The House in the Valley

By Nicholle Realle

Four years after the death of her mentally ill mother, Natalie, Jessica Jordan finds herself still alone and unable to move on with her life. Plagued with anxiety and bouts of depression, Jessica becomes concerned with the state of her own mental well-being and fears becoming like her mother.

 

When Cole Sloan moves in down the

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Release date: Apr 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9781738233113

Book preview

The House in the Valley

Nicholle Realle

Copyright © 2023 Nicholle Realle

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 9781234567890

ISBN-10: 1477123456

Cover design by: Sapphire & Stone Photography

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to Hunter and Sky and to all of the endlessly patient caregivers who work with individuals with autism.

CHAPTER 1

I

knew my mother was dead the moment I went through the front door. I don’t know how I knew, but I just did. Everything was the same as it had always been, yet somehow, it was completely different. As I shivered in the darkened hall, I could smell a staleness in the air, like how a place would smell if no one had been living in it for a long time, a place empty and abandoned. A nothingness.

Our house had come to be known as the haunted house at the end of the block and all the local kids were afraid of it. Some of them claimed my mother was a crazy witch who would cast a spell on you if you went into the yard. Some said she liked to chop up children into little pieces and eat them. When the wind slammed the door shut behind me, I felt like one of those scared kids and I wanted to turn around and run right back out into the street to where my friends were waiting for me. Then we would run off, laughing all the way to our nice, cozy homes where everything was warm and inviting and not give the crazy lady house a second thought.

But there were no friends waiting for me, no cozy, normal home.

My mother was in the living room exactly where I knew she would be. Right where she always was. She never sat in that rocking chair of hers without a book in her hand and there were always at least several more stacked on the end table next to her. That night, all her precious books were put back in their proper places on the shelves surrounding her. Of course, they would be.

The mask of anxiety she had always worn was gone from her face, leaving behind a look of what I can only describe as relief. Like she was glad her life was finally over. She had always been so tense and rigid all the time, never relaxed, and it was strange to see her looking so peaceful, so calm. The fear was gone.

My mother had wrapped her arm up in bath towels and garbage bags so there wouldn’t be a mess. Her obsessive nature would never allow that. Or maybe all the coverings were purely for my benefit. So I wouldn’t see it. But I didn’t have to pull back the layers and look to know what was under there, to know what she had done to herself. I knew. She almost succeeded in containing it all too, but a very small amount of her blood had managed to seep through the wrapping and leak off the edge of the end table and onto the floor. It wasn’t much at all, just a drop, but the longer I stared at it, the bigger it seemed to get even though I knew it had already dried. Everything around me had faded into black and white except that bright red drop.

Things had gotten progressively worse with her that last year after she lost her job at the library. She pretty much stopped talking after that. Not that she spoke a whole lot to begin with. I had to pry her out of the living room to eat and bathe and she rarely made eye contact with me anymore. When she did, it was only for a second. Those rare moments when our eyes would lock was the only time it seemed like someone was in there. Like she had just woken up and was actually acknowledging me, seeing me. Like she was about to say something to me. And then she would blink and turn away and be gone again. I would wonder, did she snap out of it for a second? Did the light go on upstairs? Or was it just a coincidence, a random look, the same way she would momentarily glance at a chair or a cup?

Then there was the biting. She used to try and hide it from me when I was younger. I guess she thought I didn’t notice. It somehow calmed her, kept her from freaking out. But after the library incident, she was doing it all the time. Right in front of me too, no longer trying to hide it. And she wasn’t just doing it up her arm where her sleeve covered it. She had started biting her hands. There was a spot on her left hand just below her thumb where there was a permanent indent of her teeth. Her hand had actually started deforming from it. There were times when she would clamp onto herself and wouldn’t let go for hours.

All of her eyelashes were gone, pulled out, and most of her eyebrow hairs too. She had even started pulling out the hair on her head. I’d find little rolled-up balls of it in the bathroom garbage or in her pockets when I did the laundry. The fingernail chewing got so bad they were often bleeding, and two of them on her left hand were practically gone. Her cuticles were ripped off and pieces of skin were missing all around what was left of her nails. Even her knuckles had been chewed raw. Her right hand wasn’t as bad as the left. She usually had a book in her right one.

