I turn away from the mirror, turn on the faucet, examine my hands as I lather and rinse them clean. I tear off a paper towel and use it to touch the knob, open the door.

  When I return to the table, Tommy isn’t there. He’s by the door, waiting.

  “Ready?” he asks.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  * * *

  —

  “Is this a funeral home or does someone live here?” I ask as we pull up to a stunning gray-and-white Victorian, the grandest on the street. It looks like a giant dollhouse. The kind of house someone would assume is haunted. Though, according to my mother, any house can be haunted, not just the old pretty ones. A demon will move into a split-level on a cul-de-sac. I mean, in this market, mortgage rates being what they are, I’m sure they take what they can get.

  “Don’t park on the driveway, we’ll get boxed in,” I tell Tommy. “Park on the street.”

  Thus begins the ordeal of finding a spot, of Tommy attempting to parallel park.

  “How’d I do?” he asks, craning his neck.

  “You’re good,” I say, even though he’s crooked. I unbuckle my seat belt. “Good enough, Tommy.”

  “Let me straighten out,” he insists.

  It’s another fifteen minutes before we’re finally out of the car and walking up the pathway toward the house. There’s a sign that hangs from the porch, and I expect it to say, “Insert Name Here Family Funeral Home,” or whatever, but it reads, Welcome Spirits.

  My chest tightens, heart pounds, and I regret the coffee, the caffeine an enemy inside my body, inducing a jitteriness that I wish I could be rid of. I shake out my limbs, pull my hair to one side, and hold it up off my neck.

  “Cashmere was the wrong call,” I say. “Why is it this hot in Connecticut?”

  “It’s normal to be a little nervous, Clio,” Tommy says, offering a hand to help me up the front steps.

  I wave him off. “I don’t get nervous.”

  “I do,” he says. “Did I lock the car?”

  The door opens before we can get to it. A woman wearing a long red satin dressing gown and a black mourning veil stretches out her arms to me, wailing.

  “Darling,” she says, drawing me into her. I’m too shocked to resist. I allow her to hug me. She smells like vinegar. “Oh, you angel. She’s so happy you’re here.”

  The woman steps back to look at me. I don’t recognize her, her features obscured by the veil. She has on costume jewelry, magnificently gaudy. Sheer black opera gloves. Her long white hair falls in glamorous waves. I admire the look she was going for. She’s just shy of pulling it off.

  There are stains on her gown, all along the collar. She’s crying now, but she’s cried in this gown before. There’s clear evidence. Phantom slicks of saline and black mascara. So even with the veil, I can see her well enough. This woman isn’t sad about my mother. This woman is just sad.

  “You look just like her, Clio,” she howls, clutching her chest.

  I may not know who she is, but she knows who I am. I take a step back and introduce Tommy before she makes any awkward assumptions. “This is my brother-in-law, Leda’s husband, Tom.”

  Tommy offers his hand. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  The woman ignores his hand and hugs him, too. He embraces the stranger with genuine empathy because that’s who he is. I doubt he notices the tear stains or her balsamic fragrance.

  “Come in, come in,” the woman says, retreating into the house and beckoning us forward with a gloved hand.

  We step into the foyer. The whole place reeks of incense, with subtle notes of vinegar. It’s crowded with antiques, multiple grandfather clocks, dusty knickknacks like teacups and porcelain figurines. Crowded with people. More people than I anticipated. My eyes ping-pong around. There’s a lot to look at. Framed Ouija boards hung on the walls, sepia-toned photos of cemeteries and séances.

  “My grandmother was at the forefront of the spiritualist movement,” the woman says. “She knew the Fox sisters.”

  She leans into me and whispers in my ear. “They were drunks.”

  “No,” I say, pretending to be scandalized. I have no idea who the Fox sisters are. “This is your house?”

  “Yes, of course,” she says. Her brow furrows. “I’m Mariella, darling.”

  She expects me to know her, so I continue to play along. “The one and only. I love your jewelry. You’re so beautiful.”

  I mean it. She is. I want to get champagne drunk with her and have her tell me all her wild trash stories and give me compliment after compliment and let me rummage through her closet. I just know she must have the most incredible collection of silk scarves. And a stash of good pills in a vintage hatbox.

  “An angel, you are. Truly,” she says. “I suppose it’s been quite some time since you’ve seen my nephew. Roy is just devastated. He loved your mother very much. Roy? Roy!”

  Mariella puts her hands on my shoulders and guides me into the parlor. I look behind me to make sure Tommy is following. He’s not, he’s distracted by the artwork in the foyer, studying it with his hands on his hips.

  Mariella delivers me to Roy, who stands in the corner of the room holding a glass of red wine. He’s handsome for someone who is so obviously a demonologist. His silver hair is tied back in a low ponytail. He wears a billowy black blouse tucked into leather pants, a belt with a big buckle that has some kind of symbol on it. The same symbol hangs from a chain around his neck. His ears are pierced. I understand why my mother was attracted to him. He’s the polar opposite of my father.

