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My stomach roils. The dragon awakes. I have to pause a moment on the sidewalk in front of my building just to keep from fainting.
It’s my deception, not hunger, that’s having a deleterious effect on my nerves. It’s the fact that I haven’t disclosed fully about Giselle nor about what I currently have hidden over my heart. That’s what has me in such a state.
Honesty is the only policy.
I can see Gran’s face, twisted with disappointment, the day I came home from school at the age of twelve and she asked me how my day was. I told her it was ordinary, nothing to report. That, too, was a lie. The truth was, I ran away at lunchtime, which was far from ordinary. The school called Gran. I confessed to Gran why I’d run away. My classmates had formed a ring around me in the schoolyard and ordered me to roll around in the mud and eat it, kicking me while I obeyed their order. They were keenly inventive when it came to tormenting me, and this iteration was no exception.
When the ordeal was over, I went to the community library and spent hours in the bathroom washing the grime off my face and mouth, scraping the earth out from under my fingernails. I watched with satisfaction as the evidence circled down the drain. I was so certain I’d get away with it, that Gran would never find out.
But she did find out. And she had only one question for me after I confessed to being bullied. “Dear girl, why didn’t you just tell the truth right away? To your teacher? To me? To anyone?” Then she cried and embraced me with such force that I was never able to answer her question. But I had an answer. I did. I didn’t tell the truth because the truth hurt. What happened at school was bad enough, but Gran knowing about my suffering meant she experienced my pain too.
That’s the trouble with pain. It’s as contagious as a disease. It spreads from the person who first endured it to those who love them most. Truth isn’t always the highest ideal; sometimes it must be sacrificed to stop the spread of pain to those you love. Even children know this intuitively.
My stomach settles. Steadiness returns. I cross the street and enter my building. I bound up the stairs to my floor, heading straight for Mr.Rosso’s door. I extricate the wad of bills I’ve placed by my heart for safekeeping. I was aware of them the whole time I was at the police station, but far from being a nuisance, they felt protective, like a shield.
I knock loudly. I hear Mr. Rosso padding down his hallway, then the scratchy squeal of the lock twisting. My landlord’s face appears, ruddy and bulbous. I hold out the bills in my hand.
“Here is the rest of this month’s rent,” I say. “As you can see, I take after my gran. I’m a woman of my word.”
He takes the money and counts it. “It’s all there, but I appreciate your diligence,” I say.
When he’s done counting, he nods slowly. “Molly, let’s not do this every month, okay? I know your grandmother is gone, but you need to pay your rent on time. You need to get your life in order.”
“I’m well aware of that,” I say. “As for order, it is my express wish tolive as ordered a life as possible. But the world is filled with random chaos that often bedevils my attempts at arrangement. May I have my receipt for full payment, please?”
He sighs. I know what this means. He’s exasperated, which does not seem fair. If someone were to place a wad of bills into my hands, rest assured I would not sigh like this. I’d be grateful beyond measure.
“I’ll fill out a receipt tonight,” he says, “and give it to you tomorrow.”
I would much prefer to have that receipt in my handtout suite, but I defer. “That would be acceptable. Thank you,” I say. “And have a lovely evening.”
He closes his door without so much as a mannered “You too.”
I go to my own entrance and turn the key. I step across the threshold and lock the door behind me. Our home. My home. Exactly as I left it this morning. Neat. Orderly. Unnervingly quiet, despite Gran’s voice in my head.
There are times in life when we must do things we don’t want to. But do them we must.
Normally, I feel a wave of relief flow through me the instant I close the door behind me. Here, I’m safe. No expressions to interpret. No conversations to decode. No requests. No demands.
I take off my shoes, wipe them down, and place them neatly in the closet. I pat Gran’s serenity pillow on the chair by the door. I take a seat on the sofa in the living room to collect my thoughts. I am all a muddle, even here, in the peace of my own home. I know I must consider my next steps—should I call Giselle? Or maybe Rodney, for support and advice? Mr. Snow, to apologize for my absence this afternoon, for leaving my rooms without completing my daily quota?—but I find myself overwhelmed by the very thought of it all.
I feel out of sorts in a way I haven’t felt in a while, not since Wilbur and the Fabergé, not since the day Gran died.
In that too-bright station room today, Detective Stark laid blame on me, treating me like some sort of common criminal when I’m nothing of the sort. All I want is to turn my head and find Gran sitting on thesofa beside me, saying,Dear girl. Do not fret yourself into a tizzy. Life has a way of sorting itself out.
I head to the kitchen and put the kettle on. My hands are shaky. I open the fridge and find it mostly bare—just a couple of crumpets left, which I should save for tomorrow’s breakfast. I find a few biscuits in the cupboard and arrange them neatly on a plate. When the water has boiled, I make my tea, adding two sugars to compensate for the lack of milk. I mean to savor each bite of the biscuits, but instead I find myself devouring them greedily and washing them down with big gulps of tea right at the kitchen counter. My cup is empty before I even know it. Instantly, I feel the tea working. Warm energy flows through me again.
When all else fails, tidy up.
It’s a good idea. Nothing raises my spirits more than a good tidy. I wash out my teacup, dry it, and put it away. Gran’s curio cabinet in the living room could use a bit of attention. I carefully open the glass doors and remove all of her precious treasures—a menagerie of Swarovski crystal animals, each one paid for with backbreaking overtime hours at the Coldwells’ mansion. There are spoons, too, silver mostly, collected from thrift shops over the years. And the photos—Gran and me baking, Gran and me in front of a water fountain in a park, Gran and me at the Olive Garden, glasses of Chardonnay raised. And the one photo that is not of us but of my mother when she was young.
I pick it up. My hands still aren’t entirely steady. I have to concentrate as I dust and polish the glass frame. If my fingers slip, the frame will fall to the floor, the glass will shatter into hundreds of deadly shards. I get down on my knees to be closer to the ground. It’s safer this way. I’m holding the frame in both hands, studying my mother’s image. I’m surrounded by all of Gran’s lovely things.
Another memory surfaces, not a recent one, one I haven’t thought about in a long time. I was about thirteen years old when I walked through the door after school one day to find Gran kneeling on the floor much like I’m doing now. It was Thursday—dust we must—andshe’d started the chore, her collection strewn about her, a polishing cloth and this photo of my mother in her hands. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I knew something wasn’t quite right. Gran was disheveled. Her hair, which was usually perfectly curled and coiffed, was in disarray. There were stains on her cheeks and her eyes were puffy.
“Gran?” I asked, before even wiping down the bottoms of my shoes. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t answer. She just stared at me with a glassy, faraway look in her eyes. Then she said, “Dear girl, I’m simply going to tell it to you as it is. Your mother. She’s dead.”