Sometimes she would do this thing where she would rush frantically around the room and search through a bunch of random books. One after another she pulled them down off the shelves, flipped through them, and then piled them on the floor in towers. There didn’t seem to be any sort of pattern or reasoning for the books she chose and they weren’t the same books every time. It was quite a spectacle. It was like she was searching for something she couldn’t ever find. I don’t know what she was thinking, but with each book she became more and more agitated. She’d get so mad after about six or seven towers, she would cry and bite her hands and hit the shelves, punch herself in the thighs, hit herself in the forehead with the palm of her hand, tug on her hair. If I tried to intervene, she would just get madder and start her process all over again. She would put all the books back and start from the beginning. It was like she needed to complete some sort of a cycle that could not be interrupted. I could only stand back, out of her way, and let her do what she needed to do.

Once she was done freaking out, she would put all the books back where they belonged, sit back down in her rocking chair, and continue reading as if nothing had happened. Sometimes this cycle took ten minutes. Sometimes it took several hours. And the more I tried to talk her through it, to help her, the longer she carried on and the more damage she would do to herself. Her hands and arms were covered in bruises and even abrasions that bled from these violent outbursts. If scabs formed on any of her sores, she would scrape and pick at them so much they wouldn’t heal but rather would become a bigger sore than they were to begin with. There were so many scars on her.

By the end, my mother just sat in her rocking chair all day long obsessing over her books, picking and chewing at herself until I told her it was time to eat or to go to bed. Then she would have her little fit because she didn’t want to leave her chair. She didn’t want to stop reading in the middle of a book. She didn’t want to leave the book behind; she had to take it with her everywhere. And not just one book either. She had to take as many as she could carry. Then she couldn’t concentrate on eating because the books piled on the table beside her were too distracting. Then she didn’t want to go into the bathroom. Then she didn’t want to come out of the bathroom. And then she didn’t want to go into her room. It was such a struggle to get her to do anything and I tried not to yell at her. I tried. She just made me so mad, so frustrated. I didn’t know what to do.

There was one time when I just left her there. She didn’t want to get out of the rocking chair. I was so fed up with her, so tired. I screamed at her and pulled at her. Swore at her. I hit her. She wouldn’t listen to me. It wasn’t the first time I had done that either, and it wasn’t the last. She was crying and biting herself, hitting herself in the head. I desperately wanted her to stop. I couldn’t take her bullshit anymore that day. Just one night. Couldn’t she just go to her bed and shut up and leave me alone for one night?

I left her there. I left my mother crying and hurting herself in the living room and I went to bed. She was still sitting there in the morning, awake, teeth clamped to her hand. I thought eventually she would go to bed on her own. I didn’t know she was going to sit there like that all night. I felt so bad. I always felt bad after. How could I have done that to her? Where was my patience? Why couldn’t I control myself? I didn’t want to hurt her, I just wanted to go to bed without having to do the whole song and dance.

There’s no denying that part of me knew the direction all of that was headed. All the signs were there but I just ignored them and kept telling myself everything was fine, that I was doing everything I could for her. I was doing my due diligence. She was fed and clean. She had everything she needed. I mean, that’s how my mother took care of me, wasn’t it?

As a child I had always been well taken care of, physically. Our house was kept obsessively clean, meals were always prepared on schedule, my lunch was in my lunch kit everyday for school, and she made sure I was properly bathed and my hair was brushed, my clothes neat. But it seemed to me that my needs were just a list of chores she had to check off every day. Like I was just another bullet on the long and pedantic Natalie’s to do list. Wash the dishes. Check. Sweep the floor. Check. Feed my child. Check. That’s where her responsibilities seemed to end, and I guess, so did mine. She had her list and I had my list. No conversation, no words of encouragement, no emotional connection, just provide the necessities. That’s all I had to do and I did that. Check. Wasn’t I a saint? Frickin’ Mother Theresa.

