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Grace
It’shardtounderstand how a house covered in snow can burn to the ground, or how a single forgotten candle could blaze into an inferno capable of destroying my childhood home.
But it happened, and although warm stretches aren’t unheard of at the tail-end of January, the tropical rainstorm that swept across New England, barely a week after the fire, felt somehow personal. Silly thinking, I know. Not even rain could’ve saved my parents from burning alive that fateful night.
“We’ll be there shortly,” Jen says, in her elegant English accent. She grasps my tightly balled fist on the backseat.
I smile, grateful for her reassuring presence, and allow my fingers to relax in her palm.
The black Porsche skids as we take a right turn into the forest. Last night, the temperature finally dropped, turning rain to sleet and wet roads into skating rinks.
“Please be careful, Benjamin.” Jen’s grip tightens around my hand.
“I’m always careful, Ms. Yang,” our driver says with a chuckle. “I promise to get you and Ms. Whittaker to her uncle’s house in one piece.”
The man I’m heading to meet isn’t really my uncle. Not anymore. Growing up, I was vaguely aware of my father having had a stepbrother at one point in his life. I can recall my father’s vicious snarl whenever he spoke of the other man. He called him a loser, said his mother was a bimbo and a gold-digger, and that his own father had been scraping the bottom of the barrel when he married her.
My father said he and his stepbrother parted ways after the latter man graduated from high school. I’m sure there’s a lot more to the story than I was ever privy to, but I can’t say I’ve met many losers who can afford to employ a full-time driver and personal assistant.
The overcast sky hangs heavy over the landscape, darkening with the coming of night. I have no doubt that Benjamin is doing his best to pilot us down the slick, winding roads, but the drive is tediously slow-going. I shift in my seat, breathing deeply through a twinge of uneasiness. I don’t like dark, confined spaces. They make me anxious, and I’m always convinced I’m going to run out of air. The only reason I can stand riding in cars is because they have windows.
“I asked the cook to have dinner prepared for seven o’clock,” Jen says, thumbing at her smartphone. “Is that too late for you, Grace? Would you like me to have him move it up?”
I shake my head. “No, seven’s fine.”
“I’ll have him fix you a fruit plate when we arrive.”
“Thank you,” I say, my chest filling with warmth at her concern.
I’ve only known Jen a few days, but she’s fast become a source of support since I learned of the house fire that swallowed up my parents and our home in Massachusetts. I was away at boarding school here in Connecticut, when it happened, having just returned from winter break. I’d kissed my mother goodbye barely a week prior.
Now what’s left of her could fit between my hands.
My best friend, Jasmine, called her parents the second I was hit with the news. Longtime family friends, the Hills rushed in to offer me guidance and a place to stay while I grappled with my painful new reality. A few days later, an elegant-looking Asian woman with a British accent showed up on the Hill family’s doorstep.
“Hello Grace,” the posh woman said. “I’m Jennifer Yang. Please, call me Jen. I work for your uncle, Aidan O’Rourke. He’s sent me to help you get through this difficult time.”
What she didn’t mention right away was that she’d also been sent to fetch me.
Since I have no other living relatives, my family’s attorney had taken it upon himself to contact my father’s stepbrother about assuming guardianship over me. For reasons unknown, my estranged uncle, a total stranger, had agreed to take me in.
I could’ve fought the court’s decision. At seventeen, I’m allowed some say in my own guardianship. I know Jasmine’s parents would’ve gladly stepped in to look after me until my eighteenth birthday in June, when my parents’ estate would eventually fall to me.
But Jen hadn’t been lying when she said she was there to help. She handled everything with the finesse of a maestro, from the courts, to the police, to the fire marshal. She made sure my family’s assets would be kept safe for me in a trust. She held me while I cried, and told me stories about her family in Japan, how her mum had brought her to England when she was a baby, and about the job that eventually led her to the States.
When I asked her why my uncle would want to bother with me, she told me his own mum had passed when he was sixteen. She painted a vivid portrait of a kid who’d lost his father when he was seven, who knew firsthand what it meant to be completely alone. She convinced me to meet him, not with words, but with actions. I couldn’t imagine a person as lovely as Jen working for a villain.
Then again, people probably said the same thing about my mother. A woman as beautiful and kind as Evelyn Whittaker surely has a husband who worships the ground she walks on.
My father, Calvin, was handsome and quick to smile, but his smile was a decoy. A snare to hold you steady until your cheek met the back of his hand. It was one trick, among many, that he reserved for my mother and me. To the rest of the world, he was a successful, mild-mannered businessman.
That’s the thing about real-life villains; the clever ones know how to blend in.
“Finally,” Jen says with a sigh.
We pull up to a gated entrance that opens automatically at our approach. About a quarter mile through the trees, the woods give way to a rambling yard and massive stone house. My parents’ house was a far cry from modest, but this estate makes my childhood home look like a fancy shed by comparison.
Benjamin stops the car in front of the entryway and jumps out to open my door. I duck into the winter chill, drawing the lapels of my wool coat tighter around my neck. Jen climbs out after me and motions for me to follow her up the front steps.
