“What does he want to know?”
“This is a conversation that you have to have with him, Fern. It’s best that I not be present, nor should I interfere. Go on,” she said, stepping back. “He’s waiting . . . anxiously.”
I rose slowly. Why anxiously? I wondered. Why didn’t she want to be there? Interfere with what?
“I didn’t do anything, Mummy,” I said. It was the child in me. I regretted it immediately, because it sounded so guilty, so immature.
“It’s not possible to live this life without having your own secrets, Fern; but a mature woman, or man, knows when she or he must reveal them, or some of them. Dark thoughts, actions, can be so heavy they weigh down your very soul. The only relief comes with honesty.”
What was she talking about? Was it because she had realized Dillon had been in my room? Had she told my father? The last time I felt myself trembling this hard was when I was watching the paramedics work on Ryder after Parker had brought him up from the lake.
“Go on,” she whispered.
I started out, my head down, my mind reeling with possibilities. Had Samantha spread another lie? Surely, both my parents knew how deceitful she could be. I looked toward her room. Her door was closed. If she had done or said something that would get me in trouble, she wouldn’t hesitate to be standing there, gloating.
My mother followed slowly behind me. I glanced back at her. She nodded, and I started down the stairs, not unlike someone who was descending toward her own execution. I felt like one of the darker upstairs shadows was clinging to me or I was at least dragging it along behind me.
It was possible to count on the fingers of my two hands how many times I had been alone with my father in his office. There was something about the floor-to-ceiling bookcases with their first editions of medical texts and leather-bound old novels, the vintage hardwood floors kept as immaculate as the day the floorboards were laid, the framed diplomas, framed pictures with important and powerful people in the community and the state, as well as framed pictures of his first wife, of Ryder, and the large portrait of my paternal grandparents leering down, something about all of it that gave his office an air of regality. Sitting behind his oversize desk in his plush high-back leather chair, he always looked taller and truly very important to me.
No one, not even Bea in the old days, raised his or her voice very much in this room. Whenever I had entered it, I practically tiptoed and always paused at least six feet from his desk until he had beckoned for me to come closer. Most of the time, the curtains were drawn open on the tall paneled windows behind him. They looked out on the undeveloped acreage of the estate, the forest pristine. It was peaceful, a view that would encourage you to think or just relax, meditate. This was my father’s escape, where he came to comfort himself if he lost a patient or perhaps where he simply contemplated his life.
Right now, the door to the office was partially open. I knocked and heard him say, “Come in, Fern.” I remembered him doing that a few times before. It was as if he could look through walls, especially these. When I was little, there wasn’t much that I thought he couldn’t do. He was “the Doctor.” He saved lives, held the heartbeats of his patients in his very hands. He could frustrate death.
However, I was surprised to see that he wasn’t behind his desk. He was sitting in the rocking chair across from the black leather settee, his fingertips pressed against one another in cathedral fashion. His jacket was off, but he still wore a tie. He looked very tired, his shoulders sagging a little. His usually neatly brushed hair looked a bit messy, like the hair of someone who had been running his fingers through it when he was frazzled.
“Please, close the door,” he said after I had entered.
He nodded at the settee, and I quickly went over and sat. I didn’t lean back. I sat forward, my arms crossed over my breasts. I couldn’t recall him ever looking at me with more intensity.
“As you know, following Dr. Seymour’s wishes, we’ve been very careful about discussing your and Ryder’s relationship during that period right before you two went out on the lake. We’ve made it very clear to you that you should do the same. Perhaps we waited too long to begin that important discussion with Ryder, but Dr. Seymour was concerned about how the impact of that, along with the rush of terrifying details relating to his near drowning, would affect his fragile psyche. I understood completely and agreed with him.
“When I was younger, interning, I was on duty one night at the hospital when a car accident involving four teenagers occurred. The driver was under the influence, way over the alcohol limit, and the two passengers in the rear, one the best friend of the girl in the front seat, were, along with the driver, instantly killed. The girl I treated had all sorts of broken bones, concussion, near-fatal internal trauma, but she survived. It took two operations and months for her to recuperate, over ten weeks in the hospital, actually.
“Every day during those ten weeks, she asked anyone who visited if he or she had seen her best friend. Clearly, she was wondering why she hadn’t visited her. The doctors insisted that no one, not even her family, tell her what had happened. She had no memory of the accident, and the belief was that information would be too shocking and would impede her recuperation. It could have lasting psychological damage if it wasn’t handled properly, slowly and carefully, which it eventually was. She went on to physical therapy, was released, and, last I heard, went to college, married, and had two children.”
Tears seemed to freeze in my eyes, but it was my father who looked like he was close to them.
“I didn’t tell Ryder anything you or Dr. Seymour didn’t want me to tell him,” I said, but he didn’t seem to hear me. He almost didn’t recognize my being there. Throughout the recollection of that car accident, he seemed like someone talking in his sleep.
