How the Light Gets In

by Katy Upperman

  “Shall we?” Dad asks, pocketing his keys.

  I leave the Tahoe for the gravel drive, wondering whether Lucy’s done anything with the house’s interior since I was last here. It’s weird: Now’s the first time I’ve felt remotely interested in anything—with the exception of smoking—for a significant stretch of time. The long dormant inquisitiveness quickly morphs into discomfort, though, like shoving my foot into a shoe I haven’t worn in years.

  I dread stepping into Stewart House.

  Still, I reach into the back seat to retrieve my suitcase, operating on autopilot. Dad expects me to take my things from the Tahoe. He expects me to move them into Stewart House. He expects me to help Lucy in all the ways that matter. He expects me to try to get better.

  “Leave it,” he says, nodding toward my bag. “I’ll come back for it later.”

  I grab my backpack instead, which holds my laptop and a few other essentials, and force my feet to follow Dad’s path through the overgrown grass leading to the house. Lucy’s rocking black leggings and a yellow off-the-shoulder top. She bounds over and throws her arms around me. Her hug is warm, and her scent is familiar, lavender laced with nicotine.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she murmurs, squeezing me tight. I almost smile before I remember myself and pull away.

  Dad hugs her next. They’re ten years apart, and while Lucy’s never been geographically close, he looks out for her. In the months after her divorce, he called her all the time, and after they’d hang up, he’d have no shortage of disparaging remarks to grumble about her ex. Last summer, when she fled Seattle after Chloe’s wake, hunkering down here in Bell Cove, supposedly tackling her remodel with renewed fervor, he was quick to excuse her. “This is rough for all of us,” he’d say anytime I criticized her absence. “Everyone copes in their own way.”

  He’s more gracious than I’ll ever be.

  “I fixed a light dinner,” Lucy says now. “You’ll stay, right, Arthur?”

  “I suppose. I’m eager to see what this money pit looks like inside.”

  Lucy’s grin reshapes itself into something smug. “You might be surprised.” She opens the front door, white with two panels of colorful stained glass, with a flourish.

  She’s obviously left the outside of the house to wither over the last year, devoting her efforts to its interior. Last summer, the only rooms that were livable were Lucy’s master suite and the first-floor bedroom Chloe and I shared. The foyer had been a mess, the kitchen gutted, with only a dented fridge and a hot plate, and the parlor was a particleboard shell. The rooms upstairs, which are supposed to house eventual B&B guests, had been a combined dumping ground.

  Now, the walls of the foyer are paneled in whitewashed wood, and the floor is covered in glossy planks. There’s a rocking chair in the corner, draped with a patchwork quilt of faded reds, whites, and blues.

  “I’ve done a lot downstairs,” Lucy tells us. “But the second floor still needs some serious attention. Callie, that’s where I’ll need you.”

  It hurts physically, standing in this house without my sister, like a piece of my soul being slowly excised. Last year she shoved me out of the way before dashing toward our room at the back of the house, whooping, ready to snag the best bed and lay claim to the majority of the wardrobe’s hanging space.

  Now I’ll get whichever bed I want. I’ll use every hanger in the wardrobe. I’ll get to spend the summer an only child, exactly as I’ve never wanted.

  Light-headed and miserable, I touch the quilt, its fabrics frayed, its seams unraveling.

  I remind myself to breathe.

  “Let me show you the kitchen,” Lucy says.

  She pushes through the double doors, and I’m taken aback by the transformation: stainless steel appliances, clean white cabinets, and countertops of black granite. Lucy, quietly satisfied by our dropped jaws, points Dad and me to the table, reclaimed wood and artfully mismatched chairs, then takes plates loaded with sandwiches, pickles, and fruit out of the fridge.

  I pick at my sandwich’s crust while my dad and aunt dig in.

  “I’ve had contractors and carpenters in and out of here for months,” Lucy says. “They’ve done everything I can’t—plumbing, electrical, heavy lifting.” She turns to me, her attention snagging briefly on the blemish that mars the inside of my right forearm, a pearlescent scar zigzagging halfway to my elbow. She frowns, then adjusts her line of vision, her big hoop earrings swaying. “Everything that’s left will be up to you and me, Callie.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I say.

