Chapter Eighteen
eighteen
AUGUST 2024
DAY 4 IN THE HOUSE
NORA knew better than to go out into the garden now, but still, she leaned against the window in her bedroom. The pale pink roses were still the only blooming plant in the dismal, barren garden. Nothing stirred under the glow of a bright moon. The calm felt sinister, knowing as she did what could happen out there.
Something clattered in the kitchen. Maybe her evasive mother was finally up again. She’d been eating at odd hours and otherwise staying in her room. Maybe Nora could catch her and try to get more information out of her. She slipped from the bed and crept to the kitchen.
The clattering stopped just as she rounded the corner. Madeline whirled around, wielding a spatula. She visibly relaxed when she saw Nora. Her hand fell to her side. “Oh. It’s you.”
“What are you doing?” Nora said.
Madeline gestured to the kettle. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt and had her large cardigan wrapped around her. “I was making tea. I couldn’t sleep.”
“With a large wooden spatula?”
“Oh, this.” Madeline waved it around. “I heard a noise and didn’t know who… or what it was.” At Nora’s look she continued, “This place is strange, okay? I’m not ruling anything out.”
Nora crossed her arms. “Fair.”
They glanced toward each other, though not quite at each other. Finally, Madeline spoke. “Uh, would you like some? Tea?”
Nora didn’t know what to say, which was ridiculous. “If you have some left over?” she managed.
“Can I make you some without a lawyer present?”
Nora blinked.
Madeline’s smile dropped. “Sorry.”
Nora sighed. “No, it’s deserved. I know I sounded like an asshole.”
“Well. My family is kind of one big asshole conglomerate, so I get it.”
Nora almost snorted in disbelief. Had she just heard asshole conglomerate come out of Madeline’s mouth? But the person who’d sat across from her days ago with rigid posture in a pristine blouse seemed relaxed now, despite everything. Her cardigan was loose around her shoulders. Pieces of her long hair had fallen out of her ponytail.
“What? I feel like I can say that.” Madeline put in the tea bag and carefully poured Nora a cup. “It’s herbal fruit tea, by the way. I found it in the cupboard. I hope it’s still good.”
“We’ll probably live.” Nora accepted the cup, surprised to find that the tea was still fragrant. It smelled like peaches. “Thank you.” She took very small sips. When she glanced out toward the garden, Madeline followed her gaze.
Nora said in a very faint voice, “You see them too, right?”
“The roses?” Madeline moved toward the door.
Instinctively, Nora reached out to stop her. “Don’t.” Her hand knocked against Madeline’s arm, and Madeline winced. Immediately Nora drew back. “Sorry.” She looked down. “Are you— Is this—?”
“I’m fine,” Madeline said. She had focused on the garden again. “Is it me or do there seem to be more out there than before? What’s going on?”
Where had the roses come from? Nora was certain there had been no flowers when they first arrived. Did they grow on their own? Why would someone plant roses, only to abandon the rest of the shriveled mess? Did they trap everyone who stepped foot out there? Would that happen again? Nora didn’t want to test it out.
“What are you thinking?” Nora looked her way. “Sorry,” Madeline rushed. “I know you don’t want to talk to me.”
We’re not supposed to talk. It sounded so childish. “No. It’s… It’s not me. My mom just told me not to.”
“Not to talk to me?”
“Your family.”
“Why?”
Nora simply shrugged. “She just said. I am sorry, though. I know I come off as rude.”
“You know,” Madeline said, studying her. “It’s funny. You may be the person who talks to me the most in this house.”
Nora cradled the bottom of the cup with the pads of her fingertips. “Really?”
Madeline leaned over the counter. “I tried to find out why your mom came to see my 外婆 or what happened between our families.” She paused. “Don’t worry,” she said, seeing Nora stiffen. “I didn’t tell them I found out from you. But it doesn’t matter, because I got nothing.” She sighed. “I thought we’d come here to, I don’t know. Grieve together? Understand the person my grandmother was. Do what families do. Share stories. But my family didn’t talk at the funeral. And even now we can’t bear to. We just hide in our rooms.” Madeline seemed nervous. She twisted a slim gold ring on her middle finger. “We can’t stand each other.”
