Chapter 15
15
F or the next few days, without ever discussing it, Flora checked on Sylvia before starting her day. She seemed to be improving, but she also seemed changed. Sylvia wasn’t especially nice to her, but neither was she cruel, and Flora felt an unusual feeling, like now that she had seen Sylvia at her worst, had witnessed the woman in a moment of abject humiliation, the power dynamic between them had changed. Sylvia needed her, couldn’t care for her horses if Flora hadn’t come, and might have died without her.
Ethan was completely absent, but the more she thought about it, the more it was obvious that he couldn’t stand to see a woman he’d once loved in the depths of addiction. Maybe, Flora thought, he couldn’t take it anymore, had given her enough chances. She couldn’t blame him. She felt sorry for him, sympathized.
Still, it was odd.
So it was left to Flora to get Sylvia water, bring her food, cook meals, and even, at one point, strip the musty, stale sheets from her bed as the other woman sat wrapped in a velvety black robe downstairs on the couch. Flora knew, of course, exactly where the laundry was, and was surprised to find that the Rainshadow laundry room was unchanged, exactly as it had been as Lavender Acres. She stuffed Sylvia’s bundle of navy sheets into the washing machine and then went to work with Mars and Zeta.
In the time it took to start the laundry, it seemed Sylvia had gone upstairs, gotten dressed, and was walking with an excruciating slowness toward the stable when Flora trotted outside.
“Sylvia,” she said, “you shouldn’t be out here.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Sylvia said, laughing and waving her off. “I want to watch my horses.”
Flora felt a start, an old anxiety returning. Whatever new agreement had bloomed between them, it couldn’t survive a training session in the arena.
Sylvia though, bundled in scarves and her black wool coat, sat watching from the arena seating, barely saying a word. Sometimes, in her creaking voice, she called out suggestions, but that’s all they were, suggestions, more helpful than critical. Flora listened, nodded, and moved the whip or pressed her shoulders into Zeta’s flank to get her to move sideways in the correct, prancing gait. Sylvia, looking on, would nod approvingly any acid or cruelty.
On the fifth day, Sylvia was walking normally, and color had returned to her face. She was calling out instructions with the same vigor, but none of the venom, and even smiling when her horses, with Flora in the saddle, performed especially well. As they practiced, the wind picked up outside and a light rain started to fall.
“Good job today, Flora. Thank you,” Sylvia said, nodding to her as she walked with Flora and Mars, almost as briskly as she had before, back to the barn. They pushed up the hoods of their coats against the rising rain and it was already so dark, they didn’t notice that the sun had set, slipping away like a thief.
They put the horse away, and Sylvia even helped rehang the tack. When they both emerged from the barn though, Sylvia froze beside her. Flora felt him before she saw him, the solid figure in black, coatless and oblivious to the weather. The wind was howling and his thin, silky hair whipped around his face and neck.
He was breathtaking.
“Sylvia,” Ethan said, his voice like an echo of itself. “You’re up, and looking well.”
“I am,” she said, straightening, smiling, but there was something of the old Sylvia in the smile, something vicious and steely.
“Flora,” Ethan said, turning to her, “you’re here. I wondered who was taking care of the horses. I’ve been traveling.”
“Oh,” Flora said, thinking of how odd it was that Sylvia hadn’t mentioned it.
“You must stay for dinner,” he said, smiling at her. Sylvia bristled.
It occurred to Flora that Sylvia had been fine, even pleasant, as long as Ethan wasn’t around.
“Thank you, Ethan,” Flora said, and she felt Sylvia’s eyes slide over, watching her.
“There’s no food,” Sylvia said, a hint of accusation in her voice. “You left, and?—”
“I called the cook and the cleaner. They’re on their way. You have to be nicer to them, though. No more throwing things.”
Flora couldn’t help but wonder what had happened, but Sylvia only rolled her eyes.
An hour later they were seated at the grand dining table. Ethan poured wine while the cook shuffled around in the kitchen, pots and pans clanging as he cleaned up after dinner. Ethan had begged off once again, saying he’d already eaten.
“Are you still looking for another job?” he asked her, swirling wine he never sipped.
“I applied for a job in Seattle, but my mother…” Flora trailed off, looking down at her own glass of wine, nearly empty.
Ethan refilled it. “What? What happened?”
Flora took a shuddering breath. “She, uh, sabotaged my application. Told them I’d lied on it.”
“Can’t you just move out?” Sylvia asked, incredulous. “We pay you hundreds a week. You must have a lot saved.”
“My mom takes it all. She gives me money for groceries.”
Sylvia snorted, like she couldn’t believe anyone could be pushed around so easily.
“I should head out,” Flora said. “I need to walk a ways back.”
“Ok, good luck,” Sylvia said, taking a long sip of wine that Flora was quite certain she shouldn’t be drinking.
“It’s really windy out,” Ethan said. “And it’s raining. You can’t walk home in this.”
“Well, I guess you have to drive her.”
“I’m not driving anywhere,” he said. “Flora, you can spend the night.”
Sylvia briefly met Flora’s eye, and there was something there, a pleading.
“I can drive you home,” she said.