“We, meaning Dr. Seymour and myself,” he continued, “were very aware of the fact that as Ryder’s condition improved, his feelings about you became confused. He had many memories of you stored, memories that went back to when you and he spent time as youngsters in Wyndemere, but there was that gap when he grew apart from you and you lived in the rear of the mansion.
“As you know, both your mother and I blame ourselves for not realizing how that all had begun to change. It took the event on the lake to drive it home. My hope and your mother’s was that you would accept the reality of who you and Ryder were to each other, as shocking as it was, and move on. I did urge you to do that. I know your mother did, too. I would never say, however, that I did enough. I’m aware of my shortcomings when it comes to my family, my children. I’m absent even when I’m here. When I discovered that Ryder had that picture of you and him on prom night, I was very upset. I know you knew I was.”
“I didn’t give it to him,” I said. “I didn’t lie to you.” My throat was so tight that I wasn’t sure I had spoken loudly enough. He ignored what I had said anyway.
“I returned home late the night before Ryder’s breakdown, and as I always did, I stopped in his room to see how he was. He wasn’t there.”
He paused and stared at me expectantly. I shook my head. What was he telling me? Was he asking if I knew where he was?
“I had started to go back downstairs to search for him when I heard him walking in the hallway. He was coming from your room.”
“No!” I said, raising my arms, my hands in fists. “He was never in my room at night, never.”
He shook his head at me as if I was to be pitied. “I stood there and watched him come out of your room, Fern.”
“If he was there, I didn’t know it.”
“He saw me. He looked like he was sleepwalking. His look was that vacant. I followed him into his room and made sure he got into bed. Then I pulled a chair up beside him and asked him why he was in your room. He said you were having nightmares, and he had gone to comfort you. He had slept beside you; he had held you.”
I shook my head. “That never happened. He must have dreamed it.”
“He said it kep
t happening, and he knew why. You were afraid he didn’t love you, and I don’t mean like a brother and sister. He said he could see that in your eyes.”
“No, Daddy. That’s not true. I never said or did anything to get him to believe that,” I said as forcefully as I could. I could feel the heat in my face.
“He said he told you that of course, he still loved you. How could he not love you? Then he pulled back his blanket to show me.”
I couldn’t move. He was staring at me now with such accusation in his eyes.
“Show you what?”
“He slept with your prom dress beside him in the bed. He had it laid out as if it was being worn, as if you were beside him.”
Was that thunder or my heart pounding like a closed fist against the inside of my chest to accompany the scream building inside me? I shook my head. The dress, oh, no, the dress, I thought.
“The picture was one thing, Fern; the dress is quite another. What did you hope would happen when you gave it to him?”
“I didn’t . . .”
“I made a quick decision and told him the complete truth, all of it, including the accident. I was afraid of where this was all going now. It was like a runaway train. I confessed it all without first conferring with Dr. Seymour. To be sure, I wasn’t confident I had done the right thing, and sure enough, it probably wasn’t. The following day, he had his breakdown.”
I was shaking my head so hard that my eyes ached. “I didn’t give him that dress.”
“When your mother called me about Ryder’s breakdown and I arrived at the house with Dr. Seymour, I saw that I had forgotten to take away the dress. I was so angry that I balled it up and threw it into the closet. That’s where it was left . . . on that floor.”
The chill that traveled through my body was probably close to the chill of death. I trembled in anticipation of what he was going to say next.
“When I looked for it earlier, it was gone. Did you take it back?”
“Yes, but—”
He put up his hand like a traffic policeman, sat back, and just rocked a moment, looking out his window and not at me.
“You don’t have to tell me anything or try to explain anything, Fern. When I was only twelve or so, I used to dream that I set this house on fire and watched all the shadows of death and unhappiness go up in the black smoke, dissipating in such a way that they could no longer trouble anyone.”
He turned back to me and smiled, but coldly.
“Silly, of course, to blame anything we do on the leering portraits and statues, empty rooms still echoing with sobs, and corners clutching tragedies, entrapping them in shadows, but as intelligent and as scientific as I am, I can’t shake the idea that this house has a mind of its own, a power drawn from its inhabitants, yes, but perhaps something far more primeval. My mother certainly believed it.
“I have no doubt that you are inherently a good girl, Fern. What’s happened to you, around you, would be too overwhelming even for those much older and experienced than you are. I don’t deny that you are a victim, too. It’s all happened in this house. So,” he said, slapping down on his knees, “your mother and I have discussed this somewhat and agree.”
“Agree about what?”
“We think you should attend a private school that has dormitories, a private school where you can be away from all the dark places of the past that promise to do you more harm, more harm than we’ve already done to you ourselves,” he said. “I will thoroughly research the school. It will be the best private high school available. You’ll make new friends, get a fresh view of things, develop your outstanding talents, and grow into a fine young woman.”
“You’re not listening to me, Daddy. What you think happened between Ryder and me did not happen,” I said. “You’re making a mistake. I took the dress when I saw it there because I was afraid you would see it and have these exact thoughts. Samantha . . .”
