Page 14 of Bitter House

“Believe, no. Understand, yes.”

“It’s mine?—”

“Ours.”

“One of the only things I’ve ever truly owned. It’s the place where I grew up. Whether or not you wanted me here, this was where I spent my childhood. In a place where you made damn sure I felt like I didn’t belong, it was all I had.”

The sound that escapes his throat is basically a growl as he looks away from me, and my mouth goes dry. I’m not going to be made to feel bad about the way I treated him, not when he never treated me any better, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have empathy now. Still, it may have been the place he lived, but it wasn’t his home.

In truth and fairness, it was never mine either.

“This house was Vera’s, plain and simple. It never belonged to anyone else after she moved in. Not you and not me. So we can spend our time arguing over things that don’t really matter, or we can agree that this situation sucks. But we’re in it together, and if we could just not kill each other in the process, that would be great.”

“Fine by me.” He shrugs.

“Fine.” I zip past him and toward Vera’s bedroom, remembering what I was actually trying to do before I got distracted. I reach her bedroom door—tall and made of dark wood. It had seemed so intimidating when I was a child. I’m flooded with memories of standing in this exact spot, the same hardwood floor underfoot that I feel beneath me now, trying to drum up the courage to knock and ask Vera for permission to go on the school’s latest field trip or to give Edna the money to take me shopping for a dress for the winter formal. Standing before the door with a lump in my throat, preparing to tell her I was failing precalculus or I needed her to sign the test I didn’t pass.

I push the door open, and I’m drowning in more memories. I never spent much time in Vera’s room—it was always off limits—but the few times I was in here are burned into my memory.

The room is cool—always a few degrees colder than the rest of the house—and dark, and there’s the distinct smell that’s always been there. Her smell: jasmine and lilac, with a hint of body powder. I remember standing in her doorway talking to her while she dusted powder across her neck, plumes of white smoke floating all around her.

Swallowing, I walk past the vanity, the memories so real it’s as if I can see her there. As if I can hear the tut of her tongue as she tells me to stand straighter, taller, prouder. As if I can feel her eyes narrowing on me, sizing me up.

The absence of her here is unnatural. This space belongs to her and her alone. Even if I planned to stay at Bitter House, I would never take over the master suite. It will never feel like it could belong to anyone but Vera.

Past her bed, laden with a large, mauve duvet and so many pillows it feels pretentious, is the doorway to her walk-in closet. The letter didn’t say which wall is supposed to be false, so I start at the one closest to me, knocking on it cautiously.

It sounds…like a wall. I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for.

Should it sound hollow?

A vague memory flashes through my mind, of my father knocking on our walls to find the stud before hanging something heavy.

“Hear that difference, B?” he’d asked, and I’d nodded, wanting to impress him, though I couldn’t actually hear any difference at all.

Memories of my parents are rare. I was days away from turning ten when we were involved in the crash that stole them from me, so it’s not like I don’t have memories with them, just that most of the memories are sort of blocked, I guess. Like they’re there—the way my mother laughed, the smell of my dad’s aftershave, the sounds of them moving through the house, their voices—but everything is sort of hidden behind a fog. A dusty window that I can just barely manage to clean enough to peek through.

Clear memories like the one I’ve just had are exceptionally rare, and each time they happen, it’s as if I’m losing them all over again. I claw at the memory, trying to keep it with me, to study his face, replay his voice, but it’s gone. Smoke that slips through my bare fingers in an instant.

Blinking to clear my dry eyes, I nudge Vera’s clothes to the side, being smacked by another wave of her signature perfume as I do. There’s a bottle of it on the large dressing table in her closet behind me, and without looking, I can see it. Clear bottle, golden liquid inside. I used to think it was so elegant the way she’d spray her pulse points so gently, as if she were painting a canvas.

Looking back, so much of my experience with my grandmother is just me being in awe of her. I watched her move like a movie star and admired her as if I were an adoring fan. And that’s how it always felt. She was the star I watched on the screen of a television. I could stand so close to her but never actually touch her, never reach her in any meaningful way.

With Vera’s clothing moved aside, I have access to the back wall. I lean against it and knock on it cautiously, trying to decide if it sounds any different than the wall before it.

“What are you doing?”

I jump back as if the wall is on fire to find Cole standing behind me, both hands in his pockets as he stares at me with one dark brow quirked.

“Nothing. I thought you were working.”

“I was.” He shrugs. “Now I’m trying to decide if we need to take you to the hospital because you’ve obviously lost your mind.”

I scowl. “I’m fine.”

“Clearly.” He gestures around the closet. “Perfectly normal to be listening to walls.”

Pulling the letter from my back pocket, I pass it to him with a groan. “If you must know, I’m…trying to decide if these letters are serious.”

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