  Lucy nods and eyes my dad. “How’s Susie?”

  “She’s well,” he says, putting down his sandwich. I focus on my plate; good rarely follows talk of my mom.

  “I’m glad. The last time I saw her, she … wasn’t herself.”

  The last time Lucy saw my mom was the day Chloe was buried. Immediately after the service, Mom got fall-down drunk and ended up passing out even before our house was clear of company. “Wasn’t herself” is the understatement of the century and, God, I want to say so, but Dad ignores Lucy’s flaky comment so, begrudgingly, I do, too.

  My aunt bites into her pickle, then presses again about Mom. “Why didn’t she come to Bell Cove today? I would’ve loved to see her.”

  Dad blinks. He almost always gives his sister a free pass, but his tone is brusque when he says, “She wasn’t up for the trip.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  I need Lucy to let it go—Mom’s mental health is none of her business—but at the same time, I’d like to see Dad admit the truth. Because unless staring impassively at family photos, hyperventilating at the mention of my sister, and carting around a bottomless glass of wine beginning at lunchtime and ending whenever she happens to fall into bed are well, Mom’s not.

  Unfortunately, behavior-modifying summer camp isn’t an option for a woman in her forties.

  Dad pushes his plate back, takes a swig from his glass of iced tea, and stands. “It’s getting late. I’ll grab your suitcase, Callie, and then I need to get back on the road.”

  “So soon?” Lucy asks.

  “I don’t want to be away from Susannah for too long,” he says, pounding the final nail into his coffin of failed deception.

  “No, of course not,” Lucy says. Softly, she adds, “I’m sorry, Arthur.”

  Dad nods once, then looks at me. “Finish up, Callie.”

  I’m being treated like I’m not old enough to participate in their conversation, but its underlying theme is clear: My family is broken and in need of fixing.

  3

  After retrieving my suitcase, Dad gives me a long hug, murmuring, “Please, Calliope, be safe,” before kissing the top of my head and climbing into the Tahoe.

  Then he’s off.

  I stand on the porch, watching the taillights until they disappear into the trees.

  Alone in Bell Cove. No Dad, no Mom.

  No Chloe.

  There’s a tightness in my throat, one I know well. One that preludes tears.

  I swallow, imagine my spine a rod of steel, and go back into the house.

  Standing in the kitchen entryway, I watch Lucy line dishes in the dishwasher, then wipe down the countertops. She should’ve been present for my parents and me this last year. Instead, she holed up here, creating a beautiful home for herself. I don’t want to be bitter. She has reasons for behaving the way she does—rationally, I know as much—but shuttering my disappointment, my hostility, away feels like an enormous task.

  By the time she finishes lighting the jarred candle on the island and turns to face me, I’ve regained a fragile hold on my emotions.

  She smiles. “Let me show you to your room.”

  It’s a gratuitous offer, because I know exactly where my room is, but I don’t hate the notion of her walking me down the hall, opening the door, and leading me inside.

  It’s different.

  Where there used to be two twin beds, one is now the room’s focal point, a four-poster qu
een dressed with a fluffy down comforter. The standing mirror I last saw in shards scattered across the floor has been replaced by a wall-mounted version, framed in filigree. There’s a small writing desk, new, with a vase of flowers: tulips and daisies, baby pink roses. The wardrobe has been moved into the far corner. Maybe Narnia lies beyond its carved doors; I make a mental note to check later. Through the pair of windows, there’s a wide-open view of the ocean and the slowly sinking sun.

  “You have Wi-Fi, and there are fresh towels in the bathroom,” Lucy tells me, turning on the lamp that sits on the nightstand. She doesn’t mention the changes, the adjustments she must’ve made to save me the grief of remembering this room as it was when Chloe was alive.

  “Okay.”

  “Will you be comfortable in here?”

  “I think so,” I say, and then I catch an unfortunate glimpse of myself in the mirror. I look rumpled and unkempt. Wasted.

  I move past the lone bed to one of the windows. The glass is droopy, the view distorted: the blue plane of the ocean warped, the sharp edge of the cliff at the far end of the yard wavy. I run my fingertips over the surface, mesmerized by bubbles that look like trapped crystals.

