The Safe Place, page 22
Shaking, I go downstairs and open the front door, just a crack. “Yes?” I say.
The woman is short. She has graying hair and wears a high-visibility jacket. “Where’d you want ’em, love?” she says.
“What?”
“Your shopping. Where’d you want me to put the bags?” She is craning her neck, trying to see past me into the house.
“On the doorstep, please,” I say, careful not to open the door any wider.
“You sure? I can bring ’em inside if you like, give you a hand.”
“No.”
“It’s no trouble, love. All part of the service.”
“I said no.”
The short woman makes a face. “Suit yourself.” She puts the bags down and returns to her van.
I look down at the bags. The topmost item peeps out of the nearest one. Cheerful plastic packaging with a picture on the front. Pearly teeth. Dimples. Golden curls. I bend down and reach for the picture, stretching out my fingers until I feel peachy skin, soft as roses. Plump little thighs. Ten tiny toes. This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home.
“How old’s your baby?”
I jump. The delivery woman is back with an electronic signature pad.
“Huh?”
“Your baby.” She points at the plastic picture. “How old?”
I can feel her staring at me, at the dressing on my wrists. I pull down my sleeves and look up. Our eyes meet and she flinches. I wonder what she might look like with her head staved in. Like a freshly cut watermelon, I decide, and laugh.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
EMILY
THE NEXT morning, Emily woke to discordant birdsong and a faint wash of light. She lifted her head, her hair sticking uncomfortably to her cheek. Her eyes felt sore and puffy, and her jaw ached, a sure sign that she’d been grinding her teeth.
Heaving herself upright, Emily rubbed her eyes.
Yves and the bald man.
The secret staircase.
Blood in the sand and a pale-green eye.
Had she been dreaming? Despite the heat, she shivered. Dread and nausea burned in her stomach.
Wrapping the top sheet around her body, she crossed to the window and looked out. Querencia lay spread before her, just the same as it always was. There was the lawn, green and ordinary. There were the trees and the flowers and the pool. No sign of anything unusual or sinister. And yet everything seemed different somehow.
Within ten minutes, she was out the door and in the car. There was no real plan, just a burning desire to be away from the property: alone, but among people; just close enough to be sure they were still out there.
As she drove the SUV toward the gates, Emily was seized by an urge to accelerate so powerful that she almost plowed the car straight through the iron bars without even stopping at the control panel. At the last minute, she pulled up sharply next to the silver keypad and entered the code. She waited, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, but nothing happened.
Emily frowned. She reached out and pressed the buttons again, more slowly this time. But still the gates remained closed, the mechanism silent. The small red light in the right-hand corner of the keypad, the one that turned green just before the gates opened, wasn’t flashing. It wasn’t even lit.
She got out of the car and examined the keypad. The digital display panel was blank. Then she looked through the gates at the unit on the other side. No lights anywhere. Even the security cameras, one mounted on either side of the towering wall, were inanimate. The whole system was dead.
She grabbed the bars and rattled them. Locked. A hot swell of alarm rose up in her rib cage. But then she remembered. These are the keys to the house and your car. This little one is for the front gate, but the security system is electronic so you won’t need it. Scott had been right; it had been so unnecessary she’d forgotten she even had it.
Running back to the car, she yanked the whole bunch out of the ignition. The littlest key slipped into the manual lock at the center of the gate and turned easily. Heaving the gates open, Emily drove through to the other side, taking care to close and lock them after her.
The dirt track was dry. She tapped the accelerator and sped up, sending clouds of dust billowing into the air. Above her head, sunlight searched for a way through the thick canopy, painting everything with an eerie shade of green. Green grass, green stalks, green moss, and layer upon layer of bright-green leaves.
Green. Like Aurelia’s eye.
She couldn’t get the image out of her head. It was like a sunspot burned into her retina. Thinking about it gave Emily the weirdest feeling. It was sort of like déjà vu: like she’d always known, deep down, but had forgotten.
