The Haunting of Brynn Wilder: A Novel

by Wendy Webb

  Our eyes locked, and I couldn’t look away. My grief had thrown me overboard yet again, and I was searching his eyes for a lifeboat.

  “Feel like walking down to the lake?” he asked. And there it was.

  “I would love to,” I said, pushing myself out of my chair. “I’ll meet you downstairs in five minutes.”

  I hurried to my room and closed the door behind me. I blew my nose and splashed water on my face before wetting a washcloth and holding it over my eyes. This simple act always comforted me when I was a little girl, and it did the trick now, holding back the flood of tears that lived so close to the surface. I looked at my image in the mirror. Get it together. I took a deep breath and held my own gaze. You’ve got this.

  A few minutes later, Dominic and I were walking out the door into the chilly sunshine. It was early in the season, but even in the warmest months of the year, and the coldest, Wharton was oddly temperate.

  We walked down the hill toward the water, passing by shops and restaurants that were opening their doors. Shopkeepers looked out at us and smiled, holding up hands in greeting. As we walked past the bookstore, Just Read It, Beth poked her head out the door.

  “Hi!” she called out. “Brynn, right?”

  “That’s right,” I said, smiling at her. “This is Dominic. He’s one of the other summer lodgers.”

  Beth hurried out onto the sidewalk, hugged me, and gave his arm a quick squeeze. “I’ve seen you. Glad to finally meet.”

  “Me, too.” He smiled and put a hand on her arm. “We’re headed down to the lake to contemplate the day. Care to join us?”

  “I’m opening the store, but thanks for the invitation. I’ll take you up on it sometime.” She gave my hand a squeeze. “Have a good day, loves.”

  We walked down the hill toward the lake, then settled on a bench in a small lakeside park near the city dock. The dozen or so slips were filled with boats, most big enough to brave the ocean-size waves this lake could kick up, if it was of a mind to. We sat for a while, just watching the water lapping at the rocky shore.

  I didn’t want to talk about my mother. I had that memory locked up tight, as I usually did. But there was something else I was curious about.

  “LuAnn told me she shut up one room for the summer,” I said. “Do you know what that’s about? Remodeling, maybe?” I had visions of workers and banging and noise.

  Dominic shook his head. “Not remodeling. She didn’t feel right letting the room out to people this year. Out of respect. That’s what she told me.”

  A feeling of dread washed over me as he said it, but I couldn’t explain why. I shifted to look him in the face. “What happened?”

  He cleared his throat. “I’m not sure it’s my story to share, but since it’s a police matter now, I guess it’s public knowledge.”

  “A police matter?”

  “Yeah,” he said, rubbing his chin. “You know that LuAnn doesn’t have the place open in the winter for a few months, right?”

  I didn’t know that. I had made my arrangements with her for the summer via email, and it just didn’t occur to me she might be elsewhere.

  “She goes to Hawaii,” Dominic said, a smile curving his lips. “She told me she likes the leis.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “She’s incorrigible!”

  “One of a kind, for sure,” he said, chuckling. “She’s a great lady. Anyway, when she opened the place back up in March, she found a woman had been living there over the winter. And, I’m sorry to say this, but the lady died in one of the rooms. Room number five, I think she said. So now she’s got it shut up for the season.”

  I took a quick breath in. “Oh no.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, it was pretty awful for LuAnn coming back and finding a body.”

  I couldn’t imagine. My stomach tightened into knots. “Who was it?”

  “Unknown. The police have no leads.”

  “Homeless, maybe? Or a squatter?”

  “LuAnn has no idea who it was,” he said. “The stranger thing is, nobody in town saw anyone coming or going during the winter. That’s what LuAnn told me, anyway. No lights on. No footprints in the snow. Nothing to indicate that anyone was living there. But apparently, from the condition of the place, she had been there awhile.”

  A shiver ran through me. We sat in silence, each with our own thoughts. I was contemplating the circumstances that would lead a woman to break into an empty inn and live there with no lights to illuminate the darkness.

