Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CORINNE WILDE - PRESENT DAY
We spend the rest of the day cleaning and organizing, and Greta strings a clothesline across the house to dry most of Taylor’s things.
We blast music and dance around while we unpack, but the mood is less than happy.
Taylor is angry over her ruined belongings and frustrated by the lack of answers, while Greta worriedly chews the skin around her fingernails when she thinks I’m not looking.
I’m just trying to keep them both calm.
The next day, Greta stays until the new lock arrives so she can help me install it.
“You two should really come back with me,” she says again as I stand back, admiring my handiwork.
My hands on my hips, I look at her. “What? You don’t think I installed it well?”
“No.” She shakes her head, hands in the air. “It’s not that. I just…with all of this going on—”
“You know we can’t come back with you. We live here now.”
Her incredulous gaze scans Foxglove, and I’m almost offended. “Even if you can’t stay with me forever, just come to ride out the storm tomorrow. It’s supposed to get really bad.”
“Hey, at least we have a cellar now.” I shrug one shoulder, teasing, but it’s true.
She puffs out a slow breath. “Maybe you should call him.”
It takes me a second to realize what she’s said, a second longer to decide whom she means.
“No.”
“I’m worried about you both out here. I don’t like this.”
“We’re going to be fine,” I promise her. “I’ll keep her safe.”
She bumps my arm with hers, her eyes going soft and filled with worry. “Sure, but who’s going to keep you safe?”
Her concern makes my chest ache. Throughout the divorce, it’s been easy to feel as if I’m alone. That I’ve lost the person who was supposed to care about me, to protect me. But here Greta is, once again, reminding me that that person has always been her.
“I promise we’ll be okay.” I have no way of knowing that for sure, but even as I say it, it feels true.
“And you ordered a lock that will work for the cellar door?”
“Yes,” I confirm. “And I’ll keep boxes on top of it until the lock gets here.”
She stares at me long and hard, her eyes bouncing back and forth between mine. I know there’s so much she wants to say, so much I want to say to her.
“Thank you,” I whisper. For so much. For everything. I don’t say that, though. I can’t speak, but she seems to understand.
She pulls me into a hug, her arms going tight around my shoulders.
This goodbye feels heavier than ever. Before, we saw each other nearly every day.
Whether we were meeting for lunch, she was bringing something over for Taylor or me, or she was popping by for dinner, it was rare more than a day would go by without seeing each other in some form or another.
We found excuses. It was easy enough to do when she was just a quick thirteen-minute drive across town.
Now, we’re half a day’s drive apart. It feels like crossing an ocean to get to the person who has never been more than half an hour away from me our whole lives.
Still, as we load her bags in the car an hour later, I put on a brave face and hug her again. “Be safe going home.”
“I don’t want to leave,” she says, looking around. “I wish I could stay a few more days. Are you sure you don’t need me to? I could have someone else do my showings.”
I press my lips together, knowing what she wants me to say—what I want to say—but I can’t. I have to do this on my own, or I never will. “But then EJ might get a chance to outsell you this month.”
She points a long, painted nail at me. “Blasphemy.”
I cover my lips with a laugh. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like, but no, we don’t need you. Go home and get some rest on something other than a mattress on the floor.”
“I didn’t hate the mattress on the floor,” she tells me, bottom lip pressed out. We’re grown women fighting against tears at the thought of leaving each other.
“We’ll come back home and visit you soon.” We both know it’s a lie. I will avoid that town until I have no other choice. I have no desire to return to a town that reeks of Lewis, a town where I can’t unsee him the way I can here.
To rid my thoughts, I suck in a deep breath. The calming scents of the lavender and rosemary plants near the porch hit my nose, my throat. I close my eyes as tears fill them.
“And you’ll call about a security system?” she asks, her voice tight and stiff.
It’s about the hundredth time she’s asked. “Yes.”
“Today?”
I groan. “Yes.”
She hugs me again, then Taylor, drying her eyes when she pulls back. “Ugh, okay. Fine. Kick me out, why don’t you? Call me if you need anything, okay? And please make sure you lock everything up.”
“We’ll be fine,” I assure her, nudging her toward her car. “We love you, and we’ll miss you. Watch your speed on the gravel, okay?”
