Look at those silver maples! I planted them, what, five years ago? They have come along nicely. I would have preferred a creek or waterway nearby—one drought and they’ll pay the price—but the roots have taken hold and deepened. They haven’t been pruned in a while, the branches are too long and delicate, flimsy enough so a high wind or even a layer of ice can snap them off, and the rods I had put in to assure a straight growth pattern are tilted. Why would Edward allow such a thing, young trees are so susceptible to growing crooked if not corrected, one storm and in the morning you wake up and there it is—a leaning tree.
The house. There it is.
Ivy twirls undisciplined and shameless around the brick posts by the front door, sticky leaves have climbed upward, have attacked the house like an aggressive invader, and soon it’ll attach itself to the oak, vines will climb up the tree trunk and envelop branches and twigs, blocking sunlight to the first then the second floor. I picture the brickwork overcome by rootlike structures. So much ivy. It’s everywhere. A stem, thick as rope, sends runners over the stones. To my horror the mortar has cracked and blades of grass emerge in between them. The oak by the driveway, its leaves chatter above me, tell me I was supposed to care for the house, protect it. But I had not. I had not. Because Edward—
I wonder, do the neighbors still welcome Edward into their homes, invite him to parties? Will they welcome him with another woman? I bristle at the thought but I follow the easement line toward the house, cut across the lawn, and step onto the old stone path leading to the house.
* * *
• • •
I make my way to the front door. That door knocker. An ornate head of a woman with a bursting sun behind her like a halo I had come across at a salvage company on a trip to the Gulf Coast. The door’s brushed bronze, exquisitely hand-forged hardware, the cut stone set back into a brick wall, make the entrance feel like stepping into a fortress. Having gained distance from my former life, I now understand what I tried to do here: it was my way of clearing the trees and preparing a plat, building dams and levees around it to keep predators at bay.
That day Edward dropped me off at Shadow Garden, I was beside myself and didn’t think . . . What did I think, exactly? Having been cast off like a worn sock, I didn’t have the strength to demand what . . . Should I have insisted on the key? This was my home and not being able to just enter through the front door makes me pity myself. Typical me, disappointment churning in my gut but I also haven’t so much as wasted a thought on how I’d get into Hawthorne Court, having spent all that time wondering how I’d get here.
To my left the marble fountain prattles away. I dip my fingers in the water and quickly jerk my hand back. Algae sticks to my fingers and a scummy layer covers the entire basin, the water babbling and splashing but the gurgle is slow. Soon the pipes will be blocked.
I look up, second floor, second window, that’s where Penelope’s room is. I count the windows, locate my former bedroom. Is another woman sleeping in my bed?
Following the path, I end up at the metal gate leading to the service entrance. It was part of the original floor plan, from a time when employees entered the house and I had thought it quirky and charming and kept it, though we hardly used it.
Edward often forgot to lock the doors at night but the alarm system might be enabled and I don’t dare cause a commotion of epic proportions; shrill alarms and blinking lights, and the security firm showing up. How would I explain myself, that’s the conundrum, but I can’t resist the urge to look through a window and if I’m careful enough, I won’t trigger an alarm.
I part the potted gold dust aucuba by the service entrance which will allow me a view of the butler’s pantry and the kitchen. The ground is nothing but knotted roots and I shuffle my feet to get closer to the window, but before I know it the vines have wrapped themselves around my ankle. Sharp English ivy leaves poke at me. I stumble as I break free, reach for the windowsill to steady myself but the house is so close—or am I closer to it than I thought?—and the palm of my hand hits the windowpane with a loud smack which echoes into the night like a slap on bare skin. I crouch and wait. I slip behind the flowerpot the size of a bathtub. Nothing stirs. No alarm. No footsteps, no lights. I wait a while longer to make sure. I sit in the dark, hidden by the six-foot-tall aucuba, the green, gold-spotted leaves wide and long enough for me to disappear behind. The irony of it all. As I cower in the corner, an ace tumbles out of my sleeve.
* * *
• • •
The first time Penelope hid from me, she was five years old. It was innocent enough. We had just moved to Florida, and the house was so small it took me less than thirty seconds to run from room to room. I checked the door but she was so little and could barely reach the lock. I opened cabinets and closets but there was no sign of her; I ripped shower curtains and checked the backyard for holes in the fence. I found her underneath the dinner table, calm and poised. Had she not just seen and heard me running through the house, screaming her name, banging doors and cabinets? Why was she so composed, as if it was a game we had played, when I was clearly out of my mind with worry?
She didn’t stop there. She’d walk home from school and take a wrong turn or wander off in another direction and the entire neighborhood was looking for her while she sat on a bench pretending she didn’t understand what all the hoopla was about.
“You can’t just wander off. Don’t do that again,” I’d say to her.
“Don’t do what again?”
“Wandering off. You scare us when you do that.”
“But I’m just taking another route.”
“It’s embarrassing to alert the school and neighbors and the police and then we find you and sometimes I think you do this on purpose.” I joked then, “Penelope, you are my only child, I don’t have a spare. If I lose you, I have nothing.”