Nora didn’t know what to say to this.
“You probably resent me.” Madeline bore a grim smile. “Which is valid. These are all such trivial problems.”
Nora barely shook her head. It only hit her now that Madeline was, after all, someone who had just lost her grandmother. Stuck in this dysfunctional family. Sickly wealthy or not, entitled or not, Madeline seemed lonely. Nora said softly, “I don’t resent you.”
“So you pity me, then,” Madeline said. “Which is arguably worse.”
Nora couldn’t answer that. Not truthfully, at least. The dim light caught Madeline’s eyes and made them soft.
“I take it you got your questions answered,” Madeline said. “Or I hope. At least one of us deserves to know the truth.”
“I know as much as you do. Vivian asked my mom to visit her. She came to the house, and they talked about your aunt. I don’t know what happened after that.”
Madeline tilted her head. “About Renata?”
“The other one. Ada.”
Madeline looked perplexed. “Ada?” Shock rippled through her expression. “Ada.” The second time, it was as if she was testing the name out.
Too late, it dawned on Nora that she might have said something she should not have. Again. Nora remembered how her own mother had paled when she’d said the name. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bring her up like this.”
There was a long silence.
“No, I’m glad you told me,” Madeline said. “Really, I am.”
Told? Nora’s breath caught in her chest. God, did Madeline not even know about her? “I thought you knew.”
“I should have, shouldn’t I?” Madeline said weakly. “What happened to her?”
It was like all the warmth had been sucked out of the room. Nora swallowed. “My mom said she died thirty-four years ago.”
“Of what?”
“I… don’t know.” It sounded so inadequate, so trite. “I’m sorry.”
Madeline exhaled. Her eyelids fluttered shut. “Don’t be sorry. Not you.”
“But this shouldn’t be happening. Our families shouldn’t keep secrets from us.” Nora paused. “I can tell my mother’s hiding something too.”
“I always thought they were protecting me,” Madeline said faintly. “But I didn’t know what from. We inherit their history. Whether they know it or not.”
“Whether they want us to or not,” Nora added.
“You know,” Madeline said, pressing closer. “If it weren’t for you, I would think that I made everything up in my head. About what happened the other night.”
“You didn’t. It really did happen.”
Madeline nodded. “I guess so.” She fidgeted with her necklace. Her sleeve fell back, and Nora could see the deep gash on her forearm. She reached out and picked up Madeline’s wrist gently, and Madeline let her. It didn’t look infected, but it concerned her that it wasn’t bandaged when it was still an open wound. “We should do something about this.”
“Well,” Madeline said, “too bad this Chinese family has absolutely no doctors.”
“I’m not quite,” Nora said. “But I am pre-med and I have a first aid kit. Does that count?”
Madeline smiled. “I’ll take it.”
“Okay. Come with me.”
They set their mugs down in the sink. Nora led the way. Behind her, Madeline shut the lights off. Nora shivered. What was it—fear of the dark? A premonition? Some kind of anticipation? Either way, she was wide awake now.
Madeline followed Nora into her room and closed the door behind her. The bedroom was dimly lit by a nightstand lamp between the two twin beds. Nora rummaged around in her first aid kit and found Neosporin, medical tape, and gauze. “I should have done this days ago,” she said. “I don’t know how effective it’ll be now.”
“Worth a try,” Madeline said. She knelt on the floor next to Nora.
“Here,” Nora said. She pushed up Madeline’s sleeve. The other shallow cuts and scrapes were scabbed over and healing, so she didn’t bother with them. She held Madeline’s arm delicately. The skin was hot to the touch. Nora dabbed at the cut with some water and squeezed a bit of gel out of the tube, lightly smoothing it over the wound. They were so close it was unnerving.
