Page 33 of The Manor of Dreams

Her mother froze. She looked up from the phone and her expression slacked. “What is—?”

“I’m asking you,” Nora said, “if you were here. This is your car, isn’t it?”

Ma shrank. Finally, in a quiet, hollow voice she said, “Yes. That’s me.”

Nora’s head spun. This whole time she’d assumed that Vivian’s daughters had been throwing around false accusations. They seemed so desperate for the house, it made sense they would do something as diabolical, as insane, as to frame her mother. But now—

July 20: two weeks ago, almost three now. What happened that day? Ma had told Nora she needed to go to a doctor’s appointment. She didn’t come back until well after dinner.Ran into a friend, was the excuse when Nora asked her what had taken so long. Ma had lied. Why had this been something worth lying about?

Ma’s eyes didn’t leave the photo. “How did you get this?”

Nora waited. She didn’t trust how her voice would sound and she wanted to be firm. She deserved answers. “Doesn’t matter. Why were you here?”

“It’s not—” Ma’s hands fell limp to her sides. “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Vivian called and asked me to come.”

“What?Why?”

“Our families have a complicated history. She wanted to settle some things between us.???????.”

“What did she want to talk about?”

“Many things in the past,” her mother finally admitted. “But mostly about Ada. Her daughter.”

“Who?”

“Ada.” Ma looked at her squarely. “The one who died thirty-four years ago.”

The words sank between them. “Died—here?”

Ma nodded.

There had been no mention of this. From Nora’s research she knew that Vivian had lost her husband to a drug overdose in 1990. But she hadn’t seen any mention of Vivian Yin losing a daughter, too. The two sisters above used to be three. What else did she not know? “How? What happened to her? And what did you have to do with it?”

Ma just kept shaking her head. “Nora. I can’t talk about this.”

“Then how can I trust you?”

Ma leaned against the doorframe and closed her eyes. “You don’t believe me. You still think I did something to Vivian.”

Ma had always been opaque. Nora could never figure out what she was thinking, but that didn’t mean she was capable of murder. Nora was letting the Yin sisters get to her. “I’m sorry. I believe you.” Nora exhaled a long breath. “You knew about the will, then? She told you she was giving you the house?”

“Not then,” Ma said. “I really didn’t know she was going to do that.”

“Okay.”

“Do you think that I need to call a lawyer?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Just in case.”

Ma went to her room and closed the door behind her. Nora heard the ringing tone of her mother’s phone through the wall.Ada.The name ricocheted around her head. The hallway lights flickered once, as if in response.

Nora squinted into the kitchen sink later that morning. There was some kind of grit collected at the bottom. Nora rinsed it away. The drain plugged up for a moment, and then the water gurgled down. Hadn’t she just done this yesterday? Something skittered around the drain,and she jumped. She peered closer and then heard someone approach behind her. Madeline stood at the kitchen counter. “Oh. Hi.”

Madeline looked calmer now. Her long hair fell loose over her shoulders. She was wearing another sweater this time. Not the white cardigan. It all came back to Nora then. The roots writhing and pulling Madeline into the ground. She felt a jolt of panic. She shouldn’t have said what she said to Madeline. She should have offered to take care of her wound. To make sure she was okay. Why didn’t Nora do that? “Are you…” Nora looked toward her arm.

“Oh. Sure. I’m fine.”

Madeline was holding it at a strange angle, across her stomach, as if there were some invisible sling. Nora still felt anxious. But Madeline wasn’t saying anything more, so Nora turned to go.

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