“And look,” he said, showing me the kitchen door, divided into two halves. “It’s called a Dutch door. You can open just the top if you’d like to let the breeze in. Or, latch it together and open the whole thing at once.”
He opened the door, stepped aside.
“Go see,” he said, but I stood frozen. A breeze blew in through the open door, giving me a chill, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. I rubbed at them.
At last, I willed myself forward and stepped out onto the patio, shuffling my feet like a sleepwalker.
The pool was nothing like what I remembered, and yet so familiar. Itwas so much larger, a great rectangular pond. The water was as black as ever, perhaps more so. And there was the familiar smell: metallic tinged with rotten egg. The taste got caught in the back of my throat. I tried not to gag on it.
“It’s so much bigger,” I said. “We could sail a boat in it.”
Will laughed. “Not quite large enough for that, but plenty large enough for proper swimming.”
I walked around it, maintaining a safe distance between myself and the edge. Neat blocks of granite lined the top; the slate of the patio was laid up in a neat bed of mortar (only half of the patio was finished, the rest a sandbox and stacks of stone). At the far end was a little stone-lined canal that led across the yard, all the way to the stream. I could hear it running.
We stood, looking at the pool. I was mesmerized, watching our reflections in it—the three of us, the house and hills behind us, the clouds overhead. The wind blew, rippling the water, making everything waver as if none of it were real.
Maggie squirmed in Will’s arms, and he set her down. She got too close to the edge, and I swooped her up in my arms, kissed her soft dark hair, whispered low, “This is where you came from. Where it all began.”And it’s the water keeping you alive, I thought.
We have to be here, I told myself. I would have to find a way to put my fears in a box and put on my best, brave face. For Maggie. It was all for Maggie. I kissed her again and again. She smelled like sweet apples and warm milk. Like all that was good in the world.
Inside, one of the men hammered. One said something to another, and they laughed.
The water in the stone-lined canal sounded like it was laughing, too.
A mocking little laugh.
“We still have the whole upstairs to tour,” Will said. “And there’s the attic. That’s where I thought we’d put your sewing room.”
“You never said anything about a sewing room.” I felt my spirits brighten.
“I wanted it to be a surprise! You can set up under that big window at the front of the house.” He was bouncing up onto the balls of his feet, so excited.
It was going to be all right,I told myself.We are going to be happy here.
I followed him back in through the kitchen door, holding Maggie in my arms. “What do you think, little sparrow? Isn’t it magnificent? Shall we go up and see your bedroom? I hear Daddy’s had it painted a lovely yellow.”
Maggie pointed out the open door, back at the pool. “Lady,” she said. My arms tightened around her, my whole body going rigid.
I turned slowly, looked back at the dark surface of the water, glanced around the patio, out at the edges of the yard.
“There’s no one there, my love,” I said, my throat tight, heart beating so fast and hard I was sure it would burst.
“Lady,” she said again, smiling, giggling.
“What’s she saying?” Will called from up ahead in the hall.
“Nothing,” I called back, my voice high and strange.
“Lady!” Maggie said, the word mixed in with delighted laughter as she pointed at the pool. “Lady! Lady! Lady!”
August 17, 1931
My nerves are a mess. I’m not sleeping. Can hardly eat.
I tell Will it’s the construction: the constant banging and yelling and sawing. The men tromping with their big boots, stinking of sweat and cigarettes and last night’s rum. The sawdust and plaster dust that seems to cover every surface of the house. The fact that I can’t find anything—my favorite shoes, our cast-iron frying pan. Our lives are still packed away in boxes, and we are only taking out what few things we absolutelyneed until the house is finished. The last thing we want to do is add to the chaos.
But the truth is, living at the building site is not what’s put me on edge.
