Page 101 of The New Couple in 5B

“His grandfather was an early investor in the building and one of the original owners. Charles Aldridge has lived there all his life. His grandmother was a medium, channeling the dead for the wealthy of New York, holding séances in that very apartment until she died.”

Arthur gets up and returns with a book, flips through the pages, finds what he’s looking for and then hands it to me.

It’s heavy, leathery, in my hands. For some reason, I want to give it back to him. But I look down at the page he’s opened to.

There’s a grainy black-and-white image of a woman dressed all in black, flanked by a tall man with slicked-back hair and a powerful jaw, a young boy standing in front of them. The caption reads:1940. Psychic Medium Esmerelda Aldridge, her husband, Charles, and their grandson Charles III.They stand in front of the Windermere, the gargoyles looming above them. Fred and Ethel, I remember him telling me he’d named them later.

The photo emits a kind of raw energy, as if Esmerelda’s gaze is reaching through time.

Young Charles, even then with that intense stare, the square jaw. It’s striking how much he looks like my vision of Miles. I feel a chill work its way up the back of my neck, thinking of the boy in the basement, in my foyer.

Surely, Dr. Black would posit that somehow in my research, I’d already seen this photo, that it imprinted on my subconscious and rose to the surface due to mystress levels. But I know, little as I like to admit it, that there’s more to it than that.

I saw Miles. And he looked like Charles before I had any inkling that Miles was his son.

Arthur goes on. “LeClerc’s mother was a medium, as well. The families were friends. After LeClerc’s mother passed, he consulted with Esmerelda, Charles’s grandmother, for advice, guidance, to communicate with his dead mother.”

I feel a strange agitation at this knowledge. I’ve run so far from this kind of thing, only to find it right next door. I think about what Arthur just said, about the Windermere attracting people who are vulnerable.

I remind myself that I didn’t choose the Windermere. It chose me.

A cool certainty moves through me. We need to get out before the Windermere poison works its way into our system. Or maybe it’s way too late.

He sips at his coffee, then breaks the thoughtful silence that has fallen. “You know how abuse runs in families, how the abused becomes an abuser, and so on down the line until someone breaks the chain?”

I nod, considering this.

“People can heal,” he says. “They can change. So I think it’s true with buildings. Just because there’s darkness in the past, doesn’t mean there must always be that. It just takes one person to break the chain, to heal the whole system and to let the light in.”

He’s looking at me pointedly, his gaze kind and deep. The gaze of a person who sees without judging, who cares without clinging, who has spent a lifetime exploring and questioning, not attached to the answers. There’s an energy to his company, to this space. I feel safe here, my chaotic reality far away.

“Do you think the Windermere can heal?”

He shrugs, gives me a smile. “Sometimes it just takes fresh blood.”

thirty-one

The Church of the Ascension on Madison Avenue is packed with well-dressed mourners, and outside, a light drizzle falls. Rushing from my appointment with Arthur, his words still ringing in my ears, I hurry inside just as the doors are closing and find a spot to stand in the back. The sad tones of an organ fill the space and incense is thick in the air. Above, the vaulted ceiling boasts an elaborate fresco.

Anna, Charles and Ella sit near the front in a group of the other neighbors, including Jasmine, the escort from astrology night, who weeps quietly.

Ella seems to sense me, turns and waves me toward her. I slip into the empty seat next to her at the edge of the pew.

“Isn’t this a nightmare?” she whispers, taking my hand. “Our poor Xavier. Such a dear, lovely man.”

Her eyes are red, face drawn. When she takes my hand, she’s shaking a little. I look down the row to Charles, who gives me a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It makes me think of Miles, of the picture in the book when Charles was a young boy, the image of the son he would later lose. I wonder how they could stay there, ride that elevator day after day.

I have a thousand questions for them—about the past, the present, about Dana, Xavier, Lilian and Chad, the necklace. But this is clearly not the time or place.

“I can’t believe it,” I whisper instead, keeping her frail hand in mine for a while before she pulls it away gently.

The priest speaks for a while, then a friend, then a brother, each sharing memories of Xavier—his kindness, his love of life, his passion for art and food, travel and fashion. I try to be present for the passing of this soul through the world, but I can’t stop thinking about Chad—who I can’t reach, about Dana. About Lilian.

The service drones on, the music, the soft sobs from mourners echoing from the vaulted ceilings. The casket, closed, rests in the aisle beneath a spray of white lilies.

My abdomen still aches, my heart. I close my eyes against the pain of it all.

When I open them again, something—someone—catches my eye over by the flickering candles to my right. The air seems foggy with incense, and the sound of the room begins to go distant.

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