I left Marlene and went to the dining room where all the peacock eyes seemed to watch me. The thought that Olivia might be watching as well made me feel strangely shy.
Moving past the enormous cabinet filled with the silver pieces that Terrance was forever polishing, I went to stand exactly where I’d seen Olivia behind the glass. Outside the window, the October sunshine beckoned, but I closed my eyes against it. Olivia and I hadn’t been close, but we shared a love for Press and the children, and she was always kind to me. Though I hadn’t had the chance or inclination to explore them yet, she had specifically left all of her personal belongings—the contents of her bedroom and morning room—to me.
Did it feel just a bit cooler here than in the rest of the dining room? There had to be a reason why she wanted me to see her. I was certain that I would have heard immediately if anyone else had caught sight of her. Bliss House was notorious enough that anyone who had direct experience of some strange occurrence there was unlikely to keep it a secret. God only knew, they must have still been talking about the deaths of the Heasters in the drive.
I thought that perhaps I already knew the reason Olivia had appeared only to me. She was here to help me keep Eva close, perhaps even guide me to her.
“Olivia.” I whispered so that Marlene wouldn’t hear. “Help me.”
I opened my eyes. Outside the doors, a breeze ruffled the delicate blood-red leaves of the miniature Japanese maples Olivia had planted as accents around the patio. How odd, that provincial Olivia would pick something so boldly exotic to decorate the outside of Bliss House.
I waited, listening to the faint sounds of Marlene in the kitchen and my own breathing. After a few minutes, I began to feel the slightest bit foolish. I wanted to believe, to trust that Olivia was with me. But it felt a little unnatural. Or perhaps I was afraid.
It occurred to me that I might get closer to Olivia by looking through her things. It was my right, yes? No one would ask why. They belonged to me. Marlene had already been hinting that she would get Terrance to pack up whatever clothing of Olivia’s I wanted to give away and take it to the Presbyterian thrift store in town.
As though reading my mind, Marlene called me from the dining room’s kitchen entrance.
Turning at the sound of her voice, I was just in time to see one of the glass patio doors swing violently open, as though by a strong wind, and hit the corner of a chair placed against the wall. Two of the door’s panels shattered, scattering shards of glass onto the carpet below.
Chapter 6
Domestic Bliss
Up to that point in my life, I was no liar. My father could look at my face and know in an instant that I was about to tell him an untruth.
“Don’t tell me what you think you want to say, Lottie. I see in your eyes it’s not the truth.” My mother was just like me, he said. And I have her eyes: bright blue and guileless.
But I learned to lie. If there is shame in that fact, I don’t feel it.
The previous day, I’d been sufficiently shaken by the incident with the door that I hadn’t ventured into Olivia’s room, and neither had I wanted to return to the dining room. Because Press was out, I had Terrance bring supper up to the nursery. Nonie, Michael, and I ate in companionable chaos, with Michael delighting in being able to climb off and on his small chair at the child-sized nursery table any time he wanted. Even Nonie was amused with him, though I could tell she wasn’t trying to show it. I felt more content in the nursery, closer to Eva’s things that still sat on their shelves and in their drawers, and closer to her. I could miss her here, but the pain was almost bearable because she seemed so close.
When Press had finally come home, I was already asleep. He didn’t enter my room—not then, and not in the morning—so it had been more than a day since we’d spoken. Was I wrong to prefer it that way? I couldn’t reconcile his swift return to normality with the physical ache in my chest that rose every time I put my hand on the nursery door, or looked at the cushioned booster seat we’d had made so Eva could sit at the dining-room table with us like a big girl, or at the lonesome playhouse beside the stone path leading to the swimming pool, or nearly every time I breathed in the air that she would never breathe again. What was wrong with him?
When I came downstairs in the morning to make sure I hadn’t dreamed the incident with the broken glass, Press was there, sitting at the table. His head was bent over a book—probably recommended to him by Zion, who had often sent him home with philosophy and theater books. When he looked up, I saw his skin was flush with color and health: he’d been out rowing on the James with Jack at dawn. So, that had resumed as well.
He smiled. Before he rose from his chair, there was a second’s hesitation and I heard the faint ring of a bell in the kitchen. He had rung for Terrance by pressing the bell beneath the carpet with his foot.