  I know I’ve met him before, when I was a kid, but that memory is hazy. He came to the house at some point. A lot of paranormal experts came through Edgewood Drive; their faces blur together. And my exposure to them was limited. Sometimes I was at dance class or doing homework or at Dad’s house or camping out on the deck in protest of having strangers in my room, sticking their heads in my closet to confirm that a monster lived there.

  I don’t spend a whole lot of time pawing around my memory. A childhood like mine doesn’t exactly invite reminiscing. But sometimes it eats at me. Wondering what memories are beyond retrieval, are totally lost. Wondering what hides in the haze.

  Roy takes one look at me and sets his wine down on the nearest coaster, which happens to be on top of a truly spectacular antique organ. He takes my hands in his and gazes deep into my eyes. His are disarmingly blue.

  “Clio,” he says, his eye contact too intense.

  “Roy,” I say, wanting to look away but refusing to yield.

  “She was so proud of you. And of your sisters…” He has a very pretty speaking voice. I bet he can sing. I bet he plays guitar. I bet if he were more talented, he’d be doing that instead of chasing demons. Demonologist is a strange fallback career, but I suppose it’d be an even stranger first choice. And there are worse plan Bs. Charlie Manson was a failed musician, too.

  Wow. He’s still talking. “She sacrificed so much for your happiness. For your safety.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. To agree would be a betrayal of my sisters, of the truth.

  “I’m glad she found you,” I say finally, diplomatically. Honestly. A good-looking freak she could cuddle up to at night, who would believe her, who she could talk demons with. I’m grateful she wasn’t alone.

  “I have things for you,” he says. “If you’ll excuse me a moment.”

  He releases my hands, holds up a finger, and then disappears through the doorway into the dining room, past clusters of people eating cold cuts and potato salad. There are trays on the table, along with stacks of paper plates and plastic cutlery. It’s not an impressive spread, and it bums me out a little.

  “He’ll be back with a vial of holy water for you to wear around your neck. Regrettably, I don’t believe it’s in vogue.”

  I turn around to a tall, statuesque woman with gray-streaked curly black hair, a cigarette tucked behind her ear, impeccably dressed in Eileen Fisher. Aunt Helen. She raises an eyebrow at me.

  I crack a smile. “Anything is in if I say it’s in.”

  It’s been so long since I’ve seen her. My high school graduation, maybe?

  “Quick. Let’s steal away before someone tries to read your palm or tarot or aura.”

  “I don’t mind a reading.”

  “You say that now. One thing leads to another, they’re receiving a message for you from the dead. Your mother says she knew you’d come.”

  6

  Helen leads me upstairs, down a hallway, then through a bedroom, and finally out onto a balcony with a wicker love seat, cushions stiff and dirty.

  “Mind if I smoke?” she asks, slipping the cigarette out from behind her ear and into her mouth.

  “Not at all,” I say.

  “I’d offer you one, but your mother would kill me,” she says.

  “Not sure she’s capable of that anymore.”

  “Not if you were to ask any of these people,” Helen says, lighting her cigarette with a match. She closes her eyes as she takes a drag.

  “You don’t believe in ghosts and demons and vampires and werewolves?” I ask her. “Ghouls and goblins?”

  “No,” she says. “But I believed my sister. I believed in her belief. I never held it against her. Some people believe in the lord, a bearded man who lives in the sky. We don’t call them crazy, do we?”

  “Depends,” I say, sliding off my loafers and tucking my feet underneath me on the sofa, getting comfortable for what I expect to be a weighty conversation.

  “Alex had a hard life. Things she went through that you don’t know about, that your sisters don’t know about. Our childhood. Our father…” she trails off, takes another drag as she stares into space.

  “Was abusive. And an alcoholic. Like Mom,” I say. Dad told us all about Mom’s hard life. Sat us down on multiple occasions attempting to explain her behavior so that we wouldn’t think it was our fault. “We knew. We know.”

  Helen shakes her head. “You don’t. You may think you do, but…She was always on the defensive after your father…”

  The disdain on her face flips my stomach, sends a legitimate chill up my spine. The temperature of the entire planet drops. The ice caps experience fleeting relief.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Helen says, standing. She ashes her cigarette over the side of the balcony, looks out at the view of this quiet, picturesque Connecticut street. “She found some semblance of happiness. Acceptance. With Roy, with these people downstairs. That’s what I choose to focus on. That’s what brings me comfort now that she’s gone.”

  I sense the “but” coming.

  “I just wish you and your sisters could have…” She stops herself. “It’s a shame. She loved you three so fiercely. Everything she did was for you. She knew she couldn’t protect you, so she tried to prepare you for the world. I hope you can appreciate that.”

  “She didn’t try. She left us,” I say, catching myself off guard. I sound bratty and resentful, which is weird, because I swear I’m only one of those things.

  “It’s not that simple.”

  This is what my sisters meant about the twisting of narratives. Of the truth.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” I say, putting my shoes back on. It’s fine if Helen wants to lecture me—I figured she would—but I need to signal to her that I can up and leave whenever. That listening is my choice. The power in this moment belongs to me.

  “You are. It’s disappointing that they’re not, though not surprising. Leda is firm in her thinking, and Daphne wants to keep the peace. You were always more open, even as a child. Very perceptive.”

