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My soul clenches as if an invisible hand just reached into me and held me in its fist. “You shouldn’t have gone in there. There’s no baby.”
Ignoring me, she asks, “Does it feel like home here to you, too?”
I exhale a breath that only slightly eases the pain in my chest. “That’s a loaded question.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means it’s not easy to answer.”
Sitting up, she tilts her head at me. Her pigtails flop to the side, making her look like a puppy hearing a squeak toy. “How come?”
“It just is.”
My gaze is drawn to the nightstand behind her. The book Brianna was reading is open and face down, exactly how she left it. Forever a cliffhanger. I used to watch her from my pillow, up all night reading next to me, unable to put her book down. I’ve refused to move it or pick it up all this time, even though my heart aches to immerse myself in the same words she lost herself in. Her glasses are there too, smudged and dusty, along with a heart-shaped candle she’d light on a date night and a ceramic cup she used to sip water from. I can’t bring myself to disturb her last normal moments.
Kelley calls these my souvenirs of denial.
“I love how Cherry always remembers me no matter what,” Penny says, leaning her forehead against Cherry’s.
“Dogs have great memories. Especially if someone is nice to them. Or feeds them.”
Half of her face is hidden by the dog's fur. “Do you remember me no matter what, too?”
“Course I do. How could I forget my favorite little stalker?” I stand and straighten my eye patch. “Let’s go. You shouldn’t be up here.”
“Why not?”
I give her the one-eyed blink. “Because it’s a private, grown-up room.”
She jumps off the bed and follows me but pauses at the doorway, staring longingly back into the room. “Alex, do you ever dream of me living here?” she asks with a hauntingly soft and dreamy voice. “Reading the book about the rabbits and the meadow while you slept?”
For a few seconds, the air clogs in my lungs with eerie déjà vu and outlandish, desperate hope. How could she possibly know that—and the other things she makes random comments about… But it can be all flushed away with simple explanations—Penny looked at the book. It’s next to the bed. Where I sleep.
That’s all.
“No, Penny,” I answer. “I don’t dream at all anymore.”
“Alex, wait!”
I’m tempted to pretend I don’t hear Mrs. Rose chasing me down her driveway, but after a few seconds, I stop and turn around.
“Can we talk for a minute?” she asks.
“What’s up?”
“I wanted to ask if you’re busy tomorrow?”
She catches me zeroing in on the wedding band on her left hand. “Oh,” she says with reddening cheeks. “That came out totally wrong. I meant, do you have plans?”
“Still sounds wrong, but no.” Saturdays are just like any other day for me. Which usually consists of hunting for trash, cleaning trash, and making cool stuff out of trash.
“I was wondering if maybe you could watch Penny for me?”
“Watch her?” I repeat. “Watch her do what?”
“I mean, like, babysit. I have an appointment in Boston. I really can’t bring her with me and anyone else I could ask is busy.”
“What about her father?”
“He’s in California on a business trip. He won’t be back until Monday.”
I narrow my eye at her. “What’s up with you, lady? Letting your little kid run around the neighborhood to hang out with men you don’t even fuckin’ know.”
Her head pulls back and it takes two seconds for her to debate telling me off. Instead, she says, “I know that’s how it looks. But it’s really not like that.”
I cross my arms. “How is it really, then?”
“Penny’s not like other kids her age.”
“You’re gonna have to do better than that.”
“I don’t know how to explain it. We don’t know why she leaves the house. It’s been two years since she’s snuck out, so we assumed she’d finally outgrown it. We’re doing everything we can to help and understand her—she’s even under the care of a child psychiatrist. But it seems she’s fascinated with your house and your dog. I know this sounds horrible, but we don’t know what to do. If we try to stop her, she cries and screams for hours, almost to the point of making herself pass out. I just want to see her happy, even if that means her running to see your dog and your house. Penny is just a very different, special and unique child.”
“That makes zero sense to me. It’s an old house. Nothing special about it.”
“My husband and the doctor both think it looks like a house she must’ve seen in a book or movie, like a fairy tale; she’s just fixated on it. Maybe she believes the story that takes place in the house is real and she wants to be part of it. I don’t really know.”
