She turned my chair toward the doorway.
“I grew up in Cork, Ireland, and I can tell you it wasn’t always easy getting into the fresh air. When I tell my family back home that I live in a place where the sun shines at least three hundred days a year without rain, they’re amazed.”
She pushed me onto the elevator.
“You always live in Southern California?” she asked.
“Yes. My mother was from Portland, though.”
“Don’t say? Weather there can be like weather in England, I hear. You have any of your people still there?”
Her question didn’t surprise me. I was sure everyone who was working there wondered why I wasn’t with family.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Yes, it’s a shame how fast we all lose track of each other in this world. I have a sister I haven’t seen in nearly twenty years now. She married a man who lives in South Africa. You know how far away that is?”
“Yes. It’s at the tip of Africa.”
“I bet you’ve been a good student. How did your schoolin’ work go today?”
“Good,” I said.
“You’ll be up and around in no time, I’m sure. Right now, it looks like forever to you. I can’t think of a better place to recuperate from anything,” she added.
I looked up at her. Was it really possible that no one in the house except the Marches knew what Kiera had done and why I was there rather than with some relatives or in an orphanage? Mrs. Caro looked sincere. I wondered if Mrs. March believed that I would never say anything, or was she so confident that even if I did, no one would risk repeating it or discussing it? From the way she described her husband and how he always excused and buried whatever wrong things Kiera did, I imagined that he had given Mrs. March strict orders to keep it all from their servants.
It didn’t take me long to understand that it was a house built on secrets and whispers. There was more living in the shadows than in the light, despite the bright chandeliers and lamps. A family that lived more in the shadows was a family of the blind.
The patio Mrs. Caro wheeled me to faced the pool and the tennis courts. There were two tables with chairs, a settee with a small table, and what looked like a pile of stones in a circle with benches around it. I asked Mrs. Caro what it was, and she said it was a fire pit to keep people warm when they sat out there on cooler nights. Right then, the sun was still high in the blue, nearly cloudless sky. It was about the same time of day as when I had seen those teenagers there. Would they return? What would happen when they saw me, if they did return?
“I’ll set you in this shady spot,” Mrs. Caro said. “Not too warm for you?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“Will you be all right here by yourself for a while? I have to check on some things in the kitchen for tonight’s dinner,” Mrs. Caro asked. “It could be twenty minutes.”
“Yes, I’ll be fine,” I said.
“I’ll bring some fresh lemonade when I return,” she said, and left.
I sat staring out at the beautiful grounds. There was so much to see. It was still hard to believe that one family owned all of this. Just a short while ago, the only space Mama and I had had to ourselves was bordered by the cardboard walls of some box. It almost felt as though I had been taken to another planet.
The Marches’ estate wasn’t just big; it was busy. Judging by the short time I had been there, it seemed there was never a time of day when someone wasn’t working on something. Right then, two men were repairing a pole lamp on the driveway to my right, and two others were working around the cabana. One was touching it up with some paint, and the other was adjusting a door.
Wheeling myself out a little farther, I could look to my left and see part of the long driveway that curved around the side of the grand house to where Mrs. March had said the garages were. When I heard the sound of a vehicle, I leaned as far as I could to see if it was the limousine that had brought me. If so, it was probably Mrs. March returning. Instead, I saw what I knew to be a gold-colored Rolls-Royce. I had seen a few of them in Santa Monica, and Daddy used to vow that he was going to have one. Mama always mocked that and made him angry.
“You’re lucky you can afford the old truck you drive,” she had told him. “If you’re going to have a dream, at least have the sense to dream about something relatively possible.”
As the Rolls approached, I could make out a good-looking, light-haired man driving. He didn’t look my way and followed the driveway around the house. Was that Mr. March? I was sure Mrs. March had said he would be gone longer. I watched and listened but heard and saw no one. When Mrs. Caro returned with my lemonade, I asked her if Mr. March had returned.
“Yes,” she said.
“Is Mrs. March here?”
“She is. I told her you had been out here about twenty minutes, and she told me to take you up in a little while so you could rest, maybe take a nap before dinner. I’ll have to get started in the kitchen soon myself.”
I drank the lemonade and nodded. I couldn’t make myself ask about Kiera, and Mrs. Caro said nothing about her. She offered to wheel me around to see the garden before we went up to my suite. Gardening had been and still was a passion for her. She bragged about the way flowers grew in Ireland, and she said, “My duties here make it difficult to get my hands into Mother Earth.” The garden was so big. It looked like something in a park. Mrs. Caro knew the names of every flower, when they bloomed, when they should be planted, even how they should be nurtured.
“Here I am going off at the mouth when I have to get you upstairs,” she said, realizing the time. She pushed me back into the house.
When we entered, I anticipated either seeing or hearing Mr. March, but there was no one around. We went directly to the elevator. I expected that I might meet him when we reached the bedroom floor, but again, the hallway was quiet and empty. I was a little tired and let Mrs. Caro help me into bed. She wasn’t gone two minutes before I did fall asleep. I didn’t wake up again until I heard the cart in the hallway. When Mrs. Duval entered, pushing it with my dinner tray, I sat up quickly. Why wasn’t I going down to the dining room?
