Arrowood (11 page)

The heart jerked again, moving to the right. It wasn't done. It slid past the
L
and instead halted over the
R.
It wasn't spelling
alive.
It kept moving, to the
D
and the
E,
before stopping at the
N.
Arden.
It was spelling my name.

Lauren looked up at me, her eyes wide, the planchette pulling our fingers along as it began tracing increasingly energetic figure eights across the board.

“Arden,” Ben said, his voice cutting through the syrupy air. “Do we let go?”

“You have to say goodbye,” Lauren whispered.

I watched our hands swoop back and forth in the dark. I strained my senses for any sign of my sisters' presence—the scent of their hair, the rhythm of their breath. I waited for the smallest sensation, a vague hint of awareness in my heart. A hushed static filled my ears, the false sound of ocean waves when you listen to a shell.

“Goodbye,” I said. The sharp creak of hinges filled the room as my bedroom door opened wider.

“On the board!” Lauren cried, shoving the planchette to
GOODBYE
and yanking her hands away. The piece stopped moving, and Ben and I let go, our fingers hovering above it. Tears spilled down Lauren's cheeks, and she clambered to her feet.

“The door's done that before,” I said, unable to get enough air into my lungs. We all knew how old houses settled, the noises they made. “I don't think it was them.”

“It spelled out your name.” Lauren's voice trembled.

I wanted to believe that it had been the twins reaching out to me, though with each passing moment, doubt spiraled deeper. There were three other Arden Arrowoods who had died in the house. It was just as likely that one of them was announcing her presence as it was that a spirit had called me by name, and it was even more likely that no spirits had been involved at all. How could I be sure that our hands hadn't guided the pointer, not consciously, but out of our own fierce desire for it to move?

“I want to go home,” Lauren said. Ben returned the board to its box, and Lauren grabbed his arm, dragging him to the door. He turned back and held his other hand out to me.

“Go ahead,” I said. “I'll be right behind you.”

I watched them disappear through the doorway, and then I was alone, the thin blade of fear that knifed into me not enough to drive me out of my room. I'd always thought if I snuck into Arrowood that I would take something back with me, something with good memories attached, like the string of bells that had hung on the mantel every Christmas. Now I couldn't summon the strength or the courage to climb up to the third floor and search through the boxes. I didn't want to be reminded of what was missing or what had changed, so I stepped over to the window, to look out on the river, the one constant thing. Mayflies had collected on the sill outside and on the terrace down below.

“Arden.” Ben called to me softly from the door and I whipped around, jumpy despite his familiar voice. “I got Lauren home. I didn't want to leave you without a light.”

He brought the penlight to me, and when I took it, his hand lingered on mine. “I'm sorry,” he said. His breathing was labored from rushing up the stairs.

“It's okay.” I wasn't sure what he was apologizing for—the light, or the lack of answers, or the long list of things that weren't as they should have been. None of it was his fault.

“You don't have to say that,” he said. “Not to me.”

I leaned against him, his arms circling my waist as though to keep me from falling to the floor. His T-shirt was wet, and his breath wheezed in my ear. I clamped my arms around his neck. As we stood pressed against each other in the stagnant heat, our bodies slick with sweat, I became acutely aware of the feel of his skin against mine. It was innocent—my wrist at the nape of his neck, fingertips grazing a shoulder blade—yet tinged with a flicker of anticipation I'd only felt in certain dreams. Never in life. Never before with Ben.

We should go back,
he whispered. Neither of us moved.

I took a few deep breaths, which didn't help at all, and cut across the lawn, just as I had done a thousand times in my former life, to knock on the Ferrises' front door. After a minute or two of wondering if Mrs. Ferris had seen me through the window and decided not to answer, I heard movement in the house and the door pitched open. Lauren barreled out onto the porch and wrapped me up in a hug. She had been thirteen when I last saw her ten years ago. Twenty-three-year-old Lauren was a head taller than me, and all curves. Her hair was long and loose and tipped with magenta, and a thorny row of earrings pressed into my cheek as she hugged me.

She pulled back to look at me, smiling. “Damn!” she said. “You haven't changed. Come on in.”

