The voice broke my spell. I was certain now that it was coming from the door the cat had disappeared behind. I pushed it open past a crack. I could smell cigarette smoke coming from the top of the spiral stairs winding inside the turret. There was another door at the top and it was open, too, a white light coming from inside. Careful to keep to the runner, I climbed the stairs, stopping to listen every few steps. There it was again, a woman’s voice, muffled and low. Perhaps it was Katya taking a break. I stepped on a tread that creaked so loudly it brought me to a halt. I held my breath and listened. The murmuring stopped. I heard footsteps. As they neared the door, I froze with that childlike belief that stillness could make a person invisible. The door opened and there stood a tall female figure holding a burning cigarette, the other hand shielding her eyes to peer down into the blackness where I stood, pressed against the wall, trying to be small. The brightness of the room behind her shone through her flimsy nightgown, darkening her small nipples and blacking out her face. I was squinting up at the haloed form of Rebekah herself.
“Who are you?” she asked, finally.
My hand went to my mouth to stifle a scream.
All I could think to do was run down the stairs and out the door. My elbow caught the corner of a small silver-framed picture, one of a dozen crowding a narrow sideboard, and it fell forward with a tense smack. I stopped to right it and I saw that its glass was cracked like a spider’s web, Rebekah’s smile turned to a sneer. I made the split-second decision to hide the picture in the sideboard’s top drawer and keep running. By the time I slowed my approach to our bedroom and slipped in next to Max, I felt boneless with terror, my heart pounding so loud I thought it might wake him.
Soon, the humiliation of my retreat caught up to me, as did the realization that that hadn’t been Rebekah who hovered over me at the top of the turret but Dani. That was not a ghost I saw, but Dani back from Paris early. Oh good Lord. Why did I do that? Why did I panic and run away? How could my mind have mistaken Dani for a dead woman? Why didn’t I just say, Oh, I’m so sorry, I thought you were Katya. You must be Dani. We weren’t expecting you until Wednesday. I’d extend my hand and introduce myself, like a normal person would. And later, when we told the story to Max, we’d laugh about the scare we gave each other. Instead she was probably up there right now hissing into her phone about what an idiot her father’s fiancée was.
I felt Max stir. I shut my eyes, unable to face my shame just yet. This time he was the one who left quietly in order not to rouse me. I remained in bed for a little while longer, trying to muster the courage to face them. Finally, hunger propelled me down the stairs, following the sound of Dani’s animated voice interspersed with Max’s laugh, loud and booming, the likes of which I had never heard from him before. I crossed the foyer and made my way towards a high archway where the checkerboard floor led to an airy kitchen. There they were, leaning into each other in profile, Max delighted, transfixed by her, while Katya stood over the counter slicing the roast. I felt like an anxious jump roper waiting for the appropriate time to skip into the action.
“. . . and then I call Auntie Louisa right before takeoff, when I’m already on the plane,” Dani was telling a bemused Max. She was now wearing yoga pants and a snug T-shirt, still braless, her long blond hair hanging in wet strands down to the middle of her back.
“You shouldn’t take off on people like that, Dani. It’s becoming a bad habit.”
“I know, but it’s so fun.”
Max finally noticed me.
“There she is!” he exclaimed, opening his arm wide to beckon me over. “I’d like you to meet my lovely daughter, Dani.”
“Sorry to interrupt your story,” I said, heading to the safety of Max’s side. I extended my hand. “It is so nice to finally meet you.”
“Nice to see you again,” she said.
As Max had predicted, she glanced down at my ring.
“Cute.”
“You two have already met?” Max asked.
A look passed between Dani and Katya.
“Yeah, uh . . . she poked her head into Mum’s room while I was talking to Claire.”
“What were you doing up there?” Dani rolled her eyes, and Max looked at me. “And what were you doing up there?”
“I got up to use the bathroom,” I explained. “And then I heard someone . . . I thought it was you, Katya. I certainly didn’t mean to scare you, Dani.”
“You’re the one who was scared. Daddy, you should have seen her face. It was like she saw a ghost! Who did you think I was?”
Max gave me a reassuring squeeze. “I bet you scared each other.” He pulled out a stool next to him. “You got here just in time for some roast beef sandwiches, and I hope you like it cold. Seems we slept too long for a hot meal.”
“This roast is a piece of art,” Katya muttered over her shoulder. “I’m not reheating it and letting it dry out.”
Dani grabbed a slice of rare beef from the platter in front of her, bit off a chunk, and threw the rest back down.
“Katya, I missed you so much,” she whined, licking her fingers. Then she got up, wrapped her arms around Katya from behind, and closed her eyes. Katya ignored Dani, keeping her movements purposeful, going from the counter to the island, scooping potato salad into a bowl and depositing buns and condiments before us, all the while wearing a teenage girl like a cape.
“Honey, let the poor woman do her job,” Max said. “This one ran away from her aunt in Paris and flew back early, by herself, scaring Louisa half to death.”
Dani kept it up, clutching Katya, whimpering, “I’ll die if you leave me, Katya. You’re the only one here who loves me.”
