The brief, damp touch of a small hand on my face woke me. I opened my eyes in startlingly bright sunlight to find Eva standing beside me. She looked as pitiful as I had ever seen her, her eyes and face drooping with exhaustion. And she was wet. Her pink cotton playsuit clung to her achingly thin body, exposing the outline of her delicate ribs. Droplets of water emerged from her clinging curls before gathering into rivulets and running into the gray hollows of her cheeks. She wore the same blue velvet ribbon in her hair that I’d seen in my dream, but now it was limp and hung loosely. I tried to reach for her, to smooth the water off of her face, but my arms felt stiff as though invisibly bound and I sobbed in frustration, fearful that she would go away before I could hold her again.
“Eva, baby.”
But she was backing away from me, carefully, placing one dirty white sandal behind the other as though following some invisible line.
“No, stay!”
My arms and legs wouldn’t move when I tried to reach for her. Even my voice felt mired in my throat. When she turned and ran, I was afraid she would collide with the room’s heavy furniture and hurt herself. But of course the dead can’t be hurt.
Her footsteps echoed in the vast hall as she disappeared.
Thrashing against whatever was binding me, I finally pulled free, only to fall to the floor.
Opening my eyes again, I saw that the door to the hallway was shut. I understood that I had probably been dreaming.
The fall had hurt; I lay on my side, the mohair blanket wound around my body. My mouth was so dry, I could hardly open it. One arm was caught beneath me, and my free hand clutched a limp sprig of goldenrod.
Disengaging myself from the blanket, I stood up. My bones felt hollow and my muscles ached. Limping from stiffness, I went to the lantern and laid the sprig of goldenrod beside it. The sheet on the wall was blank and dingy gray in the weak morning light.
I was filled with pity for Olivia. For myself. I rested my fingers on the cold lantern and looked down. My heart seemed to stop for an eternity.
The plug lay untouched, exactly where I had left it the evening before.
Chapter 14
Escape
I approached the morning cautiously, wondering if I would ever feel quite complete again. My experience with Olivia had depleted me, leaving the inside of my head feeling as though it had been scrubbed out with lye or something equally caustic. When I looked in the mirror, it seemed to me that I was paler than usual. My hair badly needed a trim. It was Tuesday, my usual day at the hairdresser’s, but I couldn’t imagine going into the beauty shop and facing all the inquisitive, sympathetic women who would surely be there. Did it matter how I looked? Not to me. I was beginning to think that it didn’t matter to Press, either, and perhaps hadn’t mattered to him in a long while.
No. That wasn’t fair of me to think or say. Not then. When I thought back to the months and years before Olivia died, I was certain he had once loved me deeply. Not with an unreserved passion, but he’d loved me enough. At least that’s how I remember our time together. The passion between us—physical as well as emotional—had been real. Our plans for our future had been real.
Now there was hammering and laughter and the smell of cigarette smoke from the theater on the third floor, a sign that all was no longer wonderful between us. It was as though he had chosen a different future.
“He’s grieving,” Nonie had told me. “Maybe this is his way.” But her voice hadn’t held any conviction. Just as she knew when I was lying, I knew when she was trying to make me feel better.
By the time I’d showered and eaten breakfast, taken a walk with Michael, and spent an hour looking at books with him in the nursery, I knew I was just putting off the moment when I would go back into the morning room. For I would go back there.
In the kitchen, I mentioned to Marlene and Terrance that J. C. Jaquith would be arriving the next day, and that they should get a guest room ready, and that we would probably be having a small dinner party. As I explained, I could see from the tolerant looks on their faces that Press had already told them. They were humoring me: “Flowers in the guest room, Miss Charlotte? Beef for dinner, as Mr. and Mrs. Carstairs will be dining?” They obviously considered Press to be the one who was really in charge, not me. Had Terrance been like that with Olivia and Press’s father before he died? I tried to imagine the gentle Michael Searle going behind Olivia’s back, making arrangements for guests. I wished I had known him. I wished Olivia had let me know her better.