I touched my bruise. It hadn’t looked so bad when I saw it in the mirror, but it hurt like hell.
“Nothing, a little slip. How long has Dustin been here?”
“He got here around an hour ago and hasn’t moved. I doubt he’ll give up, but if you want me to send him packing…”
I smiled. It was comforting, having her there.
“They aren’t going to leave me alone, are they?” She shook her head. I raised my arms, exasperated, and let them fall to my sides. “Why is this so important to Dad? It’s a personal issue for him, me getting rid of all this, like he wanted me to cut the last ties I have to Grandma. I know they never got along well, but going to this extreme…?”
Frances looked irritated, or perhaps she knew something she wasn’t telling me, but instead of responding, she just groaned.
“What happened between the two of them?” I asked.
“They started fighting when your mother got sick, and they went on doing it until one day they just stopped talking.”
“Yeah, but there had to be a reason. Something major, something that would justify all that hate.”
In Frances’s eyes, I could see the beginnings of a storm, dark, somber, but then it disappeared. She shrugged as if she didn’t know or didn’t care and as if I shouldn’t, either. Then she turned back to the kitchen.
“You want coffee?”
“Please.”
I sat down on the sofa. Through the window, I could see the blue of the sky over the roofs of the homes across from us. It was going to be a beautiful, sunny day.
Minutes later, Frances was back with two cups of coffee. She handed me one and sat down next to me as elegantly as a ballerina. Age had made her prettier, if that was possible. She was thin, with high cheekbones and snow-white hair. She could have been anything, a model, an actress, but she’d chosen a calm life by my grandmother’sside. Something crunched beneath her, and she hopped up. Pushing the cushion aside, she found the envelope Hayley had given me.
“What’s this?”
“A present from my sister.”
“Hayley gave you a present?” I nodded. “Why’s it hidden under a couch cushion?”
I told her the whole story, even the incident with the coatrack, as we drank our coffee.
“You should go,” she said.
“I can’t.”
“Do you know what you’re going to do, then?”
“Not yet,” I admitted.
Leaving my coffee on the table in front of us, I noticed the tension in her back and shoulders. It was my fault. She turned to me. “Harper, I’ll be leaving soon. And I’ll be gone too long to help you with this.”
I knew that. I’d been unable to stop thinking about it.
The doorbell rang and my heart stopped a second. I was scared to death. I heard the knocker strike twice afterward.
“Harper, please, open up. You’re acting like a child,” Dustin shouted from outside.
“Go away.”
“I can’t. Your father and the real estate agent he recommended are coming here. Please, open the door. We just want the best for you.”
The best for me? By forcing me to do something when I didn’t know if it was what I wanted?
My pulse was racing, and I whimpered like a child afraid of the dark, like someone shut up in a dark dungeon. Once again, Frances started to say something. But perhaps there was nothing to say.
