ALNWICK, ENGLAND | NOVEMBER 2010
It’s dark. They’re on the motorway again, rain beating down on the windshield. In the headlights of the car, the road shimmers like glitter in a pool. Kate can hear the soft whir of water spraying into the wheel wells. There’s hardly anyone else on the road. She glances at her dad, his stubbled chin in shadow. The odour of whiskey wafts from him.
But her rage at Adam fills her chest, and she’s about to answer her husband when a sound louder than anything she’s heard in her life fills her ears with the force and volume of cannon fire. It’s inside her, reverberating in her cells. And then there’s silence, and confusion, and the red and blue lights of the ambulances through the shattered windows.
Kate jolts awake with a gasp. It takes several seconds for her to realize that she’s at the Oakwood, that she’s safe. She runs a hand over her damp forehead. Ozzie, who always sleeps at the end of her bed, is resting his snout on the pillow next to her, looking at her with worried eyes.
“Oh, Oz.” Kate reaches to soothe him.
Rain lashes against her bedroom windows as thunder rumbles loudly overhead. The noise from the storm must have woven its way into her dream. She glances at the small analog clock on the bedside table: 6:24.
She leans her head into Ozzie’s, closing her eyes, but the lights from the ambulance are still imprinted on the back of her eyelids like some chaotic film projection, and she tries to blink them away.
The nightmares started not long after she left the hospital. At first, they were debilitating, but now Kate’s learned to focus her attention on grounded things when she wakes from them: the feel of her dog’s fur beneath her fingers, the weight of her body on this impossibly soft mattress. Sometimes she picks up her journal and writes things out.
She takes several deep breaths, then swings her legs out of bed, planting them firmly on the woven rug beneath her feet. She goes to her suitcase. She’d only unpacked a little last night. After a frozen lasagna dinner with Sue and Audrey—in uncomfortable silence punctuated by forced small talk from Sue—she’d gone to sleep straightaway. Now, she selects a turtleneck and heavy knit sweater to keep out the damp chill. She wonders if she’ll have to do some shopping; she isn’t sure the clothes that suited London winters will suffice this far north.
Her mobile vibrates in her purse. It’s a text from Adam.
Got yr voicemail. Sorting things out with the solicitor - be in touch when the docs are ready for signature.
She isn’t sure what, exactly, she expected. He’s never been particularly sensitive in text messages, and there’s really nothing left to say, anyway. They’ve said it all. Cried and shouted it all. But something about the brevity of it, the way he spoke so flippantly of drawing up their divorce papers, makes her wonder if he even gives a shit. If he feels as unmoored as she does, as fucked-up and broken. She turns off the mobile entirely, tosses it back into her purse, then reaches into her suitcase for her silver jewellery box, the size of a deck of cards. A gift from her grandmother on her sixteenth birthday.
She looks at her left hand, the diamond ring Adam gave her sitting atop her wedding band. Whatever power or magic or promises the rings once held have blown away like rotted leaves in the aftermath of everything that happened.
She’s left London, left Adam. The Oakwood is her fresh start. It’s time to let go.
Swallowing hard, Kate wiggles off the rings. The bands have left a divot in her finger, the lingering outline of a previous identity, like new skin cells knitting into a scar. She wonders if it will be visible forever. She glances at the small mirror on the dresser, turns her face to view her scars. One is thicker than the others but masked a bit by her jawline. The others snake out in different directions, one down her neck, the other farther up her cheek, but they aren’t as noticeable from the front. The physical scarring could have been a lot worse. The emotional ones are as bad as they could be. But she hopes they all might fade a little in time.
Pulling her gaze away from the mirror, she sets the rings inside the jewellery box. Her eyes catch on the small silver locket her parents gave her on her twentieth birthday: oval, with an intricate letter K engraved in the centre.
“Your dad picked it out,” her mum had said, as he watched silently from the end of the table. “He figured you’re old enough for real jewellery now.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Kate smiled. He’d nodded in that gruff way men of his age tend to when confronted with emotion, and got up to refill his wine.
She used to wear it every day, but hasn’t since the accident. She turns it in her fingers to access the clasp and look inside, then frowns at something dark crusted in the groove of the locket. Silver doesn’t rust. And then it hits her. It isn’t rust.
It’s dried blood.
Ice floods her veins. She sets it back in the jewellery box and snaps the lid shut.