  “No wonder she doesn’t want to rent out that room,” I said softly, making a mental note to talk to Kate’s husband, Nick Stone, the police chief in Wharton. Maybe he knew something.

  Dominic pushed himself up from the bench and stretched. His arms and chest were massive, and I couldn’t help staring.

  “Gotta start my day, for real this time,” he said, looking down at me with a slight smile on his face. “Seems like you’re okay to start yours, too.”

  A wave of warmth ran through me as I realized this had been deliberate. He had been giving me something else to think about other than the loss of my mother. I smiled back at him.

  “Thank you,” I said. “It was a nice morning.”

  He smiled at me. “The first of many, I hope.”

  As Dominic walked back up the hill toward LuAnn’s, I stayed by the water. Peace, the water seemed to be saying to me. Peace.

  On my way back to my room, I noticed Jason and Gil’s door was open. A woman about thirty years old was sitting at the table just inside their suite. She was reading some papers, but looked up when I passed and gave me a smile.

  “You must be Brynn,” she said, gathering the papers into a neat pile and pushing her chair from the table. “I’m Rebecca. Jason’s daughter.”

  “Oh!” I said. “Hi!”

  “My dad told me you’re living down the hall for the summer.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I met your dad and Gil just after I arrived yesterday. They’re great.”

  She held my gaze and gave me a sad smile.

  “Since you’re living so close, I wanted to make sure you know what’s happening. I mean, the guests come and go, but you and one other person are going to be here all summer, too, right?”

  I furrowed my brow and squinted at her. “Right,” I said, drawing out the word. “What do you mean, ‘happening’?”

  She sighed. “Okay, so they haven’t told you.”

  I shook my head. “Told me what?”

  “Do you have a minute?” she asked, her eyes welling up with tears. “Maybe two?”

  She was a stranger to me, but in that moment she looked so fragile and vulnerable, as though she might break into a million pieces, that I wanted to hug her. I walked toward her and took her hands into mine. “Of course. What’s this about?”

  The tears came, but she talked through them as though her face weren’t wet and her shoulders weren’t shaking.

  “I took care of her for as long as I could,” she said, the words flowing out quickly, in a long stream. “But I have three kids, all under the age of ten. I mean, at first it was fine. Wonderful, even, to have her there. But she has started to . . . well, she tends to wander. I’ll turn my back for a second, and she’s out the door, down the block.”

  Rebecca took a deep breath. “I love her, but I can’t do it anymore,” she said, grasping at my eyes with hers, seeking . . . what? Understanding? Forgiveness? But, why? Why seek forgiveness from a stranger?

  We stood there for a moment, looking at each other. “Who are we talking about?” I asked finally.

  “My mother,” she said. “She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s five years ago.”

  I took a quick breath in. “I’m so sorry,” I said to her, tears welling up in my own eyes. I knew all too well what it was to lose a mother. But mine was fully herself until she closed her eyes for the last time. I couldn’t imagine how devastating and terrifying it would be to watch your mother slip away mentally, as though her very essence was draining, drop by d
rop. Maybe not even knowing you at the end.

  “It was time to start thinking about nursing homes,” Rebecca said, her words coming in one long stream. “So, we started looking at places, but Dad just couldn’t . . .” She wiped away tears. “Dad just couldn’t bear putting her in there. He wouldn’t have it.”

  “Sure, I get that,” I said, still wondering what, exactly, she was trying to say to me.

  “So, she’s moving in here,” she said finally.

  My reaction must’ve surprised her because she smiled. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “But Dad wanted to do it. He wouldn’t have it any other way, and Gil was right behind him.”

  My mind was going in all directions at once. “They’re taking in your mom.” It was a question and a statement at the same time. That’s what Jason and Gil had been trying to tell me.

  “She’s already here,” Rebecca said. “She spent the night last night.”

  The voice in the hallway, I thought back. Not a ghost after all. I peered beyond Rebecca into the suite. “Is she here now?”

