Little Girls

  “Yes. Do you require a rundown of the rest of the house?”

  “A rundown?”

  “A tour of it, in other words. Seeing how it’s been such a long time.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary. I remember it well enough. And what I don’t remember, I can figure out.”

  “Nonetheless, there are a few things I feel I should show you.” Dora’s chilly gray eyes volleyed between Laurie and Ted. “Which one of you does the cooking?”

  “Mostly, it’s me,” Laurie said.

  “Laurie’s a splendid cook,” Ted added. His smile was charming, but Laurie could see that it held no influence over Dora. “I can hardly microwave a salad.”

  “I figured I would ask nonetheless, just so my assumptions wouldn’t offend anyone,” Dora said, marching right past Ted’s attempt at humor.

  “Oh,” Laurie said, “not at all.”

  “Very well,” said Dora, those cold eyes settling back on Laurie. “You’ll come with me then?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can I go play outside?” Susan chirped to her mother.

  “Not just yet, Susan.”

  “But I’m bored!”

  “I’ll go with her,” Ted said, taking up Susan’s hand.

  “All right,” Laurie said. She shared a look with her husband then . . . and wondered if he could decipher the clutter of emotions behind her eyes. Not that she could decipher them herself. She was weak, tired, troubled, overwhelmed. There was a darkness here in this house, she knew—something cold and widespread, like black water gradually filling up behind the walls—and she thought it might have been the residual ghost of her parents’ divorce and Laurie’s subsequent extraction from this place. Extraction, she thought, summoning the image of a diseased tooth being liberated from purpling gums. That’s good.

  Laurie followed Dora into the kitchen. It was a spacious room with brick walls and stainless-steel appliances. A small circular table stood before a bay window that looked out on the backyard and the moldy green fence that separated the property from the house next door. There were plenty of windows and the room was generously bright.

  “You lived here as a child?” Dora said. She led Laurie over to the stovetop.

  “I did, yes.”

  “It’s a gas range. The appliances are in fair working order, though I can’t be certain how old they are. You’ve cooked on a gas range before?”

  “We have a gas range back home.”

  “Let me show you, anyway,” said Dora. She turned the knob and let the burner tick until a blue flame ignited. The smell of gas rose up to greet them. Dora turned the stove off and moved to the refrigerator. She opened the refrigerator door. It was stocked, but not obnoxiously so. Laurie could see many of the items within hadn’t yet been opened, and it occurred to her that either Dora or Felix Lorton had recently gone to the supermarket in anticipation of their arrival. “You’ll find it is stocked with milk, cheese, bread, juices, and plenty of condiments. There are frozen meats and poultry in the freezer as well, Mrs. Genarro, and the pantry is sufficiently stocked with cereals, pastas, and canned goods. I didn’t bother getting any fruits or vegetables or other perishables from the market, as they tend to go bad quickly in the summer if not eaten right away. I wasn’t sure how long you folks planned to stay.”

  “I’m not sure we know yet, either.”

  “It’s understandable,” Dora intoned, sounding just then like her brother. Next, Dora led her over to the dishwasher. “Standard functions, quite easy to use. There is detergent beneath the sink.”

  Beyond the curved bay windows, Laurie saw Ted and Susan galloping across the green lawn. They raced along the fence and up the lawn’s slight incline to where the trees grew denser and wild blackberry bushes and honeysuckle exploded like fireworks from the ground. The tree limbs that overhung the fence waved sleepily in the breeze, throwing moving shadows against the mossy pickets.

  “There’s a list of emergency numbers beside the telephone,” Dora went on. “For your convenience I’ve included the number for Mr. Brashear’s lawyer, a Mr. Cushing, I believe, though I presume you already have his contact information.”

  “Yes, but thank you.”

  “I’ve left my home number for you as well, in the event you have any further need of me.”

  “That’s very thoughtful of you. Thank you.” It seemed all she was capable of saying to the woman. Also, it occurred to Laurie that Dora Lorton hadn’t looked at her a single time since they’d entered the kitchen. “Have you been working here the whole time, since I called the care service?”

