Page 90 of Coram House

I bristle, little hot spikes of fury pushing themselves out through my skin. “No shit, Lola.”

“Is this about something else? Do you have feelings for this Xander guy?” Her voice softens, hopeful. It makes me furious.

“Jesus, Lola. I’m not staying for some guy. What’s wrong with you?”

“Would that be so bad?” she yells into the phone, so loud I have to move it away from my ear. Her anger is so sudden and blistering it shocks me.

“I just want you to do something. To live. You’re just—existing. You used to be sarcastic and funny and weird and now you’re just like—this ghost. I mean, you’re so afraid no one remembers this kid, but you won’t even say Adam’s name.”

My throat tightens, so I can’t speak. She doesn’t understand how memories lose substance when you think about them too often. A favorite pair of jeans, worn thin at the knees. How it’s safer to keep them all, good and bad, locked away. I feel itchy, like my skin is crawling with ants.

A bell jingles above the door and a woman comes inside, balancing a baby and a laundry bag. The baby’s face is covered in a dried river of snot, which it wipes on her shoulder. The woman looks too tired to notice.

“I have to go,” I say.

“Look, Alex, all I’m saying is that chasing your own happiness is not the same as giving up. And I think maybe you need to hear that.”

The baby starts to cry. Loud, long wails that turn its face purple with rage.

“I have to go,” I say again, my voice so tiny I wonder if she can hear it at all. I hang up before she can say anything else.

I feel wrung out. Lola doesn’t understand. She can’t—she’s outside this. The binder is sitting there on my desk. It’s all there. Everything I know about Coram House. I’m so close to the truth.

Tommy Underwood. Sarah Dale. Jeannette Leroy. Fred Rooney.

One by one, they’ve died and taken what they know with them. But still, I have the sense that everything I need to know is there in front of me if I could just see it.

My laundry is warm and smells of rain. I shove it back in the bag and imagine I’m taking my whole conversation with Lola, balling it up, and shoving it in there too.

After a quick trip back to the apartment to change, I head back outto meet Stedsan. The day is cold, but doesn’t have the same bite as last week. There’s a heaviness in the air that makes me think of Bev in her ominous black sweater.A big storm’s rolling in.I lock the front door and head down the steps to my car.

“January thaw, eh?”

I look around, startled. My landlord is in the driveway, leaning on a snow shovel.

“Didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” he says. Then he scoops up a pile of slush and nods at it like its evidence. “January thaw. Always happens this time of year. A few days of warm weather blows in and then out again. Used to give my Eileen the most awful headaches.”

“Oh,” I say. “Good to know.”

I wish him a good day and hurry to my car. Driving away, I glance in the rearview mirror and see him there, watching me as I go.

I drive to Stedsan’s house, too fast, and park in front. His walkway hasn’t been shoveled in a few days, so I wade through soupy brown slush to the front door. The mailbox is overflowing and marketing postcards litter the porch. I knock.

The door opens. “Come in, come in,” Stedsan says, and steps back so I can pass. Then he locks the door behind me.

Inside, the air is hot and dry as an oven. Sweat prickles my skin in the time it takes to unzip my coat and peel it off.

“Can I get you anything?” Stedsan asks. “Coffee?”

“No,” I say, stepping out of my boots. “Thanks.”

He coughs into his elbow. “Apologies. I’ve been under the weather.”

He does look terrible. His skin is sallow and his eyes are red and puffy.

“Sure you don’t want any coffee?”

I shake my head.

---