Now she could go wherever she wanted—into her father’s den, into the third-floor bedrooms, into the attic and barn. With the cab gone, there was only silence. Silence from the trees and the house. Silence from the barn and fields. Where were the horses?
She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. The house looked like it was waiting patiently, anticipating the moment when it could swallow her whole. Had she made a mistake? What was she going to do out here all alone, a good two miles from the nearest neighbor? And how in the world was she going to run a horse farm when her parents had never let her into the barn, let alone talked to her about the business? Then she remembered she had money, lots of it, and she could pay someone else to take care of the horses. Besides, she couldn’t go back to Big Al’s and her dingy little room above the liquor store. She couldn’t go back to stealing, or being abused by Tom. She felt bad for leaving him without saying good-bye, but when she came home from work the day she got the letter, he was passed out on the couch after another bender. In the end it was for the best. She didn’t have to explain and she didn’t have to lie. And now she was free of him for good. She picked up her suitcase, wrapped her fingers around the front door key in her coat pocket, and strode toward Blackwood Manor, determined to make the best of whatever lay ahead.
Inside, the manor somehow seemed smaller than she remembered, but it was still enormous. The foyer alone was five times the size of her room above the liquor store. The house felt cold and damp, and she wondered if there were still rats in the attic. Mother and Father always denied the infestation, but growing up she had heard them at night, scurrying between rooms and in ceilings, scratching and gnawing on old plaster and rotted wood. The sounds of the old house had always kept her awake—beams creaking and shifting, pipes knocking and moaning—and her vivid young mind imagined someone, or something, living behind the walls.
She dropped her suitcase at the bottom of the stairs and drifted toward the kitchen, her footsteps echoing on the wood floors. She hadn’t eaten since last night and now she was starving. After the attorney found out she had agreed to take over the estate, he called Claude, the barn manager, to have groceries delivered. Too bad Claude hadn’t turned up the furnace too.
The smells of her childhood rushed back to her as she made her way through the house: lemoned oak, stone floors and wood fires, dusty furniture and silver polish. She passed the formal dining room and pictured Mother perched like a queen at the head of the table, casting a cold glare at anyone who dared slurp their soup or interrupt while she was talking. In the living room, moldy ashes lingered in the grates of the fireplace, and the familiar red tin of matches sat in the same spot on the mantel. A pair of reading glasses rested on an open book on the end table next to Mother’s favorite wingback chair, as if she had just set them down and gone upstairs to take a nap. Suddenly, being alone in the house made Julia uneasy, as if she might turn and see Mother standing in a doorway, an acid smile on her wrinkled face, her hair tinted gold.
In the kitchen, she rinsed out the copper teakettle, filled it, and put it on the stove to boil. The water from the sink smelled the same—iron, wet stone, and a hint of algae, so unlike the chlorinated water in the city. How many times had she been in this kitchen, washing dishes and helping Mother cook? How many times had she begged to do more than cut vegetables or cheese, more than get the flour out of the pantry, or the milk and eggs from the refrigerator? She wanted to knead the bread and brown the meat for the soup. She wanted to frost the cake and roll out the piecrust. But Mother worried she’d ruin whatever they were making, so she never let her do any of those things. After all, it was a sin to let good food go to waste.
Julia grabbed an apple from the wooden bowl on the island and stood at the sink, looking out the window, her shoulders hunched against the chill. Outside, the winter garden was a tangle of leggy plants and overgrown weeds. Mother would turn over in her grave if she could see it.
Now more than ever, Julia felt truly alone. Her mother and father were gone, and nothing had been resolved. Now it never would be. Over the years she had pulled herself apart, piece by piece, trying to understand why she felt so unloved, and why it always seemed as though her parents were keeping things from her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, there were foggy memories of Mother swaddling her in blankets and kissing her cheek, and she could still picture Mother’s blond hair and red lips as she sang lullabies and rocked her to sleep. But something changed as Julia got older, and she had no clue what it was.
Around the time Julia turned nine, Mother told her how she had prayed for a daughter and had spent most of her pregnancy in bed because she was so afraid of losing her. Then she went into a tirade about how disappointed she was to learn Julia’s only goals in life were to disobey and argue with her. Sometimes it seemed like her parents had a separate life that had nothing to do with her, or she had been born into the wrong family. She used to fantasize that she was adopted, or that her parents were spies, or had changed their identities to hide from the mob. But that was only to distract herself from being sad. Maybe she would never know.
A sudden banging at the back door made her jump. The banging came again, more insistent now. She set the apple on the counter, headed toward the door in the mudroom off the kitchen, and looked through the glass. An elderly gentleman in a tweed fedora and brown jacket stood on the stone steps.
“Hello?” he called.
Julia opened the door a crack. “Can I help you?”
“Just stopping by to check on you, Miss Blackwood,” the man said. He was short and thin, with a weathered face and watery blue eyes. “I don’t suppose you remember me, do you?”
Julia shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”
The man looked uncomfortable, as if he were performing some unpleasant but necessary task. He glanced over his shoulder, as if plotting a quick getaway. “I’m Claude, the barn manager and groundskeeper. Worked for your parents for nearly twenty-seven years.”
She smiled and opened the door wide. “Oh,” she said. “I don’t think we ever officially met. I wasn’t allowed in the barn when I lived here.”
Claude cleared his throat. “Well . . . I . . . ah . . . I remember you. I met you when you were just a little tike. And I saw you playing around the yard. Your father, God rest his soul, used to talk about you all the time.”
Julia was taken aback by the comment. Her father used to talk about her? All the time? Maybe Claude was just being nice. Maybe he was worried about losing his job. “How are the horses?” she said because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“They’re fine, Miss Blackwood, just fine. We’ve still got the best breeding mares around and five of the best stallions.”