Page 6 of Room for Us

Only no one had actually said anything, and everyone heard me. Including Pastor Mike, who turned such a deep, mortified shade of red I thought he was going to pass out.

That was the first and last time I responded to Aunt B in public. We’re in the closet now, my dead aunt and I.

I spend the next couple of hours in the Lavender Room trying to find the source of the ever-present scent. I sniff the walls, the floorboards. I pull out every drawer in the antique dresser, turn over the bare mattress, and peek behind scenic paintings by local artists. Just like the Rose Room, and the Tulip Room, and the Lilac Room… I can’t find any sachets.

Covered in sweat and dust and lightheaded from my liquid lunch, I finally give up and plop onto the window seat. This used to be my favorite room as a child. Not just because of the small roll-top desk I was enamored with when I was young, or because I love lavender—which I do—but because of the wide bay window facing the street.

Old pines and spruce sit along the curving road, gnarled and huge, reminding those below that this land used to belong to them. But no one looks up much these days, and the houses beneath keep getting bigger. The cottages that used to share the street with Rose House are gone, replaced by rustic mansions. For the first time in my memory, this stately Victorian isn’t the most beautiful home on the street.

In fact, we’re an eyesore. The exterior needs a new coat of paint and the porch roof is sagging in one corner. The yard is a mess, the gravel drive overgrown with weeds. There might as well be a tower of tires and a rusting car sitting on blocks.

When did she give up on this place?

Why didn’t I notice?

Guilt sinks its fangs a bit deeper into me.

Like my mom reminded me, I haven’t been back to Sun River in years. Wrapped up in my fake-fairytale life, I rarely reached out to Aunt Barb besides short phone calls on holidays. I knew nothing about what was going on in her life.

Was she happy? Sad? Was she really going to sell?

And now it’s too late. Sort of. If I don’t count my ongoing hallucination. And I don’t, because that would be crazy, to actually think my aunt is haunting me. Thanks to a psychologist mother, I know it’s likely my own guilt haunting me. Over the years I’ve collected secrets in my heart, and I stayed away from home because I was afraid I’d spill them.

Barb was a Lilac Lady through and through. She could sniff a lie as easily as she could spot a conman, and she wore you down. Not with love and affection, though. With the bulldozer of her flaming blue stare. I’ve never been able to keep anything from her. Not one pilfered cookie or missing vase, victim of an errant soccer ball.

And the hard truth is, I’d spill every last secret right now if it meant I could have her back. Alive.

Rose House was all she had, and I’m still in shock she left it to me. Two thousand square feet Victorian charm dating back to when Hemingway made his home here.

This was the house my dad and Barbara grew up in, though the Kemper name wasn’t always a dignified one. Who am I kidding—it’s still not dignified. But back in the day, when gambling became illegal and the town’s casino shut down, Grandad Kemper took it upon himself to run Sun River’s premiere underground gambling house in the basement beneath me.

Ghost Barb was right about one thing—the town has changed a lot since the days it was a sleepy mountain escape for the nation’s eccentric and elite. In those days, the inn was booked solid for seven months out of the year. But that was before builders erected condo complexes all over the base of the mountain, and before AirBnb.

“What are you trying so hard to fix, pumpkin?” asks my aunt. “You of all people should know we can’t go backward, only forward.”

I shrug, watching a mom push a double-stroller down the sidewalk outside. The sidewalks are new. The road used to be rough, full of character. Now it’s… safe. Boring. Perfect for young, wealthy women to jog or walk strollers down to Main Street for coffee and shopping.

The object of my scrutiny glances at the inn as she passes. She’s pretty. Young. Her nose wrinkles. She strolls on, her toned ass and designer leggings disappearing from view.

I want to be offended, but the place really has gone to hell.

“What happened, Aunt B?” I ask the empty room.

“You always were dramatic. Maybe nothing happened. Have you thought of that? Maybe I wanted to relax for once in my life. Or maybe I just wanted to ruffle some feathers. These nouveau riche with their tacky—”

“Okay, okay. I get it.”

A big white van bounces down the driveway and stops. A man gets out—gray-haired and mustachioed. There’s pep in his step as he heads for the front door. He disappears onto the porch, and a moment later the doorbell rings.

“I’ll get it,” I tell my aunt.

My aunt who’s dead.

“Fuuuuck,” I groan, pushing to my feet and heading for the stairs. “Keep it together, Zoey. You’re doin’ great. No one knows you’re nuts. Or that you talk to yourself in the third person.”

I open the front door with a genuine smile for the father of one of my dearest high school friends.

“Mr. Gates. So good to see you. How’s the family? Please, come in.”

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