Echoes in the Walls Read online

  Samantha still looked at me with suspicion, crossed her arms over her chest, and pressed her lips together. Defiance was the flag under which she marched. Why wouldn’t she hoist it now when she thought she had an advantage?

  “What’s ‘a bad episode’ mean?” she demanded. “If Fern knows, I should know.”

  “Let’s wait for your father and Dr. Seymour to explain it all,” my mother said.

  Samantha turned her glare on me like a policeman’s flashlight. “You told her, didn’t you?” she said.

  My mother’s eyelids narrowed as the first signs of anger began to show themselves. Samantha’s growing insolence and cheekiness had really begun to sprout during the past few weeks and months. She was ready to challenge any order and was even taking less care with her room and her things, practically for spite. I was confident my mother had discussed this with my father and with his permission was now ready to be firmer about it.

  “Told me about what?” my mother asked. She realized Samantha was concerned about something completely different.

  “Nothing,” Samantha said, realizing I might not have told my mother about her spying on Ryder and what she had seen after all. She had almost trapped herself.

  “Then do what I say!” my mother screamed at her, and took a step toward her. To be truthful, I had never seen her as irate as this. Whatever calmness she possessed had been strained like a rubber band and broken.

  Samantha’s eyes nearly popped. The shock took all the steam of disobedience out of her. Tears came to her eyes. She looked like she couldn’t swallow. No one but me ever spoke to her as hard and directly as my mother was now, not even her own mother.

  “I’m going to tell my father!” she cried, turned, and ran out and up the stairs.

  My mother took a deep breath. Then she muttered something that shocked me to the bone. “I do wish that man would find another wife who can be a full-time mother to that child. It’s exhausting.”

  I knew what many people were thinking “under their breath,” as my mother would say. After the truth was revealed about who my father was, everyone assumed my mother was his mistress. I thought no one who worked here believed that, despite seeing her at the dinner table with us, and none of them spread stories. They had too much respect for her. Whatever social event my father attended after Bea had gone, mostly out of obligation to his position at the hospital, he attended alone. He had not taken my mother out to a restaurant, even with either Samantha or me. He didn’t even go shopping with her to help buy us things we needed like many fathers and husbands did.

  However, I’d be the first to admit that it was an especially awkward situation at Wyndemere, especially for anyone who visited. There was my mother in her established role as house manager, seeing to this or that but never socializing alongside my father. When he had a dinner guest, she usually didn’t sit at the table, either.

  Although they were quite polite to each other and he was continually thanking my mother for things, mainly anything to do with Samantha or Ryder, I had never seen them show any sort of loving affection toward each other. I had never seen him kiss her, even on the cheek and even on her birthday. If anything, he moved around her like there was an invisible circle that could not be penetrated. She supervised the care and maintenance of his bedroom and his office but never spent any significant time alone with him in either.

  Watching the two of them behave like this, I slipped back into thinking I was truly someone who had just happened miraculously. No sex involved. She would never go into any detail about how it really had happened, how her sympathy and comfort had turned into something more intense, something passionate and sexual. There was only this mysterious, almost supernatural possession my father had experienced whenever he returned to Wyndemere after his wife’s death. Somehow he had projected her onto my mother, and when he couldn’t stand the loneliness and sorrow any longer, he rose from his bed like a sleepwalker and went to her bed. If she had resisted, I wouldn’t be here.

  Sometimes I wished she had.

  “Go on and change if you want, or do the schoolwork you have left to do, Fern. I’ll let you know what Dr. Seymour and Dr. Davenport decide to do.”

  Before I could respond, she left the room. I sat for a few moments, wondering if I should have told her more, and then rose and went upstairs, looking toward Ryder’s room. The door was closed. I went to my room and changed into a dark gray sweat suit. I had some reading to finish and a report to do, but concentrating on anything was almost impossible. Every time I heard a sound, even if it was just a loud creak, I rose and went to my door to listen.

  Finally, nearly an hour later, I did hear distinct footsteps and stepped out of my room. I saw a nurse I had never seen before come up the stairs. She was short and stout, with gray hair that ballooned in puffs from under her cap. She went directly to Ryder’s room. Moments later, Dr. Seymour and my father stepped out and stood out in the hallway talking. My father paused when he saw me but then continued talking to Dr. Seymour. Minutes later, the nurse appeared, with Ryder holding her arm and looking dazed. I hadn’t heard my mother come up earlier and go to Ryder’s room, but she followed with a small suitcase. The nurse and Dr. Seymour carefully led Ryder down the stairs, my mother right behind them. I felt my throat tighten with an ache that built up quickly in my chest. My father didn’t speak to me or even look my way again. He followed everyone downstairs. A small sob felt like a bubble stuck in my throat.

  Samantha emerged from her room and looked my way. “What’s happening now?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer. I returned to my room and rushed to the window that looked out onto the front. Parker was waiting at the limo with the rear door open. He took the suitcase from my mother, and then the nurse helped Ryder into the rear of the limo and followed. Dr. Seymour and my father talked for a few moments, and then Dr. Seymour got into his vehicle. My father and my mother reentered the house. I watched the limousine drive off slowly and disappear down the road.

