Buried in Sunshine (12 page)

“What do you know about me?”

“The hallway, from the nightmares—but
different….? You found a hallway.”

“Beneath the spot that you had marked, yes,”
Emma says as nods.

“A greenhouse, a room with a false door…”

“Is any of that important, do you know?” Emma
asks as she attempts to piece together the information from Alexis
with anything that Elizabeth might know.

“All of it I think,” Elizabeth says as she
closes her eyes. “I think it is all important.”

“Do you know how?”

“Someone else knows more about the
greenhouse—the younger one.”

“Hope?” Emma asks.

“Probably,” Elizabeth says as she continues to
concentrate on the topic. “False doors—if there is one…it’s
possible, no…probable, that there are others?”

“I had not thought of that,” Emma admits as she
sits back down against the chair and runs her hands over the smooth
surface of the table.

“That’s a lot of leads…” Emma says as she
attempts to figure out which mystery she should chase first.
“Should I go to the beach and find Hope?”

“I think she’ll come for you.”

“You can’t go into the basement?”

“I prefer not to.”

“So I guess the first thing we should do is
search for this box that Alexis spoke of?”

“Someone’s here.” Elizabeth says as she gestures
toward the door.

Seconds later a knock resounds down the hallway.
Emma approaches the door—she is not expecting anyone. At least, not
until later—or that she can remember. Perhaps it is Hope. She
hesitates as she apprehensively places her hand on the door.
Another loud knock shakes the knob in her hand. Emma slowly opens
the door and peeks out to the bright outdoors.

“I’m here to hook up the internet?” A man
dressed in a grey jumpsuit says in a questioning tone as he carries
a giant spool of black cable.

“Of course,” Emma says. She had completely
forgotten. Emma looks back to the kitchen to see if Elizabeth is
still there. To her confusion, she has disappeared.

“It shouldn’t take long, I’ll get you set up in
less than an hour or so,” the man says as he looks past Emma. “No
dogs or anything right? Is it okay if I come in?”

“Yes,” Emma says shortly, “I mean no… I don’t
have any dogs and yes, you can come in.”

“Thanks,” the man says as he enters the cool
house. “It’s only ten-thirty and it’s already ninety-eight degrees…
can you believe it?”

“I can’t,” Emma says as she nods.

*

Emma tears open the box to her new computer. She
discards the foam padding and the cardboard into a little pile on
the floor.

“So where did you go then?” Emma asks as she
looks up from the laptop to Elizabeth who sits across from her at
the kitchen table.

“I was here,” Elizabeth says as she shakes her
head. “He didn’t see me. I guess he couldn’t see me.”

“I couldn’t see you,” Emma adds.

“I have no response to that,” Elizabeth says as
she stares blankly at Emma.

“Anyway,” Emma says as she navigates through the
setup screen on her new laptop. That same familiarity, that sense
of déjà vu, comes back to her. “Why did I need this?”

“You can track the weather,” Elizabeth says as
she tosses that answer out there. However, she sounds uncertain.
“It’s not just here—the heat. It’s everywhere.”

Emma Googles U.S. drought map, she brings up a
page that shows how widespread the drought is. She goes through a
few articles about wildfires in Colorado and the record breaking
heat that has finally reached up north. “Yeah, it looks pretty
shitty.”

“There are probably more reasons,” Elizabeth
admits.

“I hope so,” Emma says as she clicks on another
page showing photos of farmers that have already given up on their
crops and have chopped them down to feed their livestock. “All this
does is make me feel a whole lot worse.”

“I am sorry it pains you,” Elizabeth says as she
looks away.

“Anyway,” Emma says as she shuts the laptop and
pushes herself away from the table. “I believe I still have time to
attend to a little business in my mother’s room before my
appointment.”

This time, Emma leads the way up the stairs as
Elizabeth follows closely behind. As the pair ascends the staircase
Emma thinks back to what Alexis had said—that Elizabeth was weak.
Out of all the others, she did seem to be the most confused lately.
Maybe Alexis did not mean that she was a weak personality, but that
as an entity—she was not as powerful as the others.