Perhaps this is typical of the age, I thought. Isn’t this what makes teenagers so impossible, this careening from babyish to sullen to mature and back again? I did not have the luxury of behaving this way, but there were young people at the club, attention seekers, Laureen said, who got that way because we stopped spanking kids.
“I think Dani came home early because she was anxious to get back to Asherley. And to meet you,” Max said, moving a piece of my hair behind my ear.
“Yeah, that’s not why.”
Max began to assemble a sandwich for me. “You take mustard, right?”
“I’m happy to make it myself, Max,” I said, gently prying the bun from his hand, but he resisted, intent on serving me.
Dani let go of Katya and hopped back on her stool. “You can make me a sandwich, Daddy.”
“I am serving our guest.”
I decided women over a certain age could be divided into two camps: those who called their father Daddy well into adulthood and those who stopped in childhood, if they ever used the word at all. I was firmly of the latter camp. My own father would have taken it as a diminutive and an indication of stunted growth on my part for which he’d have felt personally responsible. But Max hadn’t flinched at the word. In fact, after making me a sandwich, he made her one, too, using bread instead of a bun, removing the crusts, of course.
“And how long is our guest staying?” Dani asked, tilting her head at me, brows up in mock interest.
“She’s here for good. That’s the plan,” he said, winking at me.
I was mindful of concealing my ravenousness, taking small, careful bites while listening to Dani chatter on about Paris and Auntie Louisa’s husband, Jonah, who was only able to come over for a couple of weeks, during which time they bickered every day over the stupidest stuff, and how she made friends with a famous singer’s daughter who lived in the flat upstairs by herself at fourteen, can you believe it? She became her second best friend behind Claire. And even though this girl’s father was super rich, he was super cheap, and how Dani had to pay for everything so she’d be needing a top-up, as she put it, to which Max said he’d talk to Elias. She continued to ignore me as she spoke.
Without the filters and makeup i
n her photos, she looked younger than fifteen. Her cheeks were flatter, too, her eyes a little closer together. She was what you’d call a commonly pretty teenage girl who, like most of them with a phone, simply knew her best angles. It never left her side, that phone. The whole time she spoke her eyes traveled automatically from Max’s face down to where she kept it beside her place mat, and she would absently pick it up to check a text or a post, sometimes midsentence.
“We went to the Pompidou,” she said, cueing up a photo and showing Max. I could see it was a painting of a woman with a stern face, wearing a red-checked dress, smoking alone in a café. “The Otto Dix,” she said. “Mum’s favorite.”
Max looked closely at the photo, then snatched the phone out of her hand. “Was your new Parisian friend always on her phone, too?” he asked, playfully holding it out of her reach.
“She was way worse,” Dani said, swatting at her phone before he handed it back to her. While checking it again, she asked me what I was on, “Like, social media wise.”
“Me? Oh, nothing. I only just got a smartphone.” In New York, Max had made that a priority, and I didn’t fight him on it.
“Not even Facebook? That’s weird. How do you keep in touch with your friends?”
I didn’t want to admit to her my friendless state and said lamely, “I give them my phone number. You can have it, too, if you want.” I immediately regretted the offer.
“Pass.”
Max rescued the moment by suggesting that Katya call it a night, telling her that he’d clean up, that it was getting late. “In fact, stay in a guest room. I don’t want you driving tonight.”
Katya insisted the snow had stopped falling and by now Gus had plowed the causeway all the way to the mainland.
“With my insomnia I need to sleep in my own bed, Mr. Winter.”
“Fine, I’ll walk you out. Make sure your car’s not buried under.”
Katya took off her apron and kissed the side of Dani’s head, said, “Welcome back, dear,” mumbled a good night to me, and followed Max out.
The two of us just sat there for a few painful seconds. I scrambled for something, anything, to talk about, landing on the lamest of subjects.
“Was it snowing in Paris, too?”
“No.”
“Isn’t it the middle of the night for you now? You must be tired.”
“I’m not,” she said, swinging her feet off her stool. “In fact, if I was in Paris right now, I’d probably just be getting home. Auntie Louisa says Americans live on banker’s hours. Que pouvez-vous faire? Les habitudes provinciales.” She put an elbow on the island and rested her chin on her fist, looking at me conspiratorially. “So, like, you totally lucked out, didn’t you? Snagging yourself a rich older boyfriend?”
I had expected people to have these thoughts, but I hadn’t counted on how unsettling they’d sound coming out of a fifteen-year-old’s mouth.
“If you mean am I grateful that I met your father, then yes, I guess you could say I lucked out.”
“Also, just because you’re here doesn’t mean you have the run of the place. The third floor is mine. And the turret’s hers, both off-limits to you.”
The question must have shown on my face.
“Yes, that was my mother’s bedroom you barged into. I don’t want you going up there.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”
“How old are you, anyway?”
I told her, knowing Max had already mentioned it.
“And you two have known each other, like, a whole month?” She stretched the word into nearly two syllables.
“It’s been a bit of whirlwind.” I glanced at the door. Max had only been gone a minute but the time crawled by.
