She never got to say goodbye to him.
And because of that, her love for Sascha was forever still in motion, still spinning, still reverberating within her.
Like a bell that could not stop ringing.
Eva was certain now the same was true of June with regard to Elwood. Her love for him was swirling madly around inside her, too, just as strong and real; but unlike Sascha, perhaps Elwood did not reciprocate the feelings of love.
And it was this truth that troubled Eva the most when she mentally listed all the other things she was certain of:
Elwood never steps outside the house.
If Elwood suddenly stepped outside the house, June would be happy, celebratory.
June is not happy.
June is pretending Elwood is in the house.
Elwood is not in the house.
Melanie had said something didn’t feel right, but in actuality it was worse than that. Something was terribly wrong.
And Eva didn’t know what to do about it.
8
“No more excuses,” Melanie said as she held the front door open for Eva. “You have to see Elwood, today. And I mean physically see him. It’s been a week. If you get any trouble from June, tell her I insist you see with your own eyes that Elwood is all right or I’m calling the police.”
“Oh, but, Melanie, I don’t think she will like that and—”
Melanie cut in. “All right, then. I’ll stand in my backyard and yell Elwood’s name at the top of my lungs until he opens his window or the neighbors call the police. Think she will likethat?”
What Eva said next made no sense to her, but she found herself wanting to protect June, at least for the moment. “Let me try another way, Melanie. Please? Let me try to be her friend. Let me try with kindness?”
Eva had spent several sleepless hours the night before contemplating that list of things she knew to be true and could not help but conclude that one of three scenarios had to have taken place. Either Elwood had indeed miraculously left the house and made June promise she would tell no one, and because she loved him, shepromised. Or Elwood and June had left the house together and something had happened—an accident perhaps—and only one of them came back. Or June had done something she never thought she’d do and there was no way to reverse it. Eva knew firsthand how the deepest of passions can sometimes express themselves in a regrettable act.
One of thesehadto be true, unless Elwood was in the house like June said he was and Eva was simply mistaken about the lack of real evidence that he was there. But if she discovered she was right and Elwood wasn’t in that house? She wasn’t yet sure what she would do then. It would go badly for June if Melanie were to come to any of the conclusions that Eva had, and Eva suddenly realized she didn’t want that.
Perhaps because she understood better than anyone that life doesn’t always hand a person good options at the same time it is handing them terrible circumstances.
Maybe because Eva owed her life to someone who once stepped in for her when the situation seemed just as dire.
Or maybe because not blowing the whistle was the wisest thing she could do for herself. If she said nothing and just let the situation reveal its truth down the road and in its own time, she might be able to escape what would surely be a glaring spotlight on this cul-de-sac. Maybe by the time that happened she could be at a new job and far away from Paradise Circle.
Melanie huffed a breath of annoyance. “All right,” she said. “You try your way. The kind way. But if Junehasdone something terrible to Elwood, your way is not going to work.”
At June’s, Eva looked for a way to inquire about Elwood her way, as Melanie had put it, and decided to offer to decorate the Blankenshiphouse for Christmas. It was only a week away, though with the outside temperature in the seventies it felt more like summer. She hoped that a bit of gaiety would lighten the atmosphere in the house and maybe endear her to June a little. Decorating the house might even lighten Eva’s own mood, as she’d found out that morning Yvonne would need for her sister the room Eva had been renting. She was going to have to find a new place to live at the first of the year. Trimming the house would be a nice distraction from that looming chore also, as well as afford her a chance to get June to open up about Elwood.
When Eva mentioned the idea, June frowned slightly but then seemed to quickly change her mind.
“Wait. Yes. That would be nice, actually,” she said. “Elwood would like that. He has a little artificial tree in the garage made of goose feathers dyed green. It’s surprisingly pretty.”
She told Eva where she could find the boxes in the garage and Eva brought them in, stacking them in the living room so that June could direct from the sofa where she wanted everything to go.
Eva placed the little tree in a corner by the hi-fi. She’d seen trees like this one before. They’d been popular in Germany, and the Gellers had one. She saw it now in her mind’s eye, decorated with tiny snowflakes Louise Geller had made from shiny white paper using miniature scissors shaped like a stork. For a second she heard Louise’s voice singing an American Christmas carol as she hung the little snowflakes on a tree just like this one. But then she heard Ernst’s voice, too—he was not singing—and she shook the image away.
Eva opened the first cardboard box of ornaments and pulled out tins of tissue-wrapped baubles, all glittery, glistening, and fragile.
“These are beautiful,” Eva said.
