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“You and Jesse don’t like Mike very much, do you?”
She juggles a rock she picked up and tosses it far. “Not really.”
“I get it. He’s replacing your dad.”
“No one can replace my dad. He’s the best. You can’t see it yet, but you will.”
We’re walking on the grass around the perimeter of the property when I spot a wall of ivy about a hundred yards away with tall trees behind it. There seems to be something ivory in the background, peeking between the trees.
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing toward what looks like a stucco tower.
“Dad says not to go back there.”
“Is it not your property?”
She nods. “That’s ours.”
I lift a brow and start walking. “I want to see what’s back there.”
“I just told you, Dad says we aren’t allowed.”
“When are you going to learn that I am not good with being told not to do things?”
“He’s right; you are a child,” she says, holding her hands up and widening her eyes. “You’re the one who’s being defiant.”
“And you’re the one who just said you like that I’m me, no matter what anyone says about me.”
I walk over to the ivy wall and run my hand along it. If I’ve learned anything from movies, there’s always an opening in one of these walls. I’m searching through the streams of ivy when Molly loudly clears her throat.
“The entrance is right over here,” she says. “And it’s not hidden. What do you think this is, a secret society or something?”
I stick my tongue out at her and walk to the large opening. Inside is an eight-foot-high wall enclosure is a structure that looks like the castle piece in a game of chess. There are wrought iron windows at the top and an arched wooden doorway at the bottom with a large, thick handle.
On the ground, is a maze of overgrown shrubs that we have to sidestep around as not to get poked by the branches. In the space before the doors, are two rectangular ponds full of algae and muck and various flower beds that have been neglected.
I walk along the cobblestone flooring and over to the filthy structure. Plant life has grown up around it, making it look like one of those abandoned castles in a Renaissance movie.
I pull on the handle of the wooden door. It’s open. I walk inside the hollow stone structure with a small room and a spiral staircase in the corner. The stone makes it cool inside despite the warm summer air outside. The light peers in, bringing an ample amount of brightness.
“This place is awesome. Do you know what it is?” I ask Molly.
“Nope. It was here when we moved in. Dad drew up these plans to make it beautiful, but my mom said it was a waste of money. I thought it was gonna be a playhouse for me.”
I place my hand on the stone and let the earthy feeling sear into my palm. It might have been forgotten, but this place is still sturdy, waiting for someone to come in and love it.
“This place could be anything. I’d make it a library and put a giant chair in the corner so I could sit and read all day.”
Molly climbs the stairwell and looks down. “I’d paint it blue and cover the floor in Squishmallows and blankets.”
“Blue? I thought you’d say pink. My room is very pretty, by the way. You picked a great color.”
“I didn’t pick it.” Her voice is muffled, as she is now upstairs.
I look up at the banister, baffled. “You didn’t pick pink for my bedroom?”
Her voice echoes as she says, “Dad said when he met you, you were wearing a dress that exact color and it looked very pretty on you.”
I think about the dress I wore to Melissa and Will’s wedding. It was that exact shade of pink—a soft, feminine rose.
