Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Ariel and Marlowe both slowed as they approached the Gray House.
Their conversation had sparked thoughts and feelings in Marlowe, but she was tired, as if digging around in her past was a physical exertion.
She stopped before the porch steps, gathering herself before climbing them.
Above her head, each thin branch of the birch tree held a layer of pristine snow.
As a child, Marlowe once asked her mother why the white of the birch tree changed colors from season to season.
She knew now that the bark didn’t change at all; it was only the angle of the sun that cast a different light on its branches.
It was not magic, simply the inevitable turning of the earth.
Two figures passed by the front window on their way to the living room. Enzo, hunched and wobbling; Glory, her arm firm around his.
“There’s Enzo. He’s awake.” Marlowe gave Ariel an apologetic look. “I have to warn you, though, he might not have much to say. His mind’s been going.”
“I’m curious about this Enzo Marino,” Ariel said, lingering on the porch steps.
Marlowe quirked her lips. “You mean Enzo Marino?” Like the rest of her family, she put an extreme emphasis on the second syllable. “What about him?”
“What’s he doing here?” Ariel asked. “He’s not related to your family. He was, what, a handyman? A groundskeeper?”
“More than that,” Marlowe said. “He did a little bit of everything for us. He was born in Italy but moved all around Europe, working in kitchens and vineyards and doing carpentry. He ended up in Queens in the eighties.”
“Is that when your family met him?” Ariel asked.
“That’s right, he came to install a door at our apartment in the city.
When my mother learned about his background, she asked him to do a few more odd jobs and, eventually, to help her cook for a dinner party.
And then it just seemed like he was always around.
He started watching us as kids, cooking our meals.
He was the one who oversaw the renovations at the Gray House and babysat us all summer.
We never had a nanny, but I guess Enzo was something close to that. ”
It was an odd situation, but once people met Enzo, it made sense. All his experience and charm had suited the Fishers, and he adapted to their changing needs, year after year.
“Well, it seems like that work is over now, and even if something needed fixing, he’s a bit old for that. Why keep him around?”
“Loyalty, I guess.” Marlowe shrugged, moving toward the door. “And perhaps some pity. He has no one else. No family, no children. It’s a sad way to go, all alone.”
Marlowe and Ariel entered the house, bringing with them a draft of icy air. Glory snapped to attention as Ariel shed her coat, folded it over one arm, and walked over to Enzo’s seat.
“Hello,” Enzo said. “Have we met?”
Ariel didn’t answer but simply studied him for a few uncomfortable moments. Marlowe had the urge to step between her and Enzo.
“I’m Detective Ariel Mintz,” she said at last.
Down the hall, the study door swung open, and Ben and Frank emerged.
“We have a few more questions for all of you,” Ben stated.
“Go ahead.” Frank settled into the armchair. Glory perched on the edge of the hearth, and Marlowe sat beside her.
“Now that Mr. Fisher and I have looked over the threats”—Ben nodded at Frank—“we’d like to hear from the rest of you about your relationship with the three Gallagher brothers. Were there any tensions? Any disagreements?”
“I grew up in this area, and my own father was Tom Gallagher’s good friend,” Glory said. “They were good men, and we were happy neighbors. The issue was never with that generation.”
Glory was adept at playing up her farm-girl background when it served her and then quickly tucking it away, far out of sight.
“There was no feud, no bad blood whatsoever,” Frank added.
“So these threats Harmon sent—none of you believe they originated with the brothers across the street?” Ariel asked.
“Not at all,” Frank said.
“Enzo.” Ben narrowed his eyes and turned his head, suddenly shifting his attention. “Did you have much interaction with the Gallaghers?”
“They are dead,” Enzo whispered. “All of them. Very sad.”
“But when they were alive?”
“Some say sadness like that is in the blood.” Enzo sighed and stared at the fire.
“And what about Nora Miller?” Ariel asked. “Do you recall how the Gallaghers felt about her?” She didn’t seem to direct the questions at anyone in particular but simply threw them out toward the fire for consideration.
If she was hoping for a dramatic reaction, she didn’t get one. Frank and Glory regarded her with puzzled yet sympathetic expressions, as if Ariel were a child mispronouncing a word. Enzo’s gaze remained distant.
“She was their neighbor as well,” Frank said, finally. “Harmon only mentioned her to pick at an old wound in our community, nothing more.”
