As the years went by, the only people my age who came to our house did so when my dad invited their parents and asked them to bring their kids. He was too important to turn down, but I wished they would have anyway. I never felt so alone as when I was surrounded by people who didn’t want to be near me.
My dad and Gigi were by far the wealthiest people in the county, and people did things for him because of that, not because he was a good man—which he was—but because they weren’t good. Never were they his friends to be his friends; they always wanted something.
My dad wasn’t a prisoner in this place. He continued to work and socialize in the real world. In so many ways, though, he was as alone as I was.
A thought entered my mind, causing me to laugh.
Luca clearly didn’t care about my dad’s wealth and connections. If he did, he wouldn’t be stalking his daughters.
I sat on the side of the bed and stared at the soot-stained stone of my fireplace. My mom had faced life with joy, even when it wasn’t joyful. She never lost her faith, her hope, or her sense of adventure. She would not approve of the way I was living, hiding from the world, afraid of everything.
Tears blurred my vision. I missed her. I missed her so much. If she were alive, I’d tell her about Luca. I would have no secrets from her. I never did. She was my best friend. I sniffed. The reality was that she was not alive and though I believed she was watching me from heaven, I hadn’t heard a word from her since her life on this earth ended. I had dreams of her, but nothing prophetic. And so I went on without her guidance … as if she didn’t exist.
My grandmother did her best. She’d loved my mother as if she were her own daughter rather than her daughter-in-law. It had always been that way with them. My dad once joked to some visiting friends, “If anything ever happened between Rebecca and me, it would be me moving out of the family estate, not her.” Of course, nothing ever came between them. They were united in their love for one another, their children, and their God.
I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and fell onto my bed, curled into a tight ball. The light from the hallway behind me illuminated the picture of my mom and me that sat on my white bookcase. My eyes burned. I forced them closed. She’d be so disappointed in me. I kept my eyes shut. I would not look at the laughter in her eyes and the excitement in mine as we stood at the top of the cliff, the raging ocean far below us.
I pulled the blanket over my head, my hot breath warming the space. My mind slowed as I hid from her memory and my life.
Two
The bright morning sunlight streamed along the edges of the heavy drapes. As I sat up, I shook away the frustrations of the previous night. Things were always better in the morning. I wondered why that was. Why, when the sun shone, was I calm and rational, and when it was gone, I was not.
In the bathroom I brushed my teeth and pulled my auburn hair into a ponytail. It had been as flaming red as Avi’s hair when I was her age, but it had darkened. Now it matched the color of my mother’s, though it was as straight as my father’s. Our middle sister was the opposite; Lisieux’s hair was light brown, like our dad’s, and wavy, like our mom’s. All of us shared the same ghostly white skin and green eyes of our mother. People said we were pretty, and I agreed with them when it came to my sisters, but I had never felt pretty.
I turned from the mirror and left the bathroom. I put on a pair of running pants and pulled a sweatshirt over the T-shirt I’d slept in. I slid into my sneakers and went to the drapes. I pulled the heavy fabric across the wall. The room instantly became cooler and brighter. The landscape brimmed with the oranges and reds of fall. Luca’s spot of the night before was empty.
He was never there during the day.
Going down the back stairs, my feet sprang beneath the wooden steps. The artwork we created as young kids lined the wall of the family staircase, which was vastly different from the actual artwork lining the walls of the main stairs. Those stairs we rarely used.
“You missed a good time last night,” Gigi said when I stepped into the kitchen.
“Did I?” I asked, taking a banana from the fruit bowl on the counter.
Avi giggled. “Dad fell asleep, and we took turns throwing popcorn into his mouth.”
“Gigi got the most points,” Lisieux added.
“Gigi is a bad influence on you girls,” Dad said lightheartedly as he drank his coffee.
“Somebody needs to be, Paul, and it certainly isn’t going to be you,” Gigi said.
I could tell she’d have thrown popcorn at him right then if she’d had some.
“I’m not sure they need a bad influence, Mom,” Dad said as he put down his mug.
Before Gigi could reply to Dad, I said, “I’m sorry I missed it.”
Undoubtedly focused on the need for kids to have fun and explore the world, these were her usual criticisms of his parenting style.
I took a bite of the banana as I went toward the back door.
“Where’re you going?” Avi asked.
“For a walk,” I answered, wanting to get outside and feel the crunch of fall leaves beneath my feet.
“You should take Jackson with you,” Dad said, checking his phone, as he always did, though he pretended he didn’t.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Outside,” Gigi said, “hopefully, not chasing chickens.”
“He’s not,” Avi said. “He’s a good dog.”
“Good dogs sometimes chase chickens,” Lisieux countered, not bothering to look up from her book. She rarely bothered to look up from her book.
“Jackson doesn’t chase the hens,” Avi said, obstinately begging Lisieux for a fight.
She was the one I felt worst for. She longed for daily social interaction. She longed for recess and lunch periods to interact with other girls and boys. Gigi often made the appeal to my dad that Avi should be in school, instead of homeschooled like Lisieux and me. He always said no.
“Tone of voice, Avila,” Dad said.
I went to the door, tuning out the rising conflict behind me. Outside, the air was crisp but not cold. Though the cold was not far away; a few more weeks and snow would bury the dry leaves of fall. The sky was bright and blue. I could spot the cliff which rose above the sea on the northern edge of our property, the mountain beside it rising steadily upward. Our house was half as high as the cliff. The ground sloped down from my house to the sea, about a mile in a straight line from where I now stood. If the trees weren’t there, I’d be able to see the ocean and the old inn on her shore, from my yard. As it was, I could barely glimpse the inn or the wide ocean beyond it, from my window two floors up.
Avi was right. Jackson was not chasing the chickens. When he noticed me, he began wiggling happily around on his back, grass and shards of broken leaves sticking to his copper fur as he rolled over to watch me come toward him. His tail thumped the ground as I moved closer.
I knelt and wrapped an arm around him. He had been a gift from my grandmother after my mom died. Gigi thought it would be good for us to have something to love on. She was right. He was now the closest thing to a friend I had.
“Do you want to go on the trails?” I asked.
He bounced up in excitement. It was amazing how he understood what certain words meant.