Madeline asked, “So why pre-med?”
In spite of everything, Nora laughed. “What is this, an interview?”
Madeline shrugged. “Just curious.”
Was Nora imagining the blush on Madeline’s cheeks? “Well, I like taking care of people and I’m good at my classes, I guess. My mom has always had these paralyzing migraines. I wanted to help her somehow.”
Nora applied more Neosporin. Madeline’s expression didn’t change, except her jaw tightened. Nora taped the wound and wrapped Madeline’s arm in fresh gauze from her kit. “Do I get a question?”
“Seems fair.”
“Why’d you keep walking around that garden?”
Madeline’s shoulders dropped. “I don’t know. I guess I wanted to figure out if there was a way to fix it. My family said I could help. In case—”
“You got the house back.”
“You make it sound like I’m scheming.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Nora said.
Their eyes met. “It’s not going to happen now, anyway. But—” Madeline hesitated. “Sometimes I think about how beautiful the garden must have been. I can just imagine it. And the thing is, I studied ecosystems in college. How to restore them. And I couldn’t not think about it here, you know? How to bring it back to life.” She held up her arm. “Turns out, it is very much alive.”
Madeline said it so calmly it was almost funny. Until Nora looked at the dressed wound and thought, in panic, of Madeline being pulled into the earth once more. “What do you think is out there?” Nora asked.
“It was like something was possessing the vines,” Madeline recounted. “It was… too strong. I could not have escaped on my own. It was going to bury me.”
She said this last part so quietly, it terrified Nora. “Do you think it’s—?”
Haunted?
The word hung in the silence between them.
“And if it… was,” Madeline pressed on, “do you think we should leave?”
Nora studied the wood grain of the floor.
“I’m not saying this to—convince you to. Obviously I know our families are still working that part out. I just wonder if this place is… unsafe,” Madeline said. “I mean. What happened to me was…”
“Absolutely terrifying? Yeah.”
“Yeah.” Madeline sighed. “But I don’t know. I don’t think I can get my mom to leave this place.”
“Did you tell her what happened to you?”
Madeline laughed bitterly. “I tried to. She didn’t believe me. How could she?”
Nora’s head started to hurt. Things didn’t add up in this place. Her mother told her not to go into the garden but wouldn’t tell her why. Strange things happened, but then people pretended not to notice them. “I don’t think my mom would leave either.”
“So we’re just stuck here.”
“Seems like it.”
“Part of me still does want to stay,” Madeline said. “Is that twisted? Aside from whatever’s in the garden, I feel like… so much of my family history is here. My mother got to grow up in this place when it was beautiful. I wish I had that. But even if I can only live with the remains of it, I want to.” She sighed. “So, I guess I’m not leaving.”
Nora nodded. “We avoid the garden, then. And keep an eye out for each other.”
Madeline looked at her. She seemed to be taking her in fully for the first time, and Nora realized suddenly that she was still holding on to Madeline’s arm. She let go as if it were scalding.
Madeline glanced down quizzically. “Well. Thanks, Dr. Nora. For this. And for saving my life.”
Now what? Were they going to go back to their silences? Nora said, “Thanks for making me tea.”
“Equally heroic.”
They laughed. Madeline’s laugh was a beautiful sound. The room felt warm, and they were standing close now. It took everything in Nora not to pull away. Madeline was entirely still, too. Nora’s breath was loud in her ears as time seemed to dilate. She started to say something, but whatever words had been on her mind dissipated the moment Madeline leaned in.
Nora felt Madeline’s lips meet hers, soft at first, and then with more pressure. Madeline put her hand on Nora’s waist. Nora deepened the kiss, her tongue trailing gently, lingering for long seconds or minutes; she lost count. She had already felt like the night had transcended into an alternate reality. Now they were in a parallel dimension.