It was somewhere around when I turned fifteen that my list started to get longer and hers got shorter. Slowly, our roles began to switch and I was the one taking care of her. By the time I was seventeen, she had lost her job and I was running the whole show. It seemed like I was becoming the adult and she was slowly reverting to being a child.

When I wasn’t at school, I was working at Cal’s Diner washing dishes. After graduation, they took me on full time. I didn’t have time for friends or a social life. I just had work and her.

I didn’t know what I was going to do with her. There was no plan for the future. I was struggling just to get through one day at a time. When I left the house, I had no choice but to leave her at home alone and I never knew what I was going to come home to. One day I came home and she had baked a whole bag of flour worth of biscuits. Not one of those little bags either. Do you know how many biscuits a whole bag of flour makes? It’s a lot of biscuits. Another time she had turned on the water in the bathtub, put in the plug, and went back to her chair and kept reading. The bathroom flooded and I don’t think she even realized what she had done. I yelled and tried to show her but she just kept turning away from me and holding her book over her face. And once, I came home and found her on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor with a small brush. She was crying. The fumes from the bleach stung my eyes and her hands were red and raw. I couldn’t get her to stop, so I just opened the windows and let her finish. It took three hours. What else could I do?

There wasn’t anyone to help me and even if there had been, things were so bad with her at that point I was afraid to let anyone see her like that. She refused to leave the house, so at least I didn’t have to worry about her wandering off. Many times, I begged her to let me take her to a doctor, but she looked so terrified when I brought it up so I didn’t push the issue. She would have one of her fits if I tried to force her into something and she would hurt herself. It would become a whole … thing that could go on for hours. So, I just let her sit there and hoped she would stay calm and not hurt herself too badly until it was time for bed.

The cutting, however, I didn’t know about until after. They told me there were cuts all over her body, mostly on her stomach and the tops of her thighs. Some of them were older and scarred over but most of them were recent. It was difficult for me to hear that. It never occurred to me to hide the sharp stuff. If I would have known she had been cutting herself, would that have been where I drew the line? Would I have got her help before it was too late? Or would I have just ignored it like everything else? She wouldn’t let me come into the bathroom with her when she bathed and was very adamant I was not present when she changed her clothes. She had so many quirks, I didn’t think she was hiding anything from me. I didn’t think she was clever enough for that sort of thing.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but back then I didn’t even think of my mother as a real person. To me she was nothing but an empty shell—selfish, cold, and incapable of feeling love. I thought she was crazy and retarded because that’s what everyone else said she was. Those were the words they used when they talked about her and I often wished she would just go away so the kids wouldn’t make fun of me anymore. She was an embarrassment and a burden and I hated that I wasn’t like everyone else. Sometimes, I even wished she would die so I could be free of her.

How could I have let it get that bad? I was supposed to be looking after her. I didn’t even try to engage her in some other activity, I just ignored her and left her to obsess over everything. She sunk deeper and deeper into herself and I hid in my room while she cut her own flesh. What kind of person, even a teenager, could allow that to happen? A horrible one. That’s what kind. A heartless one.

I knew she needed help and that I couldn’t care for her anymore. I knew she was a danger to herself, but I just went on pretending it wasn’t happening. Things had already gone too far, so I just hid her away like she was some sort of monster. Maybe I was the empty shell. Maybe I was the one who was selfish, cold, and unloving. I saw how they looked at me when they asked about all the marks on her body, how they judged me, blamed me. And rightly so. Her body was covered in cuts, bruises, and bite marks. I did that to her. I may as well have held the razor blade myself.

Until I was eight years old, it had never even occurred to me her behaviour was strange. I just thought it was the way everyone’s mother was. She wasn’t as bad back then, but I realize now that she must have hidden a lot of it from me. She had a little bit more control over herself. She talked, but only when she was required to, and went out in public when it was necessary. She did the grocery shopping, banking, ran your standard errands, and of course, she had her job at the library. She did all the cooking and cleaning, and functioned well enough to pass off as shy but normal to people who didn’t know her. As long as nothing upset her, things went pretty smoothly. Most of the time I didn’t even know what it was that set her off, so there was no way to avoid the triggers.

