Compulsion (3 page)

And maybe for the first time, she was starting to. Learning that Lula had survived the fire must have been a shock after all this time. Especially if Pru had loved her twin.

One phone call. One letter. That was all it would have taken for Lula to spare Pru years of grief.

For that matter, Lula could have come home and gotten help after the fire. Barrie would have given anything to have a
sister or a brother. Someone of her own to love and fight with, grow with. So why had Lula thrown away her twin without a second thought?

Barrie stepped into the bedroom. It was even bigger than her old one in San Francisco. Another tattered Oriental rug softened her footsteps, its faded silk colors echoing in the drapes, the embroidered canopy of the four-poster bed, and the two armchairs squatting in the corner. She parked her suitcase beside a desk that held a basket of bougainvillea, which Pru must have picked fresh that morning, and crossed to the balcony. Beyond the French doors, the gardens sprawled toward a marsh and a gleaming river live with birds and singing frogs. Across the water a second mansion commanded a shallow hill.

Eight Beaufort was wrangling a sailboat down at the Watson dock. Unmistakable even from the back, he stooped to untie the lines, then stepped onto the deck and settled himself beside his father, who yanked the outboard motor to life in a puff of smoke.

“This is your closet here. Your bathroom’s through there on the right,” Pru said. “Be careful with the faucet in the bathtub. It came loose this morning. It should be all right as long as you don’t turn it fast or yank it, but make sure the water isn’t too hot before you get in. I don’t want you scalding yourself.”

A yellow Labrador paced the end of the dock across the
river. He gave a bark that Barrie could see but couldn’t hear, trying to hurry the Beauforts across. Or warn them away.

“Is that where Seven and Eight live?” Barrie asked as Pru came to stand beside her. “The house over there?”

Pru’s gaze fastened on Seven with an expression between pain and hunger. “Yes, that’s Beaufort Hall. Now, you should clean up and unpack before they come back. I’ll leave you to it and go fix supper.”

“And a pie cake,” Barrie said, smiling.

“And a pie cake.” With a rusty laugh Pru threw her arms around Barrie and gave her a hug. “Oh, I
am
glad you’re here, sugar. Lula’s daughter. Imagine that.”

Pru held her tight, and Barrie felt the returning click again. She stood stiffly at first, then relaxed into the embrace and squeezed back harder than she intended.

“Come down whenever you’re ready,” Pru said when she pulled away at last. “Turn right at the bottom of the stairs and go to the end of the hallway. That’ll be the kitchen.” She crossed the room, and her footsteps retreated down the hallway.

Barrie turned back to the French doors and the view. The small boat had crossed the river and pulled alongside the Beaufort dock. Eight jumped out to tie it off while his father hurried toward the house. After meeting Eight with a wagging tail, a dropped ball, and a silent bark, the Labrador
bounded away in invitation. Eight picked up the ball from the wooden planks and threw it.

He used a pitcher’s throw, arm and leg coming up, his whole body fluid. The dog ran an impossibly long distance before retrieving the ball. Eight meanwhile kicked off his flip-flops and stripped off his shirt. Barrie caught her breath. Eight Beaufort would make any girl catch her breath.

Almost as if he’d heard her thoughts, he looked toward her window. Could he see her all the way from there? Guiltily, as if he’d caught her spying, Barrie ducked back behind the curtains and kept watching.

With the dog at his heels, Eight sprang into a run. He pounded down the dock toward the river, but the dog reached the water first and jumped in with a splash. Eight launched into the air, knees clutched to his chest. Barrie didn’t breathe until both he and the dog had bobbed back to the surface. She could almost hear Mark giving that beautiful body a nine on a scale of ten. But only because Mark didn’t believe in giving tens.

Mark had to be frantic about her by now. Barrie had to call him. Get it over with. She had so much to hide, she wasn’t sure how to keep him from making her confess, but she dug her phone out of her purse and dialed the number.

“It’s about damn time,” Mark answered. Then his voice turned velvet on a sigh. “You doing all right, baby girl? All
settled in? How’s your aunt? What did you think of her? Is she anything like Lula?”