She frowned and shook her head. Stop obsessing. You’re tired. Just think about something else. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw it: a ring of light around a small black circle. A pale-green solar eclipse.
* * *
Emily drove north for about an hour, finally ending up in a pretty town set in a curved bay. She’d seen it before—she and Yves had passed it on their way from the airport on her first day—but had only properly noticed it during the awkward car ride with Scott; she remembered gazing enviously out the window at all the people drinking coffee and reading papers in the early morning sunshine.
The town had a small sandy beach and a cobbled esplanade lined with shops. Perfect. The emerging plan was to sit at a café, order something chocolatey, and watch the world go by. She also badly needed to digitally retox: binge on Wi-Fi. Her head was too noisy, so she would quiet it down by catching up on celebrity gossip, and checking out what her friends had eaten for dinner and where they’d been on holiday. She’d gorge on other people’s fake lives, and maybe after that she would take a walk on the beach and eat an ice cream. Then she would feel better.
She reached for her phone—and stopped dead. Shit. Yet again, she’d totally forgotten to grab it from the top shelf of the wardrobe. Never mind, she thought, quickly adjusting her plan.
She wandered for a while, eventually spotting a cute little building with bright turquoise chairs, mosaic-topped tables, and a sign in the window that read CYBER CAFÉ. Emily approached the counter and asked for a café au lait with a pain au chocolat. The waitress took her order and her money, then powered up a dusty old computer sitting in a corner. Emily took a seat and waited for the ancient PC to warm up.
When it arrived, the warm flaky pastry turned out to be exactly what she needed; she could literally feel the stress sliding off her shoulders with every crunchy, oozy bite. Living and working at Querencia had been a dream come true, but it occurred to her that in eleven weeks, she hadn’t taken a proper day off; she hadn’t felt the need. But now, sitting at the café and gazing out the window at a whole new landscape filled with busy strangers, she realized just how trapped she’d been feeling lately. She should have done this much earlier. Just leaving the estate without telling Nina made her feel light, as if she were made of paper.
Nina.
The past few months had been so intense that Emily had forgotten almost everything about her life before. The estate and its owners had become everything to her. No one had ever made Emily feel even half as welcome as the Dennys had—so unconditionally accepted. What was the saying? You can’t choose your family. Well, maybe that was true, but if Emily had been asked a month ago to sign a legal document cutting all ties with Juliet and Peter and binding her instead to the Dennys, she would have done it.
But that was then.
Emily leaned back in her chair. The awful asphyxia of the previous evening had eased, and her mind felt released. Away from Querencia, it was easier to lay out all the questions and examine them; specifically, what the hell had been going on last night? Why had Yves shown up? Who was the bald man? What was with the secret basement and all the boxes? And the smell—what was that all about?
In fact, here among the little blue tables in the bright daylight, a lot of things were starting to look a bit odd. The absence of Wi-Fi. The broken phone. Even the weekend with Scott. It had been an amazing few days, but how many housekeepers went skinny-dipping with their bosses? She’d become so close to Nina that they now shared a physical intimacy that Emily took for granted … but was it weird? Had Scott taken it as some sort of green light? If she tried to explain it to a friend, it might sound like she had joined a polygamist cult.
The most important question, though, was this: was Nina really faking Aurelia’s illness? People did that sometimes. It had a German-sounding name. Munchausen. That was it. Munchausen by proxy. It seemed a bit far-fetched, though. She tossed the idea around, looking at it from all kinds of angles, but it didn’t make sense. Nina was a good person. She would never hurt Aurelia; she was her mother. Then again, that didn’t always mean what it should.
Also, if it was Munchausen by proxy, then both Scott and Yves were in on it. They were protecting and even facilitating it. Why? What did either of them stand to gain?
She sighed and closed her eyes. There it was again. The solar eclipse. The little half bubble. Green, brown, green, brown.
The computer beeped. It was ready. Emily grabbed the mouse and clicked. Seconds later, she was reunited with Google.