We were at the only shoe store in our little town of Sage shopping for my new school shoes when my mother had one of her episodes. When this happened at home she would just go to her room for however long it took for her to get over it and then come back out when she was feeling better. Sometimes I wouldn’t see her for the rest of the day. She would scream in there, loudly, and make these overly dramatized fake cries, saying no over and over again. At the end, it was the only word I heard her say on a regular basis. She would say it even when she meant yes. It was her go-to answer for mostly everything.

This was the first time it had happened while we were out in public. One minute we were looking at shoes and the next she was hiding behind a rack of boots crying and biting herself. I took her gently by the arm and guided her out of the store. I thought I handled the situation quite well and didn’t even really think much about it. These things happen. Just a typical day with my mother. It wasn’t even one of her bad episodes. By the time we had walked all the way home, it was mostly over with. At the time, it didn’t even occur to me to be concerned that people saw it happen. I didn’t realize there was anything there to see. To me, the whole thing was no big deal.

Unfortunately, someone did see it. A girl in my class, Jenna Campbell, was there with her mother the same time as us and witnessed the whole thing. The next day at school Jenna and her friends had come up with a nasty rhyme about my mother being crazy. I didn’t know what crazy even was. I had a feeling her mother might have given her that word.

"Old Lady Jordan, lives down the block.

Old Lady Jordan, dumb as a rock.

Old Lady Jordan, crazy as a loon.

Little Jessica Jordan will be that way soon."

From then on, I was the crazy lady’s daughter, shunned forever, all because one popular girl made it so. The few friends I did have stopped hanging around me like I was suddenly contagious or something. Like they might catch the crazy from me. Until I heard that stupid song it hadn’t even occurred to me that I could become like my mother, that I could get what she had. Not only did the rhyme separate me from the other kids, it pulled me further away from my mother as well. Maybe Jenna was right. Maybe I shouldn’t get too close or I’d get the crazy from her.

It’s amazing how one little thing can change your entire life. One moment, one incident, and everything as you know it is pulled out from under you. One day you’re out shoe shopping, and the next, everyone seems to hate you. Children are cruel and they never forget stuff like that. There was a boy in my grade who came to school on the first day of kindergarten with a runny nose. Shawn Lawrence. He hadn’t even taken his jacket off yet and someone called out the word booger. They all turned to him and pointed and laughed. I guess I did too. He was Booger from day one, and he was Booger twelve years later when we graduated. I don’t think anyone but the teachers called him his real name for all those years. Even he referred to himself as Booger.

When you live in a small town like Sage, you go from kindergarten to Grade 12 with all the same students, so once you’re labelled with something like that, it never goes away. It becomes your entire identity. It stays with you like a disease; it marks you with a big scarlet letter on your chest for everyone to see. Every September when the new school year begins, you think this is the year that they will forget. This is the year you will start fresh, reinvent yourself. Then you get to school and you’re confident and your head is held high. And then Jenna Campbell walks by you and says, Hey psycho. Didn’t kill yourself yet? and you realize the year is going to be the same as the last and you really do feel like killing yourself. You can’t run away from it; you can’t hide from it. It slowly chokes you, giving you enough oxygen to survive, but not enough to really live.

I don’t know how long I stood there that night, in our living room, just staring at my mother like that in her rocking chair, staring at the little drop of her blood on the floor, but at some point I must have called someone for help because they came and took her body away. They talked to me, they must have, but I have no idea what I said to them. The only thing I remember is sitting in my room on the floor hugging my knees, watching the blue and red lights flash on the wall until they went out, and I was left alone in the dark.

CHAPTER 2

A

fter my mother died, I trudged listlessly through the days, each one feeling just like the one before it, like I was in some sort of pathetic Groundhog Day situation. Minus the comedy. Before I knew it, four years had gone by and I was still the same sad sack, barely even aware of life going on around me.

