Home Is Where the Bodies Are

In the small Wisconsin town of Allen’s Grove, an elderly woman named Laura Thomas lies dying. Her eldest daughter, Beth, has moved back home to look after her in her final days. Beth resents receiving no help from her two younger siblings. Her sister Nicole is unreliable due to having a drug addiction, while her brother Michael became a success and moved to the West Coast. He hasn’t been back home in seven years.

Laura loves to watch the sunset from her window. On this particular afternoon, Beth sits beside her and realizes that Laura won’t live to see another one. Just before she dies, Laura speaks of Beth’s father, who abandoned the family seven years earlier. With her dying breath, she gives Beth a warning. “Your father. He didn’t disappear. Don’t trust...” (17). Laura never finishes the sentence, leaving Beth to ponder what her words mean.

Michael is dreading the return to his family home. He thinks that his sisters and mother live a dead-end life, and his sisters fault him for moving away and making his dreams come true. Michael says, “I feel no ill will toward my sisters, but I know they resent me. I outgrew them. I got out” (19). He has returned because he doesn’t believe either sibling is practical enough to deal with the funeral or the estate.

The narration returns to Beth as she sits beside her mother’s dead body, pondering her last words. As far as Beth knows, her father disappeared one night, and her mother was briefly a suspect. “They had been married thirty-seven years, and when he left, all he offered were five parting words: Laura, I’m sorry. Love, Brian” (21). After Brian’s car was discovered abandoned at the Mexico border, the police called off their search.

Beth’s reverie is interrupted when Michael enters the room. He apologizes for not getting there in time to say goodbye to Laura. Beth is angry and accuses him of never being there. He agrees sadly. Beth thinks, “I wanted a fight, someone to blame, someone to be mad at. But little brother has outmatured me” (24). Beth leaves the room to call her daughter, Marissa.

While Beth waits for a call back from her daughter, who is stationed at a naval base in South Korea, she sips a glass of Seagram’s 7 whiskey. Laura considered it a special treat, but Beth hates the taste of the cheap liquor. When Marissa returns the call, the conversation is strained; the mother and daughter have lost touch. Marissa expresses sadness that Laura is dead and makes a half-hearted offer to come home, but Beth knows she won’t return for the funeral.

After Beth hangs up, Michael enters the kitchen and drinks some of the whiskey, which he also judges to be horrible. Cathy, the hospice nurse, will arrive soon to collect the body. Meanwhile, Michael tries to reconnect with his sister. Beth announces that her marriage fell apart after their dad disappeared. Likewise, her relationship with her daughter soured. She says, “I was so fixated on trying to find him that I lost everything else in the process” (32). Beth then receives a call from the local police. Her sister, Nicole, was assaulted and is now in the hospital. Beth and Michael go to pick her up.

The narration shifts to Nicole in the hospital as she waits to be released. Given her risky life choices and substance abuse disorder, this isn’t the first time she’s been beaten and robbed. She has entered rehab multiple times but has always relapsed afterward. Her right arm is in a cast from a previous injury. Her ribs are bruised, but none are broken. Nicole was on the 29th day of her methadone treatment when she got the news about her mother. Unable to cope, she went in search of drugs on the street. Nicole enjoys writing and once had dreams of becoming an author. Like her sister, she hasn’t moved very far in her life. “Day twenty-nine. I was one day away, just one day” (41).

Beth and Michael drive Nicole back to Laura’s house, where their mother’s body has already been removed. Michael has bought some better scotch, and the siblings drink together. Nicole shouldn’t have alcohol, but nobody objects under the circumstances. The three reminisce about the home movies they made in the 1990s. Nicole suggests that someone should try to find their father to let him know about Laura’s death.

Beth thinks of her mother’s final words but doesn’t confide the message to her brother or sister. Nicole urges the others to sell the house, and Beth suspects her sister would use her share of the money to buy drugs. The three retire for the night, and Beth thinks, “Our bedroom doors close, and I make sure to lock mine. I worry about sleeping under the same roof as my sister. I know she can’t be trusted” (51).

