Chapter Thirteen
thirteen
AUGUST 2024
DAY 4 IN THE HOUSE
NORA heard a knock at the door in the morning. When she went to answer it, Mā stood on the other side, visibly brightened. “ 早 ,” she said.
“Morning,” Nora said cautiously. “Are you feeling better?”
Mā nodded. “I was going to make breakfast. None of those sisters are up yet. Have you eaten?”
Nora glanced down. Suddenly she remembered everything from last night. The garden. Madeline. The pictures in her phone.
“You should eat. I’ll make some tea for you, at least.”
“I think we should leave.”
Her mother frowned. “What?”
What could Nora tell her without sounding like she’d gone insane? Could she tell her about what had happened with Madeline? “This place… doesn’t feel right.”
It sounded ridiculous, but so did saying that vines tried to kill Madeline. She wasn’t even going to touch how the flowers seemed alive and bled from their centers. Mā had told her never to go into the garden.
“We can’t leave,” Mā said. “We can’t let them have the house. Just this one week, Nora. Okay? And then this is ours. And we can keep it or sell it and have it pay for school. We can even… You know, I’d started thinking of housing justice orgs to donate the rest to. Places that help families find affordable places to live or help families with legal assistance.… Like I said. Whether it’s the house or the money, it’s better with us than with them.”
Nora imagined not having to think about how many loans to take out or which schools would give scholarships. This could be staggering, life-altering money. Still, she persisted. “But is it really ours?”
“Jiā-Jiā. Vivian gave it to us. She owes us.”
Her skin prickled. “What for?” Mā didn’t answer. Nora stood. “Did Vivian truly give us the house?”
Mā crossed her arms. “What do you mean?”
Nora stared at her mother warily. Could Lucille be right? Nora pulled her phone from her back pocket and showed her mother the picture she’d taken of the security camera screenshot. The one from July 20, 1:28 p.m.
“Mā,” she said quietly, her eyes trained on her mother’s face. “Was this you?”
Her mother froze. She looked up from the phone and her expression slacked. “What is—?”
“I’m asking you,” Nora said, “if you were here. This is your car, isn’t it?”
Mā shrank. Finally, in a quiet, hollow voice she said, “Yes. That’s me.”
Nora’s head spun. This whole time she’d assumed that Vivian’s daughters had been throwing around false accusations. They seemed so desperate for the house, it made sense they would do something as diabolical, as insane, as to frame her mother. But now—
July 20: two weeks ago, almost three now. What happened that day? Mā had told Nora she needed to go to a doctor’s appointment. She didn’t come back until well after dinner. Ran into a friend , was the excuse when Nora asked her what had taken so long. Mā had lied. Why had this been something worth lying about?
Mā’s eyes didn’t leave the photo. “How did you get this?”
Nora waited. She didn’t trust how her voice would sound and she wanted to be firm. She deserved answers. “Doesn’t matter. Why were you here?”
“It’s not—” Mā’s hands fell limp to her sides. “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Vivian called and asked me to come.”
“ What? Why?”
“Our families have a complicated history. She wanted to settle some things between us. 把事情给摆平了 .”
“What did she want to talk about?”
“Many things in the past,” her mother finally admitted. “But mostly about Ada. Her daughter.”
“Who?”
“Ada.” Mā looked at her squarely. “The one who died thirty-four years ago.”
The words sank between them. “Died—here?”
Mā nodded.
There had been no mention of this. From Nora’s research she knew that Vivian had lost her husband to a drug overdose in 1990. But she hadn’t seen any mention of Vivian Yin losing a daughter, too. The two sisters above used to be three. What else did she not know? “How? What happened to her? And what did you have to do with it?”
Mā just kept shaking her head. “Nora. I can’t talk about this.”
“Then how can I trust you?”
Mā leaned against the doorframe and closed her eyes. “You don’t believe me. You still think I did something to Vivian.”
Mā had always been opaque. Nora could never figure out what she was thinking, but that didn’t mean she was capable of murder. Nora was letting the Yin sisters get to her. “I’m sorry. I believe you.” Nora exhaled a long breath. “You knew about the will, then? She told you she was giving you the house?”
“Not then,” Mā said. “I really didn’t know she was going to do that.”
“Okay.”
“Do you think that I need to call a lawyer?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Just in case.”
