The Fall of Never(18)

Kelly stepped inside, immediately warming up, and Kildare shut the door behind her. Without provocation, he placed his hands at the collar of her winter coat, initiating its removal. She pulled it off and allowed the eagle-like man to take it, shake the melting snow from it. Looking around, it was like slipping back into some barely remembered childhood dream. The foyer was tremendous, decorated with modest Navajo tapestries and countless oil paintings in gold frames. The floor was polished wood, so pristine that the vaulted ceiling and exposed beams reflected in its surface. To the left, a staircase clung to the wall and swept up to the second and third floors, the risers themselves marble, the banister polished brass and wood. She could hear an old phonograph playing a Duke Ellington number coming from one of the many first-floor rooms.

“I’ve been told that not much has changed since you’ve last been here,” Kildare said. He hung her coat on an immense sculptured coat rack and stepped up beside her. He straightened his modest suit and tie, adjusted the cuffs of his shirt; the clothes clung to him the way they might cling to a mannequin.

I don’t remember, she thought, but said, “Yes.” She stepped into the middle of the foyer, her gaze trailing up the winding staircase, her footfalls echoing throughout the room. Everything was beyond tremendous. Above her head hung an impressive crystal chandelier, which reminded her of The Phantom of the Opera, and the act where the glass chandelier comes crashing down to the stage below. “Where are my parents?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Kellow are asleep,” Kildare said. “They sent their apologies, but these past few days have been quite trying and they needed their rest. There is a bedroom made up for you on the second floor, and I’ve had Glenda prepare you some food in the kitchen, in case you showed up hungry—”

“Glenda’s still here?” She’d completely forgotten about Glenda, but now that the name had been spoken, a barrage of memory-fireworks went off inside her head. Glenda…

(let the baby out)

“Yes,” said Kildare. “I can show you to your room where you can freshen up before you eat.”

“Becky? Is she here?”

Kildare stepped back toward the front door where he turned a series of deadbolts. “Your sister is in her bedroom. She’s been unconscious since the accident. I’m afraid she’s in no condition for visitors.”

Something snapped inside her. “And when the hell is someone going to fill me in on this accident? No one’s told me a damn thing yet. I want to know what happened to my sister. I want to see her. If it’s so goddamn serious, why the hell isn’t she in some hospital?”

Her rise in temper did not ruffle Kildare in the least. He merely brushed lint from his slacks—or pretended to do so—and motioned for Kelly to follow him up the stairwell. Most cavalier, he said, “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for you to peek in on her, once you’ve gotten situated. As for what happened to her, I’m afraid I really shouldn’t go into too much detail before you speak with the police tomorrow afternoon.”

Kelly paused halfway up the stairs. “The police? Why would the police want to speak with me?”

“Please,” Kildare said, continuing up the stairs. “This is not my matter. I can only tell you what I know.”

“Which isn’t much, apparently,” she said, angry.

Kildare either did not recognize her agitation or simply didn’t care. He led her down the second floor to a closed door at the end of the corridor. He opened the door and stepped inside the room, flicked on the light. Kelly stepped in behind him, immediately aghast.

It was her bedroom, exactly as she’d left it at age fifteen. The impact of the visual summoned her memory of the room—the canopied bed; the pink silk drapes; the hand-carved hope chest with the heart-shaped keyhole; the cavalcade of stuffed animals at the foot of her dresser, around her bed, around the perimeter of the room itself. Against the opposite wall hung a full-length mirror. Both Kildare and herself were reflected in it, and she nearly broke out into a strangled laugh when she saw the mismatched image: this dark, pierced young girl from the pit of New York City standing beside this double-breasted suit, this eagle-like man with narrow little eyes and deliberate speech.

I’m surprised he has a reflection at all, she thought, still fighting back a grin.

Her bag was already on the bed, the black canvas looking so out-of-place in this pink pastel wonderland, like a sour bruise on the face of a beautiful child.

“As I’m sure you remember,” Kildare the Eagle-Man said, motioning toward the closed door beside the bed, “there is the adjoining bathroom. You can freshen up there. You are familiar with the kitchen?”

“I can find my way,” she said.

Kildare did not offer any more information. He stepped out into the hallway and pulled the bedroom door closed behind him. Kelly listened to his footfalls recede down the corridor until they vanished.

This is the bedroom of Little Kelly Kellow, the sweet little thing. See how everything is so perfectly preserved? Nothing has been touched since the day the little dear went away to the nuthouse.

She went to the maple armoire, opened it. A small mirror hung on the back of one of the doors, and the interior of the armoire was stuffed with a selection of small dresses in a variety of muted colors. It felt odd staring at them, as if she’d somehow invaded some stranger’s room, some stranger’s life, and was here to take it away.