“This all came from Harmon’s imagination, then?” Ben asked. “No story he might have heard from relatives?”
“The Gallaghers we knew wouldn’t have spread stories like that,” Glory said. “They were decent men.”
“Of course.” Ben nodded.
The detectives rose, bid everyone farewell, and headed for the door.
“I don’t think they know what they’re doing at all,” Frank grumbled, watching their car pulling out of the driveway.
That was her father’s endless refrain. They don’t know what they’re doing.
He said the same thing about the headmaster of the school where Henry had gotten bad grades, and about the restaurants that took too long with his order.
Frank was the epitome of responsibility. The rest of the world was incompetent.
“Well, let’s stay calm; there’s no need to fuss.” Glory didn’t show any frustration, merely resignation. “They’ll get over this morbid curiosity about Nora soon enough.”
“This is Damen Miller’s doing,” Frank spat. “He’s lost his mind all by himself in that house. He’s let it consume him, let it drive him to make senseless accusations. It’s given him an audience in those detectives.”
“You think they told Damen about Harmon’s threats?” It seemed to Marlowe that would be crossing a line, perhaps sharing too much with someone not directly involved in Harmon’s death.
“Maybe not,” Frank said. “I bet they let him ramble. But only fools would take grief and gossip as facts.”
Without a word, Glory headed to the kitchen.
Marlowe followed and watched as her mother pulled out onions and carrots and began to chop them up at the counter.
Glory peeled potatoes and dumped them into boiling water.
Mashed potatoes were Marlowe’s favorite, and Glory always made them the first night Marlowe was home after a long trip—or sometimes as a quiet apology after they’d bickered over something.
“These questions about Nora,” Marlowe said. “And Harmon—”
“They’re absurd,” Glory said, setting down the knife and stepping forward to hug Marlowe. Glory rubbed her hands up and down Marlowe’s arms before letting go. “Don’t let them get to you.”
Marlowe nodded and brushed at her damp cheeks.
“Go pull yourself together,” Glory whispered.
Marlowe turned and headed downstairs. She couldn’t explain to her mother that Ariel’s questions had felt not like badgering, but more like faith, as if Nora’s disappearance and Harmon’s death were nothing more than a challenging puzzle that, somehow, Ariel believed Marlowe could solve.
In her bathroom, she turned on the sink and splashed cold water on her face.
She straightened to face the mirror. She had long ago learned to look at her features with the detached eye of an artist. In graduate school they had taught her how to paint a self-portrait.
How to know yourself so completely and yet remove yourself enough to render your own likeness honestly.
For once Marlowe didn’t cast an indifferent eye over the crow’s feet or the lines around her mouth or the way the skin along her jaw seemed to sag in profile.
What would Nora look like now? Over the years, Marlowe would sometimes imagine conversations with her friend.
She would picture Nora older, more mature, as if she had grown up along with Marlowe and was still around to dole out friendly counsel.
At first, it had been easy to imagine Nora’s advice.
There were times in high school and college when Marlowe was able to carry out full conversations in her head.
“I love my art classes, but maybe I should do prelaw,” Marlowe would wonder aloud. Frank had high expectations for all his children, and she often worried she wasn’t hitting the mark.
“Are you kidding me?” Nora answered. “Your soul will shrivel up and die if you become a lawyer. You’re too good to stop making art.”
She remembered crossing the quad on a crisp autumn evening, after her first boyfriend told her she needed to open up more. He wanted to talk about their future but claimed Marlowe kept pulling away.
“It’s not me; he’s the boring one,” Marlowe confessed to her imagined friend. “He was easy to talk to when we first started dating, but I can’t help but feel like there must be more out there, someone more exciting.”
“You’re twenty!” Nora cried out. “Get rid of him and live a little.”
Later, it became harder to imagine what Nora would say to Marlowe’s grown-up problems. How to befriend her sisters-in-law. If she wanted kids or not. Whether she should continue illustrating children’s books or consider other artistic pursuits. Eventually, she stopped summoning Nora in her mind.
Marlowe studied her face in the mirror. She closed her eyes and tried to conjure Nora again, not as she would be at thirty-six, but as she once was.
Her youthful face appeared in an instant.
Her unbrushed blond hair fell about her shoulders, and she gave Marlowe a sly smile.