“And you guys are gonna get married and have kids?”
“I think—I mean, we haven’t really talked about—”
“So then you’ve worked out all the details of the prenup and you know exactly how much money he’s worth and everything.”
At this point she wasn’t even trying to hide her disdain. I steadied myself by hooking my thumbs under the edge of the marble. Were the island not as heavy as a car, I might have had the ability to upend it with the force of my indignity.
“Dani, I know this is all very sudden. And I know it’s going to take some time to get used to. I’m going to need time, too. But I don’t feel very comfortable talking about these things with you.”
Her eyes flashed. “Oh my God. There is no prenup. He’s such an idiot. I mean, I know what you’re getting out of all this, but I gotta say, I do not see what my father gets—”
“Dani, not another word, please.” Max had entered the room, his shoulders powdered with snow.
“Daddy, I’m trying to get to know her. Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?”
“This isn’t how you get to know someone, my love. This is how you alienate them.”
“I’m sorry, but this is just not what I expected you to bring home.”
This, like a bored child who had unwrapped a gift and tossed it aside, deeming it unworthy.
“Whatever it is you expected, Dani, she is my fiancée and the rest is none of your business.”
“I think it is my business. Mum hasn’t even been dead for two years—”
“Dani, I’m telling you—”
“Max, it’s okay. Dani’s just asking me questions. I understand that.” I slid off the stool. “I’m going to go upstairs now and leave you two to catch up. Good night, Dani. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yay, can’t wait,” she drawled, her chin on her fist.
Max shot me a stricken look as I passed.
“Also?” Dani said.
I turned to face her.
“Next time you break something at Asherley, don’t hide it. We have the money to fix things.”
Mute with shame, I avoided Max’s eyes and left the kitchen.
* * *
• • •
A half hour passed before Max came back to the bedroom. By then I’d stopped crying, though a certain hopelessness had crept in. He peeled off his clothes and collapsed beside me like a doctor who’d just performed complicated surgery.
“I’m sorry about that,” he whispered, pulling me back into the wall of his body and nuzzling my hair. “She’s going to feel a little usurped.”
“That’s okay. I understand.”
“Give it some time.”
“I will.”
“She just has to get used to you.”
“I know,” I said. “Maybe when she goes back to school and we establish a day-to-day rhythm, things will get easier.”
He laughed. “Dani hasn’t gone to a proper school since Rebekah died. I can’t seem to make her go back.”
I turned to face him, both of us now propped up on an elbow. “Is that legal? Don’t you have to go to school at her age?”
“She has a tutor who comes three days a week. She does other requirements online. That Paris trip was supposed to involve a compressed French-language course she skipped last year, but Louisa said she barely attended. She’s no dummy, but ever since her mother died, she’s become very defiant. And more of a homebody.”
He lazily coiled a finger around one of my stray curls. He looked so tired all of a sudden. “I’m sorry she made you cry,” he said. Was my face puffy? Were my eyes still red? “I should have given you more warning, but I was worried you’d reject me if I told you you’d be living with me and an unruly, spoiled teenage brat. I’m a terrible father, I know.”
“No, I think she’s still grieving, and you bringing me home must be very unsettling for her. I’ll try my best to . . . I don’t know . . . do anything to make it easier on her.”
“You’re a good person. I love you for that.”
He kissed me.
I looked around. “Wh
ose room was this before?”
“This room? Why?”
“Dani called the turret her mother’s room. Was that also your bedroom up there? With Rebekah?”
“Yes. I moved down here after she died. This was a spare room but I prefer it. The turret was always too bright for me.”
“So is that Dani’s room now?”
“No. Her bedroom’s on the third floor, but she does spend a lot of time up in the turret. I’ve begged her not to, begged her to go through Rebekah’s stuff, give some of it to charity. But she freaks out if anyone goes up there, as you’ve discovered. Incidentally, what did you break?”
I squeezed my eyes shut against that memory. “A picture of Rebekah. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have hidden it. I should have said something.”
“I told her to take all the photos down before she went to Paris.”
“Well, they’re still up. They’re everywhere. On the walls, on the tables. Dozens of them.”
Max fell back onto his pillow and closed his eyes, exhaling deeply. “Fuck.”
I fell back, too, and for a while we both lay blinking into the velvety darkness of the cold bedroom, before Max got up to stir the fire.
TEN
Max was up early the next day and I shadowed him, using him as a shield for my reentry into life at Asherley. If he sensed this was what I was doing, he was sympathetic enough to say nothing. When we reached the top of the stairs, I could hear a different woman’s voice, coming from the foyer downstairs, not Dani’s or Katya’s.
“Max, are you up?” she yelled.
“Ah, Louisa,” Max said to me. “I promise you this will be less painful.”
Max’s sister was older than him but looked younger than I had expected. Next to her was a man who stood at least a head shorter, with white hair and a matching moustache. Louisa’s eyes shone bright when she spotted me. Here might be a friend, I thought, taking in her wide-open face. As soon as we reached the bottom of the stairs she pulled me into an athletic embrace that was over by the time I had a chance to raise my arms to return it.
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