With all thoughts of social media sliding away—celebrity gossip could wait—she typed a few words into the search bar.
Google told her that the fancy name for different-colored eyes was heterochromia iridis. Apparently, it was reasonably common, and lots of celebrities had it. Mila Kunis, Kate Bosworth, some baseball player called Max Scherzer. People thought David Bowie had it, but he didn’t (his was a paralyzed pupil as a result of getting punched in the face).
Emily skimmed a few medical websites. Heterochromia was usually hereditary, but there were many circumstances under which it might be acquired. It could be the result of an injury, or some kind of growth. Google supplied her with an extensive list of disorders characterized by different colored eyes: Sturge-Weber syndrome, von Recklinghausen disease, Hirschsprung disease, Bloch-Sulzberger syndrome … Apparently, tuberculosis and herpes could do it, as could a benign tumor. There was also a thing called Waardenburg syndrome, a genetic condition that could cause deafness and changes in pigmentation, not only in the eyes but also in the skin and hair.
Alarmingly, the use of medicinal eyedrops could change a person’s eye color, as could blunt or penetrating trauma, a fact that chilled Emily to the bone.
She flicked through more sites, following links and opening pages until her brain hurt. Eventually, she took her hand off the mouse and ordered another coffee. Pulling at the dry skin on her lips, she stared at the street outside without taking anything in.
In theory, it was possible that Aurelia had one different-colored eye as a result of physical abuse. She could have been hit in the face or pushed into something hard or sharp. But Nina would never do anything like that. Munchausen seemed more likely in comparison. So, maybe Nina had been administering a particular kind of eyedrop as medication for, say, imaginary glaucoma? Hadn’t she mentioned on Emily’s first day that Aurelia’s eyes were sensitive? It would fit right in with all the other fictional symptoms. Hives, vomiting, bed rest for days on end—why not throw in an eye disease, too?
But Nina wouldn’t hurt her daughter. Surely she wouldn’t.
Emily pressed her hand to her forehead. She was sweating.
Maybe Aurelia did have a medical condition, but Nina was just lying about its true nature. If Aurelia had Waardenburg syndrome, for example, the thing that affects a person’s hearing, eyes, skin, and hair, there wouldn’t be any real symptoms per se, just physical markers. Emily thought about Aurelia’s shyness, her refusal to speak—but there was no other evidence that might suggest that she was even partially deaf.
Hearing, eyes, skin, hair.
Skin. Hair. An image flashed through Emily’s mind. Yesterday, when Aurelia hit her head, Emily had checked the damage by parting her hair. She thought she’d seen dark bruising, not just around the wound but all over the scalp—but no one could bruise their entire head, could they?
Her entire head … Aurelia’s hair was black. The bathtub had been stained, and the towel she’d found stuffed underneath was covered in dark streaky marks.
The truth kicked her in the gut, and she had to fight to keep herself from slipping off her chair: Nina was dying Aurelia’s hair.
If Aurelia had Waardenburg’s syndrome then, according to Google, she might have a streak of white in her hair, changes in skin pigmentation, and different-colored eyes. Emily had even found a website that mentioned a link between Waardenburg’s and “intellectual disability,” citing “unprovoked aggressive outbursts” as typical. It made a certain sense. Yes, that had to be it. Aurelia’s hair was dyed, her eyes disguised, and her skin kept covered because underneath it all she looked different. She behaved “abnormally.” And that just didn’t fit in with Nina and Scott’s beautiful, flawless existence. Emily had been right: Scott was ashamed of Aurelia. They both were. Nina was embarrassed to have an ugly, weird kid, so she hid her daughter away in a fantasy world where she was free to love her without fear of judgment.
Tear’s pricked Emily’s eyes. What was wrong with being different? Emily turned back to the PC and scrolled angrily through Google Images. There were loads of cool celebrities with heterochromia, and they were all stunning. Look! Mila Kunis? Gorgeous. Kate Bosworth? Dazzling. What’s-his-name, the baseball player? Ridiculously hot. Their crystalline eyes only made them more attractive. Jane Seymour, Elizabeth Berkeley, Kiefer Sutherland, Alice Eve.