Nora raised her brows at her in the mirror, and her blue eyes danced.
She was eager to hear the latest news and weigh in.
“They’re asking about you,” Marlowe whispered.
Nora had a way of lifting her chin and sticking her pert nose up in the air, as if she didn’t care what anyone said—her opinion was the only one that mattered. She tossed her head and leaned forward, as if they were gossiping in the hayloft. “Let them talk.”
Marlowe’s eyes flew open. That Nora wasn’t real. She was gone.
Nora’s ghost was forever on the brink of sixteen, and when Marlowe looked in the mirror again, she was somehow shocked that she was now twenty years older.
A sudden sadness poured through her veins, weighing down her limbs.
Staring into her own eyes, she recognized something old and familiar.
Heartbreak. Nora had been her best friend.
They’d shared every delightful little secret with each other.
But Nora had kept one secret to herself.
She’d never divulged where she went that night. And she’d left no clues.
Or if she had, Marlowe simply hadn’t been clever enough to follow the trail. Maybe Ariel Mintz was.
When she returned to the kitchen, Frank was back in his study, and Glory had taken Enzo upstairs.
Marlowe took the opportunity to open the fridge and slip her fingers around the bottle of white wine that had been opened for dinner the night before.
She poured what remained into a mug, then sat by the fire.
The shakiness drained out of her fingers, and the riot of emotions began to ebb. Marlowe sighed. Now she could think.
A week after Nora vanished, Enzo had pulled Marlowe aside. It was past eight, but given the time of year, the sun was still up and the tiger lilies outside the kitchen window were swaying in a gentle evening breeze.
“Marlowe, dear Marlowe, how many times have you cried today?” Enzo asked. “Have you slept at all?”
Marlowe glared at him. She could not tell her family how much she dreaded going to bed.
Every night, instead of sleeping, Marlowe pictured Nora locked up in a cold basement.
She pictured her friend losing weight and growing hopeless.
She pictured a faceless man doing awful things to her.
And in the darkest hour of each night, Marlowe faced the truth: It should have been her.
Marlowe wished with every bone in her body that she’d been the one who had been taken.
If Nora had been left behind, she would have been far better at handling the panic and seeking the truth.
She would have demanded that Brierley do more than just slump his shoulders as he trudged around pointing out that it was hard to determine anything without a body, without any sightings of a car, without drops of blood.
Nora would see whatever Marlowe had been missing all these years.
Marlowe was useless; she was trying her hardest, and she couldn’t do anything to help.
To her unskilled eye, it was as if Nora had been swallowed up by the night, and Marlowe was too stupid and timid to save her friend.
As penance for failing Nora, Marlowe would torture herself by imagining, in extreme detail, a man grasping Marlowe’s arms until they were mottled with bruises, tying her up in some basement, abusing her.
For the brief periods when Marlowe did sleep, the visions came to life in her dreams. She wept when she woke to find she was still in the Gray House.
“Pain is part of life,” Enzo said. “But sometimes it must be numbed.”
Then Enzo pulled a bottle of red wine from behind the bread box and poured some into a tumbler.
“Swallow what you can, Marlowe,” Enzo said. “It will help you sleep.”
Marlowe took the glass and choked on the first sip.
“Just swallow as much as you can, that’s a good Marlowe. Then clean the glass and put it away, yes?” Enzo patted her head.
It took her a few minutes, but Marlowe managed to drink it all.
For the first time since Nora had vanished, the sharp pain loosened its grip.
Marlowe could finally hear herself think.
It was a good thing, she realized. She would never find Nora if she let her emotions drown out her thoughts.
That night she slept, and she did not dream.
All these years later, Marlowe was well practiced.
She gulped the wine and waited, running through everything Ariel had said earlier that day.
The detective had not dismissed Marlowe.
She had listened. She had not argued when Marlowe claimed Nora couldn’t have run away.
That was something different. Marlowe reached for that and held tight.
She wasn’t a child anymore. She knew exactly how to navigate her fears and emotions. She didn’t have to torture herself by composing her own nightmares. Instead, Marlowe could do it right this time.
A log cracked, and the dancing flames seemed to burn away Marlowe’s fears. She took a sip of her wine. “This is a second chance,” Marlowe whispered.
She could just make out the reply: “It’s fate,” Nora whispered back.