The driveway was paved with pea gravel, which sounded like buckshot spraying the undercarriage of the car. Bea couldn’t hear anything over the noise and she couldn’t look around, having to slow down and focus to keep on the narrow strip of road, which was only one car wide and meandered between the slender trunks of pines and maples growing so close on either side that feathery branches brushed the windows and tapped on the car roof.
Another two minutes and then the narrow drive suddenly opened up and there was the house, gray stone with a silvery slate roof, tucked against the hillside like fungi in a sea of green.
“It’s really like an inverted two-story,” Patsy said, indicating the attached garage at ground level. “The owner is willing to rent, but she’d really love to sell. She had a buyer last year, but it fell through. She’s very motivated. Very.” She waited for a response from Bea, but when none was forthcoming she laughed, raising a hand to her hair as if to smooth back an errant strand, but the artificial red helmet had been shellacked to her head with enough hairspray to ensure it didn’t shift despite the late summer breeze.
The real-estate agent led the way, clicking up a flight of stone steps that climbed the hillside to the front door. Long grass crept up along the sides of the stone walls, and overgrown rhododendron bushes threatened what little light penetrated the wavy, dusty glass of its ancient windows. Bea could tell it had been vacant for a long time.
“This house was an estate caretaker’s home years and years ago,” Patsy said as she fiddled with the lockbox attached to the heavy wooden door. She took out the key and used it in the door lock, leading the way inside. “The estate still exists, apparently it’s some sort of public trust now, but this house and two acres of land surrounding it were willed to the caretaker years ago. You’d be renting it from his granddaughter.”
The house smelled musty and there was a faint odor of mothballs. Their footsteps echoed on hardwood floors darkened with age as they walked slowly through sparsely furnished rooms. There was an ancient green velvet sofa in the living room with two matching armchairs, the upholstery worn away in shiny spots and the legs of the chairs gouged with deep nicks.
“It comes furnished,” Patsy said. “Isn’t that wonderful?” Was she being ironic? Bea made a noncommittal noise and shifted her purse to her other shoulder. The day was overcast and the thick shelter of trees kept out what little natural light was left, making the house gloomy.
Lights flickered in a few rooms when she flipped on switches. Wallpaper covered some rooms, bubbling and peeling away in corners, while others were painted in faded, insipid shades of yellow or blue. Bea didn’t care about those details. Looking out a front bedroom window, she caught a glimpse of roofline poking through the thick foliage. “That’s the house we passed on the way up,” Patsy said, “an elderly widower, but he’s only here half the year—a snowbird.”
Bea smiled slightly. It was the first truly private place she’d seen. “You said there’s a basement?”
“Oh, yes, the lower level.” Patsy led the way back down the hall to a door in the kitchen, which opened onto a steep flight of wooden steps. The light disappeared as they descended; it was like entering a tomb. At the bottom of the steps Patsy fumbled along the wall and an old fluorescent light flickered on above them, emitting a low hum. The ceiling was low; it felt claustrophobic. Patsy turned left, heading down a hallway lined on either side with rusting metal storage shelves, dust-coated mason jars lurking in the shadows. The hall ended in a T. Large round support pillars had been mounted in the concrete floor to the right and the left. Patsy stepped forward past a door standing ajar. “Here’s the second bath.” She flicked a switch and Bea saw a baby-blue sink and toilet from the seventies and a flimsy shower enclosure with a grimy glass door. Relentlessly upbeat, Patsy said, “A little cleanup, and this could be really nice.”
To the left of the bathroom another door opened onto a utility area with an older-model washer and dryer separated by a laundry tub. To the right, the hallway receded into darkness. In the dim fluorescent light, Bea could just see the frame of a door partially hidden by the support pillar. “What’s that?”
“That’s the fourth bedroom.” Patsy clicked her way across the concrete floor and tried the handle. The door creaked open. Dim light revealed a completely empty room. “Of course, technically this can’t be considered a bedroom because there are no real windows.” Patsy pointed at the one window, set high on the wall, but below grade, which looked onto a leaf- and debris-covered aluminum well.