“Pru is great,” Barrie said. “She seems . . . nice. More grounded than Lula.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be exactly hard. Now, tell me you’re going to be happy. I need you to be happy.”

“I love you,” Barrie whispered. “I miss you.”

There was a long pause, and then Mark said: “I miss you more than you can possibly imagine.”

Barrie needed to get a grip. She couldn’t let Mark down. Sinking to the floor, she wrapped her arms around her knees as if that would hold her together. “So,” she said, channeling cheerful Barbie for all she was worth, “there’s not much to tell yet. The house
is
great.”

“Ooooh, you have to send me pics. I need to compare it—”

“Compare it to what?” Barrie’s trouble-meter pinged to high alert. “What do you know that I don’t?” Already she was smiling, picturing Mark’s graceful fingers drumming against his leg, impatient to share whatever he was keeping secret. “What are you up to now?”

“I’ve been going through the attic. Who knew Lula was hoarding stuff up there all these years? Trunks full of clothes, and the shoes . . . Don’t even get me started on the shoes. Of course, not a speck of wear on any of them. You should let me send you the shoes.”

“Hey—”

“Well, I
know
you two didn’t wear the same size, but it’s a crime to give shoes like these away.”

“You got me plenty of shoes. Now, what else did you find?”

“Oh, no. You deserve to be tortured for making me wait today. Besides, you’ll see soon enough. I already mailed it to you. Trust me, you’ll be floored when you get the package.”

Barrie drank in the excitement in Mark’s voice. She could almost believe he was the pre-cancer Mark. The words were only a little breathier, a little weaker.

How much weaker?

Barrie’s hands began to shake. She’d been having nightmare thoughts like this ever since Mark had broken the news, since the initial shock and Lula’s— Well, after
all
the shocks. How was she supposed to track Mark’s decline from clear across the country? How was she supposed to know how much time he had left? She hadn’t even seen how sick he was when she’d been right there with him.

If she had noticed and made him go to the doctor sooner . . . If they had caught the cancer earlier . . .

But the doctor had said that pancreatic cancer had hardly any symptoms. Not until it had been too late to save Mark. Why did it have to be too late? How was that even fair?

Barrie pushed back the questions that only left her bleeding.
She couldn’t help Mark anymore. She could help her aunt, though. The idea sprang fully formed into Barrie’s head, and she blurted it out before she could reason it through or ask Pru if it would be all right.

“Is it too late to cancel the auction?” she asked. “I think I want Lula’s things.”

“I said you would regret not taking anything. I’ve got just a few more closets to sort through, and the rest of the attic. Tell me what you want.”

“Everything. The furniture. Lula’s clothes. Don’t sort anything else. Just call the movers and have them take it all.”

“Is that going to be okay with your aunt?” The phone line crackled, as if Barrie’s words had knocked the connection off frequency. “Is there even room?”

Barrie couldn’t explain what the place was like. The loose banister, the falling shutter, the broken faucet. Pru had talked about cleaning the house herself. Barrie could help with that, but if they had Lula’s furniture, they could replace the scratched and faded stuff, sell whatever was left, and use that money to fix Watson’s Landing. It was a great idea. Best of all, it wouldn’t involve lawyers or the complicated trust fund Lula had left for her.

“I’d like to go through Lula’s things myself,” she said. “I know I said I didn’t care, and I’m a pain in the ass—”

“Yeah, you are.”

“But I’m
your
pain in the ass. So you’ll do it?” In the long silence Barrie imagined Mark pursing his mouth and drawing slow circles on the table with his crimson-tipped index finger.

“You know I’ll make it work,” he said, “if you’re sure it’s what you want.”

Pain sliced through Barrie, a bitter blue pang of homesickness and nostalgia and guilt. “
Please
let me come back and take care of you,” she said, breaking all her resolutions again. “Don’t make me stay away. I don’t mind going to the hospice, and I don’t mind coming back here after school has started.”

