Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE
Before Mrs. Lawson’s death and my leaving for Hawaii, my cousin Simon enjoyed unraveling family secrets for me. He convinced me to go down to the long and vast basement where many of the Sutherland surprises and mysteries were buried, the most dramatic being the grave of my great-grandfather’s illegitimate child, Prissy, the daughter of the African American maid with whom he had actually had a secret love affair. She was the help, a servant. Yet he had risked his name and reputation to continue his love affair.

In a letter Simon said Great-grandfather had written to a friend but never mailed, Great-grandfather said she had the most beautiful sable eyes and a smile that brightened the gloomiest day. I would have thought it to be a wonderful forbidden romance, if it wasn’t for what had resulted.

Prissy, who had been born with progeria, or accelerated aging, had been kept in the bedroom where I had been kept during my aversion therapy treatment. Her existence was an embarrassment to the Sutherlands, as Mrs. Lawson had me believe I was. I was given Prissy’s clothes to wear. Seeing her grave in the basement was so unexpected, and it was probably the most shocking thing I had seen in Sutherland. Her birth and death had been successfully kept hidden from the rest of the world. I had heard no reference to it, not even from my mother.

There were many more secrets buried in cartons and trunks in what I considered the Cemetery of Memories, a cemetery that included Grandmother Judith’s diary. In her diary, which Simon had found in the basement before I went to Hawaii, poor Grandmother Judith revealed that she really hadn’t belonged here. For her, marriage to my grandfather had become a form of entrapment. She was caged and looked for ways to avoid the condemnation of the Sutherland spirits, spending her time on charities and doing whatever she could to be away from Sutherland.

I wondered if Grandfather had ever read it before sentencing it to what he thought would be eternal darkness. If he had read it, why wouldn’t he have destroyed it along with so many other unpleasant facts? It was truly like everything to do with Sutherland was a holy relic, even things that would ordinarily embarrass other families.

Simon was gleefully right: there was much to learn in the shadows, in the corners, and under the dusty old sheets in the basement, and he was an effective guide, having spent so much time alone there, fascinated by his discoveries. No one enjoyed privately sharing something as much as someone whispering a forbidden truth.

It was the reason Simon had emerged from his self-isolation at Sutherland to greet me at the front door when I arrived from my failed trip to Hawaii and my supposedly new family. He had a new forbidden truth. He was as gleeful as ever and so anxious to share it with me.

Despite my personal disappointment, sadness, and even fear of returning to Sutherland, I was willing, even anxious, to hear about Simon’s discoveries. He was driving the shadows out of Sutherland and perhaps in an odd way turning it into a true family home for both of us, because you couldn’t live in a house with so many unsolved family mysteries and think of it as a home.

“I’ve discovered a new and very important secret,” he whispered, with his eyes blazing, and then he stepped aside so that I could enter his world. “You must come right up to my room,” he added, with that Sutherland tone of command, loud enough for Aunt Holly to hear. He leaned in again to whisper. “We’ll wait for the right opportunity.” He reached for my hand, which surprised me.

“Let her get settled in first, Simon,” Aunt Holly said, obviously not knowing what he was referencing. I could see she thought that whatever it was, it was part of his dark condition. On our way home from the airport, she had stressed how slowly and carefully I should engage with Simon.

“He is still like a time bomb. You can see it ticking in his eyes. It breaks my heart, but I try to look undisturbed and not make matters worse. It’s frustrating when that’s all you can do as a mother.”

Emerson, my grandfather’s limousine driver for decades, was carrying my suitcases and waiting behind us. He had started driving for Grandfather in England, and when Grandfather found a loyal employee, he’d import him to serve no matter where in the world he or she was living.

Simon looked surprised at what Aunt Holly had said. It was as if he had never known I had left and been gone that long. It gave me an eerie feeling. Perhaps he had envisioned me in my room all this time, maybe even had gone there and believed he had seen me, even spoken to me. He obviously either ignored the luggage or refused to see it.

“There’ll be plenty of time for you to talk once Caroline settles in, Simon. Maybe you can join us for lunch outside today,” Aunt Holly said, with a wide smile full of motherly hope.

“Not hungry,” he said. “And it’s not lunch conversation.”

He glared at the luggage now as if it were all some unwanted donation, started to turn, and stopped. There was actual pain in his eyes because of my silence while he paused. I could see he had wanted me to defy Aunt Holly and join him. I wanted to assure him I would, but before I could promise anything, he turned away again and hurried into the house, rushing toward the stairway as if he was afraid to be seen out of his bedroom. I looked at Aunt Holly, who sighed deeply.

