“You’ll get used to it.”
Hildy looks up at the handsome woman across the table from her. The woman appears to be older, maybe fifty or so. Stout, hair in a tight gray bun. She could be a member of the Woman’s Club. Nothing in her demeanor indicates a need to be here—except maybe the lines of sorrow dragging her face. One eyelid, twitching rapidly, out of her control.
Hildy looks past the woman, across the sweeping hall. Light filters in through the long windows in the grand, elegant room—the floor tiled in black and white, the tin ceiling stamped with ornate, interlocking circles, pastoral paintings gracing the walls, and silk draperies pulled back with tassels from the windows. There are perhaps a hundred women in here, quietly eating their tasty soup, served in real china bowls by polite workers.
This—This would be easy to get used to. Asylum. Rest. Respite.
Yet walking here with the group from her wing, Hildy had been horrified to see a half-dressed woman trying to writhe away from the orderlies who held her, while a nurse forced some concoction into the woman’s gnashing mouth. Her thin gown hung from her protruding ribs like a cloth over a table edge. And her eyes—so dark and empty. Yet, for a second, they’d snagged at Hildy, who’d looked away and an instant later felt shame at doing so.
“I mean the medicine they got you on,” the stout woman says.
Hildy’s gaze returns to her. “Aspirin.” The word comes out raspy and garbled, though.
A few of the women around her laugh softly, cutting their eyes at the nurses dotted around the hall, keeping a benign gaze over their herd.
That scene in the hall. Hildy shudders. Benign gazes could turn harsh at any moment.
The stout woman leans closer. “That’s what they tell us. Aspirin.”
Hildy drops her spoon with a clatter. It sounds so loud to her, but no one notices. Maybe it isn’t loud. Maybe it just seems so. Everything feels disjointed. She picks up her roll, tears off a piece, but even that is hard to do. Her fingers feel too thick.
Now she wonders—the thought floating to her as if from a great distance—why would they give her aspirin? She hadn’t complained of aches and pains—had she? Maybe she’d said something about her hands being swollen from all that typing?
Hildy drops the piece of bread back to her plate. She’s suddenly not hungry. The image of the skeletal, hollow-eyed woman in the hallway comes back to her. She shakes her head again. The shake. It’s becoming, already, a twitch.
She forces herself to look up at the woman across from her. “A friend of mine is here. Was here. Thea Kincaide.”
Hildy waits for someone to exclaim, but everyone at the table is nonplussed. They keep eating, occasionally muttering to one another.
She’d thought—assumed—the name would stun everyone. How could someone—one of their own—wandering off not shake them? Her heart thuds, heavily—ba-boom, ba-boom.
“I—I’ve lost track of her. My friend. Thea.”
The woman across from her stares hard. Cold. For a moment, her eye stops twitching. “You’ll get used to it.”
* * *
A few hours later, Hildy sits alone in the garden. The sunshine warms her face and hands, which feel almost normal again. She stares at the statue of the woman in the fountain. How would it be to remain forever so still, so placid, like this carved, beautiful woman, with her graceful arms, her curling tendrils of hair? The flat, empty eyes?
Someone brushes against Hildy’s back, and she startles from her reverie. That’s right. She’s not alone. She’s part of a small group that had been walked out here for fresh air and sunshine. It’s cold, though. She pulls her sweater more tightly around her.
Her mind is clearer now. She recollects the notes she’d typed for Lily—that Thea had lived in a separate cottage here, that there was a path that led from the garden to the back door of the cottage, and a young aide named Helen had taken a liking to Thea.
Hildy stands. No one notices. She edges to the side of the bench, then behind it. The nurse is preoccupied with several other women who are squabbling. She hesitates. Where is the opening to the nearly secret path? Lily hadn’t made note of that.
The flat gray eyes of the woman in the fountain seem to snag at Hildy. She stares, as if the statue might speak—but of course it won’t.
