“She arranged for some little girl to come and pretend she was Eva. I heard her running away. For God’s sake, Press. It didn’t even look like Eva.”
Press scoffed. “That’s crazy. You know this house. You know what’s possible. Why wouldn’t Eva come back? She misses us.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore, Press. For years you’ve told me that nothing strange is happening here, and then you change your mind. I don’t know what you believe or what you care about, except for your little group of theater friends. I don’t even know if you loved Eva. I know for damned sure that you don’t really love me.”
I’d begun to shake and felt horribly cold with anger and worry. The shivering reached into my bones and I had to clench my jaw shut to keep my teeth from chattering.
I hated what was happening to me.
“Calm down.”
“You calm down!” But I spoke from between clenched teeth.
It hurts, Mommy.
It didn’t matter that the child had been a fraud. They were surely Eva’s own words.
The water hurts.
“You’re embarrassing yourself. You’re not well. Everyone sees it. You haven’t been yourself since you let Eva die.”
For the first time in our marriage, I struck my husband. My arm and fist were stiff as I swung at him, and I wasn’t strong, but when I made contact with the side of his face it put him off-balance and he stumbled sideways, surprised. His misstep was undignified and clumsy—mostly because I’d taken him off guard. Instead of striking me back as a less patient, less genteel man might have, he regarded me with a look of undisguised contempt.
Unwilling to continue with him, I ran through the door that joined our bedrooms and slammed it shut. I’d long ago lost the key, but I didn’t hear him following me. I was fairly certain he wouldn’t follow.
I collapsed on the floor against the door. Finally he had said it out loud—the thing that everyone around us, everyone around me was always thinking. I was responsible. Eva had died on my watch. I’d been passed out, drunk. No one blamed Press. Only me. He had simply moved on, grieving little, not changing his habits or appetites. I hadn’t even been able to refuse his physical advances as I lay on the bed where my daughter had slept in the hour before she died. Where was my outrage over his complicity? My dignity? I had none. J.C. had taunted me. I was a joke in my own house.
Yet. . . .
Bliss House didn’t hate me. Olivia was there, and the real Eva. Perhaps they were my real strength. Olivia had let me see her weakness and shame. And what I had seen in the hall, just that night. Olivia had trusted me with the truth. The world believed that Michael Searle Bliss had died from a ruptured appendix, but he had hanged himself. The world believed that Randolph Bliss was dead when Michael Searle was married, but he had been very much alive. I trusted the house to show me the truth. I wondered if Press knew the truth. Terrance had known. Had that been why Olivia kept him on after he’d witnessed her abuse and humiliation? Quiet Terrance. Blackmail was definitely a quiet man’s game.
I couldn’t—wouldn’t—stay in my own room. It didn’t feel safe. It didn’t feel right. Bliss House was my home, and I wouldn’t leave it, but neither could I bear to be near Press.
Still shaking a bit, I slipped off my shoes and went to the door. Downstairs, Terrance and Marlene were putting away the table and chairs we’d used for the séance. While they often worked together in silence, now I could hear the murmur of Marlene’s voice, but I couldn’t make out her words. She’d been helpful getting Rachel out the door, bringing towels, damp and dry, and a pillow so she could lie down in the back of the car. I wondered whose side Marlene was on. The answer Press’s, of course came to me quickly, unbidden.
I couldn’t sleep in the nursery because of Shelley. Across the hall, Olivia’s door was still open. If only she were still there, still alive, so little of what had happened in the past few weeks would have happened. Eva would certainly still be alive as well.
There would have been no champagne, and no falling asleep. Press might have left the house, but the children wouldn’t have been left alone with me.
I had to stop.
I quickly changed into a nightgown and robe and took my pillow from the bed. Remembering the icy chill of the morning room, I also took my bed’s thick white coverlet.