  Rebecca shook her head. “She didn’t have a very good night,” she said. “I spent the night here, too. She didn’t know where she was. It unsettled her. So today they took her on the boat. The water always relaxes her.”

  She let out a heavy, world-weary sigh. I knew that sigh.

  “I’m going to head out,” she said. “I think it’s best if I leave before they get back. She might think she’s going home with me.”

  The look on her face tore my heart to pieces.

  “You’re a very good daughter,” I said to her, my voice gentle and low. “You took her in and did all that you could, for as long as you could.” I might have been speaking to myself.

  She grasped my hands and looked into my eyes, and I saw my own pain of the past three years reflected back.

  “I look forward to meeting her,” I managed.

  A few hours later, I did. I’ll never forget the moment I met Alice. I was sitting downstairs at the bar talking to Gary before people started arriving for happy hour.

  Jason walked through the front door with a woman on his arm, a beautiful woman in her sixties with blonde hair cut in a chic bob. She was slender, wearing khaki slacks and a floral sweater, a bright scarf wound around her neck. She looked for all the world like she had been plucked from a society magazine.

  But behind that beauty, I saw something else. Fragility. Even fear. She seemed to be trembling, deep inside. Her enormous blue eyes searched the room, looking this way and that.

  I took a quick breath in. Could it be? Was she the woman in my dream the night before? A chill seemed to wrap itself around me as I looked into her frightened, searching eyes.

  CHAPTER SIX

  She couldn’t be the woman I had dreamed about. It had to be a coincidence. I had never seen her before. I tried to cast my mind back there, to the beginning of that dream, but the memory of it was already floating in a watery haze, disappearing into the ether. I couldn’t say for sure if I had dreamed about Alice or not.

  “Brynn!” Jason called out a little too cheerily, and waved. He turned his eyes to Alice. “Honey, come and meet Brynn.”

  Alice looked up at Jason and smiled. “Of course,” she said.

  I pushed myself up as Jason led her my way.

  “Honey, this is Brynn,” he said. “She’s living down the hall this summer. In the Yellow Lady room. We’re neighbors!”

  She took her eyes off him for a moment to glance at me. “The Yellow Lady,” she said.

  “Brynn, this is Alice.”

  She looked me in the eyes then. “Brynn,” she said. “I probably won’t remember your name.” She laughed and shook her head. “I have trouble remembering things lately. But I’ll remember your face. I’m good with faces.”

  My heart swelled, and I chided myself for feeling uneasy when I met her. So many people were uncomfortable around those with this terrible disease, as if it were contagious. I made up my mind right then not to be one of them.

  “It’s okay if you don’t remember my name,” I said. “I’ll remember yours.”

  She unwound her arm from Jason’s and took my hands. “That’s a deal,” she said. “I have a feeling we’re going to be friends.”

  “I think so, too,” I said, squeezing her tiny hands, taking care not to squeeze too tightly.

  “We’ve had a fun day,” Jason said. “I showed Alice around town, and we took a quick boat ride.”

  “I like the lake,” Alice said. “And there’s a lot of good shopping in town, isn’t there?”

  “I’ve been meaning to check out more of the shops,” I said.

  “Let’s do that together sometime soon,” Alice said.

  “Hon, it’s time for your nap, remember?” Jason said to her, putting a hand on her arm.

  She gave him a mock scowl and smiled at me. “He’s such a mother bear,” she said, her face glowing.

  “I’ll see you later, Alice,” I said.

  Jason steered her toward the door and looked over his shoulder at me. “I’ll be right back,” he mouthed.

  I nodded and sank back down on my barstool. Gary appeared and set a glass of wine in front of me.

  “Oh, the tangled webs people weave in their lives,” he muttered before disappearing back into the kitchen.

  A while later, Jason joined me. “Gil’s upstairs paying some bills while Alice has a nap, so I’m off the clock for a minute.” He took a glass of wine from Gary and smiled at me, rather sheepishly, I thought. “So. Life. It’s complicated, huh?”

  Simple words with profound meaning. “I met your daughter. She filled me in.”