“We’ve been over this a hundred times, baby girl. I need to know you’re settled before I . . . go. And I have no intention of letting you change my diapers and fluff my pillows while I gasp out my last breaths on a morphine drip. Anyway, it’s all arranged. I even won a vintage bed jacket on eBay this morning. I’ll be the best-dressed queen in the place, and I’ll be as happy as a . . . Hell, I don’t know what’s happy anymore. Clams sure aren’t. But I’ll make friends. Imagine that! I’ll finally have people my own age to talk to.”

Barrie pressed her fist to her mouth to block the sob bubbling up her throat.

“I’ll be happy knowing you are happy,” Mark said. “So concentrate on settling in like I asked. Get ready for your senior year. Art classes, boys, homecoming, college applications, prom, graduation. All that. You promised, remember?”

Across the river, Eight Beaufort pulled himself onto the dock and tossed his hair to get the water out. Beside him the dog shook all over, while Eight threw his head back, laughing.

“I’ve found a hottie already,” Barrie said, turning from the window. “Dark hair, acres of shoulders. You’d love him.”

“Prove it. Send me pictures. Put some wear and tear on those shoes of yours for me.”

“All the places you’ve always wanted to go. I know,” Barrie said. “I won’t forget my promise.”

The armoire smelled of jasmine and magnolias from the sachets Pru had left inside it. Trying to shove the conversation with Mark out of her head, Barrie set a speed record for unpacking and stowed her empty suitcases in the corner of the room. Then she washed her face and headed toward the stairs.

Every sound seemed magnified. Watson’s Landing was quieter than Lula’s house. No soap operas emoted from Mark’s television; no beach music bounced defiantly under the door of Lula’s room. There was only the reverberation of Barrie’s heels and the groan of old wood, as if the house itself protested her intrusion. Even the portraits hanging along the hall looked disapproving.

She paused at the top of the steps, where the pull from the unoccupied wing grew sickeningly strong. What kind of lost
thing created an ache like that? Barrie stared down the dark hallway, fighting the need to go investigate.

How could Pru ignore this feeling? Walk past it day in and day out, as if she didn’t even feel it?

Was it possible Pru didn’t have the gift? Barrie had no idea how it passed from one family member to another. Maybe it didn’t go to everyone.

There were so many things she didn’t know. Even worse, she suspected she didn’t know what she didn’t know. Which made it hard to look for answers.

She clomped down the staircase without touching the banister, trying not to make too much noise but sounding like a six-legged horse in spite of herself. At the bottom, she turned down a long wood-paneled corridor. The scent of ground beef, tomato, onion, garlic, and oregano led her through a swinging door into a time warp of a kitchen that hadn’t been updated since whenever avocado-ugly had still been in style.

“I was beginning to think the house had swallowed you, sugar.” Pru glanced over her shoulder as she stirred a pot bubbling on the antique stove. “Did you find everything all right? Are you all unpacked?”

“Yes, thanks. Should I set the table?”

“That would be wonderful. The plates and glasses are there.” Pru pointed to a nearby cabinet with the spoon, splattering red sauce on the floor. “The silver is through the door
in the butler’s pantry. Third drawer on the right, opposite the freezer.”

The pantry was larger than Barrie had expected. A swinging door on the opposite end led into the tearoom, which was empty except for linen-covered tables and shelves lined with sweetgrass baskets, small art prints, and various jars of jams and pickled vegetables for sale.

Barrie let the door fall closed again and retrieved the forks and knives. Those were actual silver, the same familiar pattern she had eaten with all her life. The blue and white plates she took from the kitchen cabinet were identical to Lula’s too, as if her mother had tried to re-create Watson’s Landing in San Francisco, only newer, better, less damaged.

There was nothing new in Pru’s kitchen. No dishwasher or microwave, nothing modern. As for damage, one of the cabinets had a hole where the knob would have screwed in, and two of the drawer pulls were missing. On the back door the lock had torn free and now dangled uselessly from the security chain. It all had an air of faded respectability that was only underscored by the spotless cloth and cut-glass vase of apricot roses Pru had placed on the round oak table.