Chapter Three
three
AUGUST 2024
DAY 1 IN THE HOUSE
NORA’S mother clearly knew her way around the house. She led Nora out of the dining room, across the massive ivory-tiled ocean that was the foyer, into another dim hall, and then, finally, to one of the rooms at the end. “You can hang out in here. Keep an eye on them if you hear anything,” she said. “But don’t talk. I’m going to go back home to get some things for our stay. Don’t leave the house until I’m back.”
“Okay.”
“The oldest is a lawyer. You really can’t say a word.”
“I’m not dying to talk to these people,” Nora said wearily. “Don’t worry.”
Now she was alone on the first floor. She could hear the voices of the Yin women talking upstairs. She started to climb the staircase, thinking she could eavesdrop a little, but the wood creaked under her feet. She gave up and decided to take herself on a tour of the house.
The rooms stretched on, stale and airless. Off to the right was the dining room they had sat in for the reading of the will. The foyer contracted into a hallway as it led to the back of the house, and at the other end Nora could see leather couches and a ticking grandfather clock. The living room, she guessed. But she was more interested in the door on her left, with a set of detailed wrought iron knobs. The room in which Lucille had gathered her family for a private discussion. Nora pulled the doorknob. It stuck for a moment, but with a few tugs and some jiggling, she got it open. Once she stepped in, it swung smoothly shut behind her.
Nora arched her head up to take in with awe the high, vaulted ceilings, the built-in shelves, the inlaid chestnut-colored cabinets. The wall panels were a sun-paled mahogany color, glowing reddish in the afternoon light that flowed in through arched windows constructed of thick, geometric panes of glass. Silk screens painted with elaborate mountains and clouds perched behind the twin armchairs in the corner, with a green glass lamp poised between them.
These people were rich rich. Across the room there was a discolored rectangular expanse on the wall, as if a painting had been removed. A mid-century desk stood in front of what looked like a sealed fireplace. Built-in bookshelves rose on either side. Windows lined the left wall, the view outside obstructed by strands of ivy, though Nora could see the circular driveway through the patches the vines didn’t cover.
On the desk was an archaic-looking desktop computer straight from the mid-2000s, with that giant, blocky computer case. She eased out the chair and sat on it gingerly. It was made with some saggy upholstery. The desk had drawers underneath it. She tugged on the one in the middle and found magazines, flaked and brittle with age and water damage. A spread of photos. Nora stared at a young woman with black hair that crested around her shoulders and lips dark with lipstick.
There was a bright magnetism to her eyes, even in this discolored, creased photo. A beauty mark under her right eye. Should I know you? She stood and surveyed the sprawling bookshelves. Some titles she knew. Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Woolf, Thoreau. There were some Chinese texts, too. Nora only knew some of the words in passing from her years at Chinese school. She recognized one: 红楼梦 . Dream of the Red Chamber.
She pored over the philosophy section. Rawls. Rosseau. Her mother had been a philosophy major. She’d studied it along with political science at Berkeley. She was two years into her PhD in political philosophy when she’d gotten pregnant with Nora and dropped out. She’d always said that leaving school was independent of having Nora. Academia wasn’t for her anyway. Grad school funding wasn’t enough to support herself, much less two. And it had always been just the two of them: whichever man had pitched in for her existence didn’t stick around. If anything, her maternal grandparents had helped raise her.
Nora sensed that her mother gave up more than she let on. Mā could have been a professor or diplomat instead of working a dull city government admin job that Nora knew she didn’t like. These days, what really animated her mother was the organizing work she did on the weekends—driving around, canvassing for housing justice coalitions in San Bernardino and Riverside, phone banking.
Nora eyed a copy of a collection of poems by W. B. Yeats. It jutted out ever so slightly. She’d just touched the spine when the door behind her opened and heels clicked in.
“Oh,” Lucille said.
They stood and looked at each other for a moment.
Lucille gestured to the phone in her hand. “I need to take a call in here. Do you mind?” Her voice was clipped.
Nora raised an eyebrow. “What, the fifteen other rooms in this house are all occupied?”
Lucille froze. Nora threw a polite smile over her shoulder as she left the room. She could feel the lawyer’s eyes drill into her back. Good , Nora thought. I’ve rattled her.
LUCILLE watched the girl go. She shut the library doors with more force than required and the hinges groaned. She winced. She couldn’t take her anger out on this place. The house had fallen into disrepair. The faucets were rusted, and the sink handles screeched. Certain balusters on the stairs had come loose. Cracks and stains crept down the walls. Old paint warped and bubbled. And dust seeped and clumped in every ridge in the crown molding and the baseboards, along the windowsills and the mantels. Dirt, too. How did so much dirt get in here?