And … a little girl.
Emily stopped scrolling, her index finger hovering over the mouse.
The photograph was familiar. It was different from all the others: not professional at all, and not a red carpet in sight. Slightly blurry and overexposed, it showed a sweet little girl with strawberry-blond hair, a button nose, and gaps between her bright baby teeth. She wore a necklace of yellow plastic around her neck and clutched a My Little Pony in her pudgy hands. In the bottom-left corner, there was a patch of pink rucksack.
Suddenly, Emily found she could no longer breathe. Her skin flushed hot, and her stomach dropped as if she’d just fallen out of a plane.
And then she was pushing her chair back, knocking over her coffee, and racing out of the café as fast as she could, blindly running somewhere, anywhere, it didn’t matter. She just had to get as far away from that computer as possible.
* * *
At the end of the esplanade, she jumped onto the beach and ran into the water, letting the tide splash over her sandals and up her legs. No. No. No. This can’t … it can’t … People were looking at her, but she didn’t care. Something violent was happening in her chest.
The photograph of the little girl was familiar because she’d seen it before. A sharp, seedy memory came crashing back to her: three years ago, at Rhea’s house, lying on the couch with a dry mouth and a headache, looking around to see several random dudes in the room. Beards, bong smoke, and the news on repeat. Everyone hypnotized by endless stories of shootings, child abuse, murder … and a kid. A red-haired three-year-old.
Over the sea, a big dark mess of cloud creeped and bulged. A name wriggled in Emily’s head like a maggot.
Amandine.
The case had been famous. She remembered it especially clearly because of the stupid birthday thing Rhea had made her go to that same morning. She’d stood in Rhea’s sister’s back garden with hundreds of toddlers racing around her, just staring into space and thinking about that photo, thinking how inappropriate it was that she’d brought the sadness of it with her to the party along with a potent smell of weed.
A spot of rain landed on her cheek and a gust of wind blew her hair across her face. The approaching clouds growled with thunder. Another storm was coming.
Emily retched.
L’Enfant d’Orage.
The Storm Child.
That photo had been splashed across every newspaper in Europe. It had traveled the whole world. The girl’s eyes were, of course, the focus: one brown, one green.
My husband turns his laptop around so I can see the screen. He shows me a photograph of a house. No, two houses, side by side, with trees, grass, flowers, and a swimming pool.
“This first one has eight bedrooms and four full bathrooms. Just right for guests. It needs work but not too much.”
We are standing in the kitchen. I look past the laptop into the living room, at the mirror on the wall, at our reflection in the glass. The perfect couple in their perfect home, heads bent together, discussing real estate over a bottle of pinot.
“I can just see it,” he says. “A secluded bed-and-breakfast. We could do most of the renovations ourselves. I’d build your dream kitchen—outside, by the pool, so you could look at the water while you’re cooking.”
The lilies on the island bench are dying. Their petals are thin and droopy. One flower trembles as if brushed by an invisible finger, then drops onto the countertop. Clumps of orange pollen go skipping across the marble.
He taps the touch pad on his laptop, and the picture changes. “The second house is smaller, just five bedrooms. Very cozy. Just imagine: markets on Saturday mornings, Paris on the long weekends. Just like you always wanted. It could be a fresh start for us. A clean break.”
Fresh. Clean. I roll the words around in my head until they come apart and lose their meaning.
“This house will sell quickly, I’m sure. I’ll organize the packing. You won’t have to lift a finger.”
There’s a faint ringing in my head: an alarm bell. “No,” I hear myself say, a touch too loudly. “I’ll do the packing.”
“Fine, whatever you prefer. And after that, we’ll go on holiday.”
My head nods for me. His voice grows faint.
“We’ll have everything shipped while we’re away so we don’t need to come back here. You can go straight from relax mode into new-house mode.”
