Chapter 19
“I think it may be time for you to leave,” Meredith says, her chin high.
“Meredith…” Eileen says in a low voice, more like a warning than a rebuke.
I stand and pick up my purse. “Thank you so much for a lovely lunch,” I say primly.
No one offers to accompany me to the front door. I walk down the hallway, vaguely wondering if there’s something I can steal or damage, when Dolores says my name behind me.
“Mrs… Jodie?”
I turn around. “Dolores!”
I don’t know why—and it’s never happened before—but I find myself taking her hands in mine. “That was so much fun,” I say. “The part with you,” I mean. “Not the other part.”
She nods, smiling a little. She lets go of my hands and reaches into the pocket of her blouse. She hands me a small object, the size of a small box of matches but more rounded than that, and wrapped in soft tissue paper.
“Normally, I wouldn’t. Just so you know. I’d never help myself to anything, but after today there was a little bit left here and there so…anyway. I wanted to say thank you.”
“Thank you for what?”
“For being so nice to me, Jodie.” She gives me a small smile.
Oddly, I feel a flutter in my chest. I try to recognize the feeling, and it takes me a while. I settle on pleasure.
“Well, thank you for being nice to me,” I say. “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything for you…unless…” I glance around and clock Meredith’s car keys in a bowl on a narrow table. I pick them up. “You want a Mercedes-Benz?”
She laughs, and I do too. Then she shakes her head, still half laughing, and walks away, back to the bowels of the house.
I gaze at the tiny parcel in my hand. I can hear Meredith and her friends talking, their voices low and urgent.
I can’t tell what they’re saying, but I can imagine it.
What’s wrong with her? Did you hear what she said about Deborah’s arms?
Pearls of laughter punctuate their low voices.
I drop the keys back in the bowl and notice something shiny.
It’s a gold brooch with pearls in the shape of a dove.
Or maybe it’s a pigeon. I can’t tell the difference, but let’s say it’s a dove.
I read somewhere doves are a symbol of peace, and I don’t think Meredith should own something like that.
It’s too nice, and there’s nothing peaceful about Meredith.
I put it in my pocket and go home.
It’s not even two in the afternoon, so Roy won’t be home yet. Marie is vacuuming upstairs, and I retreat to the kitchen to make myself some tea. Then I carefully open the small package Dolores gave me and put it down on a small plate.
I stare at the contents in awe. It’s the most exquisite miniature cupcake, even smaller than a matchbox, with a dusting of pink and light-green tiny little sprinkles. I bring it to my nose and smell it.
Rosewater…pistachio…white chocolate.
I place it on my tongue, and a velvety sweetness floods my taste buds. The cupcake melts practically immediately, like a bite-sized piece of heaven. I sit there with my eyes closed, luxuriating in one of the nicest moments I’ve ever experienced.
And then I hear Marie drag the vacuum cleaner down the stairs.
I swallow a sigh, pull out another cup and saucer, and set it down at the kitchen table.
“Oh, Marie!” I say, making sure to pronounce her name correctly. “Here you are. Please, have some tea with me.”
“No, thank you,” she says dully.
“Would you prefer coffee? I prefer coffee too.”
“No, thank you,” she says again.
“Please. We never have time to chat, you and me, which is incredible, really, considering we’re here all day together.”
She looks at me with suspicion. “Did you want to discuss something?”
“Not necessarily. I just wanted to have a friendly chat. Woman to woman. Do you want to sit down?”
“I don’t have time, Mrs. Davies. I have work to do. What is it?”
Marie is a bit like me in that way. When we have our minds set on something, we are immutable. So I know there’s no point in trying to convince her to just have a friendly chat if she doesn’t want one.
“Of course. That’s no problem. Can I ask you something?”
“What is it?”
“I know you were the one to find Deborah…”
Her face goes pale. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
I pretend not to hear her. I rest my chin in my hand. “I was wondering, what was she like? When you found her, I mean?”
Her lips start to tremble. “What was she like?”