Then it hits her—if she were a resident and wanted to devise a nearly hidden path, she’d also want some indicator to prick out its opening, no matter if spring growth or winter snows covered it over. She follows the line of sight of the statue, where the sculpted woman would be looking if only she could see.
There—behind her, to her left—the slightest break in the woods.
Hildy looks up. The nurse is still preoccupied, and none of the other residents notice her. She glances at the statue, the dull, flat eyes. Sees them, in her mind’s eye, pop open. Go!
Hildy scrambles backward, to the path, and disappears into the woods.
* * *
Once she is in the building and standing in front of the door to what should be Thea’s old room, Hildy is not sure what she should do next. The door is slightly ajar, and she sees one woman curled up on a bed, sleeping. Another is reading from a Bible.
Tears prick her eyes and her whole body starts to tremble. What has she done? She is not going to learn anything about Thea here.
She should run, just run.
But she can’t go back to Kinship. She’ll look crazy. Merle and Mother will bring her back. A laugh burbles up, and Hildy claps her hand over her mouth. Maybe she is crazy, after all. Crazy like Cousin Thea. Laughing and crying at the same time.
Tom. She could run to Tom.
No. He hadn’t given her time. She’d just needed time.
She could just run. See where her legs take her. Where fate takes her.
The image of Thea—shattered face, rags on feet—flashes before her. Thea had run, too.
Hildy’s legs give way, and she crumples to the floor. There’s a wailing sound, lonesome and long and grinding, like the warning cry of a train.
But it’s her—just her.
The women in what had been Thea’s room are sitting up, alarmed, staring out at her, the one with the Bible clutching it to her chest like it’s a life raft. Rough hands pull Hildy up. She struggles, but her arms are pinned behind her and she’s pulled away, down the hall.
A young woman pops out of the room across the hallway. She’s not dressed like a resident, and she stares at Hildy with alarm. For a moment, Hildy quiets, studies the girl. Just as described in Lily’s notes … Helen. Resident Aide.
“I’m Thea’s cousin!” Hildy tries to stop her sudden sobs, but the effort only makes her gasp in convulsive bursts. “I’m Hildy, Hildy Cooper, Thea Kincaide is my cousin; she sent me postcards. From London and France and…”
Hildy’s voice fizzles to a hissing stop. Helen pales, ducks her head, and dashes back into the room she’d been cleaning.
“Thea,” Hildy manages to whisper, like a prayer, as if the beautiful woman in the blue dress could be conjured back to life, could turn Hildy seven years old again, could sweep them both far, far away.
CHAPTER 31
LILY
Friday, October 1—3:30 p.m.
Lily looks from the white sateen couch to the tiny chairs dotted around the resplendent room, big enough to contain the whole first floor of the Bronwyn County Sheriff’s house.
She reckons she ought to be impressed, but she’s irritated. Sit on the couch, risk leaving a smudge at the base from her boot heels? Sit on one of the fragile chairs and be uncomfortable?
Not that she’s going to be comfortable, in any case. This afternoon, after a long morning waiting to be summoned, hunger had finally driven her down to the hotel’s dining room. She’d just started sipping her coffee and was anticipating her lunch when the concierge rushed in and alighted his anxious gaze on her table—the only one taken by a woman, alone. He’d rushed over, said she needed to come to the lobby at once.
Rather than a message conveying a home address for Professor Neil Leitel, as she’d expected after last night’s discussion with George, there was Abe Miller.
“You couldn’t leave the information in an envelope and have someone bring it to my room or my table—where I’ve got coffee going cold?” Lily had said to Abe.
“Plenty of coffee available at Mr. Vogel’s house,” Abe replied.
Now she stares around Vogel’s expansive parlor, overwrought with paintings in gilt frames that rendered the enclosed art to diminutive smudges.
“Just pick a seat, Lily.”
Fiona enters the room. A green satin dress overwhelms Fiona’s slender figure; like the paintings, she seems a smudge of what she’s meant to be. Dark circles punctuate her eyes. A chunky ring, set with emeralds and diamonds, anchors her left hand.
