain’t my name,” he spat back. “It’s Jed and you know it.”“Yeah well, ‘ain’t’ isn’t a r
House of Sighs One Hundred and One:
ONE HUNDRED AND ONE:SarahSarah Carr ran down her hallway and stopped before a mirror to check her cropped, spiked hair. “Pushing sixty-three but I don’t look a day over forty-five.” Her laughter was a sad, husky sound in this house. Self-affirmations like these got her through the day.Flat shoes thumped the floorboards as she searched for the keys. Sarah considered herself, and with a certain amount of pride, as a hip nanna in high-waisted jeans. The kind of nanna her grandchildren could approach with anything. Nobody would deny her open-mindedness, maybe even calling her a little different by Bridge standards—yet still she wore those shoes. Always. Those sensible flats, as reliable and well-worn as her wisdom.“Do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself,” she told her grandkids, their round, innocent faces staring up at her. “And those aren’t my words.” It was one of her recycled lines, one that left her feeling a little flat, a little well-worn herself. Though she
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