Ryan and I walked into the building and stopped at the front desk. We signed in, and the receptionist recognized Ryan. “Shirley just finished lunch and is back in her room.”
Ryan led the way down the hall, through a big room with a piano, then turned right, down another hall. We passed a small exercise room, a library, then rooms belonging to the residents, most with two names on the door. At last, we got to room 37—only one name on the door: Shirley Dufrense.
“Is that my favorite grandson?” Shirley called out when Ryan walked through the door.
The room was surprisingly homey. The adjustable hospital bed was covered with a pink-and-purple quilt and bright pillows. Another small quilt hung on the wall above the bed. A set of shelves was full of books and photographs. A little desk where Shirley could write. Beside it, an overstuffed chair upholstered in a floral print.
“It sure is,” he said, moving in to give her a quick kiss on the cheek. Then he turned and said to me, “I’m actually her only grandson, so don’t feel you have to bow down in the presence of greatness.”
“Ignore him,” Shirley said. “I’m so happy you came, Jackie. Come sit with me.” She gestured at the upholstered chair, and I came in and took a seat.
“Just look at you,” she said, smiling at me. “Your grandmother would be so proud! I so wish she was here now.”
I nodded. “I do, too.”
But then I imagined the pain she would have felt at losing Lexie. At having her drown in the pool just like poor Rita had—losing a daughter and then a granddaughter in the same terrible way would’ve been unbearable for her.
“You look like her, you know,” she said. “Your grandmother, when she was your age.”
I nodded, though I didn’t see the resemblance other than our dark hair.
“Ryan, dear,” the old woman said. “Why don’t you go see if you can sweet-talk Becky into bringing us some tea and cookies.”
“Becky? I’m not sure I’ll get very far. She’s pretty by-the-book—”
“Then go into the kitchen yourself! Good heavens, boy—be resourceful. Go on now!”
He held up his hands in surrender. He flashed me a look, eyebrows raised:Okay with you?I nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and headed off.
“Mrs. Dufrense,” I began.
“Oh no, dear, please call me Shirley.”
She’d been Mrs. Dufrense to me all my life, so it felt more than a little odd, but I gave it a try. “Shirley…” I began. “I was wondering if you could help me with something. I was hoping you could tell me about the hotel. The one that was where Sparrow Crest is now.”
“Didtheysend you? The ones from the water.” She studied my face, waiting.
“Um, no. I—”
“Of course, dear. I don’t know much, mind you, but I do have some photographs of it. Pictures my own parents and grandparents took.” She rose, went to the shelves, and pulled a large brown scrapbook from the bottom shelf. She set it down on the table and opened it up to a photograph of the hotel with a large group of people posed in front of it: the men in suits, the women in chambermaid outfits.May 15, 1929, someone had written below the photo.Grand Opening of the Brandenburg Springs Hotel and Resort.
She turned the pages and more photos followed, close-ups of the hotel and grounds. One showed a small stone pool—The Springswritten beneath it.
“Wait,” I said, pointing. “Those are our springs? The springs that feed the pool?”
“Yes. It was a much smaller back then. Your great-grandfather had it excavated, made into the huge thing it is today.”
On the page next to it was a photograph of the front of the hotel, showing a fountain surrounded by flowers. And there, at the base, were three peacocks. I blinked, not believing what I was seeing. “There were peacocks?”
“Oh yes, they roamed the grounds. Your grandmother and I, when we were girls, would sometimes see their descendants, out in the woods, gone feral. There had to have been a peahen, if they were breeding. I don’t know how they survived the winters. Someone must have been feeding them, I suppose. And they must have found shelter—someone’s barn, perhaps?”
Lexie’s peacock. Was it possible she’d actually seen a descendant of the hotel peacocks? All those years later?
I was sure she’d made up the story, imagined the peacock to life. But what if it was true—what if there actually had been peacocks in the woods? How many other things my sister told me over the years were actually true? Things I’d brushed off as her wild imagination, as mania, as out-and-out hallucinations?
Shirley turned the page to a photograph showing the charred remains of the hotel, a group of men standing around an old cellar hole that was full of water, all of them with grim faces. “The hotel burned to the ground. The fire moved fast. Fifteen of the guests were killed.” She closed the book.
“That’s so awful.”