  “Yes. It had just been me for a while, until Mr. Brashear’s condition worsened and we had to bring on more help. I was assisted by a younger woman named Ms. Larosche. Do you know of her?”

  “No, I don’t. I mean, I was aware the service had added a second caretaker because of the need for twenty-four-hour care, but I’d never spoken to her.”

  “Nor will you need to. She only worked nights. I handled the household chores. Any questions you might have can be answered by me.”

  “And Felix, your brother? He had been helping out around here, too?”

  At last, Dora’s eyes ticked up in Laurie’s direction. “That’s just been recently.”

  “Did my father get terribly out of hand? I haven’t heard the extent of it. I mean, given the way things ended, I could only imagine what it must have been like.”

  “You’ve spoken with Mr. Claiborne?”

  “Yes,” said Laurie. Mr. Claiborne was the managing director of Mid-Atlantic Homecare Services. Their conversations on the phone had been strained but polite. The last call she had received from him had been to inform her that her father had killed himself. While he had offered his sympathy, Laurie could tell Mr. Claiborne’s primary concern was toward any potential lawsuit his company might be facing in the wake of such tragedy. Laurie had assured him she would take no legal action against him or his employees. “He explained the situation as best he could,” Laurie continued. “Nonetheless, Ms. Lorton, I feel I owe you some sense of gratitude for looking after my father.”

  “It was my job.”

  “I just wanted to thank you. And Ms. Larosche, too.”

  “What’s done is done.” As if to brush away crumbs, Dora swept a hand across the Formica countertop, though Laurie hadn’t seen anything there. “Come along and I’ll show you the rest,” said Dora.

  Chapter 2

  They went to the laundry room off the kitchen and Dora showed her where the detergents and fabric softeners were kept. “The lint trap in the dryer builds up very quickly. Mind you, keep an eye on it. It’s a fire hazard, you know.”

  “Ours is the same way at home.” Laurie could care less about the dryer. “I’m sorry if this sounds rude,” she went on quickly, “but I can’t help but wonder if you’ve got a place to go.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It was a fulltime job being my father’s caretaker for the last couple of years. Now that he’s dead, I hope you’ve got other work.” She laughed nervously. “I feel like I’m firing you.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Dora pulled the lint trap out, showed Laurie that the screen had recently been purged of lint, and then snapped it back into place.

  “I could tell the dementia had gotten much worse the last time I called him,” Laurie confessed. “That was maybe six months ago. Was the dementia really bad toward the end?”

  “Wasn’t the dementia that killed him, of course. Not directly, anyway.”

  “Of course,” Laurie said. Mr. Claiborne had told her what had killed him. Her father’s lawyer had told her as well. She wondered if she would be able to summon enough courage to go up into the belvedere. Despite her lack of empathy for her dead father, she found thinking about it disturbing nonetheless.

  “I’ve readied the bedrooms for you and your family, Mrs. Genarro, and it’s up to you if you want to stay here or someplace else. I suppose I’d understand if you wante
d to stay away from the house, given what happened. No hard feelings.”

  “I appreciate all your work,” Laurie said. “Were you here when it happened?”

  Once again, Dora Lorton’s steely eyes settled on Laurie. The question had just found its way out of Laurie’s mouth—she hadn’t even realized she’d meant to speak it. The heartbeat of silence that resonated now in its wake was as profound as a gunshot.

  “No, I wasn’t,” Dora said evenly. “It happened in the evening, while poor Ms. Larosche was on shift. She didn’t know anything had happened until she began one of her periodic checks on Mr. Brashear, only to find the door leading up to that strange little room standing open. The room at the top of the house.”

  “My father called it the belvedere,” Laurie said.

  “The door was usually locked, but it wasn’t on this night for some reason,” Dora went on as if Laurie hadn’t said a word. “When Ms. Larosche went up, she found the room . . . the belvedere . . . empty, but then she spotted him on the ground below. His neck was broken and his death had been instantaneous.”