The house was like one filthy, skeletal husk. The last time she had been here was five years ago, but she hadn’t made it beyond the foyer then, and now, as she ventured farther into the house, she could see just how much it had decayed.
Lucille sat down at the desk. The cushion sagged underneath her. She pulled out her phone and stared at her ex-husband’s number for a few long moments. At her mother’s funeral he’d found her in a spare room she’d shut herself in. He’d cradled her, and it had been almost too much, being shown unusual tenderness by someone who’d ruined their marriage years ago with an affair. Still, he had shown up to her estranged mother’s funeral, an act of enormous kindness. Now, here in the library study, she called him.
He picked up on the second ring. “Lucy?”
She closed her eyes at the calm, deep sound of his voice and her old nickname. “Hi. I need advice. Assurance, really.” They had always loved discussing cases back in the day, late at night, curled into each other on the couch, books pushed among empty beer bottles and takeout on the coffee table. In many ways, he was still the one who knew her best.
“Sure thing. But before that, how are you doing? How’s Madeline?”
“Fine.” Lucille swallowed. “Mā gave the house to Elaine .”
There was a pause. “Who?”
“Elaine. Deng. Daughter of Mā’s former housekeeper. From ages ago. Of all people.” She shook her head. “It makes no sense why she would ever be the beneficiary of anything from Mā. But here’s the thing. The will was changed two weeks ago.”
“Okay. That’s odd.”
“I was looking at Elaine the whole time. She looked like she knew. I think something’s up with her.” She paused. “You’re following me, right?”
“Ah.” His voice hardened. “So you think—”
“I know, Daniel. I can’t explain it.”
“And is there evidence? An autopsy report?”
“Ordered with a toxicology report. Just waiting for the results. There’s a case here, isn’t there? From a legal standpoint?”
“Have you consulted a probate lawyer?”
“You’re family law. That’s adjacent. Come on. I just need your thoughts on the situation.”
“That’s… Okay. There could be. You’d have to prove that it was intentional and without legal justification.”
“As in, Elaine didn’t kill Mā in self-defense? Yeah. I doubt that.” She straightened up. “Thank you for your read.”
“Really, Lucy. I’ll pass on a contact of mine. Alexis Kahan. From our year at Stanford. It’s no problem. He’s taken care of things like this before.”
“Sure.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know. I might keep this to myself for a bit. Family matters are always… delicate.”
There was a long silence. “You’re not thinking of taking this on yourself, are you?”
She fixed her eyes on a book that was sticking out from the others on a shelf. “And what if I did?”
“This is entirely different from your kind of litigation, Lucy.”
A part of her knew he was right. But she pushed on. “I’m allowed to. Legally, I can. And I know this family best.”
“You have a tendency to take on too much. More than you can handle.”
“Now what does that mean?”
He sighed. “I don’t want to get into it. You know what I’m talking about.”
She knew he was referencing her failed congressional campaign. It always came back to this. It had marked the end of her political aspirations and her marriage. Things were never the same after that. “Well,” she said scathingly. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. And the honesty.”
“I’m sorry. I—”
“No, I mean it.” She ended the call and stared at the screen. Mistake.
She let her gaze drift to the desktop computer in front of her. She reached out and pressed the power button. She must have bought this for Mā decades ago. It whirred to life and dust motes billowed out.
It still worked. A miracle. She shut it back off.
Lucille stood up and stretched, facing the bookshelves in front of her. She’d spent weekend afternoons reading across from Dad in the armchairs, the glow of the green lamp between them, books stacked high on the table. They’d talk about the news and international institutions and moral fallacies, until Mā came in and told them it was dinnertime. President Lucy, Dad used to call her, the affectionate moniker he bestowed upon her when she argued at the dinner table. President Lucy. What an embarrassment. In the end, she couldn’t even win her own congressional district.
The book that stuck out was a collection of poems by Yeats. What had made the girl choose this book? Lucille pulled it out and cracked open the book.
Something fell from inside the brittle pages. A dried rosebud, and then a line, in faint penciled underline.
When all the wild Summer was in her gaze.
Lucille slammed the book shut and shoved it back on the shelf. She sank into a chair. She held up the rosebud and it crumbled in her hands. A slow, cold awareness washed over her, as if she were inching herself into an ice bath, until she plunged in all at once. Her breath quickened. She was out of her body, watching herself panic. She could do nothing but sink into it and wait.
Eventually—after a few minutes? An hour?—her heartbeat slowed. Lucille pushed herself to stand, feeling dizzy. She took a moment to steady herself on the desk. She had to leave this library for now.
Eventually she ended up at the dining table, watching the dining room chandelier gleam dully above her. The expanse of mahogany stretched out before her. An hour ago she’d faced off against Elaine. In many ways it had been like it used to be. The two of them sitting across from each other over dinner. Locked in ongoing debates. Both sides refusing to let up. But now this wasn’t about lofty subjects like socialist collectivism or nuclear disarmament; this was about her mother’s death.