“Now it’s your turn to worry, hmm?” she teases, pulling her phone out of her back pocket to check the time.
“Always.” I squeeze her hand and blow her a kiss.
With a final look, she slides into the driver’s seat and returns our blown kisses as she drives away. A tickle itches the back of my throat as I watch her leave, that lonely feeling sinking into my gut once again.
I throw an arm around Taylor’s shoulders as I lead her inside. “What do you say I make pasta for dinner?”
“Sure. Whatever.”
She’s sad Greta’s leaving too, even if she won’t admit it. Greta’s the closest thing to an aunt she has on either side of the family, the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister. She’s been there for every milestone for Taylor, every school holiday pageant and every science fair.
The guilt I feel over separating the two of them, even if it’s just by extra miles, is heavy. Heavier maybe than my guilt over the divorce itself.
Inside, while Taylor lounges on the couch, I return to my bedroom. The cellar door draws my eye like a siren’s call I can’t turn away from. Everything about it keeps nagging me. An itchy feeling has taken root under my skin that I can’t ignore, a pull from somewhere deep in my gut.
Carefully, I slide the boxes away from the door. It’s heavier than I imagined as I lift it and stare down into the darkness. Using my shoe like the sheriff did earlier, I clear away the remaining cobwebs, holding onto the wall for support.
I grab my phone from my back pocket and turn on my flashlight, staring down at the dirt floor below.
That damp scent hits me again, mud that seems to cake my throat.
It’s as if I’m lying in the dirt myself, the rank scent enveloping me.
Dirt and dampness and stale air. Below the door is a set of stairs I could take to lower myself down into it.
My heart picks up speed in my chest at the thought.
I lean down farther, trying to get a better look at what might be waiting for me. There’s a stack of boxes in the far corner, though they look as if they’ve gotten wet and are falling apart. They’re very old, probably older than if my grandma had been the one to leave them.
There’s a shelf along the back wall with a few jars on it. The only other thing I see in this cellar—aside from whatever bugs and rodents might be lurking—is dust.
I wonder who the last person to be down here was. I picture my grandma—or her grandma, even—coming down to the cellar to get vegetables canned straight from the garden for her family. I imagine how the cool, damp air must’ve been a nice respite from the hottest days of summer.
I can’t resist the temptation to explore the space, the opportunity to feel closer to the women who came before me in whatever way I can.
Slowly, I place my foot on the first step, pushing down with as much weight as I can muster.
The wood creaks underfoot, but it remains steady.
Steady enough I feel confident it can hold me.
I move down to the next step, sucking in a breath of stale air. It reminds me of summers spent climbing over fallen logs and hiding inside the hollow trunks of trees in the woods.
As I ease down into the darkness, the possibility that someone might’ve come in the house this way knocks on the back of my skull like a pulse.
The sheriff said it wasn’t likely, but that doesn’t mean impossible.
There are shadowy spaces down here, hiding places.
For a brief second, I pause, shining the light around once more, and I have to choose.
To decide.
I look back at the safety of my bedroom, my two options swirling in my mind, but in the end, it doesn’t feel like a choice. I have to know.
The first and second steps hold me well, but as I put my weight on the third step, I hear it crack.
Feel it start to give. Panic seizes my lungs.
There is only a second to process that it’s happening as the wood splits completely underfoot.
My foot slips forward. I reach behind me, then sideways, grasping for the wood of the stairs or a rail that doesn’t exist, trying anything—everything—to stop my fall.
I slam into the next step, then the next, my tailbone on fire.
I tumble forward, launching off the stairs and into the dirt.
I land with a thud, my nose scraping against the hard ground before I roll to my side with a yelp.
For a moment, I lie in the stillness, catching my bearings.
My stomach roils with fresh fear as hot as soup.
I inhale deeply, puffing out a breath between my lips slowly, trying and failing to slow my heart.
I’m alive. I’m okay.
My hand goes to my nose first. It stings white-hot from the gash across the bridge, and warm blood dots the wound already. I’m okay. Nothing's broken as far as I can tell, but it burns terribly as I fan the blood.
I’m sore. My body feels worn and broken as I try to sit up, radiating fiery pain in some places and seeming to vibrate with dull throbbing in others.