At those words, I wondered for a moment if he somehow knew what I was thinking about Olivia’s room. And that Olivia was still here—somewhere.
His heavy eyebrows lifted, lightening his face. It was a look he got when he was truly excited. “But the house is ours to do with as we choose, isn’t it? Now that Zion and Helen are gone, I’d like to take the group in a new direction. This place. . . .” He swept his arm, I assumed to indicate the house. “Bliss House is so much more than my mother would ever let it be. Now it’s ours, Charlotte. Everyone in the group adores you, my darling. I’ve been telling you for months, you should come and at least read with us. You’d be terrific on stage. Helen was always saying that you and your killer cheekbones belonged up there.”
When Press introduced Helen to me at our engagement party, Helen had reached up and taken my face in her tiny hands that sparkled with stacks of expensive rings and given my cheeks a not-so-gentle squeeze.
“Look at those cheekbones, Zion! This is a girl born to play Brunhild, yes? But do you sing, my dear?”
Even though the group didn’t do musicals, that line, “But do you sing, my dear?” became a kind of joke between Press and me.
“I don’t think so. I’ll leave the theater to you and Rachel.” Sometimes Press was like a particularly winning child whose pleas I found hard to resist no matter what my mood. But the wall was up. Even if I felt my emotions, my body responding to him, I wouldn’t be drawn from my purpose. My grief.
“Then come and play with us. We’ll be at loose ends without Zion and Helen. Helen kept us going.”
“Come and play with you?” Even the word play felt repellent in my mouth. “What are you saying? Our baby girl hasn’t been dead a month. What do you think you’re doing?”
He put a hand on my arm. Angry, I shook it off and picked up the note from the desk.
“When is J.C. coming? Have you already arranged it?”
“She’ll be here the day after tomorrow.”
“Jesus, Press. How could you not tell me about this?” I searched his eyes looking for understanding, waiting for him to tell me that he hadn’t meant to hurt me. “You need to tell her not to come!”
“It’s just a few days. She’ll be here, and the work will be done, then everyone will be gone. I’ve already had the outside stairway to the theater repaired, and the workmen will use that.”
How had I not heard? Not noticed? I vaguely remembered voices, hammering, but just barely. It must have taken days to repair the towering, dangerously narrow wood-and-iron stairway that hugged the western side of the house as though it didn’t want to be seen. It was a leftover from the days when Randolph Bliss had invited in the locals to see minstrel shows and even the occasional traveling preacher, though the rumors were that the family secretly mocked them. Someone from the town had fallen from the top of the stairs years before, but I didn’t know the details.
“And then? Don’t lie to me. Rachel told me about the memorial.”
“Lie to you? Darling, we aren’t the only ones who lost something precious. There are a dozen people living in or near Old Gate who loved Helen and Zion like parents. It’s only right that they be able to come together and mourn them properly.” He reached out for my arm again, but hesitated.
I was glad he stopped, because I might have hit him or flung myself at him. Still, I could hardly speak. My jaw was clenched so tightly, the words barely escaped.
“They don’t have to do it here.”
Behind my thoughts, my rage, I heard a rustling somewhere. From outside the room? No. From the nearby wall, or perhaps the fireplace. I thought of rats. They were a constant problem in the orchard’s storage buildings. But I didn’t want to look away from Press.
“Charlotte, they died here.”
“They died in the drive.”
“It’s still our home. Our house. Bliss House isn’t just the house—it’s everything we own. That I own. I have an obligation.”
The rustling got louder. Press glanced away for just a second toward the fireplace.
“It’s just a room. You can have it in town at the auditorium. Or if they hadn’t been goddamn heathens, you could do it in a church like you would for normal people. You act like it matters, giving them some kind of service. They’re probably in hell, anyway.”
My breath came short and my body was flushed with heat. The sounds from the fireplace were louder, more violent, as though the chimney were about to collapse. I wasn’t sure how much longer we could ignore them.
In my heels I was almost two inches taller than Press, but his body filled the space in front of me and I could feel the force, the presence of him overwhelming me.