“You could always freshen the paint,” she added, tapping a dingy white wall. “That would brighten it up a lot.”
Bea circled the space, examining the door that enclosed the bedroom. It was heavy and fit securely in the doorframe, not like those cheap hollow-core doors.
Patsy led them back up the hall and out another door into a musty-smelling garage. She pushed a button on the wall and a light came on as the garage door whirred slowly up and back against the ceiling. “This is obviously an update,” she said as daylight rushed into the gloom. “It’ll be great to have it in the winter.”
The last thing they looked at was the backyard. Patsy led the way back up the stairs and out the kitchen door to the flagstone patio that ran the length of the house. Beyond it the hill had been graded and fenced, tendrils of ivy and overgrown grasses twining themselves between and around the wooden slats, separating a small strip of lawn from the woods that rose immediately behind it.
As they stood there, Bea heard the noise of a car bumping down the road, but she couldn’t see it. “There’s one other house way up at the top of the hill,” Patsy said. “I’m sure you’d never see them.” She swept an arm wide. “Isn’t this a nature lover’s oasis?”
Bea surveyed the loose and cracked flagstones, the overgrown shrubbery, and piles of last year’s fallen leaves molding in corners at the base of each sagging fencepost.
“Well, take some time and think about the houses we’ve seen,” Patsy Duckworth said, jangling her keys. “Or if you want to bring your husband back to look at any of them—”
“No,” Bea said. “I’ll take this one.” She looked around the gloomy yard and smiled. “It’s perfect.”
chapter three
JOURNAL—FEBRUARY 2009
Do you remember the first time we met? I believe that I can relive every detail, but memory is notoriously faulty and our first encounter was over three months ago.
So here is my undoubtedly flawed account: Rain. A cold, steady drizzle from a dingy sky. Umbrellas dripping on the lobby’s marble floor. Two elevators pinging up and down twenty-eight floors. Hordes of half-asleep people waiting their turn. I am wide-awake; it is only my first month at the firm. Before stepping in the open car, I shake out my umbrella. It’s black of course, everything in somber colors because I must compensate for my sex. Everyone trundles on, packed in close like a herd of peculiar sheep.
And that’s the moment I met you. Or heard you. It was your voice first. A clear, low tenor, the first words you spoke to me: “Hold the elevator!” Not just to me, of course. Your voice—commanding, some might say imperious—does not move the other professionals who don’t want to be delayed. The woman behind me shifts impatiently. I hear your footsteps—soon I will know that distinct, brisk walk—and I stick my soaking wet umbrella in the door just as it starts to close.
“Why did you?”
You asked me this recently, but not about our first meeting. We’d just made love in that awful, stale room, our clothes in a tangle on the thin red carpet, bodies and sheets equally sweaty, and suddenly it was that moment afterward when all feeling returns, life rushing back bleating its demands, and my body no longer held your interest. You twisted your wedding ring back on and wanted to know why I’d agreed to meet you. In that moment you wanted me to be responsible, to be the actor, to have pulled you toward what now seemed like purely, grossly animal behavior.
But back to that first meeting. Back to that moment in
the elevator. Why did I hold the door? I can’t see your face, not yet, but I like your voice. When the doors bounce back there is a collective groan from the other occupants of the car. Then you appear, slipping around the corner, dashing on board like it’s the last train of the day. “Thanks,” you say, shaking your wet, blond head like a dog, and then you look directly at me and your perfect, crooked lips part in a smile.
chapter four
SEPTEMBER 2013—ONE MONTH
In the dim light of early morning, the high-pitched voice woke Jill before the blare of the alarm. “Mommy? Is it morning now?” A stage whisper. Jill cracked open an eye. Sophia stood in the doorway, a ghostly figure in a thin cotton nightgown. She’d been up once already, appearing at three a.m., tapping Jill’s face and demanding to sleep with her. Jill glanced blearily at the clock; they’d made it almost to six thirty.
