Page 51 of Ruby Malice

Kirill told me he gets whatever he wants, and now, I understand why. Because he’s willing to stack the deck in his favor.

I check the small map again and trudge down the hall to the first room on the list. Considering what I know now, I expect to open the door and find some kind of sex room. Or maybe a tiled torture room with a drain in the center and blood running in rivulets down the grout.

Instead, it’s a standard bedroom. Four-poster bed, white linens, and large windows overlooking the front lawn. It’s beautiful but impersonal. And when I open the closet, I find it empty. A guest room, unused.

“This is all perfectly normal,” I say to myself. “Nothing strange at all.”

Then, before the shrilly voice of alarm in my head grows any louder, I get to work.

I change the linens, vacuum the rug under the bed, sweep the floors, and clean the windows. I run my duster over the dresser and nightstand, but they look spotless already. Someone was probably in here yesterday. Maybe even earlier this morning.

When I’m done, I close the door and move to the next room, only to find it’s a copy of the one before. So I move through the exact same cleaning process again.

By the time I’m done dusting the already-spotless dresser, I’m in a rhythm. My body is busy and my mind is at peace. Having something to keep me occupied has always made me feel grounded. It’s one of the reasons I know I’d love having kids one day. Brady and Lily are exhausting, but there’s so much purpose to be found in caring for another person.

I know Lana is a good mom, but some days, she seems like she’d rather pass the kids off to their nanny than spend any real time with them. And they see their dad so little.

I know what that feels like. To feel like you are the last item at the end of a parent’s priority list.

When I have kids, I want to be there for them. I’ll choose a man who will love them—who will loveme,too—bank account be damned.

The third room is yet another guest space, another mirror image of the first and second, but I have this cleaning routine down pat now. My body is on autopilot mode, sweeping, tucking, dusting. I’m sliding all of my supplies back into the bucket to move onto the last room in my rotation when I realize I’ve been humming this entire time.

I carry on, trying to let the subconscious part of my brain take it a few more bars so I can figure out what it is I was singing. And then I hear it.

I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day. When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May.

As the words come back to me, so does his voice. The way he sounded bopping around the kitchen and singing to the radio. When he noticed me standing in the doorway, he spun around and pointed.

“Talking about my girl. My girl!”

Dad swept me into a dance, letting me clumsily stand on his feet while he moved around and sang. And when it was over, he plopped me back in the doorway with a kiss on the head. “You’re my girl, Raynie. Don’t forget it.”

Suddenly, I feel dirty. Invaded. The fact that little bits of him can creep in even when I haven’t spoken to him in years. When I haven’t seen him in even longer than that.

Mom never cared for music. We hardly had it in the house. She liked to open the windows and listen to the birds sing in the morning. She liked her rain machine that she let play on her bedside table every night up until she died.

Dad was the one who filled every corner of the house with big band and jazz and groups from the Fifties and Sixties I’d never heard of. When he left, so did the music.

Running from the ghosts of my past, I scoop up my cleaning supplies and duck across the hall to the last room.

As soon as I open the door, I know this one is different.

White light is diffused across the ceiling and the warm wooden floors. It pours through the sheer curtains that hang across the back wall, which is made of floor-to-ceiling windows.

Even before I stumble across the room in a daze and yank the curtains back, I know the view that awaits me. It’s the one I saw from the living room yesterday: the ocean lapping against the shore.

I press my hands against the glass I’ll be cleaning in just a moment and look down. If the windowpane shattered, I’d crash against the cliff below. There’s no soft, manicured lawn to catch me. It’s rough, jagged nature. Raw and wild. It fills my chest with a strange desire to strip down and dive into the cold water below.

I want to feel the ocean against my skin.

Mom always said,“When I’m in the ocean, there’s no place I’d rather be.”

I need that now. A reminder that I’m here. That I’m alive. I need to remember that I’ve outgrown all of the drama with my dad. And with my sisters, too, for that matter. I’ve always done what I thought was right for me—foregoing college, taking care of Mom, trying to become closer with Lana and Lexi.

I’m the only person who knows what is right for me. I don’t need anyone else.

“You look like you could use some company.”

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