I followed her once. Penelope was seventeen, and I happened to drive by her school and saw her get into a car. She had missed curfew again and we had taken the house keys because otherwise she’d come and go as she pleased and we needed her to know that we were keeping track of her. I trailed the car. The driver was too old to be a student, though I couldn’t be sure. I eventually lost them in traffic but was worried when she didn’t return home that day. I said to Edward, “Maybe we should lock her away in a box underground to keep her from harm,” but it sounded macabre and I regretted it right away. That night I stayed up dreading the moment she’d stroll down the street like a wayward girl with the entire Preston Hallow neighborhood looking on.
She materialized out of thin air in the early morning hours. I watched her through the window as she approached the front door. She stood idly and then turned on her heels as if the front door was some sort of orientation point. It was an eerie sight to behold, my seventeen-year-old daughter taking strides through the yard at four o’clock in the morning like a mad soldier marching to the tune of a maniacal drum, stopping and changing directions at random. I wanted to go outside and assure her that everything was all right, but she stopped suddenly and proceeded east across the lawn, then back toward the house, then trudged with stiffness and determination until I realized she was counting her steps. She bent down and retrieved something from the lawn. She entered through the service entrance door. I stood in the sunroom that night, in the dark, pressed against the wall attempting to keep my breath steady.
The next day I searched the lawn and not until I came upon what I mistook for a crooked sprinkler head did I see it: a black film roll container buried in the soil. To the naked eye the round top looked like a sprinkler head, but inside she had hidden the key to the house.
It’s been years but maybe it’s still there?
Edward’s neglect has contributed to my finding the key in the no-longer-plush grass. Underneath the oak the soil is prominent and the tree roots are visible, snaking about, stealing water from the grass, sparse patches are covered in stolon
-like strands stretching from dirt patch to dirt patch, struggling to fill in the gaps. I take my steps deliberately, locate the spot, and the crooked canister materializes within the soil. It takes me only seconds and I tug at the container and it breaks free. The top comes off easily, the key is in pristine condition.
I walk to the front of the house and turn right, down the walkway back toward the service entrance. I gauge the distance to the army of maples on the edge of the property, just in case. It will take me about twenty seconds to get there and that’s where I’ll hide if the alarm goes off. All I have to do is be quick and it will seem like a fluke of the security system.
It dawns on me that I haven’t felt my hip act up since I left Shadow Garden, I haven’t so much as wasted a thought on it. All those walks, all those runs have paid off. It almost seems as if I’ve been preparing for this moment.
The key slips into the lock without hesitation. Feeling my heart all through my fingertips, pounding along metronome-like in a timely beat, I enter Hawthorne Court.
19
DONNA
I suck in the air and there’s something unsettling about it. The scent is giving me images of a house locked up during a long absence, a buildup of time, yet it has a familiarity that is taking me back to a life that no longer exists. The kitchen under-cabinet lighting throwing shadows into the butler’s pantry and Viking stove is familiar. As if queued, the specs run through my head: induction, forty-eight inch, stainless steel, griddle, porcelain-coated cast-iron burner grates, royal-blue finish.
With bold confidence, I enter the kitchen. I run my fingers across stainless-steel appliances and Italian marble counters and follow the house’s natural flow, to the left, into the step-down living room with barrel ceilings and hardwood floors. On first instinct I want to rush to Penelope’s room but I resist. I must start in the basement and work my way up strategically.
The basement construction had been a point of contention when we renovated the house.
“It’ll cost more to excavate than our first home. Donna, you can’t be serious,” Edward said after I asked about an engineering survey. “This is more difficult than you realize,” he added after I insisted on sitting down with the contractor to discuss it. “The ground swells up, then it shrinks. There are too many forces at play. You can build an entire guesthouse for the price of a basement.”
I didn’t budge. “Edward, you are not thinking clearly,” I countered. “What about a shelter? There are tornadoes around here, where would we go?”
“It’s cheaper to build up than down. You want another floor? Pick one or the other.”
In the end we compromised; there was a small basement and the third floor was a split-level. To think how long and fervent that argument was, how trivial it seems now. I’ll never think of the expense as a waste of money. In all those years I’ve never regretted going the extra mile when it came to Hawthorne Court. I still believe the basement came in handy, even if I don’t live here anymore.
All Edward ever did was complain what things cost instead of soaking in the house and letting it make you happy and full, like a stray kitten after a saucer of thick cream. I feel anger rise but I need to keep my wits about myself and so I do what I have become accustomed to: I tell myself that the best part of memory is being able to forget and I push Edward momentarily out of my mind.
The door to the basement is ajar and that alone strikes me as odd; as a rule we left the door locked. I remember the first step down appearing suddenly, the stairs altogether steep, the drop-off abrupt and I had always been wary about a fall. I take short floating steps, but still they sound loud in the dark and quiet house. I tiptoe onto the first landing and pull the door shut behind me. My steps no longer travel, my breathing is now cushioned, and my breaths bounce off the walls instead of echoing through the house. The air is stagnant and there is a claustrophobic layer with space so limited, walls so close to my left and right. I descend on shallow treads, even the smallest wrong movement will send me tumbling down.