“Yes, it’s morning now.” She opened her arms and Sophia tiptoed to her, dragging Blinky, her well-loved stuffed dog, by one paw. Jill turned off the alarm before it blared and reached out a hand across the wide expanse of their king-size bed to touch David’s bare shoulder. “Wakey wakey.” He muttered something in response that got lost in his pillow, spread across his half of the bed like a large jungle cat, lying facedown with his arms curled above him. He wasn’t a morning person.
Jill wrapped her daughter in a hug that pulled her onto the bed. This was real, here and now, not the recurring, anxiety-filled dream she’d woken from—an endless journey down a narrow, dimly lit hall, heart pounding, a familiar feeling of dread as she approached a closed door at the end. She always woke before opening the door; this time Sophia had woken her before she reached it.
Jill cuddled with her, breathing in the sweet, slightly milky little-girl aroma that was uniquely her daughter’s. In the four months since she’d graduated from the crib, they’d been dealing with Sophia leaving her bed and coming into their room and their bed almost every night. This annoyed David, who’d advocated for the move to the big-girl bed, but not so she could keep them awake with her wiggling. He’d let her stay and snuggle for a few minutes before hauling her, tearfully protesting, back to her own room. While Jill agreed with him that Sophia needed to learn to sleep in her own bed, a part of her cherished the feel of that warm little body snuggled against hers. She held her close, feeling the anxiety slip away, just a little. “Who’s the one and only ever Sophia?”
Sophia giggled. “I am!”
“You are!” Jill peppered her cheeks with kisses and then gave her a loud smooch on her tummy. It was a familiar ritual, a line from Sophia’s favorite children’s book, On the Night You Were Born, and mother laughed along with daughter.
“No kisses for me?” David smiled sleepily at them. Sophia clambered out of her mother’s arms and onto her father’s back, thumping him with little fists.
“Daddy, get up!”
David groaned, reaching behind him to fend her off, which made Jill laugh. She leaned over to give him a quick kiss on the lips and pulled Sophia into her arms. “I’ll get breakfast started.”
Downstairs, Jill switched on the coffee machine and poured her daughter a bowl of cereal, watching her eat it at the kitchen island, little knees tucked under her on the seat of the bar-height stool. Sophia had Blinky beside her and carried on an animated conversation with him while eating. She offered spoonfuls of soggy Cheerios to her toy, dribbling milk across the granite counter.
Jill let the chatter wash over her, yawning and staring blindly out the window above the sink while she reviewed the day ahead. Five appointments including an early photo shoot at an elementary school, but before that she had to get Sophia dressed and ready for David to drop off at preschool, then get ready herself before making the twenty-five minute drive into the city to the studio. She poured a mug of coffee and yawned again as she double-checked her calendar on her laptop. It was a wonder she remembered anything; sleep deprivation was becoming a permanent state. She felt on edge and David was already stressed, working long hours in the struggle to make partner at Adams Kendrick. If they could only get Sophia to sleep through the night in her own bed. And if only Jill could stop having that recurring dream. It woke her almost as often as Sophia.
“Have you seen my red tie?” David called down the stairs, snapping Jill out of her fugue. She sighed and rolled her eyes.
“Which one?” Yelling to be heard. David only owned at least eight red ties and they were always hanging in the same place in the closet.
“Mommy, no shouting,” Sophia admonished, lifting her spoon from her Cheerios and waving it around.
David called, “The one with the little yellow shields.”
“It should be on your tie rack,” Jill called back, and then to Sophia, “Careful, baby, don’t spill the milk.”
“I’m not a baby.”
“I know,” Jill said. “You’re a big girl.”
There was a pause and then David’s voice came again: “I checked, I can’t find it. Did it go to the dry cleaner?”