“You’ve been drinking,” Ethan said. “And anyway?—”
“She can take my truck, the Range Rover,” Sylvia said, her voice a little breathless. “And you can come back in the morning.”
“I don’t think I can drive in this weather either,” Flora admitted, and her voice sounded childish.
“The guest bedroom was just refreshed,” Ethan said. “It’s ready for you.”
“Great,” Sylvia said. “It’s bedtime now. Goodnight, Flora.”
He laughed in disbelief. “It’s not even nine. I’m not ready for bed yet.”
Sylvia smiled a tight smile. “Well, I think it’s bedtime. Let’s go to bed, Ethan. Say goodnight to Flora.”
Ethan smiled at Sylvia, a sad smile, and Flora felt deeply for him.
Flora found that the guest bedroom, a bedroom she’d stayed in before when she house-sat for Lisa, was nicely made up, with fresh sheets, ivory, a beautiful dark navy bedcover in rich satin, and two expensive-looking brass laps by the bed on dark wood nightstands. There was a window, and Flora knew that if it wasn’t dark and stormy, she’d be able to see the barn, and past that, the sea. Instead, it was a yawning darkness.
She found a book on the bookcase, The French Lieutenant’s Woman , and started flipping through it. Flora usually loved to read, but at the moment she was too in her head, distracted by being in the same house as Ethan and Sylvia after dark. She listened for them, but heard nothing.
After about an hour, she got up to get a glass of water in the kitchen. She found a wine glass in a cupboard, no regular tumblers, but filled that at the tap and drank, gulping it down and filling it again immediately.
“Thirsty?”
Flora gasped and nearly dropped the glass as she turned to see Ethan standing in the doorway. “Oh my god,” she said, pressing her hand to her chest.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, laughing and taking a step toward her. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“It’s fine,” she insisted. “I’m just easily startled.”
Ethan smiled, his face kind. “I was coming to see if you need anything. Looks like you can help yourself.”
“Sylvia knows you’re down here?” she asked. “She seemed to be?—”
“Asleep. Passed out, really. She drinks about a bottle of wine most nights.”
Flora nodded, sipping her water. “Is that why you left last week?”
“Last week?” he said, like he couldn’t quite remember.
“I found her in her room, lying in the bed, all pale and sickly looking. I thought she was dead. There were pill bottles and needles everywhere. It must be hard for you.”
Ethan was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite place. She wondered if she’d crossed some kind of line.
“Oh, yes,” he said finally, his voice quiet. “You’re right. I can’t be around it. I love her too much, or… I love the memory of her. Have you ever been wildly, passionately in love?”
“No,” Flora said, and felt her heart flutter.
“Sometimes I wonder… if you fall in love with someone and later you find out that they weren’t who you thought they were, were you ever really in love?”
She gazed at him, not sure what to say. “I don’t know. I think love…” Her voice trailed off. It wasn’t her place to ask the obvious question. Had Sylvia tricked him? Seduced him? He must have been so young, so easy for a beautiful older woman to mislead. Maybe, Flora thought, Sylvia really was evil. “I think love has to be true to be real.”
“True to be real,” Ethan said, and she watched his beautiful lips moving, hypnotic. “I like that.”
“We should go to bed,” Flora said.
“Yes,” he said, shaking his head as if breaking out of his own trance. “Right. Goodnight, Flora.”
“Goodnight, Ethan.” Her heart sank as he said it. She didn’t want to go to bed. Why had she said that?
“Flora,” he said, stopping and turning in the door. “What I really wanted… What I wanted just now, was to kiss you.”
She looked at him, stunned, her mouth hanging partway open.
“Kiss me…” she whispered, more of a stunned statement than a question.
“That would be wrong, though,” he said, looking at her. “Wouldn’t it?”
“It’s wrong the way she treats you,” Flora said, the breath catching in her chest.
He leveled his gaze at her.
“It’s terribly hard for me to admit that.”
She walked over to him then and put her trembling hands against his chest, then looked up into his eyes.
“Ethan,” she said. “I think about you. I think about you all the time…”
She kissed him then, a soft kiss, their lips barely touching. His breath was cool, almost cold, and she felt him shudder, as though with need.
“Flora,” he said, and his voice was husky. “Flora, I can’t. It would be so wrong. For so many reasons. You… you’re so beautiful and sweet and kind. I don’t deserve you…”
“How can you say that?” she asked him. “Everyone deserves real love!”
She kissed him again, pressing herself against him. He kissed her back then, his strong hands on her shoulders. She felt an overwhelming deliriousness, like she might laugh or cry. She had never gotten anything she wanted, and now everything she wanted felt so appealingly, tantalizingly close. His hands moved down her back, encircled her waist, tightened. He was strong, she could feel it in his grip, in the rippling tight perfection under the soft, tissue-thin shirt.
“Come to my room,” Flora said, feeling bold and brave. She felt an intense warmth in her belly, a rising need deep inside of her. She would, she knew, do anything to satisfy it.
“If I do,” Ethan said, “she can’t know. You can’t…”
“I won’t,” she promised, kissing him again, feeling his hands rising to scoop her breasts.
“Alright,” he said, nipping her ear. “Let’s go.”