When they finally drew apart, Nora looked at the floor and realized she was squeezing the Neosporin with sweaty fingers. “I…”
“?’Night,” Madeline said softly. Nora kept her eyes on the floor. Her cheeks were burning. She was still thinking through a response when she heard Madeline get up and close the door behind her.
MADELINE didn’t sleep for a long time. She lay in her bed staring up at the round light, her body buzzing and filled with euphoria. She thought about Nora, about the kiss, about her soft, low voice and her careful touch, over and over again. So Nora had wanted her too—maybe even as much as Madeline did. That thought elated her. What would happen next? Would they talk about it? Acknowledge it? She lay back down and tried to slow her breathing.
There was something else. The longer the night stretched on, the more her thoughts shifted to what Nora had said. The name.
Madeline had only heard Ada’s name once before. When she was eleven, she had gone through her mother’s desk when she was away on a work trip and discovered a thick paper envelope filled with pictures of her mother as a kid. She had never seen photos of her mother when she was young. And yet here she was, in what looked like vacation photos. Her mother, leaning against the side of a car. Her mother in ski goggles. Her mother, framed by the portraits and paintings behind her in an art museum. Her mother had the same the telltale straight posture, the thick eyebrows, the angular features, the prim set of her lips, the pressed collared shirts and the baggy jeans. Then there had been a photo of her mother and Aunt Rennie. And a third person. A cousin, maybe, one who looked exactly like Mā.
She asked, days later, when her mother came back and they were eating dinner, who the cousin was. Mā set her bowl down. “What cousin? I don’t have any that I know of.”
“The one who went to Europe with you and Yí Mā.”
Her mother’s expression had paled, and she slammed down her bowl so hard, Madeline jumped. “That’s my sister Ada,” she said. “She’s gone.”
And that was that. After Mā left the dinner table, Bà leaned over and told Madeline, very quietly, to never mention Ada’s name again.
In the morning she got up and paced her room. She wanted to go downstairs and see Nora again. But already she heard voices from the kitchen. The quiet pocket of night they had between them was long gone, and now she had to think about what Nora had said. She had to find her mother.
Madeline marched out of her room just as Mā was opening her bedroom door.
Madeline intercepted her. “I need to talk to you.”
Mā’s carefully pinned hair was stringy and pulled back with a clip. Her lips were chapped and pale. “I’m busy.”
“I don’t care. We need to talk.”
Mā gestured to her. “Then talk.”
“It’s about Ada.”
Mā jolted as if she’d been electrocuted. Her fingers clamped around Madeline’s wrist, and she pulled her into her room.
The room was dark. The curtains were drawn. Why did her mother keep this room so dimly lit? “Don’t ever mention her.”
Madeline didn’t let up. “Why? Tell me about her. What happened?”
Mā retreated.
“She’s your sister. Why did you never talk about her?
“Because it’s too hard to!” Mā was yelling now. Her eyes flashed and her breathing was quick. “She died in a car crash when we were seventeen, and it was the most painful thing that has ever happened to me. It killed all of us. Mā most of all.” She stared at the wall behind Madeline’s head. “And now you know.”
“Know what ?”
Mā flung an arm out. “Why we’re like this. Why we’re so— damaged .” She was panting, her teeth bared, tears in her eyes. “This is the last time I want to talk about her.”
“Why, though?” Madeline, too, found her eyes smarting. “Why don’t you talk about her? Why won’t you talk about Wài Pó? Why do you shut yourself away like this? Does it ever help? Does it make it more bearable? Does it? ” Mā’s hands hung limply at her sides now, like that outburst was all she had energy for and now she was completely drained. “Talk to me . I’m here, Mā.”
Mā lifted her eyes to Madeline’s, her face blank. “Talking with you does nothing. This is my family. You don’t understand.” She drew in a ragged breath. “Just go.” Her voice broke. “ Go , Madeline. I shouldn’t have brought you.”
Madeline felt like she had been struck. I’m your daughter , she thought. This is my family too.