  I felt sick to my stomach. Surely, there was something more I could have done. What did this mean? Was Ryder going to be institutionalized? Would he never come home again? Would I be able to visit him?

  I was in such deep thought that I didn’t hear my phone ring before I saw the buttons light up. It was Ivy.

  “I’ve been sitting on pins and needles. When you didn’t call for so long, I thought you might hate me now or something.”

  “It’s not that, Ivy. My brother has had a bad episode and was just taken back to the clinic. I don’t feel like talking to anyone right now, especially about a lunch date,” I said, emphasizing “date.”

  “Oh. So sorry. Anything I can do?”

  “If I can’t, how could you?” I snapped back, which I immediately recognized as unnecessary and mean. “I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I get my wits.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m here for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  I hung up and sprawled back on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. I was so deep in thought that I didn’t hear my father enter my room. Suddenly, I realized that he was standing there staring at me. I sat up quickly.

  “What’s happening to Ryder?”

  “Dr. Seymour is afraid he might be suicidal,” he said without hesitation.

  I knew my father’s reputation as a doctor. Once he had made his diagnosis, he never used euphemisms or softened the blow just to make someone’s relatives feel better or hopeful. His concentration was solely focused on his patient. Relatives and friends were tolerated but not his high priority. He was the same way now, even though his own son was the patient and I was his family.

  “Oh,” I said. My face was trembling in an earthquake of sorrow.

  He brought his right hand up and showed me the picture of Ryder and myself in the silver frame. “Why did you give him this after I had asked you not to stress what went on between the two of you?” he asked. When my father was angry, his consonants were sharp and his vowels were precise, but ot
her than the cold, steely look in his eyes, there was no other warning or indication. “Guilt was absolutely the last thing we wanted him to feel right now.”

  “I didn’t give that to him,” I said.

  “Where did it come from?”

  “That was a picture Mr. Stark took of us just before we went to see you in your office to show you how your first wife’s dress was tailored to fit me. He gave the picture to me before we moved into the main house. It was a memory, a good memory at the time. He was just doing something to cheer me up after the lake tragedy.”

  “It was found under Ryder’s bed,” my father said.

  “I had it hidden here. I swear. It was in a drawer and never put on display. Ask my mother. Ask anyone except Samantha.”

  He stared at me, deciding whether to believe me. “Why not Samantha?”

  “I think Samantha might have found it and given it to him,” I said.

  His forehead creased. “Samantha? Why?”

  “She can be spiteful.” I took a deep breath. “She told me he had it.”

  “She did?” He thought a moment and then pounced. “Why didn’t you come right to me to tell me? It was very important I knew something like that. It mattered.”

  I looked away. This was horrible. I felt like I was betraying Ryder even more. Damn Samantha. “I was embarrassed,” I said. “Embarrassed by what she told me. She was spying on him.”

  “Spying?”

  “It amused her, I guess. She’d go to his door and open it a little so she could watch him in his room.”

  “What’s that have to do with this picture?”

  I looked up at the ceiling. What was my father going to think of me now?

  “Fern?”

  Okay, I thought. If his MO was to speak directly and frankly, that was what he would get from me.

  “He was naked,” I said quickly. “He had the picture in one hand and, according to Samantha, he was doing something sexual with the other. Samantha said she saw it and came running to tell me. I warned her not to tell anyone, especially any of her friends.”

  He stared dumbfounded and then shook his head. “I should have been told,” he said. “I’m very disappointed in you. Did you tell your mother?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Why didn’t you at least tell your mother? You knew how we were all watching him closely, looking for signs of improvement or setback.”

  He waited, but I didn’t answer. I had no other answer except a deep hope in my heart that Ryder was realizing his feelings for me. I had kept it to myself because I didn’t want that to end. How could I confess such a thing to my father now?

  Instead, I started to cry. He looked at the picture and then tossed it onto my bed before he turned and walked out.

  I curled up and sobbed. I felt as if everything inside me, especially my heart, had been turned inside out. I ached so. Probably more as an escape than anything, I fell asleep. When I awoke, it was very late in the afternoon. These days, the sun went down a little after five. My room was dark. I reached over and turned on the lamp on my side table. The light revealed my mother sitting in the Churchill nailhead leather chair. She was asleep. For a moment, I didn’t move. She looked like she had aged decades.

  “Mummy?” I said in a little over a whisper. “Mummy?”

  She opened her eyes and just stared at me a moment as if she was trying to remember who I was. Then she sat up, pressing her lips together. “Your father told me everything,” she said. “I couldn’t explain why you hadn’t told me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I had heard it all from Samantha, so I didn’t know whether to believe it or not.”

  She didn’t change expression. “That’s not a good reason, Fern, but even if you believed that, you still should have told me, at least about the picture. Dr. Davenport had words with Mr. Stark, who now feels terrible about giving it to you.”

  I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Who was left to hurt in this house? “That’s not fair. He didn’t fire him or something, did he?”

  “No, but Mr. Stark feels terrible. It’s the first time he and Dr. Davenport have had bad words between them, as far as I know.”