The woman is short. She has graying hair and wears a high-visibility jacket. “Where’d you want ’em, love?” she says.
“What?”
“Your shopping. Where’d you want me to put the bags?” She is craning her neck, trying to see past me into the house.
“On the doorstep, please,” I say, careful not to open the door any wider.
“You sure? I can bring ’em inside if you like, give you a hand.”
“No.”
“It’s no trouble, love. All part of the service.”
“I said no.”
The short woman makes a face. “Suit yourself.” She puts the bags down and returns to her van.
I look down at the bags. The topmost item peeps out of the nearest one. Cheerful plastic packaging with a picture on the front. Pearly teeth. Dimples. Golden curls. I bend down and reach for the picture, stretching out my fingers until I feel peachy skin, soft as roses. Plump little thighs. Ten tiny toes. This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home.
“How old’s your baby?”
I jump. The delivery woman is back with an electronic signature pad.
“Huh?”
“Your baby.” She points at the plastic picture. “How old?”
I can feel her staring at me, at the dressing on my wrists. I pull down my sleeves and look up. Our eyes meet and she flinches. I wonder what she might look like with her head staved in. Like a freshly cut watermelon, I decide, and laugh.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
EMILY
THE NEXT morning, Emily woke to discordant birdsong and a faint wash of light. She lifted her head, her hair sticking uncomfortably to her cheek. Her eyes felt sore and puffy, and her jaw ached, a sure sign that she’d been grinding her teeth.
Heaving herself upright, Emily rubbed her eyes.
Yves and the bald man.
The secret staircase.
Blood in the sand and a pale-green eye.
Had she been dreaming? Despite the heat, she shivered. Dread and nausea burned in her stomach.
Wrapping the top sheet around her body, she crossed to the window and looked out. Querencia lay spread before her, just the same as it always was. There was the lawn, green and ordinary. There were the trees and the flowers and the pool. No sign of anything unusual or sinister. And yet everything seemed different somehow.
Within ten minutes, she was out the door and in the car. There was no real plan, just a burning desire to be away from the property: alone, but among people; just close enough to be sure they were still out there.
As she drove the SUV toward the gates, Emily was seized by an urge to accelerate so powerful that she almost plowed the car straight through the iron bars without even stopping at the control panel. At the last minute, she pulled up sharply next to the silver keypad and entered the code. She waited, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, but nothing happened.
Emily frowned. She reached out and pressed the buttons again, more slowly this time. But still the gates remained closed, the mechanism silent. The small red light in the right-hand corner of the keypad, the one that turned green just before the gates opened, wasn’t flashing. It wasn’t even lit.
She got out of the car and examined the keypad. The digital display panel was blank. Then she looked through the gates at the unit on the other side. No lights anywhere. Even the security cameras, one mounted on either side of the towering wall, were inanimate. The whole system was dead.
She grabbed the bars and rattled them. Locked. A hot swell of alarm rose up in her rib cage. But then she remembered. These are the keys to the house and your car. This little one is for the front gate, but the security system is electronic so you won’t need it. Scott had been right; it had been so unnecessary she’d forgotten she even had it.
Running back to the car, she yanked the whole bunch out of the ignition. The littlest key slipped into the manual lock at the center of the gate and turned easily. Heaving the gates open, Emily drove through to the other side, taking care to close and lock them after her.
The dirt track was dry. She tapped the accelerator and sped up, sending clouds of dust billowing into the air. Above her head, sunlight searched for a way through the thick canopy, painting everything with an eerie shade of green. Green grass, green stalks, green moss, and layer upon layer of bright-green leaves.
Green. Like Aurelia’s eye.
She couldn’t get the image out of her head. It was like a sunspot burned into her retina. Thinking about it gave Emily the weirdest feeling. It was sort of like déjà vu: like she’d always known, deep down, but had forgotten.