“It's so good to see you,” I said, following her into the house.

“Ben says you might actually be sticking around?”

“I'm not sure yet,” I said. “I don't really have any other plans.”

“Plans are overrated,” she said, pushing her hair behind her ear. “Wanna come upstairs and hang out, like old times?”

“Is your mom home?”

“No.” She snorted. “She's in St. Louis on a shopping bender.”

I glanced around the foyer and into the adjoining rooms. “It looks completely different,” I said. “I know it's been a while, but I barely recognize it.”

“Mom's redone every room in the house probably three times since you saw it last. She gets bored. Wallpaper's her latest thing. Dad loves to point out how much money we spent getting rid of the old wallpaper, just to get new wallpaper that looks old.”

I followed Lauren upstairs to her slope-ceilinged bedroom, which had been papered in pink and white roses, with matching window treatments, upholstered headboard, and dust ruffle. I assumed the bedding matched, too, but the bed was unmade and covered with piles of laundry. Lauren kicked some books out of the way and we sat on the floor.

“Does this room give you a headache?” I asked, smiling.

“Isn't this so Mom?” she asked. “She turned it into a guest room the minute I left for college. Like we didn't have enough guest rooms already.”

“What about Ben's old room?”

“Exact same wallpaper, in yellow. No joke. I think she was hoping it would keep us from moving back home.”

“Ben said you're in dental school. Was he serious? Do you like it?”

“Do I like it? Not really. Do I think I'll flunk out? Possibly. It's too soon to tell.” Lauren pushed up her sleeves, revealing a small bird tattooed on the inside of her wrist. “I only applied because I thought I wouldn't get accepted. Then Mom made Dad pledge a bunch of money to the dental school—probably my whole inheritance—and voilà, I'm in. Lucky me. It could be worse, though, I could be living here.”

“I never would have guessed either one of you would end up working with your dad.”

“Well, Ben started drinking Mom's Kool-Aid a while ago, around the time I stopped. She's got him squished right down inside the mold she carved out for him, and I think he likes it there. Or at least he doesn't complain anymore.”

“He's happy?”

“Yeah, he is. He was going on about you when he called this morning.” A slight blush warmed my face, and I hoped Lauren wouldn't notice. “Maybe now that you're back he'll break things off with Courtney. She's all right, but I'm pretty sure Mom had something to do with setting them up. I don't know how serious they are. I always thought you and Ben belonged together.”

My throat tightened. Ben hadn't mentioned that he was dating anyone at dinner, but the subject hadn't come up. I hadn't talked about Dr. Endicott, either. “Ben and I weren't like that,” I said. “We were just friends.”

Lauren rolled her eyes. “Come on. It was embarrassingly obvious. If you guys were trying to keep anybody from finding out, you did a terrible job.”

I shrugged. “That was a long time ago. Everything's different now.”

“Whatever you say,” she said. She picked at her fingernail polish, purple glitter flaking onto the floor. “You know, I'm sorry I stopped writing to you, Arden. I wish we would have kept in touch.”

“It's okay,” I said. We'd remained pen pals for quite a while after Ben and I stopped writing to each other, but I'd never been very good at maintaining long-distance friendships. When Lauren stopped responding to my letters, I stopped sending them.

“Something happened,” she said. “I wanted to tell you about it, but I didn't. Then it didn't feel right, writing to you and talking about other things. I don't even know if it's worth mentioning now. You probably already know.” She wedged her thumbnail between her teeth and bit down, a childish habit she had not outgrown.

“What was it?”

“It's about your dad. And my mom. She'd probably die if she knew I was talking about it.” Lauren examined the jagged edge of her nail. “Did you ever think there was something going on between them?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Maybe.” I had never told anyone about seeing my dad kiss Mrs. Ferris at the Christmas party.

“There was a point where Mom was on the phone a lot, and she was going into her room and closing the door so I couldn't hear her. You know how she usually is on the phone, it's like she's yelling into a bullhorn. I wanted to know why she was being all secretive, so I picked up the phone downstairs, and she was talking to your dad. She heard the line click when I hung up, and figured out I'd been listening. She was all freaked out, asking what I'd heard, but I hadn't really heard anything.