“I don’t know which is a bigger challenge for you, Caroline, Hawaii and your father or Sutherland and Simon,” she said. “It’s sad to see him so indifferent to reality and worse to see you feel guilty about it.”

I was going to just burst out with an explanation, describe the importance of the Cemetery of Memories for him. However, she stepped into the mansion quickly, as if she wanted to clear the way for me and make it safe.

Mrs. Lawson’s replacement, Mrs. Fisher, came hurrying down to the foyer to greet us. Her thick-heeled black shoes echoed on the tile, reminding me of Grandfather’s mahogany walking stick when he walked through the house. She approached us with her right hand on her right hip bone, as if she was a western gunslinger. She wore a flowery white short-sleeved blouse and an ankle-length black skirt. She didn’t look as old as Mrs. Lawson, but she didn’t look that much younger. Maybe she was in her late fifties.

“Age is a sneak, especially for women,” I overheard Nattie tell Mommy once. “It oozes into your body like water into a napkin. You don’t see it spreading; it just does.”

I think they were doing their makeup together at the time.

“Well, hello there, lass,” Mrs. Fisher said. “You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you?”

Thing? I thought. Why call me a “thing”? I didn’t ask, but I didn’t smile either. I stared at her the way Mrs. Lawson would say was impolite. Maybe it was Nattie’s fault because she had described herself at my age so well that whenever I looked at an older person, especially someone over fifty, I would wonder what he or she had looked like at my age. I’d dwell on it so intensely that I didn’t hear what he or she was saying. Often, I had thought that Mrs. Lawson was never a young girl. She skipped years like you would skip over a pond of dirty water. In a different way, she suffered what Prissy had suffered.

Mrs. Fisher had silvery gray eyes and graying brown hair trimmed at the nape of her neck and at her cheekbones, the hair so straight it could have been ironed. Her nose was a little too long but not really sharp. Her lips looked crooked, but maybe that was just her smile, which she held so long, it seemed to weaken into a disapproving smirk when I didn’t smile back or say anything. Little brown age spots were scattered on her forehead and on the crests of her cheeks, as though God had tossed them at her like an afterthought as he was returning to heaven.

“I’m Mrs. Fisher,” she quickly said to break my silence. “Your new head housekeeper.”

Mine?

I looked at Aunt Holly. Emerson paused and said, “Mum,” to her and then walked on ahead with my luggage. We had started to follow when Mrs. Fisher stopped us by putting her hand up like a security guard.

“Mr. Sutherland wants to see her immediately,” she said, nodding at me. Then she looked at Aunt Holly and added, “Alone.”

As soon as I had set foot in Sutherland, I thought a cold bolt of lightning had been shot through my breast. This just added ice to it. I couldn’t even take a deep breath. Mrs. Fisher turned and held her right arm out and down, dividing me from Aunt Holly and urging me to hurry along. When I didn’t move, she loudly whispered, “He’s waiting. You don’t want to keep your grandfather waiting.”

I glanced at Aunt Holly. I knew she disapproved of how Mrs. Fisher was speaking to me. Her eyes darkened, and her body stiffened.

“Go on. I’ll wait for you,” she said, practically speaking through her clenched jaw.

“Oh, I can show her up afterward,” Mrs. Fisher said.

“She doesn’t need to be shown up. She’s lived here,” Aunt Holly said sharply.

Mrs. Fisher held her wooden smile for a moment and then relaxed.

“Of course. She’ll be fine,” she said. “She’s been through far more than most young girls, losing a mother so tragically and then upsetting her father by doing something so foolish on a beach that she almost drowned. Poor thing. He sent her back like a defective tool or something.”

She clicked her lips while she looked at me.

“I’d hardly call her that, Mrs. Fisher,” Aunt Holly said sternly. “And I don’t think it is to anyone’s benefit to put it into headlines like news bulletins.”

“Oh, you’re right. I do apologize about how that must have sounded. I’m sure she’s a strong one. She’ll rebound quickly from all of this,” she added, waving her hand across the front of her face as if she was fanning away some bad odor. “We’ll all be here for her.”

Just how much about me had Grandfather discussed with her? Did she know the details of the aversion therapy, too? Did she know all about Nattie?

“Of course we will,” Aunt Holly said, really more to me.

Mrs. Fisher softened her expression again and provided a warmer smile, but I didn’t smile back or say a thing. Aunt Holly squeezed my hand gently, and I started toward Grandfather Sutherland’s office, imagining the waves of rage he would send at me the moment I entered.