Mā went to her room and closed the door behind her. Nora heard the ringing tone of her mother’s phone through the wall. Ada. The name ricocheted around her head. The hallway lights flickered once, as if in response.
Nora squinted into the kitchen sink later that morning. There was some kind of grit collected at the bottom. Nora rinsed it away. The drain plugged up for a moment, and then the water gurgled down. Hadn’t she just done this yesterday? Something skittered around the drain, and she jumped. She peered closer and then heard someone approach behind her. Madeline stood at the kitchen counter. “Oh. Hi.”
Madeline looked calmer now. Her long hair fell loose over her shoulders. She was wearing another sweater this time. Not the white cardigan. It all came back to Nora then. The roots writhing and pulling Madeline into the ground. She felt a jolt of panic. She shouldn’t have said what she said to Madeline. She should have offered to take care of her wound. To make sure she was okay. Why didn’t Nora do that? “Are you…” Nora looked toward her arm.
“Oh. Sure. I’m fine.”
Madeline was holding it at a strange angle, across her stomach, as if there were some invisible sling. Nora still felt anxious. But Madeline wasn’t saying anything more, so Nora turned to go.
“Wait. I need to ask you something.”
Nora stopped.
“What you said. Last night. Your mom had told you not to go into the garden. Has something like that… happened before?”
Nora tried to avoid eye contact with Madeline. She instead looked toward the glass door that led to the garden. It was firmly shut. She could see spots of pink between the balusters in the stone terrace. The roses were still there. How had her mother known? Another question to ask. When she stood at the edge of the garden the other night, what had she seen? Were the roses out there then? “No. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“Me neither,” Madeline said. “I wonder what your mother knows that we don’t.”
Nora was still.
“Well. I wanted to say thanks.” Madeline stepped around the kitchen counter, toward Nora. “Whatever happened last night would have been much worse if you hadn’t been there.”
Nora finally allowed herself to meet Madeline’s eyes. It was like touching static. “You’re really okay.” She’d meant it as a question.
“Now I am. Are you?”
Before Nora could react, Madeline reached for her hand. Her touch felt cool. She turned Nora’s hands slightly, so the cut from the thorns caught the light. She peered at it intently. “Does this hurt?”
Nora shook her head and swallowed. For some reason she couldn’t think of what to say. Instead, she lifted Madeline’s sleeve, baring the long, jagged cut. It had been hastily wrapped in what looked like shredded paper towels and hair ties. A little darkened blood had seeped through. Around the bandage, her forearm was marred with ugly scratches and spotted with purpling bruises. Nora sucked in a breath between her teeth. “This doesn’t look good.”
“I’ll be fine,” Madeline said mildly. “Really.”
“You should clean it.”
“I did.” Madeline pulled down her sleeve as if to end the conversation. Nora stepped back. Why did she feel protective of Madeline, anyway? It was clear she didn’t want any help.
“You’re giving me this very intense look,” Madeline observed. “Like you’re trying to figure something out about me.”
Too late, Nora glanced away and scrambled for something else to say. “Can I ask you something, then?” Madeline nodded. “What did your grandmother want from us?”
“What?”
“Why did Vivian ask my mother to come see her? Do you know what they talked about?”
Madeline looked confused. “Your mom came up here?”
“Do you not know what I’m talking about?” Nora was getting frustrated. “It’s all in that folder your mom’s been toting around.”
Madeline pressed on. “What folder?”
Nora had assumed that Madeline was in on all of it. Wasn’t she with her family all the time?
“Wait,” Madeline said. “Where is this folder? And what’s in it?”
Nora chewed on her lip. Shoot. “Never mind. It’s not— It’s not important.”
“No, tell me. You’re saying your mom did come to the house? And… my grandmother wanted her to?”
“I don’t know? I didn’t even know about it until yesterday.”
“Let’s work together.” Madeline leaned in. Her herringbone necklace glittered. Nora reminded herself not to stare at Madeline’s collarbone. “I feel like our families each have their own agenda. But we both want to know what really happened. And between the two of us, we can figure it out.”
The morning light shifted. The two of us. There was a slight furrow between Madeline’s brows. Her eyes were wide. Trusting. She really did look like Vivian Yin, Nora realized. She had the same high cheekbones and full lips. The dreamlike expression. The profile of a starlet.
Nora had to be careful. “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” she insisted, stepping back. “Not without a lawyer present.”
Madeline’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. Nora walked out of the kitchen and retreated down the hallway, back to her room.