She frowned and shook her head. Stop obsessing. You’re tired. Just think about something else. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw it: a ring of light around a small black circle. A pale-green solar eclipse.
* * *
Emily drove north for about an hour, finally ending up in a pretty town set in a curved bay. She’d seen it before—she and Yves had passed it on their way from the airport on her first day—but had only properly noticed it during the awkward car ride with Scott; she remembered gazing enviously out the window at all the people drinking coffee and reading papers in the early morning sunshine.
The town had a small sandy beach and a cobbled esplanade lined with shops. Perfect. The emerging plan was to sit at a café, order something chocolatey, and watch the world go by. She also badly needed to digitally retox: binge on Wi-Fi. Her head was too noisy, so she would quiet it down by catching up on celebrity gossip, and checking out what her friends had eaten for dinner and where they’d been on holiday. She’d gorge on other people’s fake lives, and maybe after that she would take a walk on the beach and eat an ice cream. Then she would feel better.
She reached for her phone—and stopped dead. Shit. Yet again, she’d totally forgotten to grab it from the top shelf of the wardrobe. Never mind, she thought, quickly adjusting her plan.
She wandered for a while, eventually spotting a cute little building with bright turquoise chairs, mosaic-topped tables, and a sign in the window that read CYBER CAFÉ. Emily approached the counter and asked for a café au lait with a pain au chocolat. The waitress took her order and her money, then powered up a dusty old computer sitting in a corner. Emily took a seat and waited for the ancient PC to warm up.
When it arrived, the warm flaky pastry turned out to be exactly what she needed; she could literally feel the stress sliding off her shoulders with every crunchy, oozy bite. Living and working at Querencia had been a dream come true, but it occurred to her that in eleven weeks, she hadn’t taken a proper day off; she hadn’t felt the need. But now, sitting at the café and gazing out the window at a whole new landscape filled with busy strangers, she realized just how trapped she’d been feeling lately. She should have done this much earlier. Just leaving the estate without telling Nina made her feel light, as if she were made of paper.
Nina.
The past few months had been so intense that Emily had forgotten almost everything about her life before. The estate and its owners had become everything to her. No one had ever made Emily feel even half as welcome as the Dennys had—so unconditionally accepted. What was the saying? You can’t choose your family. Well, maybe that was true, but if Emily had been asked a month ago to sign a legal document cutting all ties with Juliet and Peter and binding her instead to the Dennys, she would have done it.
But that was then.
Emily leaned back in her chair. The awful asphyxia of the previous evening had eased, and her mind felt released. Away from Querencia, it was easier to lay out all the questions and examine them; specifically, what the hell had been going on last night? Why had Yves shown up? Who was the bald man? What was with the secret basement and all the boxes? And the smell—what was that all about?
In fact, here among the little blue tables in the bright daylight, a lot of things were starting to look a bit odd. The absence of Wi-Fi. The broken phone. Even the weekend with Scott. It had been an amazing few days, but how many housekeepers went skinny-dipping with their bosses? She’d become so close to Nina that they now shared a physical intimacy that Emily took for granted … but was it weird? Had Scott taken it as some sort of green light? If she tried to explain it to a friend, it might sound like she had joined a polygamist cult.
The most important question, though, was this: was Nina really faking Aurelia’s illness? People did that sometimes. It had a German-sounding name. Munchausen. That was it. Munchausen by proxy. It seemed a bit far-fetched, though. She tossed the idea around, looking at it from all kinds of angles, but it didn’t make sense. Nina was a good person. She would never hurt Aurelia; she was her mother. Then again, that didn’t always mean what it should.
Also, if it was Munchausen by proxy, then both Scott and Yves were in on it. They were protecting and even facilitating it. Why? What did either of them stand to gain?
She sighed and closed her eyes. There it was again. The solar eclipse. The little half bubble. Green, brown, green, brown.
The computer beeped. It was ready. Emily grabbed the mouse and clicked. Seconds later, she was reunited with Google.
