Vail opened the closet door and walked inside. “So what do we know?” he asked, his voice muffled in the closet. “Let’s start with that. We both remember setting up Ben’s room when he was a baby. Mom was holding Ben. Dad wasn’t there.”
“Dad was definitely not there.” I closed my eyes. “It was summer. School was about to start. I worried about the baby being too hot. I remember putting cool cloths against his skin.”
“I don’t remember that.” There was a shuffling sound in the closet. A cardboard box came flying out. It skidded across the floor, obviously empty. “Fuck it, there’s nothing in here. Not even a grocery list or an old receipt. It figures.”
“What do you remember?” I asked. “About when Ben was born. What else?”
My brother emerged from the closet, his cheeks flushed with frustration. “Dad was away—I remember that clearly. I was angry about it. I remember waking up sitting in a chair next to Ben’s crib because I’d fallen asleep there, and Ben was hungry, so I gave him a bottle, and I was mad because neither Mom nor Dad was there to look after him.”
Bottles of milk. I remembered those, too, which meant that Mom hadn’t breastfed Ben. Plenty of women didn’t breastfeed, but it was another nugget of information dug out of my memory. “So what happened, then?” I asked. “Mom just…stolea baby? Why would she do that?”
“Maybe someone gave him to her,” Vail said. “Maybe Ben was abandoned.”
I tried to picture our mother finding a swaddled baby on our doorstep, like something from a nursery rhyme, and bringing him into the house. Mom had no sisters or brothers who could have given her their offspring. “Did she go to a hospital and take a baby?” I asked,incredulous. “Or an orphanage? Do orphanages exist? Did she adopt a baby without telling us? My head hurts.”
“And where was Dad in all of this?” Vail asked. “Did he know Mom had either stolen or been given a baby? Was he in on it? Was Ben his, maybe, and not hers?”
That was a possibility. Maybe Dad had impregnated a girlfriend, and Mom had taken the baby in. “She never said anything about it, even after he left,” I argued. “MomhatedDad. You’d think she’d mention that she was raising his mistress’s offspring.”
Vail looked frustrated again. “This is the first time I’ve ever wished that my parents weren’t dead.”
“Same. I’d do a séance, except that I’m afraid one of them wouldn’t leave when it was done, and I’m happier with them on the other side of the veil.”
“It’s odd that Violet hasn’t seen either of them in this house yet.” He looked around. “This room doesn’t feel as haunted as the rest of the house does, either. Even in death, they abandoned us. What assholes.”
“They wouldn’t dare come back,” I said darkly. “Even after dying. They wouldn’t dare.”
Vail put his hands on his hips, some of his exhaustion evaporating in his indignation. His shoulders went back, and he looked like the conquering athlete, even in his ancient jeans and flannel shirt. “Dodie, this is a dead end. I’d trash the room, but they didn’t leave anything to trash.”
I turned for the door. “Whatever. I’m done with them. Do you want to watch cartoons now?”
He followed me into the hall and closed the door behind him. “I have a better idea.”
“Oh?” The old habit of following my big brother’s bad ideas kicked in. “Please tell me it involves getting out of this house.”
He passed me and paused at the top of the stairs. “It does.”
“Then don’t keep me in the dark, stupid. Tell me.”
Vail pulled a key from the back pocket of his jeans and held it up, pausing for dramatic effect.
I lifted an eyebrow, waiting.
“I found this under a planter on the Thornhills’ porch,” he said. “They’re not home, remember?”
Oh. I smiled. This was my idea of fun, and he knew it. “Hell, yes,” I said. “Let’s go.”
19
Violet
“Did you know that Plainsview has a strip club?” Bradley asked as we walked from the Fell Hospital parking lot toward the doors. “It opened last year. It’s only thirty minutes away. I might go tonight.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “And why are you wearing that shirt?”
Bradley shrugged. I reached the door first, and he made no move to open it for me. “I’m making conversation. And this shirt is comfortable.”
I gave him a sour glance as I opened the door. I didn’t hold it open for him, either, instead letting it start to swing shut in his face. He grabbed it without comment.