I do everything for you. I am setting you up to be great. Remember that. Mā told them this on the nights she came home late from days on set and film premieres, her permed hair loose around her shoulders, her sweet, velvety Guerlain perfume settling around them as she shrugged off her fur coat and slid out of her slingback kitten heels. After filming on location, she would come back to tell them how much she had missed them. How much she loved them; how she couldn’t wait to see what they would do to make her proud. What happened? Had her love dried up? Had they disappointed her so deeply that she wanted to bar them from their childhood home?
Did you even care for her in her last years? Elaine’s spiteful words tormented her now. Or did you just abandon her in this house and leave her to die?
Elaine didn’t know that Lucille had tried to help. For years and years. Lucille was the eldest daughter who tried to pull what was left of their family together. Every year she invited Mā to holidays; to recitals; to family vacations. Mā never showed up. Not even for Madeline, her granddaughter, who used to ask about her all the time. Each time Lucille called, Mā would say she was fine out here by herself. Whenever they visited the house, Mā hurried them out. When Lucille hired her a nurse, Mā fired her. Mā exiled herself here, in this house that they had all grown up in, and that they were now severed from.
Reid hadn’t even been able to look her in the eye this morning when he read the terms of the will. He knew something was wrong, too. Lucille stood and her chair scraped behind her, rattling across the floor. She picked up the business card that Reid had left behind on the table. His name was printed in spare font. There was an office number and a mobile.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she started a text message.
This is Lucille. I need some clarification on the will. Can we talk?
Her fingers hovered over the send button. It was too easy to reach out to him like this. She remembered when she used to stare at the phone in the library and try to guess the precise moment Reid would call. Was this a good idea? She was still smarting from her conversation with Daniel. But she’d reached out to her ex-husband out of vulnerability. This was a necessity. She needed more details from Reid. He was one of the last people her mother had communicated with.
Lucille sent the text and set her phone face down on the table. She looked around the room. Certain parts had kept well. The table was still smooth. The teal-blue bar cart in the corner was covered by a thick layer of dust but in pristine condition, untouched. She watched the muted light shift across the floor. She remembered her ten-year-old self, with a full set of cutlery and dishes before her, watching the chandelier glimmer while her parents talked to their guests at the other end. She observed the way important people talked, with volume and vigor. At fourteen she had read Woodrow Wilson’s biography at this table. At seventeen, in the summer of 1990, she had poured a drink from that bar cart and met eyes with a cute boy. He had been talking to someone, so she headed to the back of the house. Whitney Houston and the Talking Heads streamed through the living room and the windows were flung open, the curtains billowing out like sails. Lucille had stepped out onto the terrace, looking out at the roses and lavender and bougainvillea that draped the terrace and the fountain that poured lightly as a fresh spring. And then the same boy from the dining room had stepped out onto the terrace, too. That was the first time she spoke to Reid Lyman.
He’d wanted to become a writer. He was headed to Princeton to study English and carried a quiet intensity about him; she told him how her dad called her President Lucy and he didn’t scoff. They had talked for hours that afternoon. Tell me when you win that Pulitzer , she’d said. He grinned. You can congratulate me from the Oval Office , he’d responded. When he spoke to her, she got the feeling that they were fastening into orbit around each other, like fusing stars. It hurt, how clearly she remembered that moment. She thought that night would earmark the beginning of the rest of her life.
Her phone buzzed.
Of course
Come to my office
I have availability tomorrow morning
She exhaled and typed.
See you then.
RENNIE knew how to be quiet.
That night she padded across the second-floor hallway. Her bare footsteps skimmed over the old floorboards. She passed by the rooms where her older sister and niece slept and pried open the door to her mother’s bedroom. The air was colder. The large bed stood in the center of the sparse, moonlit room. There was a nightstand, a dresser in the far corner, and a vanity. She knew Lucille would come soon to pack the clothes and possessions away for storage and to argue over. Rennie had to claim things while she still could.
She walked across the room and sat in front of the vanity. She wasn’t as nimble as she used to be. She went to look at herself in the vanity mirror, but realized suddenly that it wasn’t there anymore. She’d looked into that mirror so many times as a teenager. She used to come in and open the little drawer with a tiny golden key she’d slip from Mā’s key ring. She’d try on her mother’s jewelry for fun. Later, she’d learned how to pick the loose lock so she didn’t even need the key.
Now it was muscle memory. She slipped a bobby pin from her bun, pulled it open, and jammed the metal tip against the rusty pins. The drawer stuck for a bit, but with a bit of wiggling, slid open. Pearl necklaces gleamed in the low light. There were fan-shaped drop earrings and bulky chain bracelets. A herringbone necklace; a solid golden cuff; a dragonfly pin with a smattering of jade— oh, wasn’t it all so beautiful?