He smiled and nodded like he had been waiting for me to mention her. “Samantha needs a different sort of private school, one that resembles a tough love camp or something. We can blame many things on her, but unless you described in clear detail the events that occurred before you and Ryder were caught in that storm, she has no idea about the . . . about it. After all, how else would she know anything like that?”
I looked away. Denial was futile.
“What about Ryder?” I asked. “What’s going to happen to him now?”
“He’ll have to remain in the clinic for a while. He’s almost catatonic. As I said, I blame no one but myself for the current situation. In time, we’ll start again, easing him back, hopefully once again to a life with some promise. This is best for everyone, Fern. I’m sorry I wasn’t a real father to you. Even after you were settled here in your proper place as my daughter, I failed you. I’ve failed with all my children. Whatever good there is in them is because of your mother. I don’t think I ever truly appreciated how important she is to all of us, especially me.”
“How long before you send me to this private school?” I asked, resigned to my fate.
“Not long. As I said, let me investigate. I have some very important friends who will know what should be best. For now, carry on the best you can where you are.”
“Will it be far away?”
“I don’t know. I don’t expect so, no. Your mother wouldn’t approve of that. Look,” he said, trying to insert a lighter touch, “I’m right here but couldn’t be farther away if I tried. Right?”
“No,” I said. “You cast a long and deep shadow. It doesn’t leave with you.”
His eyes widened, and I thought he came the closest to a warm smile that I had ever seen from him.
“I have no doubt you will be very successful in whatever you choose to do, choose to be, Fern.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it, Daddy? I never had a choice when it came to who I would be.”
I stood up and looked as firmly at him as he could look at anyone. I was, after all, his daughter.
“You have misjudged me,” I said.
Where I got the courage to continue, I did not know, but continue I would.
“I never thought I would think it, but when it comes to what’s happened here, you’re myopic. I just learned the word today with some homework I had to do, but it fits you so well that it’s true serendipity. The problem with specialists is they see only the one organ and not the whole person. That’s probably been your problem your whole life.”
I didn’t wait for his response. I walked out of the office, closing the door behind me. My tears didn’t break free until I reached the stairway. Before I started up, my mother stepped out of the living room and called to me. I looked back at her and shook my head, and then I ran up the stairs. Samantha opened her door to peer out at me. When she saw me, she closed her door again.
Lucky she did. She just saved her life, I told myself.
I hurried on to my room, shut the door behind me, and practically dove onto my bed, burying my face in my pillow. I felt like smothering myself. I expected I would cry until my chest ached, but surprisingly, I was too stunned and saddened to cry. I turned over instead and glared at the ceiling, anger rushing in over sadness.
Wyndemere, I thought, why are you doing all this to me?
My phone rang. I wasn’t going to answer it, but when it went to the answering machine and I heard Dillon’s voice, I practically tore the receiver off the cradle.
“Dillon.”
“Hey,” he said. “I thought if you weren’t busy, I’d read some lines to you and you could—”
“I’m not going out for the play,” I said quickly.
“What? Why not?”
I thought for a moment.
“Did something else happen, something to Ryder?”
“Yes, something else happened,” I said. I thought for another second.
“Well, what?” he asked.
“Never mind. How bad are the roads?”
“They aren’t bad now. Why?”
; “I want you to come over to take me for a ride. I need to talk to you.”
“Really? Sure,” he said. “I’ll be there in about a half hour.”
“Don’t rush, and don’t dare get into a car accident,” I warned. “That would be like putting the last nail in my coffin, vampire or not.”
He laughed. “I’m on my way,” he said.
I got up and went into the bathroom to wash my face and fix my hair. When I looked at my image in the mirror, I squinted and said out loud, “My father is wrong. I will not be a victim.”
Quietly, I put on a cable-knit sweater and a pair of shoe boots. Then I scooped a sock hat off the shelf in the closet and went to the windows to wait and watch for Dillon. He pulled into the driveway just about when he said he would. His eagerness buoyed my courage. I turned and rushed out and down the hallway and then practically bounced down the stairs.
I heard my mother and my father coming down the hallway from his office. I was shocked. They were holding hands but let go and paused when they saw me.
“I’m going for a ride with Dillon,” I said.
I didn’t give my mother a chance to respond. I did hear her call my name when I opened the door, but I closed it behind me before she could call to me again.
Dillon had stepped out of his car. He was standing beside it as I hurried to him.
“Drive,” I ordered, and got in.
He looked back at the front door, gave that typical shrug, and got in. He didn’t ask anything once he looked at me. Probably afraid to speak, he started the engine and drove out slowly. I didn’t look back. He turned left, and we were off.
“So?” he finally said. “What’s this all about?”
“If you keep going another mile or so, you’ll see a road on the left that takes you down toward the lake. It’s a public beach, and there’s a dock for boats they rent.”
“No one’s probably there. The lake’s frozen over.”
“Just find a place to park,” I said.
He was quiet. Neither of us spoke until after he had made the turn.
“Never knew about this, but then again, I didn’t spend any time at the lake,” he said.
Echoes in the Walls Page 20
