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“What do you think you’re doing?” Greta screams the words at me as she comes into the room. Nancy and Petra stand in the doorway, watching the scene with horrid fascination.
I don’t reply, spreading the contents of the box across the bed with my hands. There are photos and all kinds of knick-knacks that used to belong to my father: two of his watches, his old black comb, several of the tiny Napoleonic soldiers he used to paint, his reading glasses, a bookmark he used all the time which was a photo of his and Greta’s wedding day, a pair of cufflinks that Nancy bought him one Christmas in the shape of Spitfires, and many others bits and pieces that obviously hold some kind of meaning for Greta.
There’s nothing here to connect him with me, but then I wouldn’t have expected there to be.
“Stop.” She pulls my arm hard, pinching the skin, but I yank it away.
“Where is it?” I demand.
“What?”
“The ring he gave my mother.” I’m shaking now. Even though I’m twenty-three, she still makes me feel as if I’m fourteen. On the day of Dad’s funeral, she took me to one side and told me in a low voice, “Things are going to be very different now.” If I’d known just how bad it could get, I think I might have taken a razor to my wrists there and then.
“I know you have it,” I snap. I crept into her room once, got the box out, and found the ring tucked in the corner, wrapped up in an old scrap of cloth. Unfortunately, she came in and found me. She took the ring away and told me if she found me in her room again, she’d beat me black and blue. I don’t know whether she would have done that, but I didn’t dare to try again.
“I don’t have it,” she says.
“I know it’s here.” I toss the worthless mementoes aside, determined to find it.
“I got rid of it,” she says. “Not long after you found it. I sold it to a jewelry shop in the city.”
I stop, my hands resting on the mattress. My hands curl into fists. Slowly, I straighten and stare at her. “What?”
“I sold it,” she states again. “It was your father’s, and he left everything to me. It was mine to sell. So you can stop whining about it, and get out.”
Now I think about it, I should have guessed she’d do that. Why on earth would she have kept it? I suppose I thought that, deep down, even though she hated me and my mother, she loved my father, and she wouldn’t be that cruel.
What a stupid mistake to make.
The ring wasn’t my father’s—he bought it for my mother, and on her death it should have come to me. Greta had no right to sell it. But I can see from her face that she’s telling the truth. The ring has gone. And no amount of protesting will get it back.
Pain stabs me, deep inside. Last night, I lost one of Mum’s earrings, the only thing I had that belonged to her. It’s what made me decide to get the ring back. But now I’ve lost that, too.
Greta has lifted her chin, and her eyes blaze defiantly. Behind her, Petra looks curious at what I’m going to do. Nancy is smiling.
They want me to cry. To scream at them. To do something that will justify their reaction of either calling the police or lashing out at me.
What do you say when you have half a lifetime of resentment burning in your stomach? When people have hurt you so badly that even murder doesn’t feel like a just reward? What can I possibly come up with that will summarize all the pain and misery I’ve felt over the years?
The answer is: nothing. Not one thing I can do or say to this woman and her daughters is going to make me feel better.
As soon as I realize that, I’m able to mentally close the lid on my time in this house. It’s done. My life here is behind me, and the only thing I can do is move forward.
I walk past Greta, and run down the stairs.
“Yeah,” Petra yells after me, “fuck off, you ginger cunt.”
I go out the front door, close it, run down the path, and continue running until the house is far behind me.
*
Nine a.m.
“I’m going to miss you,” Louise says.
We’re sitting on a bench while I wait to board the coach to Wellington. It’s a cold morning, but at least the sun is shining, and it’s not raining.
I smile at her, then turn and give her a big hug. “Me, too,” I murmur. “Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for me.”
