Page 31 of Share with Me

“But my old bed is gone.”

“What are you talking about, Aunt Ella?”

“Go upstairs and see.”

Brinley held Aunt Ella’s arm. “We’ll find your bedroom, okay? I’m glad you’re safe.”

She turned to the officers. “Thank you.”

“The neighbors are mad their flower beds have been trampled on and, uh, you know.”

Brinley wanted to run and hide her head in those big urns. She was speechless.

“They’re pansies,” Aunt Ella whimpered.

“The flowers or the neighbors?” Brinley asked. “Never mind.”

One of the officers spoke. “Trespassing is trespassing, ma’am. So is vandalism.”

“I’ll call her doctor in the morning to see what’s going on.”

“Malik has already texted her doctor, Miss Brinley,” Chaz said.

“Thank you.”

Brinley offered all three men coffee, but they declined. After the men left, Brinley went around the house, locking the doors and windows. When she returned to the foyer to set the house alarm, Aunt Ella was still standing in the same spot.

“I want to sleep in my old bed.” Spindly fingers pointed upward. Upstairs.

Brinley hadn’t paid any attention in years past because it hadn’t been a problem. The renovation that her parents had done to the house this year had apparently not considered Aunt Ella’s needs. Frankly, Brinley hadn’t opened any other door upstairs besides her own bedroom door since she arrived. She wondered what happened to Aunt Ella’s bedroom.

Aunt Ella mentioned earlier that she had come from the guest cottage. This must be the first year they’d moved her there. Aunt Ella didn’t like changes.

Well, neither did Brinley.

“Let’s go find your bedroom, Aunt Ella.”

They took the grand staircase with Aunt Ella clutching her one slipper. The rest of her was cocooned in the blanket.

“Whose blanket is that?”

No answer.

Brinley noticed that Aunt Ella’s heels and soles were filthy. All that tracked on the marble stair treads.

They reached the top floor, but they couldn’t find Aunt Ella’s room. Brinley hadn’t been up here in ages as her bedroom was on the second floor overlooking the violin pool. Walking down the hallway, Brinley realized that in her parents’ renovation euphoria, they had knocked down walls, merged bedrooms, and transformed the entire third floor. What used to be Grandpa Brooks’s bedroom—where he’d passed away—now looked like a library with comfortable reading chairs.

Aunt Ella became frantic. She ran up and down the hallway, opening and closing doors. No one was in any of those rooms. “Where is my bed? Where is my bed?”

Brinley hushed her and locked her arms into hers. “Why don’t you sleep in my bedroom, Aunt Ella? We’ll sort it out in the morning.”

Aunt Ella seemed to think about that proposal. Slowly, she yawned and nodded.

Brinley took her to the elevator, where they went down one floor. She opened her bedroom door. She heard the ocean waves again, and now Aunt Ella also did, apparently, because she walked across the plush carpet floor to stand at the tall windows next to a pair of locked doors.

Outside, the sky was clear and the moon was out. The sound of the ocean grew stronger even through the closed doors and windows.

Brinley picked up her blouse and jeans from the bed, and rolled her suitcase out the door. She came back to get Aunt Ella settled.

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