​Every single morning, I began my day by being jolted awake, moist with sweat, my heart beating wildly and out of control, smashing against my chest like it was trying to break my ribs from the inside. My alarm clock from hell. Not exactly the soft, soothing sounds of Journey telling me not to stop believing, but I never slept in. The blankets would often be wound up around me like a strait-jacket and tears would pour down my cheeks while I ripped and pulled to free myself. Practically hyperventilating, I would examine my shaking hands in front of me, making sure they were not covered in my mother’s blood.

​Some days were worse than others. Sometimes I would wake up crying like an infant or screaming like a banshee. Bruises would show up on my arms and legs from thrashing and scratches, most likely from my own nails. I often feared sleep like one would fear a forthcoming violent eruption from an abusive spouse or parent. The night I found my mother would replay over and over again in my dreams, always ending in finding her the same way, or worse. Each time the scene was more horrifying, more painful than the last. No matter how hard I tried to get there sooner, to be there before it was too late, I just couldn't make it in time. I couldn’t stop the blood. It just kept coming, spilling all over the floor. Sometimes I would arrive just as she was starting to cut into her arm and I would be forced to stand there and watch the whole thing, unable to intervene. Sometimes I would be the one holding the razor and I couldn’t stop myself from killing her as she sat there blank faced, staring at nothing.

​Then one day, my pattern was disrupted and everything as I knew it changed. It started out like any other day. By 5:30 a.m., I was awake, upset, and, as usual, questioning the point of life. There was no use in trying to go back to sleep, not once my mind was already racing. So, I got dressed, slipped on my running shoes, and tried to catch up to it. I wanted to put as much distance between me and the house as I could. Distance from the questions and the memories, distance from the living room, and all my imagination made me believe was still in it. So much running, wondering the whole time why I couldn’t leave it all behind, why it kept chasing me. I wish I could go back and tell myself to stop and turn around, to see there wasn’t anything there.

​Living in that town, in that house, was not helping me in any way. Everyone knew me in Sage and I could feel their eyes always on me, pitying me, feeling sorry for me. Laughing at me. The crazy lady song echoed in the streets when I walked down them, or at least it felt like it did. It was like I wasn’t even my own person, just a personification of a mentally unstable woman’s suicide. I was an incident, a tragedy. No body, no mind, no soul, no name. Not even a real girl. Just a dead body in a bloody room. One time I overheard these two women talking in the next aisle over at the grocery store.

​You know that girl with the long ponytail we passed at the deli counter? She’s that girl. The daughter of that woman that killed herself. Girl found her like that. Blood all over. Can you imagine?!

​Oh, is she? I’ve seen her before. I knew she seemed a bit off.

​Oh yes. I hear she’s a bit loony toons herself.

​Seriously? Loony toons? A bit off? I didn’t even know that lady. How the hell did she know I was off? I mean, I was a little off, I guess, but that was not the point. Had I become the new crazy lady? Were the local kids afraid of me now? Was that all I was ever going to be? It felt like the whole damn town was a frickin’ high school and I was still the dork everyone was making fun of. Even Booger had gotten married. I wonder if his wife called him Booger.

​That kind of small-town gossipy crap was the reason I had absolutely no confidence in myself. I had actually begun to embrace this person I believed I was inevitably becoming. My resistance was slowly breaking down and I figured if I couldn’t beat it, I may as well just let it happen. Since my mother was dead, what would the kids around town have to do if there was no resident witch/crazy lady? I had an important job to do. Scaring kids, making memories. That was something, right? Generations of children would have stories to tell their kids because of my mother’s and my contribution to the town. You’re welcome, Sage.

​Because I couldn’t see myself as anything but the pathetic lump everyone had said I was, I had no idea how attractive I actually was. My long, dark hair was kept tied back into a ponytail all the time and I didn’t own a curling iron, a blow dryer, or makeup, and I wouldn’t have known what to do with them if I had. I could have been the belle of the ball, but it hadn’t even occurred to me to even try and fix myself up a little bit. I thought I was ugly, not worth the effort. Drawing attention to myself was something I didn’t want and I was perfectly content to be overlooked and unnoticed.

