I’m not sure I should, I said.
I am plenty old enough to take care of myself. Come in.
So I did.
She told me her name was Gwen.
Emmy, from what I can remember, the house looks the same. The same furniture. The same green sofa in the living room. The same oak kitchen table. The same red carpet on the stairs and the same creak as we ascended them.
So you’re related to the Havelock sisters? I asked, babbling as we climbed to calm myself.
Gwen shrugged and said she wasn’t really sure how they were related. She said her mother was born in England but she moved to America when she married her father. Gwen said she didn’t know very much about her mother’s side of the family because they were all deceased and her mother never wanted to talk about them.
We got to the top of the stairs and I saw bursts of yellow. The room we slept in is still lemon hued. The two twin beds are gone, and now there are a settee and two armchairs upholstered in checked canary yellow. My gaze was immediately drawn to the far wall where the lace-covered table had been. A bookcase is there now.
I told Gwen the crawl space was behind the bookcase and she didn’t hesitate. She walked right over to it and started to pull books off the shelves so that we could shimmy it away from the wall.
As we worked, I asked her if this was her first time to England and she said yes. Thistle House had been left to her mother when Charlotte Havelock died and they were just staying the summer. Home and her father were in Minnesota. I asked if she liked it here. She said if she were allowed to go anywhere or do anything, she might like it. She said her mother worries too much about her and it drives her crazy. I felt sorry for her. She reminded me a little of you, Emmy. I’m not sure why. Maybe because she seemed so eager to be grown-up and to make her own decisions. I asked her how old she was and she said nearly thirteen.
When we had removed enough of the books, we pushed the bookcase out of the way and there it was: the crawl space door, painted shut. Gwen ran downstairs and quickly came back with a screwdriver. Before I could ask if her mum would want her to, she started to pry the painted seam open. The seal broke with a cracking pop. Gwen pulled the door open and then sat back.
She told me to go ahead and see.
My pulse was drumming as I crawled halfway in and reached up above the door frame. I felt dust and cobwebs and droppings but no box.
No box.
Gwen ran downstairs again and returned with a torch. She asked if she could give it a try. I worked my way out and she crawled in, clicking on the light as she went. I could see the beam dancing on the confines of the little space.
I told her I had placed the box on the ledge on the inside of the door frame. She swung the light around to shine it on the back side of where the door and the wall met.
It wasn’t there.
She crawled out again and we both sat there looking at the dark space we had unearthed.
Sorry, Gwen finally said.
I was sorry, too. The numbness was already settling on me, like a heavy coat against wintry gusts that would chill to the bone if they could get to you.
We closed the door, and returned the bookcase to its rightful place and the books to their shelves. Then we went back downstairs.
There didn’t seem to be a reason to stay, so I thanked her again and asked her if she was going to get into trouble for having let me in.
She shrugged like she didn’t care.
I told her I’d be happy to talk with her mother by phone and let her know how kind and helpful she had been, but she just smiled and said I didn’t have to do that.
I told her to give her mother my name and number just the same.
When I left, she was standing at the door, watching me drive away.
She’s not going to give her mum that piece of paper with my name and phone number on it.
That girl is just like you were, Emmy. Wanting to make her own way in life, and the world isn’t willing to grant her that freedom.
I guess I am just like her, too.
When I got home and told Simon what had happened, he asked me what I was going to do now. I know what he meant. He wants to know what this means for us.
I can’t answer him.
I feel as if I am underwater. Suspended. Hovering between where I was and where I want to be. I am in no place to decide.
I am sorry I lost your brides, Emmy. I am so very sorry.
Julia