I can’t believe he’s coming back so soon,she thought. Not that she should have been surprised; Mark had called Ivy three times during the past week, a record. The calls lasted close to half an hour on each, yet whenever Zoey happened to pass the living room, she didn’t hear her aunt saying anything other than the occasional “Mm-hm.” Clearly Mark had been doing all the talking.
One time after hanging up, Ivy told her he’d called to ask if the new stove had been delivered yet, since it hadn’t arrived according to schedule. Another time, he supposedly just wanted to see how she was doing. Zoey found that hard to swallow. She suspected Mark’s real reason for calling—and for visiting—was more self-serving. Like maybe he was still trying to persuade their aunt that she should purchase a new fridge. Or he could have been laying the groundwork to ask her for something else he wanted.I just hope he hasn’t been talking to her about moving into an assisted living facility again,Zoey thought.
She pulled on a pair of running capris and a T-shirt and stepped into the hall. Gabi’s door was open, but she wasn’t in her room so Zoey went downstairs to the kitchen, greeting her aunt as she poured herself three-fourths of a cup of coffee. Ivy and Sylvia had used the same kind of electric percolator ever since they began drinking coffee. Zoey’s dad used to complain to her mom that for being such a meek woman, Sylvia made the strongest coffee he’d ever had the misfortune to taste. Ivy had gotten used to making it that way, too, so Zoey added a generous splash of cream to her mug. It occurred to her that the only thing she really missed about her townhome was her single-serve coffee maker.
“Those buns smell delicious. I can’t believe you and Gabi are both up and at ’em earlier than I am. Did she go somewhere?”
“Yes. She went for a long walk and on the way home she’s picking up more eggs for my frittata. She’s been gone for quite some time so I expect her back any minute now.”
“Can I help with anything? Would you like me to set the table?”
“No, I’ll do that. But I’d appreciate it if you’d bring the croquet set down from the attic. After brunch, you kids might want to have a game to pass the time.”
I’ll help get breakfast ready for Mark, but I amnotentertaining him until his friends are available to go to the club,Zoey thought.“Sure, I’ll bring it down, although I doubt I’ll play. When Gabi gets back, I’m going for a run and then I plan to do some research about the library in preparation for my interview. What time is Mark getting here, anyway?”
“Mark’s coming?” Ivy had been bending over to peer into the refrigerator. She stood up, a baffled look on her face. “I must have forgotten.”
Feeling sheepish that she’d made the wrong assumption, Zoey rushed to clarify. “No, you didn’t, Aunt Ivy. I just smelled the sticky buns and thought you were making them because Mark was coming for a visit.”
Relief melted the frown from Ivy’s face. “No, I’m making breakfast in commemoration of it being the last time I’ll use this oven before they haul it away.”
“The new one is being delivered today?”
“Yes. Some time between ten and twelve. That’s why Nick and Aidan are coming for brunch. They’re going to install it right away.” Ivy bent over again and removed a container of feta cheese from the shelf. She closed the fridge door. “I thought I mentioned it to you.”
She definitely hadn’t. “I would have remembered that.”
“Ack. I’m sorry. It must have slipped my mind.” Ivy wasn’t looking at Zoey, but her voice didn’t carry any note of the consternation that crossed her face when she thought she’d forgotten Mark was coming. “You’d better hurry and go bring the croquet set down so you’ll have time to change your clothes before breakfast.”
NowI know where Mark gets his sneakiness from!Zoey grumbled to herself, recognizing that her aunt was pushing her and Nick together. She took a sip of coffee before setting down her mug and, although she had zero desire to play croquet, headed upstairs to the attic.
Zoey had always been jumpy in the presence of insects and spiders—it was why she refused to keep the windows open unless the screens were in. But Carla vacuumed, dusted and aired out the large, rectangular attic space whenever she did a deep cleaning of Ivy’s entire house, so Zoey didn’t mind going up there. She usually only passed through to get to the widow’s walk, accessed up a ladder through a trap door in the middle of the roof, in-between the two chimneys. It wasn’t as hot today as it was during the summer, when the rising heat made it uncomfortable, but it was definitely warm, so Zoey intended to be quick.
She climbed the attic stairs, switched on the light and glanced across the empty room in the direction of the storage shelves and Sylvia’s trunks. She immediately recognized the blue linen fabric draped askew over the top of one of the trunks: the dress Marcus had bought Sylvia to wear on her wedding day.Mark must have left it there. He’s such a slob.