“Is it true you can’t leave the house?” Emma
asks.

“Who said that I couldn’t?”

“Alexis,” Emma replies as she heads down the
hallway and stands in front of her mother’s bedroom door.

“I suppose it’s true. I feel like it is
anyway.”

“Haven’t gone in here in a while,” Emma says
more to herself than Elizabeth as she places her hand upon the door
and gives it a gentle push open.

Spread out before her is the bed covered in
papers. There was so much paperwork to go through after she passed.
She remembered sitting here with Brian Metcalfe as he had her sign
documents—he helped her with the funeral paperwork and the
payments. With her help, she understood everything about what it
meant to be the sole heir. It was a shock at first to find out how
much money she had. However, ultimately, it did not really matter
to her. Her depression and anxiety would not allow her to enjoy it.
The only comfort it offered her was a roof over her head, the nice
car, and the ability to have groceries delivered to her
house—something her therapist was not particularly fond of. Other
than that, she spent most of her time lost, doing
nothing—sunbathing and sleeping all the time. If she could have all
that time back, she could do so much. Instead, now—all she had was
five more days after this one.

“Do you miss her?” Elizabeth asks, as she breaks
the strange silence of Emma staring blankly at the bed.

“Of course I do,” Emma says sadly. She places a
hand upon the edge of the bed and feels the soft fabric against her
fingertips. “She was my mother.”

“Why would someone with so much money not own a
TV?” Elizabeth asks as she places her hand upon a large row of
books.

“She was different,” Emma says as she shrugs.
“She was a minimalist—she insisted on living poor, even when my
father was still here. He had computers and loved technology, he
was well paid, something about a family business. He came from
money, that’s what my mom always used to say. She did not have to
work. I remember, vaguely, I think… they used to argue. She wanted
to continue working. She said it had to do with her lifestyle of
enjoying a poorer life.”

“Why would anyone want to live poor when so many
do it without choice?”

“I don’t know,” Emma admits as she begins to
walk about the room. She flips the switch on an old lamp. More
papers are stacked on top of the dresser. Emma begins to thumb
through the piles—it’s mostly just family history things. Mom was
always a big fan of tracking her family tree down all the way back
to when the Corbeaus’ immigrated to America back sometime in the
1800’s. “She was raised poor.”

“You’d think that’d be reason enough to change
things up,” Elizabeth adds.

“Is there something you’re feeling about that?”
Emma asks out of curiosity. There must be a reason that Elizabeth
keeps bringing it up.

“Just a strange feeling,” Elizabeth says as she
opens up the curtains to allow the sunlight in from the filtered
yellow curtains. “To me, it doesn’t make sense.”

“Well she always knew that she wasn’t poor—“

“Sometimes people who pretend to be something
they are not are hiding something?”

“Like the fact that they tried to kill
themselves after the death of a boyfriend?” Emma asks
sarcastically. “Then again, I suppose she is hiding something—or
something is hiding here.”

“Cat’s eyes…”

Emma begins to thoroughly search the room. She
pulls out drawers from the nightstand, finding only lip balm and
nail clippers. She goes through drawers finding only clothing and
more books. She even decides to look under the bed—to her dismay,
it is clear and she can see straight through to the other side.
Frustrated, Emma clears away a small spot on the bed and sits.

“I would have marked it better.”

“I know you would have,” Emma says as she places
a hand over her eyes and attempts to think. She lowers the hand and
stares off blankly. She begins to think like she used to. She
stares at an old chest of drawers full of clothing that she has
already ransacked twice. Near the center of the chest she can make
out a pattern in the grain of the oak wood. First, they appear as
nothing more than random lines and circles—then, she finally sees
what she is looking for. In the wood, two circles of different
shades of brown form the distinct form of a pair of cat’s eyes.

Emma jumps to her feet and places a hand against
the wood. She feels silly for not realizing it earlier. She used to
spend hours looking at the textures on her walls, naming them after
the odd images her mind would make out in them. “I can see
them.”

“Cat’s eyes,” Elizabeth says as she kneels down
beside Emma.