“She said they were talking about your house. He was checking on it, maybe. But I didn't believe her. If it was just about the house, why would she bother to hide that from anybody? And why would she get so worked up about it? I told my dad, and he got all serious and admitted there'd been something between my mom and Eddie, but it was years and years ago and he and Mom went to marriage counseling, and everything was fine.”

“Do you think they were still involved?” It seemed unlikely that they'd carry on an affair after we'd moved away. I wondered if my mother knew anything about it.

“I don't know,” Lauren said. “I thought so at the time. I guess it doesn't matter now. I just wanted to tell you, so it wouldn't feel like I was keeping it secret from you anymore. Mom got back at me for telling Dad, by the way.” Lauren smirked. “She sent me to one of those Outward Bound summer camps where they charge a fortune to torture you. She said she was doing it for my
health,
because I needed to lose weight or I'd end up with diabetes, but I knew it was because she was pissed at me for telling Dad she was talking to Eddie on the sly.”

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Anyway, I wanted you to know I didn't forget about you.”

“I didn't forget about you, either,” I said.

I tried to picture Lauren and her room as they had been before the pink and white wallpaper, before Lauren grew up. Sometimes, back then, I had pretended that she was my little sister.

“You really haven't changed, Arden,” she said gently. “I know people always say that, but you're exactly the same.”

I couldn't tell if that was supposed to be a compliment.

As much as I dreaded it, I needed to talk to my mother, and there was no telling when I would hear from her again if I waited for her to call me. On Monday, when I figured Gary would be at work, I picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hello?” she said. She always answered like that, a question in her voice, as if she didn't have caller ID and know that it was me.

“Hi, Mom,” I said. As usual, the TV was blaring in the background, loud enough for me to hear every word. Rachael Ray was talking about making individual servings of meatloaf in muffin tins.

“So,” she said. “Have you found yourself a job yet?”

“No, Mom.” Rachael Ray listed ingredients, and I wondered if my mother was writing them down.

“Did you need something, Arden? I hate to rush you off the phone, but I have to leave for the women's ministry luncheon in a minute and I still need to do my hair.”

“Yes. Okay, I—I wanted to ask you something. It's really awkward, so I'm just going to say it. Was there something going on between Dad and Julia Ferris?”

Rachael Ray made a joke about the tiny meatloaves, and the audience laughed.

“Yes,” Mom replied finally. “Your father was unfaithful. Many times. That's a known fact, and I don't think we need to discuss it any further. I've given it all up to the Lord. God's judging Eddie now, and it's none of my concern.”

That sounded like something Gary would say, and I didn't believe for a second that my mother harbored no bitterness toward my dad.

“When did it happen?”

“When do you think, Arden?” Her voice rose to a controlled shriek, and I knew for sure that Gary wasn't home, because she never raised her voice around him. “When we were living next door. But the same thing that put an end to everything else put an end to that.”

She clicked her TV off, and I could hear her breathing. She wouldn't say it.
The thing that put an end to everything.

“I really need to get going. You have a blessed day.”

“I'm sorry, Mom,” I said. She didn't answer. She'd already hung up the phone.

My mother had been depressed when we left Arrowood, and her condition hadn't improved over the course of our many moves. I understood it as mourning for the twins, because I'd felt it, too. It clung to me like my own shadow. Though looking back, I had memories of my mother's detachment
before,
and now that I was thinking about it more carefully, there had been evidence of her withdrawal even before my sisters were born. It had made sense to attribute my mother's exhaustion and distraction to being pregnant and taking care of newborn twins. But what if it had been caused by something else? Even then, she still made certain efforts, like curling her hair and playing bunco with the ladies in the neighborhood. That last summer, though, before the twins disappeared, I would sometimes find her sitting in her bedroom, holding the telephone and staring at the wall. Other times, she'd be standing at the sink, like she was about to do the dishes but couldn't muster up the energy to turn on the water. I'd say her name, and I'd have to say it ten times, my voice growing progressively louder, to get her attention.