Rennie’s eyes were drawn to something new. A ring that glimmered in the corner.
Dad’s signet ring.
Rennie picked it up, feeling the solid weight of pure gold curled in her palm. She turned it over, looking at the leaves that crawled up the sides, the initials engraved on the surface worn away over time. Dad had worn it on his pinky. Rennie had a vivid memory of falling asleep between her parents on the couch as a kid, her father’s arm tucked around her, the television humming in the background, the ring winking in and out of her vision like a star.
She slipped it onto her index finger and stood. Before she could lose her courage, she swiped the emerald drop earrings, a solitaire bracelet, and the herringbone necklace and slipped them in her pocket. She waited another moment, and then took the jade dragonfly pin and the golden cuff bracelet, too. Who would stop her now? Lucille would never know; she never poked around here. Rennie could sell them all if she had to. Each item would be worth a couple hundred apiece. She felt bad, but she knew that her sister would just lock it all up in airless safes, where it would never see the light of day. And that would be a pure pity. Better it went to Rennie.
She closed the center drawer and opened the one on the left. Hairpins and flakes of paint, an old sewing kit. Nothing of value. Halfheartedly, she opened the deeper drawer on the right.
There was a pile of hairpieces, the pearl scratched and the metal rusted, and silk scarves, which still carried a cloying trace of perfume. Through the folds of fabric Rennie recognized the outline of something and caught a flash of gold. She clapped her hands to her mouth. Slowly, she reached through and uprooted the statue of Mā’s Academy Award.
The statue was buried, as if Mā had shoved it in there and never intended to look at it again. It was heavier than she remembered. The metal was so cold it felt like it was burning her. She shoved the award back in the drawer, closing it with finality before she quietly walked out.
Rennie made her way downstairs and headed for the wine pantry. She grabbed a bottle of dusty merlot and a corkscrew. She tiptoed back up the stairs, her ear trained for any extra creaks as she retreated into her room. She sat on her bed and pried the cork off the wine. Everything in here seemed smaller than she remembered. She was fourteen when she left this house for boarding school. Now, the wallpaper was brittle and cracked. Her bedsprings were merciless.
The cork popped quietly. She took a deep gulp from the bottle, her mouth puckering from the acidity. The signet ring glittered on her finger. She hoped she wouldn’t have to sell it. Twenty grand should be okay for a while.
She closed her eyes. She wanted to be anywhere but here. Scenes from the cities of her youth—Paris, London, New York—filtered dreamily through her mind. Back then, she drifted from one place to another, charming strangers, crowding into sweaty apartments, and lingering on rooftops with a cigarette in her hand and pills dissolving on her tongue with cheap, carbonated wine. She wanted to be twenty-five and auditioning—for movies in LA, for plays in New York, booking shitty commercials in between, chasing down taxis and elusive phone numbers.
Rennie stared at her distorted reflection in the wine bottle. Her eyes were more deep-set and prominent with age, her nose more angular. She had Mā’s cheekbones and Dad’s widow’s peak. But where Vivian was known for her precise monolids, Rennie had double eyelids, the creases deepened from too many nights of not bothering to remove her makeup. Vivian Yin had enviable, jet-black hair, and Rennie’s was a dark shade of brown, the tips lightening to gold in the sun. But besides that, she bore the image of her mother.
Of course, Rennie had always wanted to be just like her. A Chinese actress who’d singlehandedly made a name for herself. Her work ranged all genres, and her presence could summon a room. Rennie had hungered for that kind of success and charisma. Even after that summer when the family ruptured apart. Or maybe especially after that summer. But now Rennie was back, broke, sitting in her childhood bedroom with plans to pawn her late parents’ valuables. A bit pathetic. She took a deep breath and drank. Wine was the only thing that aged well in this place.
Something creaked outside her door. Her heart stuttered. Rennie tried to stay calm. Maybe if she stayed still, nothing would happen. And then she heard the voice from behind her.
“Mèi mei.”
She dropped the bottle. Wine splashed out on the floor, spreading into a crimson bruise. Rennie shoved her forehead between her knees and squeezed her eyes shut.
This time, it wasn’t her mother.
Rennie could feel the presence surround her. She locked her jaw so tightly, her teeth ground into one another. Please go away.
At some point she felt the presence ease, and she knew she was alone again. Shakily, she sat up and swiped the tears from her cheeks. She hastily threw a shirt on the spill to soak it up. She got into bed and pulled the covers over her head, staring into the darkness under the blanket as she twisted the ring around her finger. Finally, she felt the wine sink through her and drag her into sleep.