  Last summer, I was too busy to notice them.

  “Windows were made differently a hundred years ago,” Lucy says, stepping closer. She taps the glass with a finger. “Some consider the bubbles flaws, but I like them.”

  I nod, curiosity overriding my reticence. “This house is a hundred years old?”

  “Nearly a hundred and twenty. Built in 1902.”

  A quiet mewing drifts into the room. Lucy’s face lights up. “That’s my Daisy. I rescued her a few months ago from the woods. Hopefully, she won’t bother you.”

  “No, I like cats.” I peek past her into the hallway, but there’s no sign of Daisy.

  “Anyway,” Lucy says, “I’ve read up on the Stewart family over the last year. Joseph Stewart, the man who had this house built, was a banker from Portland. Apparently, he had quite a reputation.” She walks to the bed and drops onto it with a little bounce. She’s gorgeous, though in her leggings, baggy top, and bare feet, she carries an effortless air. “He picked this hill because he wanted privacy. Turns out the Stewarts were a calamity all the way up through the generations. The last of them, one of Joseph’s distant nephews, died here about ten years ago.”

  I fold my arms and lean against the wall, feigning boredom, listening raptly.

  “I hear he was a drinker,” Lucy goes on. “I hear that’s all he did, which explains why the house was such a mess. It was willed to one of the remaining Stewarts, a doctor who lives in Eugene, but she didn’t want anything to do with it. It sat empty, neglected, for a lot of years, until she put it on the market. You’ll see when we start working upstairs—she didn’t even bother to clean out her relatives’ belongings. There wasn’t much interest until I came along.”

  “Why’d you want it?”

  Her expression becomes pensive. “After my marriage fell apart, I needed a break from Los Angeles. I needed a project to keep myself busy. Moving to Oregon, buying this house, turning it into a B&B … I’m chasing a dream.”

  I’m wondering why she never shared any of this last summer, with Chloe and me, when a gray-and-white cat slinks up to the doorway, assesses me and the room, then gives a purposeful meow. Her slate eyes are marble-round, and her tail’s fluffed up. She hisses once, not at me—the stranger in her home—but at the wardrobe.

  “Daisy! What’s gotten into you?” Lucy says, rising from the bed.

  The cat backs away, then turns and bolts down the hallway, paws slipping almost comically before they find purchase on the polished hardwood.

  “It’s just Callie, you crazy kitty,” Lucy calls after her. She shakes her head, baffled. “I’ll properly introduce you two later. She’s really very sweet.”

  I shrug. Maybe animals sense sadness the way they sense approaching storms; I wouldn’t want to be around me, either.

  “So what are you up for tonight?” Lucy asks. “Movie? I have some board games we could dig out. Or we could hang out with a couple of books.”

  A vague memory needles its way into my mind. Christmastime, several years ago, after Grandma died, but well before Chloe and I visited Bell Cove. Lucy’s husband was shooting a movie in the remote Canadian wilderness, so she spent the holidays at our house. During the ten days she was with us, she took over Mom’s bedtime story routine, reading to my sister and me, the three of us in flannel pajamas, snuggled beneath a blanket on the living room couch. Lucy’s curls smelled reliably of lavender, and Chloe’s bony elbow always found its way into my ribs. The book was Little House in the Big Woods, a few chapters each night.

  Once upon a time, I might have been seduced by the notion of my aunt and a stack of books in a fanciful Victorian. But this Victorian has too much history. Reliving it in jagged fragments this past hour has siphoned my energy.

  I give a genuine yawn. “Honestly, I’m ready for bed.”

  “Oh,” Lucy says, her tone betraying her disappointment. “Then how about tomorrow we have breakfast together before we start working?”

  I nod. She hugs me again, but her embrace isn’t as comforting as it was earlier. There’s something rueful, piteous, about the way her arms encircle me now, something that makes me want to duck away from her touch.

  When she steps into the hallway, I close and lock the door. Then I root through my suitcase for the meager stash of weed that escaped the search and seizure my dad carried out last night. I shove one of the heavy windows open, trying not to think about how displaced I feel, how badly I long to be at home, how desperately I miss my parents, and my sister.