Lily strides to the white couch, sits. Might as well be comfortable. Inasmuch as possible.
As Fiona primly deposits herself on the edge of a small chair, a butler enters with a tray of coffee service and pours a cup as he regards Lily. “Do you take cream or sugar, ma’am?”
“I don’t need—”
“We were informed you did not appreciate being taken from your coffee,” Fiona says.
“Cream, then.”
The butler pours her a cup. He leaves the tray on a sideboard and then exits the parlor.
Lily looks at Fiona. “You could come back with me.”
Fiona laughs. “To that horrid little town? I have the perfect life here.”
Lily sees in Fiona’s eyes blame for last year’s death of Martin, her husband and Daniel’s deputy—and the death, too, of a life she’d been satisfied with. Until Martin was gone. Something else glints in Fiona’s gaze: there is no going back, once you’ve gotten in bed with George Vogel. For a moment, Lily is tempted to drop the coffee to the floor—fragile cup and white couch be damned—and run away. Would George let her escape? Or—having already made a tacit bargain by being here at all—would she be caught and brought back?
Lily takes a sip of the coffee. It is delicious. Better than the hotel coffee. Which was better than the boiled coffee she makes on her cookstove back home.
Damn. Her heart pangs. She’s been here, in Cincinnati, for just over a day, and already Kinship and Bronwyn County seem so distant.
As Lily puts her cup down, Fiona picks hers up, sips, smiles over her rim. See how easy it is to get pulled in? To get comfortable?
Suddenly there is the grand man himself. Bellicose, stuffed into his suit, his eyes narrow and pale and rheumy. George doesn’t look healthy—and yet he has the commanding presence of a man who believes that he just might live forever.
Behind him, Abe has a man by the elbow, steering him into the room. Lily notes the man’s slender build, his sharp nose and thin mouth. She hasn’t met the man, yet there is something familiar about him.
Neil Leitel. Thea’s son.
Such confusion and fear mottle his face that, for a fleeting moment, Lily feels sorry for him. He has no idea why he’s been brought here—likely pulled out of his classroom or office by some of George’s thugs. Or from his home, as a woman rushes into the room behind him. His wife, Lily surmises.
As George sits on the end of the couch opposite Lily, Abe gives her a long look; one eyebrow arches. There’s still time to back out. But in Neil’s face, Lily sees dashes and hints of Thea. Sees, again, her bashed head, her rag-wrapped feet. So Lily nods, and Abe shrugs, releases Neil’s elbow, points to the couch opposite George and Lily. Neil and his wife perch awkwardly on the edge of the couch—as if there is a chance they might yet escape—while Fiona at last settles back in her chair, crosses her legs, sips her coffee, as if awaiting a show. Abe remains in the entryway, stiff and still with hands down at his sides, like a soldier at only half ease.
Introductions made—yes, this is Neil Leitel and his wife, May. Lily introduces herself. Neil and May look stunned, and George chuckles. “Times are changing.”
“I’m sorry to inform you that your mother, Thea Kincaide, has passed away,” Lily says.
She waits, watches Neil’s face for a reaction. Something passes over his face—but it is not sorrow. It is, she realizes with a start, relief. Then his face hardens.
“I will be more than willing to pay for her funeral services and interment—”
“That is not at issue,” Lily says flatly. “She has already been buried.”
May cries, “Oh, if only we had known—”
“We wouldn’t have attended. Send us the bill.”
“That is not why I’m here—or why you’re here, Professor Leitel,” Lily says. “You are a very hard man to track down. The landlady was loath to share your name, and your department secretary did a fine job of keeping me at bay.”
“If Mother died in Athens, and you’re from Bronwyn County, why—”
“She didn’t die in Athens County,” Lily says. “She died in Bronwyn County, which is why I’m here. She was at the Hollows Asylum soon after you left.”
May gasps.
“Oh, please,” Lily says. “Neither of you can really be shocked that the landlady had her transported there, kept the money, and was able to then rent out the room.”
“How did she die?” May sounds genuinely concerned.