  “Thank you,” I say, relaxing back onto the cushions. “You’ve seen Leda, though.”

  “I have,” she says, putting her cigarette out on the banister. She takes another out of a pack in her pocket. “She’s willing to see me, but we don’t speak about your mother. A condition.”

  “Always a condition with Leda.”

  Helen smirks. I recognize myself in her face, her expression, and it’s exhilarating. This is the magic of family. The sense that you’re not alone in the universe, in your body, because there’s someone else out there who shares your DNA, who’s made up of the same stuff you’re made of. I haven’t seen Helen in years, but I saw her earlier in the mirror. We don’t know each other, but we do.

  And suddenly I miss my mother. Suddenly, I understand that she’s dead. That what I’m sharing right now with Helen, I’ll never have with Mom. She’s half of me, and she’s dust downstairs.

  The sound of my sob shocks me. I try to choke it down.

  “Sorry,” I say, clearing my throat, but now my eyes are leaking.

  Helen stands where she is, watching me, lighting her second cigarette. I appreciate that she doesn’t say anything, that she doesn’t try to comfort me. That she doesn’t show any pity. Doesn’t react at all, which is just further confirmation of an understanding we share because of our genetic code or whatever, and it makes me even sadder. Makes me wish Mom were still alive. Would she know me the way Helen does? Know what to do, what to say?

  She would. She did.

  A memory surfaces. Falling and skinning my knee in the Shop Rite parking lot. She picked me up, brushed me off.

  It hurts right now, but by the time we get home, you won’t feel it.

  But then there’s Leda and Daphne, my sisters somehow policing my thoughts. Reminding me that our mother didn’t love us. That she hurt us. My fingers find my scar, rub the rippled, silky skin.

  And now here’s Dad, reminding me that winners look to the future instead of the past.

  I take a deep breath, reach up and wipe the tears from my eyes. “I’m good.”

  Helen nods. She opens her mouth to speak, but then changes her mind, pinches her lips.

  I get up and walk over to her, carefully pluck the cigarette from her hand, and take a drag. Cigarettes are repulsive, but I’m making a point. Showing her that I’m an adult. That I can handle whatever it is she’s holding back.

  She clicks her tongue, the way Daphne does. The way Mom did. “I assumed Leda would handle the logistics, but in the spirit of honesty, I don’t entirely trust her with your mother’s estate.”

  “What estate?” I ask, passing her the cigarette. She takes it. “I didn’t think Demon of Edgewood Drive was a real moneymaker.”

  Helen’s only response is an aggressive exhale into the silence between us.

  “Not that I care about money. I don’t. I’d take her clothes. Her jewelry. You’re right not to trust Leda. She’d donate all that. Probably without telling me first.”

  “If you want her clothes and her jewelry, you can have them. Alex didn’t have much money. She spent most of the last twenty years climbing out of the debt your father left her with.”

  Again her wrath turns the air bitter. I pull my cardigan closed.

  “It’s essentially just the house,” she says.

  My eyebrows knock into each other. “What house? Her house here?”

  Helen turns to me, equally confused. “No. Edgewood Drive.”

  “What…what do you mean? She sold that house.”

  My aunt scoffs. “Did your father tell you that?”

  “No…” Though I’m not sure. I can’t remember who told me. If anyone told me. Maybe I assumed.

  I’ve looked up the house before on various real estate sites, because of course I have. There’s a single super pixelated photo taken from the road. No other information, no sales history or whatever, which I figured was to protect the current owner. It’s not a normal property.

  “But…she didn’t live there,” I say. “Right? How has this never come up?”

  “Why would it? That house is quite the sensitive subject for everyone, is it not?”

  “That’s a polite way to phrase it. Very diplomatic. Still…”

  “Would I board a plane and turn to the person next to me to chat about Nine-Eleven? Walk into a burn unit and ask if anyone needs a light?”

  “Okay. Wow. You’ve made your point.”

  “To answer your question, Alex moved out about a year after she lost you girls. She moved in with Roy here in Connecticut. But she didn’t sell the house. She believed it was possessed and that she had a moral responsibility to rid it of evil before passing it on to some other family to suffer there as you all did. She hung on to it. She and Roy spent time there over the years trying to exorcise it—to some success from what I understand. I did my best to talk her into selling, but she couldn’t bring herself to put it on the market. I think it was hard for her to let it go, for as much pain as it caused, it’s the last place she had you girls. Where you were all together.” She puts out her cigarette, flicks the butt over the side of the banister. All the world’s an ashtray. “In a way, I’m glad to know she was there in the end. In a place where she felt close to you and your sisters.”

  My hands find my snake charm. I rub it between my fingers as my brain somersaults inside my skull, trying to work out something I already know but just don’t want to believe. “She was…wait. She was where in the end?”

  “In the house. At Edgewood. Leda didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “She was there when it happened. The heart attack. She died there.”

  Of all the places to go. I can accept her dying, but I can’t accept her dying there.

  “Must have slipped Leda’s mind,” I say.

  “Mm. Must have,” Helen says.

  “I don’t get it. What was she doing there?”

  “She’d visit sometimes. When she missed you and your sisters. And to make sure…”

 

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