“Hold on,” Jill called. “I’ll be right up.” She wiped milk off the counter. “Are you done eating?”
Sophia tipped the cereal bowl to show her that it was empty.
“Good. Why don’t you and Blinky go play in the family room while I help Daddy find his tie.”
“Blinky doesn’t want to play. Blinky wants more cereal.”
“Maybe later,” Jill said, taking the bowl from her and sticking it in the dishwasher. “Go play now. You can watch Sesame Street.” She watched Sophia’s little eyebrows dip down as a range of emotions played across the small face. She could see the word “no” forming like a storm cloud, but in the end the promise of TV outweighed the need to assert her independence.
“You can come, too, Blinky.” She clutched her dog and wiggled onto her stomach to slide off the stool. Jill watched, ready to catch her if she fell, biting her lip to keep from offering unwanted assistance. She followed her into the family room and made sure Sophia was safely on the sofa with the TV switched on before she hurried upstairs.
David stood in front of the large mirror in the master bath buttoning a starched white dress shirt.
“Are you sure you checked the rack?” Jill headed into their walk-in closet.
“Of course.” David came in behind her and reached for a pair of charcoal-gray trousers.
His suits were always conservative, the ties only slightly less so. She flicked through the rainbow of silk, rapidly eliminating most of the red ones.
“Here it is.” She found the tie with the golden shields and held it out to him.
He had the grace to look sheepish. “Where was it?”
“Underneath the blue with red stripes and next to the yellow with blue flecks.”
“I checked it twice!”
She refrained from saying “I told you so,” watching as he slung the tie around his neck and rapidly tied it, muttering when he realized it fell too short.
Jill said, “Here, let me.”
He turned from the mirror and she undid the knot, pulled the tie free and started again, deftly re-knotting it.
“You’re a woman of many talents.” David wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her to him.
She relaxed in his arms even as she protested, “We don’t have time.”
“There’s always a few minutes,” he murmured, turning her face up to kiss her. There was a distinct if dull crash from downstairs.
She jerked away. “What was that? I’ve got to check on Sophie.”
David drew her back. “She probably knocked over a toy.” He kissed her lips, moved to her neck.
“Or she’s hurt herself.” Jill broke free and went to the door. “Sophie? Sophia, are you okay?” She could hear the TV, but no little voice answered her calls. “I’ve got to check on her.”
David sighed. “She’s fine, Jill. If she wasn’t you’d hear her crying.” She couldn’t help the flinch, just a slight, involuntary reaction, but he saw it all the same. A stricken
look crossed his face. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” Don’t think about it, don’t think about him, not this morning. She couldn’t meet David’s eyes. “I have to check on Sophie.”
The anxiety was always there, flowing like an underground river through all her interactions with their child. It frustrated David; she knew he didn’t understand it. For him what had happened, happened—the past could not effect the present. David kept all his feelings carefully compartmentalized, those he deemed “pointless” registered and put away. Past tense. For Jill the grief was still active, crouching at the edges of her life, prone to surprise attacks that left her as emotionally raw as if it had all happened yesterday.
Almost worse, though, was the legacy of everything they’d been through: Fear. “You can’t protect her from everything,” David had said more than once, watching her struggle to keep Sophia from any harm.
She ran down the stairs and through the kitchen into the family room. Sophia sat snuggled up on the couch with Blinky, staring mesmerized at the TV. “What was that noise, honey?”
Sophia shifted her gaze reluctantly from the TV to her mother’s face, eyes glassy, looking like some underage drug addict.
“What was that noise?” Jill repeated, looking around the room. “It sounded like something fell over.” The room looked as it usually did, floor covered in a chaotic jumble of Sophia’s toys. Nothing seemed obviously out of place. It could have been one of her wooden blocks falling off something. Jill automatically stooped down to pick them up and toss them back in their bin. “Hey, you know you’re supposed to pick up the toys when you’re done playing.” They were scattered all over the carpet.
Only Ever You Page 2