  “He shouldn’t have been angry at him,” I insisted. “I’ll tell him so and tell him he should apologize to Mr. Stark.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind, Fern Corey. I didn’t bring you up to be disrespectful.”

  “It’s not disrespectful to stand up for people who love you and whom you love,” I said forcefully. Defiant I was, and defiant I would be.

  She took a deep breath and shook her head. “When he was angry at me, my father used to wish I would have a daughter just like me tormenting me like I was tormenting him. Looks like he’s gotten what he wanted.”

  “I’m not deliberately trying to torment you.” I looked away.

  “I know, but I want you to tell me the truth, Fern. Did you give Ryder that picture?”

  “No, and I never showed it to him after the accident. I told Dr. Davenport the truth. It was buried in my bottom drawer. I’m sure Samantha found it and gave it to Ryder.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “She only wants to make trouble. She’s a vicious, spiteful little Bea, and the next time I see her—”

  “Stop,” my mother said, standing. “There’s enough thunder and lightning in this house. We’ll have to let time pass. Don’t start fighting with Samantha. If she did it, it will come out. Rot has a way of rising to the surface. Mind yourself. We’re having dinner in an hour. The doctor has gone to the clinic to see about Ryder.” She started to turn and stopped. “Is there anything else, Fern? Anything more to tell me?”

  “Yes.” I would keep nothing locked inside myself, not now.

  She brought both her hands to the base of her throat in anticipation. “What?”

  “When I got into Dillon’s car to go to lunch, we saw Ryder in my room looking down at us.”

  “Here? Your room?”

  “Yes. I never saw him in my room before, and he never came in here while I was here. As far as I know, he’s never come into my room when I was in school or downstairs.”

  She thought a moment and then nodded. “Okay. Dinner in an hour.”

  “I’m not very hungry.”

  “Dinner in an hour,” she repeated with emphasis. “We’re all quite upset downstairs. Mrs. Marlene has prepared her special meat loaf. My mother always told me, ‘Good food gives you strength to deal with sorrow.’ You always raved about Mrs. Marlene’s meat loaf. She cried the whole time she was preparing it. Start considering everyone else’s feelings.”

  I watched her leave and then fell back against my pillow and looked up at the ceiling. The lamplight created creepy, crawly shadows that seemed to flow up from the walls. I thought they would rain down over me, burying me with the darkness I felt in my heart.

  I didn’t know why my parents were so surprised about my not telling them what Samantha had described. This was the house of secrets. Keeping your own was practically a requirement for living here. Who didn’t have them? My parents certainly couldn’t claim not to have any. Their past together, regardless of how much they had revealed, mostly remained sealed in both their minds and hearts. The only witnesses were the walls. When most people thought of haunted houses, they thought of ghosts, but the whispers in the corners of Wyndemere came from the nightmares that escaped from its inhabitants whenever they put their heads on a pillow and closed their eyes.

  The same, I guessed, would be true for me. It was only a matter of time. The walls in my room were waiting to be fed, and I was sure I had the nightmares coming.

  I rose to take a shower and get dressed for dinner. I wondered if my father would return in time and if he would say anything more to me. I had never seen him so angry. Less than a year ago, I would be trembling so inside that I couldn’t dare look at his face, but I was my mother’s daughter. Defiance when it came to doing and saying what I thought was right was stronger than fear. When I calmed, how
ever, I realized that the person I should be worrying most about wasn’t myself; it was Ryder. My mother was right. I had to consider other people’s feelings.

  After I dressed, and brushed back my hair and pinned it, I started out, pausing for a moment at the closed door of Ryder’s room. What had he done in there? How bad was his tantrum? Since there was no one around, I opened the door and looked. No one yet had gone back in here for sure, I thought.

  His computer and computer monitor were on the floor, the screen shattered. His desk chair had been beaten into pieces, the legs torn off. Everything on top of his dresser had been shoved off, with anything breakable in pieces. Something had been thrown against one of his windows, and although it hadn’t entirely broken, there were large cracks crisscrossing it. His bed linen had been torn off, and he had stabbed one of his pillows with something, probably scissors, so that its filling was scattered about. He had gone into his closet, too, and torn most of his clothes off hangers. I saw a jacket hanging, but he had stabbed it as well so that there were large rips on one side. The sitting area was untouched. I imagined Mr. Stark had gotten up here before Ryder could start on that.

  The sight sickened me. There was no doubt. Anyone who had done all this needed intense professional care, most likely around the clock. Considering him potentially suicidal was no stretch of the imagination.

  I closed the door softly and started down the stairs, pausing when I heard a door close in the hallway above. Samantha appeared. She looked like she had been crying.

  “You told on me,” she said. “I don’t care what my father says. You’re not my sister, not even my half sister, and you’ll never be.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ears,” I replied. It was one of Mr. Stark’s favorite expressions.

  “What?”

  “I hope you’re right, Samantha. I hope they finally discover that you were hatched from some egg left by the devil at the front door and we’re really not even half related.”

  “Ha, ha,” she said, but she looked a little shaken. She was afraid to get too close to me on the stairway.