Unlike Ivy, Sylvia had rarely spoken about her courtship or relationship with her husband. But one rainy afternoon when Jessica and Zoey were teenagers, she’d invited them to see her wedding dress. After she removed the wasp-waisted, full-skirted frock from its garment bag, they urged her to hold it up in front of her so they could picture how she had looked in it, since the only wedding photos they’d seen were black and white. Zoey had never forgotten how Sylvia’s entire demeanor changed. With one hand clasping the fabric to her stomach, the other hand pressing it against her shoulder, she elongated her neck and held her chin high as she took a little twirl. It was so unlike her that the girls had squealed with laughter.
“You look beautiful,” Zoey had told her.
“Yeah, you do. When I get married, I’m going to wear a blue dress, too,” Jessica decided. “Not some ridiculous foofy white gown.”
Compliments, especially about her appearance, always seemed to embarrass Sylvia, who dropped her chin and quickly put the dress away again. Even at that young age, Zoey recognized that her aunt cherished the dress because it was a symbol of how much Marcus had cherishedher.It incensed Zoey that Mark had flung it aside in his quest to find whatever he’d been looking for.He has no regard for his grandmother’s past,she seethed.
Suddenly, she recalled the nonsensical comment her aunt had made the day she died.It will be our secret… for now it’s best to let the past stay buried in the past… beneath the roses.It had been such a peculiar thing to say, so she had assumed her aunt hadn’t been aware of her remark. She still believed that was the case, but she questioned whether Sylvia happened to babble the same sentiment in front of Mark.That could have been why he was so interested in searching her trunks, since they contain the only remnants from her past,she thought. It certainly would have made a lot more sense if he’d been motivated to go through Sylvia’s things because of somethingshe’dsaid than because of anything Mr. Witherell had said the day of the funeral, as Zoey had been mulling a couple of nights ago as she struggled to sleep. Either way, she didn’t want to waste any more time pondering it—she needed to get downstairs to change or else Nick was going to think all she owned was running clothes.Notthat she cared. Not really.
She picked up Sylvia’s dress and opened the trunk. The small boxes inside were piled every which way, but at least the trunk wasn’t very large, so it was easier to straighten than Sylvia’s room—Zoey had spent an hour rehanging and refolding her aunt’s clothes after Mark had searched it the other week—and it didn’t take her more than a few minutes to restack the boxes. She carefully placed the dress into its garment bag, laid it on top of the boxes and shut the lid of the trunk.
As she pulled the croquet tote from the wire rack, its contents shifted to the opposite end. Someone—Mark?—must not have zipped it all the way shut because a ball popped out and rolled to the edge of the room.
Fantastic.Zoey crouched down and inched across the plywood beneath the most sloped section of the roof. She retrieved the ball from where it had come to rest atop of the insulation that was overflowing the wall cavity and turned around. She’d almost made it back to the solid floor boards again when she felt something crawling across her neck.
“Eww!” she screamed, brushing it off. A large dark spider dropped to the floor and scurried away, unharmed. Zoey wasn’t as fortunate. Her erratic movement caused the plywood to shift sideways and her leg to slip between two joists. Although she managed to boost herself upward and narrowly avoid crashing through the ceiling of the room below, her left calf grazed the thick and ragged wood.
As she lay sprawled on her stomach—amazingly, still clutching the croquet ball—it occurred to her the spider might still be close by. She rolled onto her back on the solid flooring and sat up. But when she tried to stand, a searing pain shot through her lower leg and she reflexively plopped down on her backside again. Given how much her leg hurt, she expected to see a lot of blood where she’d scraped her calf against the joist, but there was only one small blob. When she bent to examine it closer, she understood why: it was a puncture wound, not a scrape, and above the wound she felt a hard line.
Aware that a sizable sliver of wood was embedded in her flesh, she felt queasy as she tried to figure out what to do next. She couldn’t walk on her leg unassisted, but Gabi wasn’t home to support her. If she shouted for help, her aunt would be alarmed and she might rush up the stairs and suffer from chest pain. Then how would Zoey helpher?
Using her hands and the heel of her good leg, she inched toward the staircase on her rear end, but the effort and movement intensified her pain, so she gave up.I’ll just have to wait until Gabi gets back and comes upstairs to look for me…Ifshe comes to look for me,Zoey thought, feeling sorry for herself.