“She left the asylum one night. Walked for hours through the woods…”—Lily hesitates, then decides to include the cruel details—“with only rags for shoes. She made several stops along the way but ended up at the top of a train tunnel, outside of Moonvale Hollow Village. She fell, or was pushed, onto the oncoming train. Died upon impact—or so I hope. I’d hate to think she lingered in the ditch where she landed.”
Fiona moans, and even Abe arches an eyebrow. George looks amused, as if pleased by Lily’s capacity to box with words.
“I have been in Cincinnati this whole time. I have not left the city. My wife, my colleagues, my students, my dean, can all attest to this.”
“I’m not here to accuse you of murdering your mother,” Lily says.
“Then what? A simple telegram—”
“I came to see what you might be able to tell me about your mother that might help me sort out her death and why someone would kill her. She lived for a time at the Dyer farm in Moonvale Hollow Village—her last stop before coming to the top of the tunnel. Did she ever share anything about her time growing up there, about her past—”
Neil gives a sharp, barking laugh. “What did she share? What do I know about her? I barely remember her! Shocking as it is, my parents divorced, and my mother left me with my father when I was seven. I suppose she tired of being a mother. All my father told me, years later, was that she was going to pursue a life as a dancer. That they agreed he would provide a more stable life for me. That she would visit when she could—but she rarely did. And when she did, she’d start the visit by doting over me, but quickly get bored—though she tried to hide it—and take off again.”
A chill creeps over Lily. Neil’s story is sad, and she can’t imagine making Thea’s choice. Lily’s children mean the world to her. But her reaction is not at what Neil is saying. Perhaps Thea knew she wasn’t really cut out to be a mother, and she made the best choice she could for herself and her son. No, Lily’s frisson is in response to the slow smile rising on George’s face. Has she really traded a piece of her soul, made herself beholden to George, left behind her family and home, to track down Neil on the thin hope that he can tell her something about Thea—only to find he knows nothing useful?
Lily pulls her notebook and pencil from her bag. Her hand trembles—so annoying!—as she makes notes.
“Then when she’s old and desperate and out of money, she turns up,” Neil says, his nostrils flaring as if he’s trying to expel a foul odor. He cocks an eyebrow at Lily. “But I take it that you know nothing of mothering.”
Lily’s hand stills. She looks up at Neil. “I am here as sheriff—”
“She’s a mother, with two children she’s abandoned to come h
ere!” Fiona blurts. Her face turns crimson by the time she finishes the sentence, and she looks away, avoiding Lily’s hard glance. Vengeance, Lily realizes, for her judging Fiona for sending her own son off to boarding school so she can come live with George.
Yet Lily’s heart softens toward Fiona. God, it’s hard enough to deal with choices—or lack of them—as women. The right to vote was great but didn’t mean women could be independent in every other way as well. Why do women make it harder for themselves by fighting with one another, judging one another?
She looks at Fiona, at the splotchy redness in her otherwise pale face. “We make the best choices we can—”
“Oh, hardly!” Neil’s voice snaps with disparagement. “My mother could have stayed. She ran off to pursue some silly dream. Certainly my wife would stay with our children.”
Lily looks back at Neil, who does not seem to notice the flash of disgust in May’s eyes. “I’m not here to debate mothering practices. I need to learn what I can about your mother. Anything she might have said after she came into your care that might pertain to why she left the asylum, headed toward Moonvale Hollow Village—”
“We can’t have children.” May’s statement is soft, like a sigh of wind slipping in through the partially opened window. The room stills as everyone looks at May.
May, though, looks only at Neil—not with a plea for support or love. Nor with faith or confidence that he would provide either. With something colder than hate, which is at least a passion of the moment. With disdain.
Lily bites her lower lip. She’d had moments of anger, of even thinking she hated Daniel, especially during their tumultuous courting years. Even anger at him for dying. But disdain—never that. Disdain is a coldness that kills love. From the flatness of May’s voice, her disdain for Neil became deeply rooted some time ago.
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