Half an hour later, Kate creeps down the stairs, Ozzie at her heels. They pass the Elder Room on the second floor. The door is open a crack, but it’s dark inside, and Kate assumes Audrey must still be asleep.
She’d taken a shower to warm herself after the sight of her necklace, and she wishes she’d dried her hair instead of just braiding it damp over her shoulder. The house is drafty, and the continuing rain beats a soft rhythm against the roof and windows.
When they reach the foyer, Ozzie darts for the front door and Kate lets him out.
“Don’t faff about, Oz, it’s raining.”
She watches as he trots in little circles, tail in the air, until he finds the perfect spot. The grounds are just as beautiful in the rain. The grass is dark green, and all she can hear is the soft patter of raindrops on the oaks lining the driveway. Ozzie gallops back inside and they head to the kitchen. Kate hauled his food in from the car the night before, but the bag is half-empty. She makes a mental note to look up the pet supply shop in town. Her move across the country had been impulsive, though necessary, but she hadn’t exactly made a list of all the new roots she would need to establish elsewhere once she’d ripped up the existing ones. The thought of finding a new doctor, dentist, and groomer makes her tired and anxious, so she pushes it to the back of her mind for now and sets about making a pot of coffee.
Once it’s on, she wanders back to the sitting room, and Ozzie curls up on the dog bed in the corner as though he’s lived here his whole life.
“Make yourself at home, buddy,” she mutters with a chuckle, then, noticing a doorway beyond the sitting room, walks over. Before her is the most intriguing room she’s seen so far: part conservatory, part library. Tall bookshelves line the walls with various greenery perched on top. Tendrils of ivy and spider plants cascade down, partially obscuring the spines of the books on the highest shelves. A single large window framed with hunter-green curtains looks out over the extensive lawn on the side of the inn. There’s a cushioned seat with a couple of pillows, a perfect little reading nook.
But in the centre of the room is a large, gleaming baby grand piano, its spindly legs resting on a worn, patterned rug. Kate runs her fingers over it, curious about its colour: a warm oak instead of the classic glossy black. She’s never seen a grand piano like this. Her dad used to play. Pretty well, too, for an amateur. With a lurch, she wonders whether he might have sat down at this same stool and given it a go. She can hear him playing inside her head, see his head bowed at the old maple upright they had in her childhood home.
The thought makes her pick at her cuticles, so she turns from the piano to inspect the bookshelves. She always likes to explore other people’s book collections; it says so much about a person, the books they choose to read, and—perhaps even more revealing—the books they choose to keep. The ones they continuously hold on to, even after spring cleanings, moving houses, downsizing, divorce, and decluttering. The books they curated from their life’s collection.
Kate walks her fingers over the spines. There’s a classic set of encyclopaedias titled with thin gold lettering, loads of aged books on history, botany, and music theory, their titles nearly worn away by the hands of time and readers. Anthologies of poetry, philosophy, and an array of novels both classic and modern. There are dozens of titles in German, too, which piques Kate’s interest. She thinks about Audrey’s elusive accent.
She’s a big ol’ box of secrets, that one, Sue had said.
Kate moves down the bookcase. There’s a gap in one of the shelves at her elbow where a book is splayed, a pen resting in the fold. A guest book. Kate looks at the entries—exclusively positive reviews and well-wishes from happy visitors over the past several months. They’ve come from as far away as Singapore, Australia, and Brazil, or as close to home as Edinburgh, just down for a weekend mini-break. Her eyes slide to the books lined up beside this one; the spines each have dates. With a little skip in her heart, she inspects the long row.
And there it is: 1968. The year of her parents’ honeymoon.
Kate plucks it from the shelf and flips through. She locates the guest entries from April through June, and there they are:
Audrey — thanks so much for everything. Can’t express what it was like to be here. —Joseph & Rose Barber, Shropshire
Outside, the rain continues to splatter the library window, but Kate is rooted to the floor as she stares at her dad’s note, referencing their visit in his own tall, tight handwriting. She didn’t keep much of it, or her mum’s either. Maybe a birthday card here or there. You never think to do those things, and then suddenly it’s too late. But Audrey clearly made them feel welcome—which is a small surprise to Kate, given her own less-than-warm reception, and she wonders what fond memories they created here.
She caresses the cover of the book, then slides it back into place on the shelf. A creak breaks the silence and she startles, turns to find Audrey standing in the doorway.
“Sorry,” Kate says. “I didn’t think anyone else would be up yet.”
