Charlotte’s Story by Laura Benedict Read Free Book Online Page B

Olivia would pick something so boldly exotic to decorate the outside of Bliss House.
    I waited, listening to the faint sounds of Marlene in the kitchen and my own breathing. After a few minutes, I began to feel the slightest bit foolish. I wanted to believe, to trust that Olivia was with me. But it felt a little unnatural. Or perhaps I was afraid.
    It occurred to me that I might get closer to Olivia by looking through her things. It was my right, yes? No one would ask why.They belonged to me. Marlene had already been hinting that she would get Terrance to pack up whatever clothing of Olivia’s I wanted to give away and take it to the Presbyterian thrift store in town.
    As though reading my mind, Marlene called me from the dining room’s kitchen entrance.
    Turning at the sound of her voice, I was just in time to see one of the glass patio doors swing violently open, as though by a strong wind, and hit the corner of a chair placed against the wall. Two of the door’s panels shattered, scattering shards of glass onto the carpet below.

Chapter 6
    Domestic Bliss
    Up to that point in my life, I was no liar. My father could look at my face and know in an instant that I was about to tell him an untruth.
    “Don’t tell me what you think you want to say, Lottie. I see in your eyes it’s not the truth.” My mother was just like me, he said. And I have her eyes: bright blue and guileless.
    But I learned to lie. If there is shame in that fact, I don’t feel it.
    The previous day, I’d been sufficiently shaken by the incident with the door that I hadn’t ventured into Olivia’s room, and neither had I wanted to return to the dining room. Because Press was out, I had Terrance bring supper up to the nursery. Nonie, Michael, and I ate in companionable chaos, with Michael delighting in being able to climb off and on his small chair at the child-sized nursery table any time he wanted. Even Nonie was amused with him, though I could tell she wasn’t trying to show it. I felt more content in the nursery, closer to Eva’s things that still sat on their shelves and in their drawers, and closer to her. Icould miss her here, but the pain was almost bearable because she seemed so close.
    When Press had finally come home, I was already asleep. He didn’t enter my room—not then, and not in the morning—so it had been more than a day since we’d spoken. Was I wrong to prefer it that way? I couldn’t reconcile his swift return to normality with the physical ache in my chest that rose every time I put my hand on the nursery door, or looked at the cushioned booster seat we’d had made so Eva could sit at the dining-room table with us like a big girl, or at the lonesome playhouse beside the stone path leading to the swimming pool, or nearly every time I breathed in the air that she would never breathe again. What was wrong with him?
    When I came downstairs in the morning to make sure I hadn’t dreamed the incident with the broken glass, Press was there, sitting at the table. His head was bent over a book—probably recommended to him by Zion, who had often sent him home with philosophy and theater books. When he looked up, I saw his skin was flush with color and health: he’d been out rowing on the James with Jack at dawn. So, that had resumed as well.
    He smiled. Before he rose from his chair, there was a second’s hesitation and I heard the faint ring of a bell in the kitchen. He had rung for Terrance by pressing the bell beneath the carpet with his foot.
    “Don’t get up.” But I was too late. Press was out of his chair, taking long, quick strides to reach me.
    I took a tiny step backwards, unprepared for the sheer gravity of his presence, the air of Floris and the outdoors about him. He wasn’t deterred, and inwardly I cringed in advance of his touch. But instead of folding me in his arms as I feared he might, he merely put one arm around my shoulders and guided me to my chair.
    “Have you had your coffee, my love?”
    As