With all thoughts of social media sliding away—celebrity gossip could wait—she typed a few words into the search bar.
Google told her that the fancy name for different-colored eyes was heterochromia iridis. Apparently, it was reasonably common, and lots of celebrities had it. Mila Kunis, Kate Bosworth, some baseball player called Max Scherzer. People thought David Bowie had it, but he didn’t (his was a paralyzed pupil as a result of getting punched in the face).
Emily skimmed a few medical websites. Heterochromia was usually hereditary, but there were many circumstances under which it might be acquired. It could be the result of an injury, or some kind of growth. Google supplied her with an extensive list of disorders characterized by different colored eyes: Sturge-Weber syndrome, von Recklinghausen disease, Hirschsprung disease, Bloch-Sulzberger syndrome … Apparently, tuberculosis and herpes could do it, as could a benign tumor. There was also a thing called Waardenburg syndrome, a genetic condition that could cause deafness and changes in pigmentation, not only in the eyes but also in the skin and hair.
Alarmingly, the use of medicinal eyedrops could change a person’s eye color, as could blunt or penetrating trauma, a fact that chilled Emily to the bone.
She flicked through more sites, following links and opening pages until her brain hurt. Eventually, she took her hand off the mouse and ordered another coffee. Pulling at the dry skin on her lips, she stared at the street outside without taking anything in.
In theory, it was possible that Aurelia had one different-colored eye as a result of physical abuse. She could have been hit in the face or pushed into something hard or sharp. But Nina would never do anything like that. Munchausen seemed more likely in comparison. So, maybe Nina had been administering a particular kind of eyedrop as medication for, say, imaginary glaucoma? Hadn’t she mentioned on Emily’s first day that Aurelia’s eyes were sensitive? It would fit right in with all the other fictional symptoms. Hives, vomiting, bed rest for days on end—why not throw in an eye disease, too?
But Nina wouldn’t hurt her daughter. Surely she wouldn’t.
Emily pressed her hand to her forehead. She was sweating.
Maybe Aurelia did have a medical condition, but Nina was just lying about its true nature. If Aurelia had Waardenburg syndrome, for example, the thing that affects a person’s hearing, eyes, skin, and hair, there wouldn’t be any real symptoms per se, just physical markers. Emily thought about Aurelia’s shyness, her refusal to speak—but there was no other evidence that might suggest that she was even partially deaf.
Hearing, eyes, skin, hair.
Skin. Hair. An image flashed through Emily’s mind. Yesterday, when Aurelia hit her head, Emily had checked the damage by parting her hair. She thought she’d seen dark bruising, not just around the wound but all over the scalp—but no one could bruise their entire head, could they?
Her entire head … Aurelia’s hair was black. The bathtub had been stained, and the towel she’d found stuffed underneath was covered in dark streaky marks.
The truth kicked her in the gut, and she had to fight to keep herself from slipping off her chair: Nina was dying Aurelia’s hair.
If Aurelia had Waardenburg’s syndrome then, according to Google, she might have a streak of white in her hair, changes in skin pigmentation, and different-colored eyes. Emily had even found a website that mentioned a link between Waardenburg’s and “intellectual disability,” citing “unprovoked aggressive outbursts” as typical. It made a certain sense. Yes, that had to be it. Aurelia’s hair was dyed, her eyes disguised, and her skin kept covered because underneath it all she looked different. She behaved “abnormally.” And that just didn’t fit in with Nina and Scott’s beautiful, flawless existence. Emily had been right: Scott was ashamed of Aurelia. They both were. Nina was embarrassed to have an ugly, weird kid, so she hid her daughter away in a fantasy world where she was free to love her without fear of judgment.
Tear’s pricked Emily’s eyes. What was wrong with being different? Emily turned back to the PC and scrolled angrily through Google Images. There were loads of cool celebrities with heterochromia, and they were all stunning. Look! Mila Kunis? Gorgeous. Kate Bosworth? Dazzling. What’s-his-name, the baseball player? Ridiculously hot. Their crystalline eyes only made them more attractive. Jane Seymour, Elizabeth Berkeley, Kiefer Sutherland, Alice Eve.
