Lost Among the Living(98)

I would have to go back to the house to see. The thought of going back there froze me to my seat. “I can’t.”

“I think you can,” Dottie said.

I felt sweat break out on my back, my palms. “And if she’s there?”

“Then find out why.” Dottie’s voice was drifting into exhaustion now. “Find out what keeps her from being at peace.”

“Dottie—”

“Please.”

She had never said that to me before. She had lost her daughter, her husband, and possibly her son, while I had Alex back. I understood how loss like that can rob you. It made no matter that I never wanted to see Wych Elm House again.

“All right, Dottie. I’ll go,” I said. I stood, but at the door I turned to her again. “May I ask you one question?”

Her eyes had drifted closed, but she waved a hand in agreement.

“Why did you come back?” I asked. “You left the house to follow Martin to London. Why did you turn around?”

She opened her eyes and gave me that confused look again, and seemed to have to search for the words. “He asked me,” she said finally, the words lacking her usual force. “In the letter he left. Martin asked me not to follow him. I disregarded that at first—I was furious. But as I drove I realized that following him would only make things worse. Martin is grown now, and married, and he did not need his mother chasing him around the country.”

“So you turned around and came home,” I said, “and overheard everything.”

“I was on the front step when I heard the gunshot,” she said. “I thought we were being robbed. I told the driver to go for the police, and then I walked around to the kitchen door to get a knife.” She closed her eyes again. “The servants were gone. I could hear Robert’s voice. You were screaming, screaming.” She paused. “I never wish to hear that sound again. But I got a knife and crept up the stairs to see if I could stop it.”

I thought of her, small and narrow, walking to the kitchen door in her oxfords to fend off whoever was robbing her precious home. How utterly indomitable she was. “Dottie,” I said, “we should have used you to win the war.”

But she had already drifted off, and she didn’t hear me.





CHAPTER FORTY-ONE



It was nearly ten o’clock the next morning when I stood on the front steps of Wych Elm House, getting up my courage to go in. I felt outside myself, like a strange skin had been pulled over the old Jo, the events of the past few days changing me in ways I did not yet recognize or begin to understand. All I knew was that I wore the same dress as the old Jo, the same shoes, the same hat and gloves. There was an ache behind my eyes that I knew came from exhaustion, my bruises hurt, and my legs felt weak, but still I made myself open the door and go through it.

The house smelled of lemon polish and wood underlaid with a harsh, clean smell that I didn’t recognize. Here was the familiar umbrella stand, the worn rug. I stood for a moment, as if Frances would show herself to me as I stood there by the front door, waiting for her to appear. When nothing happened, I walked into the corridor.

I passed rooms left as I remembered them. The large parlor, where I had first met Martin, where I had first seen Alex the night of the party. The small parlor, where I had seen Frances sitting in a chair, her head turned to look at me. She was not there now; nor was there any trace of her. I felt as if I were touring a house I had not seen in years, or perhaps only touring it in the depths of my memory, an old woman thinking back to a place I had been.

In the library, I stopped in the doorway, jolted back to the present. Dottie’s desk was tidy, her papers stacked, the telephone in its cradle, her ashtray clean and set perfectly on the front corner. My typewriter under its cover sat at the little table by the window, my chair pulled up beneath it. The shelves of untouched books, the small sofa—all was just as it was supposed to be, yet it had the quality of a museum piece, of strangers putting together a room as they guessed it should look.

I glanced down and noticed that the carpet was different. It had been changed—the old one must have been too soaked with Alex’s blood to be saved. I tried to picture a team of servants in here, rearranging the furniture and rolling up the bloodied carpet, but my mind’s eye failed me. Alex had been shot here, had staggered to the desk and used the telephone. Someone had dutifully wiped his blood from the receiver.

I backed out of the library and continued down the corridor. My temples were throbbing. Here, on this clean and polished section of floor, was the place where I had fallen, where Robert had kicked me. The skin of my ribs and stomach was still an ugly purple and yellow mix. Here was the place I had lain screaming. I made myself blink and look away.

I passed the doorway to the back stairs, where Dottie had crumpled to the floor, and walked into the morning room. This room, too, was clean, everything put away by strangers. The carpet was new—again, Alex’s blood must have ruined the original. Especially in the spot where he had lain, holding on to me, his head in my lap as I waited and waited for the ambulance to come.

I made a choked sound, as if it were all happening again. It’s over, I tried to remind myself. It’s over. Alex is alive. I just left him at the hospital. He had woken again that morning, and though he was in pain, we’d sat and talked softly until he’d fallen asleep again. It would take time, but my husband would recover. He had not died, not the first time and not the second. I took a breath and inhaled the scent of cleaner again.