​When challenged, I was quickly defensive with witty verbal retorts, with sarcasm that bordered on rude, but when I was cornered, I always ran and avoided confrontation. Never stood up for myself. When I was forced to talk with people, I only said what was needed and despised chitchat. I always felt like a victim, nobody likes me and all that, and I always wondered what everyone’s problem was. I guess if I hated them first, then I wouldn’t feel rejected when they didn’t like me. Looking back at it now, I think maybe I was the one who had the problem with everyone else. If I would have been more likable and actually tried to get to know people before I wrote them off, maybe things would have been different.

​Our house was at the edge of town, right where the pavement transitioned into gravel. The local kids had a bike trail through the woods not far down the road and very early in the mornings it was completely abandoned. This was where I used to run. The wildlife and the trees didn’t stare at me, they didn’t judge me or whisper mean things about me. They didn’t put me on the spot with awkward questions or suffocate me with pity I didn’t want. It was the only place I could just relax and forget about all the shitty stuff.

​The worn, gravelly trail was lined with tall, pitchy jack pines and bright green poplars with the occasional birch tree mixed in. Whenever I see the hanging paper of a birch tree flapping in the wind, it always reminds of one of the few things my mother told me when I was little. She said they were pages from a book not yet written. I really loved that. It’s one of few great moments we had and I remember waiting for her to say something else really great, but she never did.

​I loved the way the morning sun found its way through the fluttering leaves, forming shafts of flickering light that rebounded from one foliar surface to another like nature’s disco ball. I can still recall the refreshing feel of the cool spring air against my damp skin while I moved effortlessly through the trees. I was in great shape back then. I still am. I really have to push myself before I run out of steam. At the time, I had already been working as a carpenter in town for four years. I took up the trade right after my mother’s death. It’s hard work, physical work, and I liked that about it because it tired me out and it gave me a place to vent my anger. There’s nothing like hammering the crap out of something when you’re mad. And, as it turned out, I ended up being pretty good at it. It also gave me a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. What could I say after a shift at the diner? I made thirty-six cheeseburgers today. Who cares. Building something was tangible. I had something to show for all my hard work.

​After my pathetic attempt at a funeral, at which hardly anybody showed up, our neighbour, Greg Willis, offered me a job. He owned his own carpentry business. I think he offered me the position because he was just trying to be nice in an awkward situation and didn’t know what else to say to me. I’m so sorry … um … uh… I don’t think he actually expected me to show up. In fact, I’m not so sure he was even looking to hire any new people. But I did show up and I dug right in. I did whatever I was asked without question or complaint and he seemed to appreciate my hard work and dedication. He actually patted me on the back and said, Good job. They never good jobbed me at the diner. All I ever heard from them were complaints.

​The power tools were a bit intimidating at first, but I wasn’t afraid to try them and I worked hard all day without tiring. I quickly realized how much I was enjoying myself and I knew I had found the job I wanted. It was much better than emptying the hot deep fryers and scrubbing the floors at the diner. It kept my mind and my body busy and it kept me out of the house for long hours. It also tired me out enough to make falling asleep at night just a little bit easier, which was a nice little bonus.

​Everyday I ripped things apart, taking out my angry energy on wood and nails, replacing the old with something new, building beautiful homes, making other people happy, while my house, much like my life, continued to deteriorate and fall apart. There were loose hinges and doorknobs on my interior doors that I was totally capable of taking care of but I just didn’t bother. Missing tiles on the kitchen floor, broken siding hanging off the house, peeling wallpaper in the kitchen, all of it left untouched. I hadn’t even replaced the burnt-out light bulbs in the hall and in the vanity in the bathroom. I slept in my bed, ate in my kitchen, and showered in my bathroom like an automaton just going through the movements but not really feeling anything. Moving through the house, I was like a racehorse with blinders on. I didn’t want to see any of it.

​Within a few months of working for Greg Willis, I joined the apprenticeship program and ended up working for him for the four years required to obtain my red seal. I had just recently finished the program and Greg was about to retire. That meant I had to find another job for myself. That’s when Greg gave me the idea to start my own company. I called it Jessica Jordan Developments. There were only two