And … a little girl.
Emily stopped scrolling, her index finger hovering over the mouse.
The photograph was familiar. It was different from all the others: not professional at all, and not a red carpet in sight. Slightly blurry and overexposed, it showed a sweet little girl with strawberry-blond hair, a button nose, and gaps between her bright baby teeth. She wore a necklace of yellow plastic around her neck and clutched a My Little Pony in her pudgy hands. In the bottom-left corner, there was a patch of pink rucksack.
Suddenly, Emily found she could no longer breathe. Her skin flushed hot, and her stomach dropped as if she’d just fallen out of a plane.
And then she was pushing her chair back, knocking over her coffee, and racing out of the café as fast as she could, blindly running somewhere, anywhere, it didn’t matter. She just had to get as far away from that computer as possible.
* * *
At the end of the esplanade, she jumped onto the beach and ran into the water, letting the tide splash over her sandals and up her legs. No. No. No. This can’t … it can’t … People were looking at her, but she didn’t care. Something violent was happening in her chest.
The photograph of the little girl was familiar because she’d seen it before. A sharp, seedy memory came crashing back to her: three years ago, at Rhea’s house, lying on the couch with a dry mouth and a headache, looking around to see several random dudes in the room. Beards, bong smoke, and the news on repeat. Everyone hypnotized by endless stories of shootings, child abuse, murder … and a kid. A red-haired three-year-old.
Over the sea, a big dark mess of cloud creeped and bulged. A name wriggled in Emily’s head like a maggot.
Amandine.
The case had been famous. She remembered it especially clearly because of the stupid birthday thing Rhea had made her go to that same morning. She’d stood in Rhea’s sister’s back garden with hundreds of toddlers racing around her, just staring into space and thinking about that photo, thinking how inappropriate it was that she’d brought the sadness of it with her to the party along with a potent smell of weed.
A spot of rain landed on her cheek and a gust of wind blew her hair across her face. The approaching clouds growled with thunder. Another storm was coming.
Emily retched.
L’Enfant d’Orage.
The Storm Child.
That photo had been splashed across every newspaper in Europe. It had traveled the whole world. The girl’s eyes were, of course, the focus: one brown, one green.
My husband turns his laptop around so I can see the screen. He shows me a photograph of a house. No, two houses, side by side, with trees, grass, flowers, and a swimming pool.
“This first one has eight bedrooms and four full bathrooms. Just right for guests. It needs work but not too much.”
We are standing in the kitchen. I look past the laptop into the living room, at the mirror on the wall, at our reflection in the glass. The perfect couple in their perfect home, heads bent together, discussing real estate over a bottle of pinot.
“I can just see it,” he says. “A secluded bed-and-breakfast. We could do most of the renovations ourselves. I’d build your dream kitchen—outside, by the pool, so you could look at the water while you’re cooking.”
The lilies on the island bench are dying. Their petals are thin and droopy. One flower trembles as if brushed by an invisible finger, then drops onto the countertop. Clumps of orange pollen go skipping across the marble.
He taps the touch pad on his laptop, and the picture changes. “The second house is smaller, just five bedrooms. Very cozy. Just imagine: markets on Saturday mornings, Paris on the long weekends. Just like you always wanted. It could be a fresh start for us. A clean break.”
Fresh. Clean. I roll the words around in my head until they come apart and lose their meaning.
“This house will sell quickly, I’m sure. I’ll organize the packing. You won’t have to lift a finger.”
There’s a faint ringing in my head: an alarm bell. “No,” I hear myself say, a touch too loudly. “I’ll do the packing.”
“Fine, whatever you prefer. And after that, we’ll go on holiday.”
My head nods for me. His voice grows faint.
“We’ll have everything shipped while we’re away so we don’t need to come back here. You can go straight from relax mode into new-house mode.”
