目录
Content
Chapter_1
Chapter_2
Chapter_3
Chapter_4
Chapter_5
Chapter_6
Chapter_7
Chapter_8
Chapter_9
Chapter_10
Chapter_11
Chapter_12
Chapter_13
Chapter_14
Chapter_15
Chapter_16
Chapter_17
Chapter_18
Chapter_19
Chapter_20
Chapter_21
Chapter_1
characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
http://us.penguingroup.comTo Leigh Feldman, for seeing me through
this time, every time
and to Jay,
always waiting on the other side
Chapter One
“And finally,” Jamie said as he pushed the door open, “we come to the main
event. Your room.”
I was braced for pink. Ruffles or quilting, or maybe even appliqué. Which was
probably kind of unfair, but then again, I didn’t know my sister anymore,
much less her decorating style. With total strangers, it had always been my
policy to expect the worst. Usually they—and those that you knew best, for
that matter—did not disappoint.
Instead, the first thing I saw was green. A large, high window, on the other
side of which were tall trees separating the huge backyard from that of the
house that backed up to it. Everything was big about where my sister and
her husband, Jamie, lived—from the homes to the cars to the stone fence you
saw first thing when you pulled into the neighborhood itself, made up of
boulders that looked too enormous to ever be moved. It was like
Stonehenge, but suburban. So weird.
It was only as I thought this that I realized we were all still standing there in
the hallway, backed up like a traffic jam. At some point Jamie, who had been
leading this little tour, had stepped aside, leaving me in the doorway. Clearly,
they wanted me to step in first. So I did.
The room was, yes, big, with cream-colored walls. There were three other
windows beneath the big one I’d first seen, although they each were covered
with thin venetian blinds. To the right, Isaw a double bed with a yellow
comforter and matching pillows, a white blanket folded over the foot. There
was a small desk, too, a chair tucked under it. The ceiling slanted on either
side, meeting in a flat strip in the middle, where there was a square skylight,
also covered with a venetian blind—a little square one, clearly custom made
to fit. It was so matchy-matchy and odd that for a moment, I found myself
just staring up at it, as if this was actually the weirdest thing about that day.
“So, you’ve got your own bathroom,” Jamie said, stepping around me, his
feet making soft thuds on the carpet, which was of course spotless. In fact,
the whole room smelled like paint and new carpet, just like the rest of the
house. I wondered how long ago they had moved in—a month, six months?
“Right through this door. And the closet is in here, too. Weird, right? Ours is
the same way. When we were building, Cora claimed it meant she would get
ready faster. A theory that has yet to be proved out, I might add.”
Then he smiled at me, and again I tried to force a smile back. Who was this
odd creature, my brother-in-law—a term that seemed oddly fitting,
considering the circumstances—in his mountain-bike T-shirt, jeans, and funky
expensive sneakers, cracking jokes in an obvious effort to ease the tension of
an incredibly awkward situation? I had no idea, other than he had to be the
very last person I would have expected to end up with my sister, who was so
uptight she wasn’t even pretending to smile at his attempts. At least I was
trying.
Not Cora. She was just standing in the doorway, barely over the threshold,
arms crossed over her chest. She had on a sleeveless sweater—even though
it was mid-October, the house was beyond cozy, almost hot—and I could see
the definition of her biceps and triceps, every muscle seemingly tensed, the
same way they had been when she’d walked into the meeting room at Poplar
House two hours earlier. Then, too, it seemed like Jamie had done all the
talking, both to Shayna, the head counselor, and to me while Cora remained
quiet. Still, every now and again, I could feel her eyes on me, steady, as if
she was studying my features, committing me to memory, or maybe just
trying to figure out if there was any part of me she recognized at all.
So Cora had a husband, I’d thought, staring at them as we’d sat across from
each other, Shayna shuffling papers between us. I wondered if they’d had a
fancy wedding, with her in a big white dress, or if they’d just eloped after
she’d told him she had no family to speak of. Left to her own devices, this
was the story I was sure she preferred—that she’d just sprouted, all on her
own, neither connected nor indebted to anyone else at all.
“Thermostat’s out in the hallway if you need to adjust it,” Jamie was saying
now. “Personally, I like a bit of a chill to the air, but your sister prefers it to be
sweltering. So even if you turn it down, she’ll most likely jack it back up
within moments.”
Again he smiled, and I did the same. God, this was exhausting. I felt Cora
shift in the doorway, but again she didn’t say anything.
“Oh!” Jamie said, clapping his hands. “Almost forgot. The best part.” He
walked over to the window in the center of the wall, reaching down beneath
the blind. It wasn’t until he was stepping back and it was opening that I
realized it was, in fact, a door.Within moments, I smelled cold air. “Come
check this out.”
I fought the urge to look back at Cora again as I took a step, then one more,
feeling my feet sink into the carpet, following him over the threshold onto a
small balcony. He was standing by the railing, and I joined him, both of us
looking down at the backyard. When I’d first seen it from the kitchen, I’d
noticed just the basics: grass, a shed, the big patio with a grill at one end.
Now, though, I could see there were rocks laid out in the grass in an oval
shape, obviously deliberately, and again, I thought of Stonehenge. What was
it with these rich people, a druid fixation?
“It’s gonna be a pond,” Jamie told me as if I’d said this out loud.
“A pond?” I said.
“Total ecosystem,” he said. “Thirty-by-twenty and lined, all natural, with a
waterfall. And fish. Cool, huh?”
Again, I felt him look at me, expectant. “Yeah,” I said, because I was a guest
here. “Sounds great.”
He laughed. “Hear that, Cor? She doesn’t think I’m crazy.”
I looked down at the circle again, then back at my sister. She’d come into the
room, although not that far, and still had her arms crossed over her chest as
she stood there, watching us. For a moment, our eyes met, and I wondered
how on earth I’d ended up here,