Emma grabs a hold of the drawer and pulls on it
until it is all the way out. She begins to tug at it but it will
not come out.

“Try lifting up,” Elizabeth suggests.

Emma pulls up and outward and is knocked down to
her butt as the drawer is released. In the empty recess where the
drawer once sat, a long flat dull grey box sits against the wood.
Emma reaches in and pulls the box out. A key is conveniently taped
to the bottom of it.

“Well,” Emma says as she rips the key off the
back and places it into the small silver lock. “Let’s see what we
have here.”

As Emma lifts up on the sheet of metal a large
stack of letters is revealed in the container. Emma fingers through
a few of the letters, most of them seem to be addressed to her
mother. Only instead of Sarah Corbeau, they are all addressed to a
Sarah Langford. “Langford…”

“Is that name familiar?”

“I’m not sure,” Emma replies as she picks up one
of the letters and begins to read it.

5/29/1999

My Dear Sarah Langford,

I know that I cannot give you the kind of
lifestyle that you have grown accustomed to. I just want you to
know that these last few years of stolen moments and fleeting hours
together have been the happiest parts of my life. I wish only that
we had met before you had married. I know you only want the best
for Emma, and that her father has the means to make sure she has a
bright future; while I have a family of my own that I must take
care of. I just wish, so desperately, that we met under different
circumstances. That we were both free of the lives that we thought
were right. I hate that you have to live a fake life, but I know it
is the only way we can be together in the day. I just want you to
know that if you ever decide to leave him, that I will do the same.
I will leave my wife and son behind to be with you. You only live
once. I will wait as long as I have to.

Yours Forever,

Brain Metcalfe

Emma recoils as she reads the name on the love
letter. “Fake life…”

“It is impressive what people will endure in
order to protect a secret,” Elizabeth says as she places a hand
upon Emma’s shoulder. “I’m sorry another discovery is one that
brings you pain. I understand why you hid who you really were—after
all, we learn by example.”

“These are all love letters,” Emma says she
races through letter after letter. “They stop in 2001… That’s right
after my father…”

“Left you and your mother…?”

“Yeah,” Emma says as she places down the box. “I
don’t understand. If my father left, then why didn’t they run off
together like some of these letters say? Why did my mother keep up
the illusion that she enjoyed a poor life? None of this makes any
sense.”

“Maybe he changed his mind,” Elizabeth adds as
she picks up the metal box. “Maybe it was some sentimental sense of
remorse, perhaps? People want something that they cannot have, and
then when the chance comes to take it—they realize they do not want
it anymore.”

“Then why didn’t she quit? Why didn’t she live
the way she wanted to?”

“I’m just throwing out guesses,” Elizabeth says
as she thumbs through some of the letters. “Your mother’s dream was
to be a professional chef?”

“I had no idea,” Emma replies sadly.
“Langford…”

“Your mother changed her name back after your
father left,” Elizabeth says as though she has just put the thought
together or has channeled the information from some mystical
source.

“I don’t even remember my father’s last name?”
Emma asks as tears stream down from her eyes. “How fucked up in the
head am I? …Really? Why can’t I remember any of these things?”

“Maybe in time…”

“I can’t deal with any of this. It doesn’t make
any sense. None of it does. If they wanted to be together, why
didn’t they—“

“Well technically, for years I think they
were.”

“Not like that,” Emma says as she shakes her
head and wipes away her tears with her short yellow sleeve. “My
father abandoned us—why didn’t she just… do whatever?”

“Maybe she held up appearances for you. Maybe it
was something that she planned on following through once you moved
out. Then complications—“

“You mean I went fucking crazy.”

“I would put it a much nicer way,” Elizabeth
says as she sets the box down on the bed and places her hand
against Emma’s head and rubs her hair as though she is some kind of
pet. “Maybe she felt that too much change would push you over the
edge.”

“That means I would have had to have problems
all the way since I was like…twelve?”

“It’s sad, but altogether possible,” Elizabeth
says as she returns to the box and retrieves a letter at seemingly
random.