  “It must have been awful for her. I’m so sorry.”

  Perhaps Dora Lorton was uncomfortable being the sounding board for Laurie’s continual apologies, for she actively ignored the comment with a discomfort that was quite palpable. “There are no television sets and no radios in the house, as I’ve mentioned,” she went on. “There are no computers, either. With the exception of the telephone, contact with the outside world, you will find, is quite limited.”

  “We’ve got our cell phones. My husband brought his laptop, too, and we can watch TV shows and movies on that. He’s a playwright. He’s working on a theatrical adaptation of a John Fish novel at the moment. Have you read any work by him?”

  Dora looked unimpressed. “Your husband?”

  “No, I meant John Fish, the author. Are you familiar with his books? He writes these sweeping epic dramas. He’s quite popular.”

  “I only read nonfiction,” Dora said. “What is it you do, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Well, I’m a stay-at-home mom at the moment,” Laurie said, feeling a distant chill, “though I used to teach classes at the college by our house. I’m also a painter.”

  “A house painter or an artist painter?”

  “An artist painter, I suppose.”

  “Do you make money doing it?”

  It seemed a rather intrusive question. Nevertheless, Laurie said, “Sometimes. I used to have paintings for sale in some bookstores and art galleries in Hartford, and once I even had a painting in a gallery in Manhattan. But I haven’t painted anything new in a long time.”

  “Well, maybe you’re in need of inspiration,” Dora said. “With no televisions or radios, you’ll find it hard to be pestered by distraction.”

  “Well, there’s always my daughter.” And husband, she considered adding, and probably would have had Dora Lorton been a more accessible person, but she decided against it in the end.

  “Yes, I’m sure she keeps you quite busy.” Dora cleared her throat and said, “You’ll also notice that some of the floors have been disturbed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Gouges in the flooring in places, some carpeting pulled up in some of the rooms, molding stripped away from the walls. Mr. Brashear never made it as far as to actually pry up the floorboards, though I suspect that was on his agenda.”

  Laurie recalled the damaged look of the floor in the foyer, the gouges and scrapes in the hardwood. “I don’t understand. Why would he do that?”

  “Wasn’t my business to ask him. It wouldn’t have done any good near the end, anyway. Mr. Brashear was quite troubled by the end. I just wanted to set the record straight so you know it was your father who did that to the floors and not me or Ms. Larosche. Things may need to be repaired before you can sell the place, and I wouldn’t want you to think we had been irresponsible.”

  “I wouldn’t have assumed you were responsible for any of it.” Laurie coughed into one fist, somewhat embarrassed, though she couldn’t quite pinpoint why. For some reason, Dora Lorton made her nervous. “How did you know we were going to sell the place?”

  “You’re uncomfortable just spending the night here, why would I think you’d move in for good?” Dora said, moving past Laurie and out of the laundry room.

  Lastly, they went back into the foyer where Dora retrieved a lightweight coat and a handbag from the hall closet. The coat was tan canvas with large brown plastic buttons and a fabric belt, like the kind of coat Peter Sellers wore in all the Pink Panther movies. “Did Felix tell you about the rug?”

  “What rug?”

  “An old Persian rug that had been upstairs in that odd little room. On the night of Mr. Brashear’s death, the rug had been . . . damaged . . . I suppose you could say,” Dora said, tugging on her detective coat. Behind her, out one of the arched windows, Laurie could see Felix Lorton standing by the dusty Cadillac having a cigarette.

  “Damaged how?”

  “Stained by fluid.”

  “Blood?”

  Dora’s mouth went tight. “Not just blood.”

  “Oh,” Laurie said after she realized what the woman meant. “Was that something that happened often?”

  “No. Just that once.”