  “We have two kids, actually, Bec and Jane,” Jason said, taking a breath in and exhaling. “I know this might seem a little bit weird, and truthfully, it is.”

  I shook my head. “Life is weird,” I said.

  He smiled and went on. “I was married to Alice for thirty years. We were high school sweethearts. Went to the same college, got married even before we graduated. We had a wonderful life together, we really did, raising our kids, starting and growing our careers. It was awesome. She was awesome. But.”

  His eyes held mine, and I saw tears well up as he ran a hand through his thick white hair.

  He shook his head. “When our kids were grown . . .” He sighed.

  “You had to be who you were.”

  He nodded. “Back when we were growing up, gay wasn’t . . . well, you know. It wasn’t accepted. I didn’t deceive Alice, not really. I loved her. More than you can imagine. I still do. I wanted a life with her. I wanted us to make a home together. Children. We were really happy. But I always knew. And when times changed . . .” He sighed. “I was fifty-five years old and thought, if I’m ever going to truly be who I am, I have to do it now.”

  “It must’ve been really hard.”

  “It killed me to tell her. It killed her, too. But she said part of her already knew.”

  The pain in his face broke my heart.

  “We were cordial, if a bit distant, for a few years,” he said. “We’d talk about the kids and the grandkids. We’d spend holidays together as a family. When I met Gil, though, it all changed. We didn’t see each other as often.”

  He took a long sip of his wine. “She called me when she got the diagnosis. I was totally devastated.”

  He wiped his eyes with his napkin and heaved a long sob.

  “It took me a while to get my head around it. That Alice wasn’t going to be Alice anymore. That she would diminish, little by little, until she was gone. I couldn’t quite grasp it. I thought of her, our kids. What we would all be losing.”

  I reached over and took his hand in mine.

  “I felt so guilty. Like I’d caused it somehow.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  He shook his head. “I think I went through the five stages of grief in one afternoon.” He managed a chuckle.

  “I took her to our favorite vacation spot, St. Thomas—with Gil’s bless
ing—and we spent a week laughing and crying and enjoying the beach and the water and the food. We talked about our kids and how great they turned out. We talked about our past. We talked about our grandkids’ futures. We talked about us.”

  He stopped for a moment, taking a deep breath, as if the words themselves were heavy.

  “I could see the signs of the disease creeping to the surface even then. My kids had been telling me something was wrong with her for a few years, but I was in denial. Total denial. I shrugged it off, telling them it was nothing, just the forgetfulness of age.”

  I knew that denial well. When my mom was diagnosed with stage four cancer, I had the firm belief that she’d beat it. I could not imagine the disease winning, not against the fortress that was my mother.

  The utter terror of knowing that the person closest to you in the world had a death sentence hanging over their head was a powerful motivator for wrapping yourself in a comfortable blanket of denial.

  “I totally get that,” I said. “You have to see it for yourself. It has to be undeniable before you’ll let yourself believe it.”

  He nodded, wiping tears from his eyes.

  “How was she then, during that week? You said spending time with her like that convinced you the diagnosis was true.”

  “It wasn’t anything much that she said or did, although there were some incidents,” he said. “It was the look in her eyes. Fearful. Lost. As though she was slipping off a cliff and trying to hang on to something, but knowing she’d ultimately fall.”

  “She has that same look now,” I said. “I’ve seen it.”

  He nodded. “She kept trying to pay for things with the room key. Once, it’s not such a big deal, I mean, those key cards do look like credit cards. But over and over?”

  “What’s the old saying about dementia? If you forget where you put your keys, you’re fine. If you forget what your keys are for . . .”

  “Exactly right,” he said. “Spending that week with her told me it was true. She had Alzheimer’s. Oh my God, it’s hard for me to even say the word. All I wanted, Brynn, was for her to have a happy life after we split up. Maybe find someone. Travel. Do the things we always wanted to do when we retired. And this death sentence—crueler than a death sentence—is what was waiting for her. Goddamn it. It’s unfathomably cruel.”