“Let me help you get up and to the table,” she said.
“How come I’m not going downstairs for dinner?”
“Dinner’s being served later,” she said. “The Marches don’t normally have dinner until eight-thirty, and Mrs. March said that would be too late for you.” She saw the look on my face and added, “That’s what she told me.” She said it the way someone who didn’t believe it might say it.
I got into my wheelchair, and she pushed me to the table, where she had set out the dishes.
“This is Mrs. Caro’s special chicken dish, and she prepared a pudding for you, too. Just leave everything when you’re done. Rosie will come to clean up,” she said. “I’ve got to get down to prepare for the Marches’ dinner.”
Mrs. Caro’s food was delicious, but I didn’t have as big an appetite as I had expected. I listened for sounds of footsteps in the hallway but heard none. I had no idea where the Marches’ bedrooms were but imagined they couldn’t be too far away. This had been Alena’s bedroom. I was sure Mrs. March would have wanted to be close. Finally, I did hear a door open and close and some footsteps, but they weren’t heading in my direction. Moments later, there were more footsteps, but again, they didn’t bring anyone my way.
After I finished eating what I could, I watched television but kept listening for someone coming. Finally, someone did, but it was only Rosie to clear away my dinner dishes.
“You left a lot,” she remarked. “Mrs. Caro will be upset.” To my surprise, she began to eat some of my leftovers. “This is much better than what we get,” she told me. “Didn’t you like this pudding?”
“I ate what I could.”
“Can’t let it go to waste,” she told me, and finished it.
“There,” she said. “Now Mrs. Caro won’t be upset. Just don’t tell anyone I finished your dinner.”
She started to push the cart out and stopped.
“So, how did you get hit by a car?” she asked. “What, were you running where you shouldn’t?”
“No. I didn’t do anything wrong, and neither did my mother.”
“Your mother? What happened to her?”
“She was killed,” I said.
“Where’s your daddy?”
“I don’t know. He left us years ago.”
She opened her mouth slowly and raised her head. “Oh. Well, now it makes sense,” she said.
“What makes sense?”
“Mrs. March has been sponsoring little girl orphans, sending tons of money to these worldwide charities ever since her daughter died. She sits in her office and studies the pictures of those poor kids and compares them with the picture of her dead daughter. I’ve seen her doing it. She only sends money to those who look a little like her. You don’t, but you’re about her daughter’s age and size, I guess.”
She paused and looked at the doorway before turning back to me.
“Don’t let her talk you into dyeing your hair.”
“Dye my hair? Why would I do that?”
She shook her head. I watched her leave and then turned back to the television, but it was as if I could hear nothing, as if Rosie’s words had put me into a daze. Hours passed. I prepared for bed and was just wheeling myself up to it when Mrs. March appeared.
“Oh, you’re not asleep yet. Good. I’m so sorry I didn’t get up here earlier, but Donald came home unexpectedly, and I had to spend all my time with him. He’s always got a lot to tell me and new things for me to do.”
I looked past her through the doorway but heard no one else. She saw where I was looking.
“Oh, Donald had some work to do in his office. He’ll stop by some other time. Let me help you get into bed,” she said, and moved quickly to my side. “Did you enjoy your dinner? Mrs. Caro said you ate almost everything.”
“Yes.”
“Good. Dr. Milan will be stopping by in the morning to check on you, so if there’s anything to complain about, you make sure to tell him, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
She tucked me in, stood back, and smiled down at me. “Girls look so much smaller than they are when they’re tucked into bed. No matter how old they are, they look like they could use a bedtime story. I used to read to Alena quite a bit. Would you like that?”
“Thank you, but I’m tired enough to fall asleep,” I told her.
It didn’t make her happy, but she kept her smile and then leaned down to kiss my cheek. “Sweet dreams,” she said, then turned off the lights and closed my door as she left.
My second night there didn’t feel any less strange than my first. I lay there with my eyes wide open and listened. There was a stronger breeze that night. I could hear it searching for nooks and crannies in the house, places, as Mama might have said, to scratch its back. The darkness seemed quite different from the darkness I had known when we lived in our apartment, stayed at the hotel, and then slept at the beach. There were no street sounds or sounds of the ocean. Oddly enough, I missed all that. Street sounds gave me the comfort of knowing we were not alone, completely lost and forgotten, and the ocean was reassuring.
The silence enhanced my sense of loneliness. There was not only too much emptiness in this family; there was too much emptiness in this big house, too many places unused, untouched, unnecessary. Cemeteries weren’t only for dead people; there were cemeteries for the living, as well, and despite all that was there, I felt encased in a tomb. I wasn’t shut in because of any lock. I was shut in because there was simply nowhere else to go.
What good would Lazarus’s resurrection have been if he had had no family to embrace him?
Thinking of Lazarus reminded me of Mama quoting from the Bible, reminding me that her father was a Bible thumper, but I was tired of crying for myself and for Mama. Sleep was the only balm to soothe the pain in my heart. I closed my eyes and waited as eagerly as someone waiting for a train that would take her home. It came mercifully quickly, and I was deep in it when the sound of my door opening and footsteps woke me abruptly. The lamp by my bed was snapped on. I wiped my sleepy eyes and blinked to focus on the beautiful tall girl who stared down at me.
