“You have a runny nose,” I said.
Emily sneezed into a blanket.
“I’m also dying.”
“Very tragic,” I said. “Drink your juice.”
By noon they were playing hide-and-seek like tiny maniacs.
“No running,” I called.
They ran.
Grace yelled from upstairs, “That was Emily!”
Emily yelled back, “I’m baby! I don’t know rules!”
I was heating soup when Grace came into the kitchen and tugged my sleeve.
Her face was serious.
I stared at her.
“What?”
She nodded. “Do you want to meet my mom? She liked hide-and-seek too.”
Something cold moved through me.
“Grace,” I said carefully, “what do you mean?”
She frowned.
“Do you want to see where she lives?”
Emily wandered in behind her, dragging a stuffed rabbit by one ear.
“Mommy is downstairs,” she said.
My heart started pounding.
“Downstairs where?” I asked.
Grace grabbed my hand. “The basement. Come on.”
Every bad thought hit me at once.
The locked door.
The secrecy. The way the girls looked at it. A dead wife.
A basement Daniel never opened around me.
Grace pulled me down the hall like she was showing me a birthday surprise.
At the door, she looked up at me and said, “You just have to open it.”
My mouth went dry. “Does Daddy take you down there?”
She nodded. “Sometimes.
When he misses her.”
That did not help.
I tried the knob. Locked.
Grace said, “It’s okay. Mommy is there.”
I should have waited.
I know that now.
Instead, I pulled two hairpins from my bun and knelt by the lock with shaking hands.
Emily stood beside me, sniffling. Grace bounced on her toes.
The lock clicked.
I froze.
Grace whispered, “See?”
I opened the door.
A sharp smell hit me first. Sour.
Damp.
I took one step down, then another.
The basement was dim, but I could see enough.
And then my fear changed.
It wasn’t a body.
It wasn’t some hidden nightmare.
It was a shrine.
There was an old couch with a blanket folded over one arm. Shelves lined with albums. Framed pictures of Daniel’s wife everywhere.
Children’s drawings. Boxes labeled in black marker. A little tea set on a child-sized table.
A cardigan hanging over a chair. A pair of women’s rain boots by the wall. An old TV beside stacks of DVDs.
The smell was mildew.
A pipe was leaking into a bucket. Water had stained part of the wall.
I just stood there.
Grace smiled. “This is where Mom lives.”
I looked at her.
“What do you mean, sweetheart?”
She pointed around the room. “Daddy brings us here so we can be with her.”
Emily hugged her rabbit tighter. “We watch Mommy on TV.”
Grace nodded.
“And Daddy talks to her.”
I looked back at the room.
Not a crime scene.
Not a prison.
Something sadder.
Daniel’s grief had a locked room.
I walked to the TV cabinet. The top DVD said Zoo trip. Another said Grace birthday.
There was a notebook on the table, open to a page. I didn’t mean to read it, but I caught one line.
I wish you were here.
I shut it at once.
Then I heard the front door open upstairs.
Daniel was home early.
His voice carried down the hall. “Girls?”
Grace lit up.
“Daddy! I showed her Mommy!”
The footsteps stopped.
Then they came fast.
Daniel appeared at the basement door and went white when he saw it open.
For one awful second, nobody spoke. Daniel just stared at us for a second.
His tone made Grace flinch.
I stepped in front of the girls.
“Do not speak to me like that.”
He pressed both hands to his head. “Why is this open?”
“Because your daughter told me her mother lives down here.”
His face changed. The anger fell right out of it.
Grace’s voice shook.
“Did I do bad?”
He looked at her like his heart had split open. “No. No, baby.”
I crouched down.
“Why don’t you two go watch cartoons? I’ll bring soup.”
They hesitated, then went upstairs.
I turned back to him. “Talk.”
