Nora banged on the door. “Oliver,” she called, but the house remained still and the door bolted. She knocked again. “Oliver, you open this door. I know you’re in there. You’re a hundred and twenty-seven. Don’t pretend you’ve got somewhere else to be.”
Still nothing.
Then, weakly, from somewhere inside: “Go away.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Nora shouted. “This is a matter of life and death.”
“We don’t do that around here,” Oliver called back.
Nora stopped knocking. This was beginning to feel as useless as it had that morning. The adrenaline in her veins eased. She lowered her forehead to the door, suddenly exhausted. “Please.”
A few moments passed. Nora could feel herself melting deeper into the wood of the door. It was a good door, she decided. Sturdy and rugged without losing its elegance. She’d once wanted to design houses with doors like this. They kept the world out, kept you safe within. It struck her as exactly right that this was the kind of door Oliver would have built for himself. There was a part of Nora, a part she was somewhat reticent to acknowledge, that could see herself in Oliver, that could see a future much like this for herself. Just a little house all on her own in a pocket of the world where nothing could ever hurt her. And yet Oliver seemed deeply miserable. It was one of the many mysteries about this town and the people who called it home, but it wasn’t the one she was here to solve.
Nora was so lost in her thoughts she barely noticed the vibrations of the door’s lock clicking. Her forehead was still pressed against that sturdy wood when the door opened slowly, reluctantly.
“Oh,” said Nora, stepping back. Oliver stood on the threshold, his expression as resolutely annoyed as it had been that morning. He gave Nora a grunt and shuffled back inside, leaving the door open behind him. Nora trailed him in, watching as he dropped himself back into the wooden rocking chair by the fireplace. She took her own prior spot in the other chair. The house was dimly lit, whatever natural light the clouds outside let through mostly denied entry by a notable lack of windows. Dust motes frolicked in the scant rays that had made it inside, and a single shelf of the bookcase and a few old picture frames were caught in the hazy spotlight.
“I need the truth about this place,” said Nora.
“Here I thought you knew it,” came Oliver’s reply.
Nora had to snort at this. Virgo Bay had more secret layers than Bubbie’s Super Bowl bean dip, and they made her just as gassy.
“Why do you choose to live out here all on your own?” she tried.
“To get away from annoying questions,” said Oliver.
“You used to be an active part of this town. Youfoundedthis town. What changed?”
Oliver crossed his arms and curled into himself by way of reply.
Then it struck her, all at once. The one thing that happened to this town where everything and everyone lived on pause. “Dad died. That’s what changed, isn’t it?” But it wasn’t a question, really. As the words formed and then left her mouth, she felt them with a conviction she only ever experienced when stating facts about all the different ways a person could die.
“You’re a kid,” said Oliver. “You barely know your head from your ass. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I lost him too,” Nora said, her mouth drying as Oliver’s scorn sucked the moisture from the room. “And Mom. But I didn’t hole myself up in the middle of nowhere about it.” No matter how much she’d wanted to. Though she didn’t say that part out loud.
“Do you know why I came to Virgo Bay?” Oliver spat. He shook his head with derision. “Forget it.”
“Your wife died,” said Nora, recounting what she’d learned from Richard and Ruby.
“Alice wastakenfrom me,” said Oliver. “I wouldn’t let the same thing happen to our children. I wouldn’t.”
“You couldn’t,” Nora corrected. Her arms twitched. She knew that feeling. It had started nibbling at her the day her parents died, bit her hard after Bubbie passed, and since finding Charlie’s file, it had fully consumed her. She couldn’t let it happen again. It was simply not a possibility.
“I couldn’t,” Oliver relented.
“So you found a Blind Spot.”
“It found me,” said Oliver. “I could feel it, the moment we set foot here. It was different. It would all be different.”
Nora nodded. In a way, she’d felt it too. And she wanted it, the sanctuary this place promised. Shecravedit. Whatever ire she felt towards this infuriating old man eased slightly in that moment. She would have stayed here too. She still would.
“Then Dad left,” she offered gently.
“He was always a bold one. Could never be content with what was right in front of him.”
“And then he died.”
