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“Where would I find one of those?”
“I just want you to find someone to take care of you,” Mom called after me.
“Because that always works out great,” I said, under my breath.
“What?”
“Nothing. I was just—”
Just thinking that you of all people should know you can’t count on a guy to take care of anything,I thought but didn’t say. Not just because it wasmean, but because I could hear the thrum of a motor, the light crunch of tires on gravel. A moment later, a white van with the Willowcrest logo on the side appeared, winding its way through the trees and then around the final curve toward the house. I uncrossed my arms from my chest and waved. Behind the wheel, the driver raised a palm in greeting.
My mother took a deep breath and blew it out in a loud sigh. “Oh, good,” she said. “They’re here.”
2.
I thought I could make a life in New York. Or at least I thought I could take up space there until I figured out what my life was supposed to look like. I had moved to the city after college and got a job as a marketing assistant at a company that made flavored water—not that I cared about that, I didn’t even like the product we made, but I’d needed something to do and it was the first offer that came my way. Everyone I had known at school had scattered after graduation, moving to the West Coast in search of tech jobs or disappearing into grad school, law school, medical school. I envied them: they all knew exactly what they wanted to be when they grew up, while I was still wrestling with the idea of growing up, period. My mother had finally told me, in a rare direct conversation, that our family had enough money that I could do basically anything I wanted. I had “the privilege of pursuing my passions”: that was how she put it.
The problem was, I had no passions. I think maybe Mom hoped that the money would change this, transform me overnight into a provocateur, an artist, an ambitious entrepreneur. As if the only thing keeping me from being a more interesting person was a lackof funding. She didn’t understand that knowing I could do virtually anything just made me more afraid of everything, immobilized by too many choices and the certainty that no matter what I attempted, I was going to fail and crash and burn. Having a safety net didn’t comfort me. Actually it made it worse. A safety net just felt like a scary promise: you’re going to fall.
I snuck a last furtive look at the phone—3 percent battery, no new messages—and then joined my mother as she trotted toward the van. Two men wearing parkas over their Willowcrest polo shirts disembarked from the front seats while my mother peered into the back, where a lone silhouette was visible. Mimi. She tapped a finger to the glass. “Mother?”
The younger of the two men—dark-haired, broad-shouldered, the kind of guy my thirstier girlfriends back in New York would have referred to as “a snack”—flashed us a winning smile and reached out to shake Mom’s hand. “Hi, Ms. Lockwood.”
“Hi, Adam,” she said.
“Sorry we’re a little behind schedule. Miss Miriam had a little nap on the way here, but she woke up about a mile out. She’s having a good day. She certainly recognized the place right away, soon as we came through the gates.”
Marcus, whose face was narrow and fox-like below a receding hairline, grunted over his shoulder as he opened the back door of the van. “She said she heard whispers.”
“Oh,” Mom said, her expression brightening. “That’s the name of the house, or it was, a long time back. The Whispers. All these big old houses had names.”
“The Whispers,” Adam repeated, looking up at the house.
“It’s the wind,” Mom said. “If it hits the gables just right, it sounds like someone muttering.”
“Sounds spooky.”
“It’s terrifying,” I said, stepping forward with a smile.
“This is my daughter,” Mom said. “But you’ve met.”
He grinned. “Of course. We all live for Miss Lockwood’s visits over at Willowcrest.” He looked back and forth between me and Mom. “Miss Lockwood and Miss Lockwood. This could get confusing.”
“It would also make me feel like an old maid in a Jane Austen novel,” Mom said dryly, “so let’s stick with first names. Dora and Delphine. We used to call her Del until she threw a tantrum about it.”
“In my defense, I was twelve at the time,” I said.
“True,” Mom said amiably. “At that age, you threw a tantrum about everything. Isn’t puberty awful? Now, where’s Mother’s chair?”
“Here,” Marcus said, rummaging at the back of the van. “Let me just get these bags, and then—”
His voice was cut off by an indignant squawk from inside as the silhouette in the back swiveled its head. “I don’t want the chair!”
Adam turned away, reaching to open the van’s side door. It swung back to reveal Mimi—full name Mrs. Miriam Caravasios—sitting ramrod-straight with her hands folded neatly in her lap like a proper lady. Her white hair was curled just above the shoulder of her dark wool coat, and her nails were neatly painted a bright poppy red. Willowcrest had a contract with a local salon, and my last visit had coincided with Mimi’s turn with the manicurist. I had picked the red, a shade called Harlot, because I knew that it would make Mimi laugh and my mother disapprove.
She turned her head as the door opened, locking eyes with Mom, who instantly stood up straighter like she’d just been caught slumping at finishing school.
“I don’t want the chair,” Mimi said again, an edge creeping into her voice.