  “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “I cleaned it as best I could and then I had Felix roll it up and tuck it away in a corner downstairs. I considered getting rid of it—it’s unsalvageable, to speak openly, Mrs. Genarro—but it is also your property now and I didn’t want to take liberties throwing things away. It looked like it might have been a fairly expensive rug.”

  “I understand. Thank you for thinking of it. And again, I’m so sorry you had to deal with it. I’m sorry you got wrapped up in the middle of it all.”

  “It’s my job,” she repeated. The woman shouldered the strap of her handbag. “Or so it once was, anyway.”

  Laurie walked her to the front door, their footfalls echoing in the empty circular foyer. “Oh!” Laurie said quickly. “There was one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Was there a reason the locks had been changed recently?”

  “Reason?” Dora pulled her flimsy coat more tightly about herself. “How often did you say you spoke with your father by telephone, Mrs. Genarro?”

  “Not very often, I’m afraid. Six months ago would have been the last time.”

  “He grew quite paranoid in the final weeks of his life.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “He was a frightened man. It seemed his thoughts turned on him, as evidenced by his suicide. He would walk around the house as if he were a young boy lost in the woods.”

  “So the locks were changed to prevent him from getting out?”

  “No, Mrs. Genarro. The locks were changed at your father’s insistence to prevent people from getting in.”

  Laurie tasted acid at the back of her throat. Slowly, she shook her head. “I don’t understand. What people? Who was trying to get in?”

  Dora’s lips thinned. “Have you spent any time around people with dementia, Mrs. Genarro?”

  “No, I’m afraid I haven’t.” She was becoming annoyed at the woman’s tone.

  “Quite often they become paranoid. Their fears are irrational and based outside of reality. I once took care of an elderly woman who was terrified of kitchen utensils—knives, forks, spoons. Pure silliness to you and me, but abject horror to her. You’ve seen the empty picture frame on the wall?”

  Laurie recalled the empty frame on the wall in the parlor, the one Ted had remarked upon. She said, “Yes, I did. I was wondering what that was about. Did he remove the picture from the frame?”

  “He broke the glass and tore it right out. I took the frame down afterward, but in his dementia, the poor man insisted I hang it back up with no picture in it.”

  “Why would he do such a thing?”

  “Far be it from me to comprehend the things that went through your f
ather’s head, Mrs. Genarro. His dementia had gotten the best of him by that point, I’m sorry to say.” The older woman glanced quickly down the hall and then back at Laurie. “I had considered taking the frame down before you got here—it is certainly a disturbing sight—but Mr. Claiborne, he insisted I leave things as they had been prior to your father’s death. He claimed it would be disrespectful to start moving items around, but I think it was because he feared a lawsuit and wanted you to see just what it had been like taking care of your father.”

  “I understand.”

  “I hope that doesn’t sound harsh.”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Will there be one? A lawsuit, I mean.”

  “No,” said Laurie. “No one’s getting sued.” On top of everything else, she couldn’t think about filing a lawsuit, too . . . even though Ted had brought it up on more than one occasion since they had received Claiborne’s telephone call. They should have been watching him, Ted had insisted, and it wasn’t as if Laurie necessarily disagreed with him. That’s what twenty-four-hour care is for! That’s the goddamn definition! Someone should have been keeping an eye on him twenty-four hours a goddamn day, Laurie!

  “All right, then,” said Dora. Then her icy eyes grew distant. She took a step back and gazed down the foyer and the corridors that came off it like spokes. “It’s your house now,” she said.

  Once again, the notion chilled her.

  Laurie opened the front door for the woman. “I apologize, but I’m a little unsure how all this works,” she said before Dora stepped out. “Did my father . . . owe you anything? What I mean is, are you taken care of? You and Ms. Larosche have both been paid in full through the service, correct?”

  “Everything has been taken care of.”

  “I feel silly,” Laurie confessed. “Again, it’s like I’m firing you from your job.”

  “There will be more jobs like it,” Dora said. Her short stiff hair vibrated like sagebrush in the cool summer breeze. “I’ll find another.”