“What are you, Chinese, Japanese?” she asked. When I didn’t respond quickly enough, she added, “Don’t you speak English?”
“I speak English. I’m part Chinese, yes,” I said.
“What part?” She laughed. “I can’t believe this,” she said, looking around. “She put you in my sister’s room. If she was going to do this, she should have at least put you in one of the guest bedrooms. There are enough of them, for crissakes.” She stared at me a moment and then reached down to feel the sleeve of my nightgown. “What, are you wearing one of my sister’s nightgowns, too? Jesus.”
I pulled out of her grasp. “I didn’t ask to be put in here and be given your sister’s clothing.”
“I bet you didn’t. I bet you didn’t ask for anything.” She paused and shrugged. “Actually, I’m not saying you did. I’m sure it’s all been my mother’s idea. This is all just one of my mother’s new ways to punish me. She thinks this really bothers me, her taking you into the house, giving you Alena’s things, and letting you sleep in her bed. Who cares? Half the time, I don’t know who the hell is in this house, anyway.”
She paused again and stared at me. I stared back at her. I was disappointed. When I first had heard Mrs. March say her daughter had caused the accident because she was on Ecstasy and was a selfish girl who had been in trouble often, I had expected the face and body of some spoiled rich girl, overweight and even ugly, with distorted features.
Instead, this girl was the one I had picked out yesterday, the one with the model’s figure and, now that I saw her close up, a model’s attractive facial features, too. She had soft, not cold, azure eyes, beautifully shaped full lips, and high cheekbones. When Mama and I would watch television together, she would always remark about the good-looking actors and actresses and say it was much more difficult for them to portray bad guys.
“We want our bad guys to look bad, have scars or ugly faces. It’s not the way it really is, Sasha, not out there,” she would say, and she would nod at the window.
Out there was always a desert, a jungle, a rocky cliff to climb. We were always safer inside, even inside a dingy hotel room.
Looking up at Kiera March, I especially didn’t feel a bit safer in that castle of a house with its walls and security. She was beautiful, but she was bad.
She smirked and shook her head. “I bet you’re really enjoying yourself immersed in all this,” she said, lifting her hands. “This suite’s actually a little bigger than mine. Where were you sleeping before the accident, in a carton?”
“Yes,” I said. “We were. On the beach.”
She dissolved her smirk, widened her eyes, and lost her arrogance for a moment. But it soon came rushing back into her face. “Well, I don’t care. It was your and your mother’s fault. No one crosses that highway there. That’s why there’s no crosswalk.”
“The light was green for us,” I said.
“So what? It was still stupid. It was raining too hard to see anything. Anyone would have hit you two. I was just the unfortunate one to be there at the wrong time.”
“Weren’t you on some drugs?”
“Who says? My mother? No one proved that.” She smiled. “My attorney is confident. He’ll make things right.”
“He can’t make things right.”
“Oh, yeah, why not, smart-ass?”
“He can’t bring back my mother,” I said.
Her lips trembled. “You know what? Go to hell.” She turned and marched out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
“I’m already there!” I shouted. “That’s how come you’re here!”
I waited, but she didn’t return.
That silence I was beginning to hate was the only thing that returned.
&n
bsp; 11
Kiera
Mrs. March came into my room before anyone else arrived in the morning. I wasn’t even out of bed. She was visibly upset.
“Was Kiera in here last night?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I thought so. I heard her complaining to her father. Did she say terrible things to you? What did she say?”
“She said you were punishing her by having me live here.”
Mrs. March nodded. “She’s right about that. Not that I want you to feel bad,” she added quickly. “But I don’t want her to forget and ignore what a terrible thing she has done. Don’t worry. She won’t bother you or do you any harm. I’m so sorry. She snuck in here without my permission. I’m going to tell her father to speak with her.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t be here,” I said. “Maybe it’s only causing more trouble.”
“Oh, no, no, no. Don’t you ever, ever, ever let that girl make you feel bad or think such a thing. Of course you should be here. If you left, you’d only be making her feel good about what she did. You’re doing both Donald and me a favor by being here. Sometimes I think that girl has no conscience whatsoever. I look at her and wonder how I gave birth to her. Alena was so different. No, don’t you think about leaving. Dr. Milan will be here in a few hours. Let’s just think about that for now, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Do you want any help getting up and dressed?”
“I can do it.”
“I’ll go see about your breakfast and talk to Donald about Kiera before he leaves the house. I’m so sorry.” She hurried out.
I rose and went to the closet to choose something to wear. I wondered how anyone could decide with all of these choices. How important had this been to Alena? I didn’t want to keep thinking about being in her room, using her things, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but be curious about her. Was she spoiled, too? Did she get along with Kiera? How could anyone? What did she think when she realized how sick she was, or did they keep the seriousness of her illness a secret from her until she was near the end of her life? Secrets were very comfortable living here. It seemed only natural for the Marches to lie to one another.