Page 95 of The Treasure House

“I’ll be one of those cat ladies, who lives in a rundown old house with only cats for company. Like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, but with cats.” Marly had the urge to kick sand in his face.

“Well, if that’s the case, I bet you’ll make the best cat lady the world has ever seen. And you’ll leave a bunch of broken hearts in your wake.”

“But not yours,” Marly said, feeling bitter.

“Marly, you’ve got to understand. What kind of guy would I be, taking advantage of you when you’re barely old enough to even know what love is?” He shook his head at her. “You don’t want a guy like that. You want a guy who meets you when you’re full grown and powerful.”

“I am full grown and powerful,” she raged. But they both knew it wasn’t true.

The wind blew between them on the beach, as the gulls banked overhead, their cries carrying over the cliffs.

“I’ll write you,” he said softly.

“Why? If you’re just some guy who dated my cousin.”

“Because the guy who dated your cousin likes you, kid. As a person. And he’d like to stay friends.”

Marly felt bitterly humiliated. And shattered by the events of the day. Nobody wanted her. She would end up an old cat lady.

“Walk you home?” he asked gently.

“No. I’ll get there myself.” Marly lifted her chin.

“Okay.” He put his hands in his pockets and gave her a sad look. “Take care of yourself.” He caught himself about to call her “kid,” she could tell. “Bye, Marly.”

And then she stalked off down the beach, scrambling up the rocks to the trail that led into the woods, where Saint-Cyr lazed in its grounds.

Marly never forgot the vision of Freddie de Marche, standing there on the beach, a little speck of a person, staring out to sea.

And then he went off and enlisted, like an idiot, and she went on with her life, which felt smaller, scarier, and much less magical for the absence of him.

Twenty-One

I could barely absorb the shock as I stood there on Jake’s balcony in the frosty morning. Jake’s mother was the last person to live in my house on Tinker Street? Not Marly? For some reason, I felt betrayed.

I felt even more betrayed when he told me she was still alive. The story I’d been telling myself about the woman who’d lived in my house came collapsing down around me. I’d painted a tragic picture of her, a romantic and solitary figure fading away in the clutter of her past.

“The agent said it was an estate sale,” I said flatly.

“It kind of was. Just a power-of-attorney estate sale, rather than an after-death estate sale.” Jake ran his hands through his hair.

“I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head.

Jake shrugged, in that way he had, that said nothing and everything. “Well. My mom has the family curse,” he said. He seemed to slump, like he’d run out of energy.

“I don’t understand.” I was feeling like a parrot, my mind caught in a loop, unable to say anything else. It was Marly’s place. Marly was the old woman in my imagination. Not Jake’s mother.

“She has early-onset dementia. It’s hereditary.” He drained his coffee and opened the door, clearly done with watching the sunrise. “It’s dotted through the family tree. Like some kind of fungus. My great-grandmother had it, Sylvie had it, my mother has it. There are a few more cousins and uncles and aunts in there too. It’s a bitch of a thing.”

I followed him inside, his words hitting my heart. “That’s awful.” I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”

“It is what it is.”

“And I’m living in your mother’s house?”

“Yeah. I mean, it used to be our summer house, not our actual house, but after my parents’ divorce, my mom moved there full time.”

I stopped dead as it hit me it wasn’t just his mother’s house, it was his house. “Oh my God, no wonder you felt you could take the front door off. This explains how you knew where the storm windows were. And why you have opinions on everything to do with the house. It’s your house.”