  I pack the bowl of the glass pipe Isaac gave me last August, a gift of contrition handed over before he moved back to San Diego to begin his freshman year of college, then draw in a stream of smoke. Closing my eyes, I hold it until my lungs burn, then blow a cloud into the darkening backyard.

  For the first time all day, I don’t feel like I’m floating away.

  4

  Daisy wanders through the crack in my door a long while later. I’m flat on my back on the bed, the new bed, staring at the subtly textured ceiling. She mews once before leaping up and lying down beside me. I stroke her back, glad I decided to open the door. She’s a ball of soft, purring fur—nothing like the hissing creature I met earlier.

  I think I like her.

  I slide off the bed to check my phone—no calls, no texts, as usual—then plug its charger in and leave it to sit on the nightstand, where it’ll likely remain all summer, unused. Sleepily, I change into a T-shirt and sweats. I’m pulling socks over my cold toes when Daisy lifts her head and lets out a moan. I reach out to pet her, placate her, but she’s not having it. She vaults off the bed and darts out of the room, a gray streak of panic.

  She’s just disappeared down the dimly lit hallway when a clatter obliterates the house’s silence. I whirl around to find my phone facedown on the floor, still tethered to the wall by its charger. My pulse races, thunderous in my ears. Stupid, because, holy hell, my phone fell—that’s all. Stewart House is so old its floors probably aren’t level.

  Still, I glance around the room, making certain I’m alone.

  A chill slithers up my spine as I notice the windows, curtains wide open. I try to remember if I pulled them shut after my smoke, before the night became so dark. I thought I did. But they’ve been open all this time, while I lay on the bed. While I changed clothes.

  Stewart House is secluded, but I hate the idea of being so exposed. So vulnerable.

  I hurry across the room and yank the curtains closed.

  I can’t shake Daisy’s frantic exit or the seemingly spontaneous fall of my phone or the shiver of cold I felt a few moments ago. I consider finding Lucy, if only to share space with another human being, but quickly talk myself out of that idea.

  I won’t be chased out of this room I have to spend the summer in.

  Throwing my sho
ulders back, I stride to the bathroom. Standing at the sink, I gather my hair into a ponytail and secure it with an elastic. I dig my toothbrush out of my toiletry bag and brush my teeth ferociously. With a generous squirt of cleanser, I scrub my face into a frothy mask, glowering at my reflection. Bending over, I rinse. I breathe deep, inhaling steam, letting lingering unease rush down the drain with sudsy water.

  It’s then, standing at the sink with my face dripping wet, that my ponytail rustles—as if a gust of wind has whipped through the small space.

  I spin around, clutching my hands to where my heart sits frozen in my chest, water streaming down my face and neck, soaking the collar of my shirt.

  I expect—hope—to find Lucy behind me.

  The bathroom is empty.

  * * *

  I retreat to the parlor, where I spend the next half hour trying to get my blood to quit hammering my pulse points. I wrap a blanket around my shoulders, residually cold. My gaze stays fixed on the darkened hallway, watching for the slightest hint of movement.

  Except, everything is still.

  I keep telling myself: I smoked too much. I’m paranoid. There’s no way what happened could’ve been real.

  Right?

  My grandma was a pragmatic woman, a lot like my dad, but she harbored a lifelong interest in the paranormal. There was a shelf on the bookcase in her living room that housed books with titles like A Cultural History of the Occult and Apparitions: Our Silent Companions. She used to watch shows about psychics and ghost hunters and the most haunted locations in America, and when I visited, I’d watch with her. She thought skepticism about the afterlife was the same as arrogance. Nobody really knows, so why not keep a mind open to possibility?

  When I’ve climbed down from my high, when I’ve stopped shivering, when I’m sure there’s no one lurking in a shadowy corner, I get up to scan the dozens of books Lucy’s displayed on the parlor’s built-in shelves. There’s nothing about the supernatural, but I do find a tattered copy of Little House in the Big Woods. It’s super late, but I curl up on the settee and spend some time with Laura and Mary and Ma and Pa, trying to replace my lingering restlessness with the pleasantness of their everyday Wisconsin lives, trying not to think about how acutely this story is linked to my sister.