So I might grumble about masochism, doing those ballet exercises, but spinning my way through Thorne Manor sends my already kite-high mood into the stratosphere. In the daylight, the house is pure magic. Its shadows become pockets of cool shade among the rectangles of sunlight stretching across the rich wood floors. A heather-perfumed breeze blows through every open window. I dance between sun and shade, drinking in the scent of the moors and feeling the wind kiss my skin. If there’s anything dark in this house, it’s not here now. In the daylight, I can’t imagine it was ever here at all.
After my dance exercises, I explore the house, poking around its nooks and crannies. What surprises me most is the smell: a mix of moor and wet wool and old wood and the faint whiff of camphor. It shouldn’t be a pleasant odor, but it is because it’s the smell of Thorne Manor, sparking memories of endless days curled up in one of these nooks or crannies with an old blanket and a book.
I kneel beside a storage hole under the stairs. I open the tiny crooked door, and I’m not sure I can still fit inside, but I want to try, grab a blanket and a pillow and a novel and a cup of milky tea and pretend I’m five again, fifteen again, half-dozing in the lantern light as I listen to the clomp of Uncle Stan’s boots, and Aunt Judith’s shout for him to take those bloody things off and Dad’s laugh at this daily routine of theirs. My eyes prickle at the memory, but it’s a good one, and maybe someday this summer, I will indeed crawl in here and read. For now, the kitten explores the space, and I watch, smiling like an indulgent parent.
When she tires of that, I find Aunt Judith’s sewing kit and fetch my shirt from last night. I noticed a small rip in the seam this morning.
A rip . . . after William yanked it?
I shake my head. No, a rip because the shirt is ten years old, and I’ve stitched it more than once. It’s one of Michael’s, from my collection, three of which made their way into my suitcase. This particular one is a Toronto Maple Leafs tee. Born in Cairo, educated in England, Michael had never seen a hockey game until he came to Canada for his graduate studies. That didn’t stop him from becoming a bigger Leafs fan than my father, who still drags me to games. Michael had never strapped on skates before, but by his second year, he was on a varsity team. He joked they let him play to inject a little color in the team, but that wouldn’t explain the MVP trophy still proudly displayed in my condo. Michael did nothing by halves. People presumed he learned hockey to assimilate into Canadian culture, but that never crossed his mind. He’d watched a few games, thought, That looks interesting, and threw himself into learning it.
Michael threw himself into life. Every driving trip we took, I knew to double the travel time because he’d constantly detour to “see what’s over there.” He spoke four languages and started learning Japanese “for fun” after the diagnosis. When that diagnosis came—a glioblastoma brain tumor—the joke was that he’d worn out his brain from overuse.
I have a stack of his old T-shirts and jerseys, my only sleepwear for the past eight years. I treat them like antique lace, washing them on delicate, mending every hint of a separating seam. And now this one needs repair, which has nothing to do with a dream from last night and everything to do with the fact that, perhaps after eight years, I should stop wearing my dead husband’s shirts to bed.
Perhaps someday. Not today, though. Today, I grab the shirt and the sewing kit and settle in with my kitten and a cup of tea and stitch the torn hem as if the shirt’s owner will return at any moment and expect it back.
4
By late afternoon, Enigma is ready for a nap. The name seems fitting, given the mysterious circumstances of her arrival. I take her upstairs and settle her into her box. Then, I glance at the bed and realize perhaps it’s not the kitten who’s in need of a nap. I barely got five hours of slumber after a sleepless night of overseas travel.
I kick off my slippers and slide under that wonderfully thick quilt. As my cheek touches the cool pillow, I remember my dream from last night, the one of waking in William’s bed. I smile and snuggle down in hopes of recapturing it. But as soon as my eyes close, I realize what I’m truly hoping for—not a dream of William, but the reality of him. And it’s more than hope. It’s a wild soul-deep plea that William be real, that I can cross time and reach him.
Dreams like that are false fantasies guaranteed to twist into nightmare. For years, I’d dream of waking to find Michael beside me, alive and whole and safe. Then I’d truly wake up, shaking with grief and longing, terrified of falling back asleep. Terrified of wanting to fall back asleep and stay there, of eyeing the sleeping pills on my nightstand and wondering what would happen if I took the whole bottle . . .
I shiver and climb from bed. Hoping to drift off into fantasies of William smacks of those Michael nightmares. A dream that could drain my soul with wanting.
I peer into the dresser mirror, checking the baggage under my eyes. Definitely not carry-on size. Time to brew a pot of strong coffee.
As I’m turning away, I catch a flicker in the mirror. It disappears in a blink, and I tense, imagining a ghostly visage, but that isn’t what I saw. A face, yes. But firm and real, severe and masculine, with a tumble of black curls over the broad forehead and eyes blue as the summer sky.
“William,” I whisper, and the word barely escapes before my dresser disappears and I’m gazing into another mirror, my reflection slightly warped, the glass imperfect. Behind me, William turns toward the bedroom door.
He’s dressed in a cutaway morning coat over a white linen shirt with a high collar, wide necktie fastened with a sapphire pin. A dashing figure, his dark hair slicked, curls tamed. He’s already turning away, and I catch only a glimpse of his profile, and then his back is to me, his shoes clicking as he strides from the room.
“Lord Thorne?” a voice calls from the hallway. “Your solicitor is here.”
“Put him in the parlor.”
“Not the pantry?” the voice asks with a teasing lilt.
William grumbles, but there’s no rancor in it.
I know the other voice. It’s older than I remember, but I heard it many times as a child, a voice that would set us scrambling for a hiding place before she spotted me. Mrs. Shaw, the Thornes’ housekeeper.
As soon as I think her name, I picture her face, and then I see another one, weathered with short-cropped steel gray hair and a pipe in his mouth.
Have we met? You look . . . familiar.
William’s footsteps clomp down the steps, Mrs. Shaw’s click-clacking after him as she asks about tea, and William mutters that refreshments might induce his solicitor to linger, so, no, they can skip tea.
I smile at that, and my gaze turns to the bed. It’s not the narrow child’s bed I remember, but a four-poster mahogany one, still no larger than a modern double. There should be curtains, but they’ve been removed.
Seeing the folded-back sheets, I remember how they felt against me last night, cool and featherlight and coarse. The perfect counterpoint to the fingers on my hip, warm and strong and smooth until they slid up to my waist, the callused skin of William’s fingertips tickling across my—
I yank my thoughts from that precipice and shiver with something between delight and dread. I told myself I wasn’t going to dream of William, and yet, I am. I curled up in bed thinking of him, and then I must have dreamed that I rose and saw him in the mirror.