“What position? Was she cross-legged on the floor? Did she have shoes on? The reason I ask is that, unless her arms were very long, I don’t see how—”
“What is wrong with you?” A tear has sprung and is rolling down her cheek. She brushes it off angrily.
“I don’t mean to upset you.”
“Does it excite you? Is that it? Thinking about Mrs. Deborah dead like that?”
“Not at all. Had she been dead long when you found her?”
“My God, Mrs. Davies, I am speechless. Why on earth would you ask me that?”
“Well, I can’t help but think you must have been in a terrible position. Being the one who found her and all… The police must have asked you a lot of questions. Roy must have been dumbfounded. If you were here when—”
Her face has turned white as a sheet. She’s shaking, like a bird.
“I wasn’t here, Mrs. Davies,” she says, her lips tight.
“I was visiting my brother. By the time I came home, she’d been dead for over an hour, maybe even longer.
” She’s fully shaking now, pointing her finger toward the hall.
“She was there, right there. At the bottom of those stairs. There was blood everywhere. Do you know what it’s like to have to walk every day right past where she lay, sprawled on the floor, dead?
It’s horrible, Mrs. Davies. Horrible. Do you know what it’s like to know that if I’d come home an hour earlier, I might have been able to talk her out of it? ”
She is white-knuckling the back of the chair, and I get a sense that if she let go, she would collapse on herself like an articulated puppet.
“But was she sitting cross-legged?” I ask, leaning forward slightly.
She gasps, one hand on her chest. “I don’t know what kind of sick mind you have to ask questions like that, whether she was wearing shoes, how she was sitting.
I don’t know if you are trying to picture her in a ridiculous, comical position, I don’t know if that brings you joy, Mrs. Davies, but you can stop right now.
Mrs. Deborah was elegance personified, always.
She was very well dressed, as always. And yes, she was wearing shoes.
And she wasn’t sitting cross-legged or whatever ridiculous scenario you imagine. She was lying on her back.”
She brushes more tears away. “And I never want to relive that day. I didn’t even want to ever set foot in this house again. The only reason I stayed is because Mr. Davies begged me to.”
She stands there, shaking, staring at me.
She bends down a little so her face is close to mine.
Her eyes are like black coals. “And let me tell you something, Mrs. Davies. You will never, ever live up to her. When he was with her, Dr. Davies was happy. He was a different man. With you, he is a shadow of himself. You can never, ever replace her.”
I shrug. “I’m the better cook,” I say.
She shakes her head, like she can’t, she just can’t. “Now if you don’t mind,” she says, smoothing her hair on the side of her head, “I have work to do.”
She walks out of the room, teetering on wobbly legs.
I asked Roy once how he felt about living in the house where Deborah died. Did he not find it excruciating to have to walk through the pool of blood—now gone, obviously, but still—where she was found?
“I don’t think about that part,” he’d said.
“Ever?”
“I only ever think of her the way she was, vibrant and alive.”
I nodded, like that made total sense. Then I asked him to show me exactly where she lay when she was found, and he looked at me like I’d suggested we get a pet rabbit and microwave it for lunch.
I sit down on the last step now, close to the spot that Marie pointed to.
I put my hand down on the stone floor and close my eyes.
I try to picture the scene, but all I can think is how scared she must have been when Roy—or someone hired by him—pointed the shotgun at her and shot her, right up close.
I sit there a long time, striving to connect with her through space and time.
I think about that sometimes, when I touch a random brick, or a tap, or a flower bed, that I’m connecting through time and space with the person who laid down that brick, or installed that tap, or decided how to plant that flower bed.
It’s like touching hands with a stranger.
You can connect with people all day if you think about things that way.
I do it now, my fingers grazing the floor, my eyes closed, listening intently for her to tell me how he did it.
I’m still there when Roy comes home a couple of hours later.
“What on earth are you doing?” he asks.
“Nothing.” I get up and brush my knees. “Cleaning up dust bunnies.”