Dead Letters(42)

“You and Zelda both. Just lurking around here, waiting for me to say something stupid. You love this,” she screeches, her voice growing shrill. “You couldn’t be happier. You want me to look like a damn fool. Well, Ava, are you enjoying your revenge? Are you?” she screams.

“Of course not, Mom. This is hell for all of us.”

“What do you know of hell? You don’t live like this! Get out, you miserable, gloating bitch!” Nadine hurls her wineglass at me, but it veers wildly to the left and crashes onto the floor in the hallway, where it shatters most dramatically. Nadine will be remorseful as soon as I’ve closed the door—not for having screamed at me but for having sacrificed her drinking receptacle as a prop in her tantrum. At the moment, I honestly don’t care if she slices off every one of her fingers with the broken glass before moving on to her toes.

“Night, Mom,” I say as calmly as I can. I clutch the envelope and walk out of the room, shutting and locking my mother’s door behind myself, for once feeling no guilt at all for the twist of the key.

In the hall, I step gingerly around the broken glass. Zelda would probably just leave it there, waiting for someone to come tidy it up, or for the glass to be ground into fine sand between boards and soles. Zelda revels in entropy. But I obviously can’t leave the shattered wineglass lying on the ground, so I stoop to pick up the larger shards. I walk them to the upstairs bathroom, where I find a broom and a dustpan. I slice my foot open in a tiny, raw gash as I kneel to sweep up the rest of the remains, but I let the wound bleed onto the cool floor, ignoring it.

Standing in front of my mother’s door, I open the envelope, feeling nervous. Even though I’ve been receiving emails from Zelda, this feels strangely intimate, physical. I can’t remember the last time I got a real letter from anyone. Something about a person’s writing is immediate and corporeal, present. Could she have been in the house while I was out? Could she have planted the note for me earlier today? Or did she do it before the barn burned?

Inside the envelope, there is no letter, though. Just a scrap of paper with the name Jason scrawled across it. I flip the paper over, and on the back is a short P.S.: Surely there’s some photographic evidence somewhere, eh, Ava?





11


Kitchen-bound, I escape downstairs. At the sink, with a cold washcloth fixed to the back of my neck and my wineglass spruced up with a refill, I stare out the window toward the barn, thinking. I’m so distracted that I barely hear Marlon and Opal coming inside, and I jump when Opal touches my shoulder.

“Ava, doll, are you hot?” Her hands reach for the washcloth on my neck, and she takes it away, runs it under the cold tap, wrings it out, and puts it back on my neck, her gnarled and bejeweled fingers rubbing my nape with circular motions. I grit my teeth, trying not to scoot away. I can feel the heat of her body close behind me. She’s smaller than I am, and she peers out the window over my shoulder. “Oh, sweetheart. I know.” She grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze. I flinch visibly, but Opal doesn’t seem to notice or care. I take a big swallow from my glass and glance toward Marlon, who is slumped in one of the chairs in the living room.

“Glass of wine, Pops?” I ask cheerily. He gazes at me blankly for a second before trying for a smile. It’s an appalling attempt. He looks haggard, old, the skin beneath his eyes puffed and bruised. My elegant, dapper father, who until recently looked like a man of forty, now hunched and wizened. Deflated.

“When I wanted one earlier, we didn’t seem to have any fucking corkscrews,” he complains. “Had to go to the Dandy Mart to buy one.”

I go to the fridge and fill a glass for him in pity.

“I’ll take one, too, Ava—thanks for asking,” Opal says testily. I pour her a third of a glass, a little passive-aggressively, and she accepts it with a roll of her eyes, perching on a stool at the kitchen counter. “Come here, sit, dear. I’d like to talk to you.” I desperately don’t want this, but I sit nonetheless. “Now, Ava. What are you doing with yourself, over there in Paris? No, no,” she cuts me off as I open my mouth. “I understand youthful experimentation and the desire to define yourself. Believe me. I spent a semester in Spain when I was your age. It was the best thing for me. Which is why I didn’t raise an eyebrow when Marlon asked for the money to send you to do your little degree in France…” She smiles indulgently at Marlon, who is looking pointedly out the window.

“I didn’t realize you were bankrolling it, Grandma,” I say, looking directly at Marlon. He has definitely implied that his successes in California were financing my “youthful experimentation.” Opal raises her eyebrows and looks over at Marlon too.

“Oh, well. Not entirely, but yes. And I’m not saying that gives me any right to comment on your choices or to help make those choices but…” Yes, it does, I think sourly. You’ve bought me, Grandma. Let’s see what it costs.

“No, no, I’d love to hear your opinion,” I say obligingly, and she smiles, patting my hand again. She holds on to it this time.

“Well, dear, I was very impressed when you finished your first degree, studying something that would be truly useful to you and your family. Silenus is such a complicated investment, and it really needs someone with skill and training. But you’re very young, and I know you want to go out and sow your wild oats and all. When I was young, only boys were allowed to sow their oats, and I think it’s amazing that your generation is able to give women the same privilege,” Opal says with a judgy smirk.