“The asylum?”
Delila nodded.
“Ethel went there herself, you see. It all started there, and life is a circle. Fear not, Sarah. Fate has brought us together. You might suppose you did this on your own, but if you pay attention, you will notice tiny nudges from the unseen world.”
CHAPTER 21
Then
Corrie
“M aybe you should cancel the party.”
I paused in the hallway at the sound of Sarah’s voice. I must have been asleep for more than a few minutes if Sarah had arrived and I wasn’t even aware of it.
“That seems a little drastic,” Sammy told her.
I heard him pacing around the room.
“What’s drastic is insisting on throwing a giant party with a hundred people in this house when Corrie’s…” Sarah trailed off, and I strained forward wondering what she was about to say.
“She’s just off,” Sammy continued. “I think it’s this novel. She’s blocked, and I’m sure it’s bringing up stuff from her past about her mom and dad. Things she’s never dealt with as an adult.”
“I know her mom died of alcoholism, but what happened to her dad?”
“He left when the girls were little. Just took off one day and never came back.”
“That’s terrible, did she ever try to find him?”
“She looked him up on the Internet but didn’t get a hit. I’m not sure she really wanted to find him.”
“I wouldn’t discount all this, Sam,” Sarah said. “I know your Halloween party is your precious little pet, but the stuff you’re telling me about Corrie is not good. You’re finding her wandering around the house at night and she has no memory of it the next day. She was holding one of Isis’s dolls in the lake like she was trying to drown it? That’s the stuff of horror movies, brother.”
I frowned, shaking my head, and almost stepped into the room to refute the insane comments.
“Don’t you dare mention that to her,” Sammy said.
I heard him moving closer to the hallway and considered revealing myself, but suddenly I felt ashamed. Had I done those things?
“I won’t mention it to her, but you sure as hell should. My advice? Say you want to get into some therapy and move back home. This place is disturbing. It’s obviously bringing up weird stuff for Corrie, and it’s your job as her husband to do the right thing. She’d never suggest it because she knows you love this house, but come on, Sammy. Since you guys came here, Corrie’s not been well.”
I listened to Sammy’s sigh and could imagine him resting his head against the fireplace mantel, biting his lower lip as he battled his desire to stay in Kerry Manor with his larger desire to save me, his wife, from an apparent mental breakdown. But I wasn’t having a breakdown, so why…
“Corrie?”
I looked up, startled, to see Sarah standing in the hallway.
“Oh, hi,” I said trying to appear sleepy. I rubbed my eyes. “I thought I heard you guys talking down here. Did I sleep for long?”
I walked into the living room, where Sammy looked rattled. He replaced the expression with his usual grin and snaked an arm around my waist.
“How did you sleep, my love?”
I nodded and yawned. “Good. Was I out for a while?”
“Two hours, about,” Sammy said.
“Isis is napping?”
“Yep, both of my princesses were catching their beauty sleep. Sarah wondered if we wanted to go get lunch after Isis wakes up?”
I nodded, willing Sammy to open up and tell me the truth. Instead, he looked away, offering a thumbs-up to Sarah.
“I’m dying for some chicken wings,” he announced.
I LAID on the rug watching Isis line up a row of little plastic people near the dollhouse.
“Hey, baby.” Sammy came into the room and squatted beside me, leaning over to kiss my temple.
“Mmm, hi,” I told him, growing drowsy as the fire seeped out, wrapped me in a coil of heat.
“Listen,” he said. He sat on the floor next to me and rolled me to face him. “The party is not important, Corrie. I know I make a big deal out of it, but I’m not against canceling the whole thing. I’m not against moving home, either.”
I sat up, agitated by his question.
“Sammy, we’ve sublet our house out until May. We can’t move home.”
“Then we could move in with my mom, or even Sarah, until the lease runs out. Or rent a different place, whatever.”
“Where is this coming from?” I asked, thinking back to the conversation I’d overhead between Sammy and Sarah several days earlier.
He tilted my chin up and studied my eyes. I saw the familiar love always present in Sammy’s face, and something else - worry.
“I’ve noticed a change in you, honey. It’s not bad,” he added. “But I get the feeling this place doesn’t agree with you. Maybe it’s taking a break from your practice, or writing your book, but I’m afraid all this change has been too much. I wonder if we shouldn’t backpedal a bit. We’re so far up the Peninsula. I go into town every day, but sometimes you’re here with Isis for days at a time. This is a lonely place, it’s big, and to use everyone else’s words, ‘creepy.’”
I blinked around the room and considered his statement. Had I changed? It was a huge leap taking the break from my practice, and the book - frankly, the book was resting in purgatory with only a few hundred words added weekly. But surely, we couldn’t blame the house.
“No,” I shook my head. “We have to stay. This is where we’re meant to be right now. I’m sure of it.”
He took my face in his hands and kissed me. For a moment I melted into him. He nuzzled my cheek.
“Maybe we should take Isis to my mom’s tonight? We could make dinner, spend a few hours warming up the bed.” He kissed my chin and eyelids.
“Daddy, look,” Isis announced, pointing to her house.
All her figures were laid on their backs in the study. Only one figure remained upright. A little girl with blonde hair, which she’d placed in an upstairs bedroom.
“Where’s all the furniture, honey?” Sammy asked, leaning toward Isis and peering into the house.
“It’s gone, Daddy. The fire burned it up.”
Sammy frowned and touched one of the little figures.
“Are they taking a nap?” he asked.
But Isis didn’t answer him. She walked the little girl figure back and forth in the bedroom and finally tucked her into a tiny wooden cabinet and left her.
“Snack?” Isis shifted her eyes from the house and gazed at me.
“Sure, boo-bear. Apple? Or smoothie bites?”
“Moothie bites,” she announced, jumping up and running to the kitchen.
“Your mom and Sarah are going to dinner tonight,” I reminded Sammy. “And then to watch that new movie with Scarlet Johansen.”
“Oh dang, that’s right,” Sammy said, still staring into the dollhouse. He touched one of the prone figures a second time. “Sarah and Scarlett, how tragic unrequited love is.”
I stood and laughed, fluffing his hair. His sister had a serious crush on Scarlett Johansen. She never missed one of her new releases. The previous Christmas, Sammy had a t-shirt made for Sarah with a picture of Scarlett superimposed holding Sarah’s hand as they stood in front of Niagara Falls.
I found Isis in the kitchen tugging on the refrigerator door from her footstool.