Michael comes to Nicole’s room after Beth goes to sleep. He gives his sister an iPhone as a gift. Nicole recalls a time when she was a child and frightened of monsters under the bed. Michael brought his sleeping bag into her room and declared that he would protect her. As an adult, she reflects, “He closes the door behind him, leaving me to fend off the monsters on my own. But they’re not under the bed anymore. They’re in me” (54).

The following morning, a lawyer arrives at the house. Beth is surprised that her mother made a will at all. When the three children gather, lawyer Craig Davidson announces that Beth will receive most of Laura’s possessions: “‘The house and furniture go to Elizabeth, and so does this.’ He retrieves a small silver key and a Post-it Note. ‘The information for the lockbox is written down on the paper’” (58). No one knows where the lockbox is. Laura also stipulated that Michael would get most of their father’s belongings, but the girls may each choose two items. Laura’s personal belongings are to be divided equally among the children. She also indicated a desire to be cremated and have her ashes spread over the family property.

The children are shocked to learn that their mother kept two checking accounts. Over the years, Michael sent her $132,000 that she never spent. The money is supposed to be donated to the Missing Persons Foundation.

After these details are settled, Davidson produces three sealed envelopes and distributes them to the children. Beth recognizes her mother’s handwriting on each one. They are not to be opened until after the funeral.

The siblings go about the process of bringing boxes of items down from the attic. Because of her broken arm, Nicole is sorting the contents in the living room. In the “Memories box,” she finds several VHS tapes, “[e]ach one labeled with dates and short descriptions, like Michael’s 16th birthday, Christmas 1999, and Kids playing outside Summer of 1990” (64-65). Nicole urges the others to take a break and watch a tape with her.

The story shifts to Laura’s point of view in 1999 as she records yet another home video. She is determined to preserve her family’s past. After her father and sister were killed in a car accident when she was 15, she realized that life is fleeting. Laura also keeps journals and reflects, “Whatever I don’t capture through video and photos, I write about in journals, key points of each day that I cherish and even those I don’t” (68).

Laura films teenage Nicole as she sits writing. When Laura asks to hear the piece, Nicole criticizes her own work harshly. Her mother advises her to believe in herself more. Just then, an odd girl named Christie comes to the door, asking to see Beth. Beth wants her mother to make an excuse for her, but Laura encourages Beth to be kinder to Christie. Michael arrives home at this point, and Laura announces pizza night as a celebration for the kids’ last day of school. Laura thinks, “I want to live in the now—even if it is dimly lit, and we’re barely scraping by. Because I know now is guaranteed, but tomorrow may never come” (76).

Nicole notices her siblings’ reactions as they all watch the younger versions of themselves and hear their mother’s voice during the recording. The screen goes blank before the scene shifts. The timestamp now reads June 15, 1999. Laura continues filming after dark, looking for an owl she hears nearby. Instead, she finds her husband, Brian, with a flashlight in his hands. His T-shirt is smeared with blood. Brian is panic-stricken and orders Laura to turn off the camcorder. She believes she does so, not realizing that it’s still filming.

Brian leads Laura down to the creek that runs through their property. He stops by the Highway X bridge. Laura screams when she sees a body in the water with its “[h]ead cocked to the right. Lips blue and bloated. Skin pale as freshly fallen snow. Damp blond hair streaked with mud and blood. Wet clothes, a pair of blue jean shorts and a Britney Spears T-shirt” (79). Brian explains that it was an accident. When Laura urges him to call the police, he resists. He also won’t give her any details, telling Laura that it’s better if she doesn’t know what happened. They both realize the camcorder has captured their entire conversation, but Laura says she will record over the footage later.

In the present, Nicole says: “The screen goes black. June 15, 1999, is in the past again. But I know it won’t stay there” (80).