In the dark I reach for the string I remember dangling off the ceiling. It magically ends up in the palm of my hand. I loop it around my finger, pull on it, and the light comes on. Passing underneath the bare bulb forces me to hunch over as I count my steps. It strikes me as silly—it’s not as if Edward has added any—but all the while it seems appropriate and when I land on the last one, I know why.
My foot slips as if on a patch of ice. I catch myself. How could I forget? I had made it a habit to hold on to the railing and caught myself every single time. Like now. Muscle memory. The concrete step had begun to crumble years ago, a big chunk had broken off. The slightest contact will deteriorate the jagged rectangle until there’s nothing left but cement turning into dust. Eventually the sudden drop-off will feel like drifting off to sleep and catching yourself jerking awake, all the while you are tumbling into the dark.
The first door on my right swings open with ease. Mildew blasts at me. A few wooden boards are haphazardly cast onto the floor. I’m about to turn when I spot chairs in the back corner. One propped up upside down on the other, six altogether. They are covered in brown stains and I can’t help but think of blood but then I catch myself. It terrifies me to know that’s where my mind goes.
The room on the left is a wine cellar intended to shelve vintage wines but I lost interest—between the cost of vaults and temperature control units and logs one should keep—and Edward didn’t want to spend more money and so I gave up on it altogether. Behind the next door is nothing but an old bike leaning against the wall, rolls of wrapping paper in a bucket, bent at the top as if they have been down here for decades. The last room contains nothing but cobwebs, spider nests, and rat droppings. Close to the ceiling are elongated windows, slit like cuts into the walls and even during sunny days they didn’t provide enough natural light to see every nook and cranny. One window has been left ajar.
Back upstairs, in the kitchen, I listen to the house. The refrigerator hums, ice cubes drop into the tray. My movements are cautious, I pass from room to room, timidly, afraid I’ll knock over a vase, bump into a chair, and send it screeching across the floor, or a rug will trip me up.
The dining room. I remember it as a long and narrow room with the original hardwood floors, the perfect size for a table that would seat a dozen people. In the best of days we’d had dinner parties and anniversary gatherings here, held charity functions, and even the mayor came for a brunch once. When Edward opened his practice, guests gathered in the foyer and upon my direction the staff pushed the doors open and the grand space revealed itself. I watched the faces, how their jaws dropped. Over the past year at Shadow Garden, I have imagined this room often: the mahogany table taking up most of the room, impeccably set with heavy silver cutlery; etched wineglasses luminous in the early evening light; candelabras on each end of the table; ornate place cards.
The starburst pendant hangs above. It’s a work of art and a genius move to place it here, that one modern accent completing a room of antiques. Such a powerful statement, the perfect piece for the space. I wish I could see the room the way it used to look, the way the light danced off the walls and reflected in the windowpanes like a lustrous crown manifesting our place in the world, but I don’t dare turn on the light.
I move on into the foyer and the double flight of stairs invitingly wind upward in front of me, but I hesitate, I’m fearful I’ll give myself away if the stairs creak. I needn’t worry, though; the construction is sturdy and up I go, ignoring the second floor with guest bedrooms and a library and make my way to the third floor. I want to rush rush rush but I stop myself from getting carried away. If I get careless, it’ll only be a matter of time until I run into a chair, knock something over; eventually a mistake will be made.
At the top landing, the hallways to the left and right lie abandoned and I’m disoriented; furniture is missing, the hallways lack accent tables, the silk curtains are not ther
e either and it strikes me—the entire house is furnished sparsely. I look left, then right, left again. The hallways are long square chutes, like shipping containers, leading into gradual darkness.
Above me, though shrouded in darkness, is a masterpiece. Just knowing it’s there is consolation enough, even though I can’t see it. The hours I spent on picking it out are incalculable, and the designer had advised against it but I told her if something works, you keep it around. From Versailles to Buckingham Palace, its appeal was time tested and if it was good enough for them, it was perfect for us: an early nineteenth-century French crystal chandelier draped with bead roping, heavy pear-shaped drops, an iron structure with fluted arms. I had purchased the chandelier behind Edward’s back and had it electrified. I have no qualms with saying I would have spent double the money if I had to. How do you put a price on something so perfect? Every time I turned it on, it was like plugging in a Christmas tree.
Taking in a deep breath, I feel a tickle in my nose. Those dirty drapes and windows. Is it neglect or my presence sending a vortex of dust into the previously stagnant air? A house this size requires dusting twice a week or it turns into a dust trap, and judging by the state of it all, Edward hasn’t hired a housekeeper. There’s an expression physicians use: circling the drain. Talk for a patient whose death is unavoidable, a medical term for someone in rapid decline: this house is circling the drain. It’s fixing to die. This isn’t a house neglected, not a house in flux, in a state of unrest, but a house about to perish.
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