Page 18 of Room for Us

I don’t know why she said that. Or why it felt true.

Or why, for the first time in years, I sleep the whole night through. No jolting awake. No dreams, cold sweats, or tossing and turning.

Nothing but deep, dark relief.

12

After cleaning up dinner, I retreat to the innkeeper’s suite, tucked behind the kitchen and close to the laundry room and basement access.

Where Aunt B lived most of her life is the one place in Rose House I haven’t touched except to dust and air out the staleness. Her clothes are still in the closet, stuffed to capacity. Faux-fur coats, shapeless dresses, loud patterned tops, velvet scarves, bright belts, silk kimonos, and a row of identical two-inch pump heels in different colors. Her books remain on the bookshelf, including an impressive collection of Harlequin romances. Her makeup is in the bathroom cabinet, along with a stock of her favorite red hair dye.

I thought staying in her room would make me feel even closer to her, but now that I’m here, I feel a vast emptiness. Like she’s really gone. And maybe she is.

She hasn’t spoken to me since yesterday. I’ve tried not to think about it. Or miss her. Or talk to the empty air—a big one if I want to avoid questions. But here, surrounded by all these leftovers from her life, I’m slammed with loneliness.

The irony, of course, is that for the first time since moving in, I’m not alone. There’s another person in the house. A painfully broody-looking man with a sharp jaw and otherworldly eyes. Tired, jaded eyes—eyes aged far beyond his body. He’s exactly the type of man I’ve always avoided. Too complicated. Too much work. Too barbed with baggage.

Joke’s on me, though, because now those very descriptions might as well be stapled to my forehead.

Putting aside pointless thoughts of loneliness, Mr. Hart’s gloomy eyes, and missing ghosts, I spend a few minutes answering texts from my mom:

Stop worrying. Everything’s good. He was perfectly normal. Yes, he liked the roast. Thanks again for the recipe.

… and from my brother:

No, Zander, he didn’t kill me yet, but thanks for asking.

At around ten, I crawl into bed with one of Aunt B’s romance novels, but only manage to read a few pages. Tossing it on the nightstand, I turn off the light and close my eyes. They open immediately. I stare at the ceiling.

What if Mr. Hart calls and I don’t hear the ring? What if he isn’t sleeping? What room did he pick? Probably the Rose Room. What if the mattress isn’t to his liking? What if I left something in the room when I cleaned it yesterday? Oh shit, did I empty the bathroom trash? For a hot second, I play with the idea of sneaking into the room to double-check.

It’s nearing one-thirty in the morning when, out of desperation, I resort to the breathing exercise Mom used on Zander and me when we were kids. Better than melatonin, she’d say.

Hands on my stomach, I breathe in while imagining a balloon filling beneath my hands. Into the balloon I put all my thoughts and worries. When I breathe out, I envision the balloon floating up and away.

I do it again, and again.

Lights out.

I wake up thirty seconds before my alarm. Eyes wide-open. Breath gasping. Where am I? Then BLERRP BLERRRP goes my alarm, intent on scraping my brain from my skull. I stab my phone until the sound stops, then blink at the grayish light on the ceiling.

Six o’clock is an ungodly hour. It’s also the time Chris woke up every day to go to the gym, perky as a stripper’s tits. In the beginning of our marriage, he’d try to get me up with him. His methods were effective in waking me—hello, magic fingers—but I only stayed awake long enough to welcome his body into mine, after which I fell blissfully back to sleep.

No more dawn post-coital naps for me. Maybe Whatsherface enjoys them now. Or maybe she gets up with him, like I never did. Goes to the gym with him. They probably make smoothies after, then fuck with gusto on the bed that Chris and I picked out.

“Shut up,” I tell my head, then I haul my ass from bed.

The next ten minutes aren’t pretty. I’ve always loved sleep. We go way back. Straight from the womb, I slept snug as a bug all night long. Fast forward to adulthood and if I don’t get eight hours, I’m wrecked.

My bathroom mirror confirms: Zombie Zoey is here. Red eyes, rat’s nest hair, and puffy dark circles because why should I have dark circles without also looking like bees planted stingers in my eyelids? Desperate to not look dead while serving my guest breakfast, I fill the sink with ice-cold tap water and dunk my face. Once. Twice. Three times—the face-care routine of the terminally tired.

When my cheeks are numb but my eyelids are back to normal, I throw my hair into a bun to be dealt with later, brush my teeth, and shiver my way back into the bedroom. Spring at high altitude means cold mornings almost year-round.

The central heat—a gift from my grandparents’ days—works, but like everything in old houses, has its daily struggles. I spend a few seconds standing over the room’s single floor vent, which tries hard to heat the space but can’t fully overcome the drafts from old seals on the windows. I should have bought thicker curtains for the upstairs rooms. What if he was cold last night? Did he have enough blankets?

I dress swiftly. Work-casual attire. I have the reputation of Rose House to uphold—rebuild. Another look in the mirror confirms my skin is back to a normal hue. Eye drops get rid of lingering redness and here I go.

In a perfect world—in which I had bookings coming at me left and right—I’d hire a chef to handle breakfast. I enjoy cooking, but I’ve unlocked a whole new level of pressure now that I’m responsible for feeding someone other than family or friends.

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