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I back the wheelchair out of the room. When we pass into the hall, Lenora lets out a huff of awe. It sounds like the relieved exhalation of someone who’s been holding her breath a long, long time. Her eyes widen as we move backward down the hallway, trying to take in everything all at once. The carpet, the wallpaper, every door we pass. It makes me wonder how long it’s been since she last left her room. Months? Years? Decades?
Because the service stairs are too narrow for her wheelchair, I have no choice but to use the Grand Stairs. My first thought is to try to hoist Lenora over one shoulder and carry her down the steps and out the door. Good in theory, perhaps, but difficult in practice. I know my limits. Even if I can somehow manage to carry her all the way down the Grand Stairs, getting her back up will be twice as hard. My only choice is to slowly back the wheelchair down each step and hope for the best.
“Hold on,” I warn. “It’s about to get bumpy.”
I tilt the wheelchair, say a little prayer, and slowly pull it down the first step. The impact jostles Lenora so hard I worry she’s about to fall out.
“Keep going?”
Lenora unclenches her left hand from the armrest and responds with a hearty double tap.
The next few steps are just as rough, but I soon find my groove. Going fast, ironically, is better than going slow. Rather than stopping andstarting step by jarring step, I lower the wheelchair to the landing in one continuous pull. Lenora shimmies like a bowl of Jell-O the whole time, but at least she’s not almost knocked out of the chair. I do it again on the way to the ground floor, the chair settling onto the tile in a shuddering thud.
“You okay?” I ask Lenora.
She looks back at me with unabashed glee. Her green eyes dance, and a blush of joy paints her cheeks. If she could laugh, I suspect she’d be cackling right now.
We head toward the dining room, doing a quick spin around the massive table there and passing the equally large fireplace before heading to the French doors. I fling them open and make sure there’s a clear path for the wheelchair.
More slate shingles have fallen from the roof in the past two days. A veritable rainfall of them. Each day, Jessie and Carter have swept them up, only to have more appear in the morning. Today, the terrace is clean of them, allowing me to see fresh cracks crisscrossing its marble surface. Not a good sign. But also not enough to keep me from granting Lenora’s single wish.
I return to the wheelchair. Before emerging onto the terrace, Lenora reaches out to me with her left hand. I take it, feeling the rush of her pulse beneath the skin.
Then I lead her outside.
The wind, sunshine, and sea air hit us all at once. Lenora gasps, delighted. I bring her to the edge of the terrace, stopping only when her knees touch the railing. Closing her eyes, she tilts her face to the sky and basks in the sun. Her hair catches the wind, the gray tendrils streaming in the breeze. Seeing her so ecstatic about something as simple as being outside makes me both sad that she can’t enjoy this on a regular basis and furious at Mrs. Baker for confining her indoors.
I stand beside Lenora, leaning on the railing, watching the waves far below. While certainly lovely, it’s not much different than the viewshe gets from her bedroom windows. Because there’s so much risk involved—and because it might never happen again—I want her to experience something different. Something special.
“Lenora,” I say, “when was the last time you got to lie down in the grass and look up at the clouds?”
I know the answer, even if Lenora can’t provide it. Decades.
I guide the wheelchair to the end of the terrace, pull it down the steps to the lawn, and, careful to stay far away from the new, unimproved cliff’s edge, park it in the grass. I then lift Lenora out of her chair and lower her until she’s on her back, facing the sky. I lie down next to her, and together we stare at the endless blue overhead.
We stay like that for a long time. Maybe an hour. Maybe more. I’m not sure because I doze off, lulled to sleep by the wind, waves, and sunshine. Nights at Hope’s End haven’t gotten any easier. I’m still having nightmares of my mother and still hearing sounds from Lenora’s room that, when I inevitably get out of bed to check, end up being nothing. I wake each morning exhausted, blinking in the harsh light of sunrise and finding a mattress slid slightly lower than the morning before it.
Now, though, I awake to the sun higher in the sky and Lenora next to me, taking deep, contented breaths.
“It’s time to talk about the baby,” I say.
Lenora’s breathing stops. A sign she doesn’t want to. But she must. Even though I don’t want to ruin her special outing, she needs to hold up her end of the bargain. When she exhales, I say, “Was the baby born?”
I sit up, watching her left hand as it taps twice against the ground.
“A boy or a girl?” I say, even though I know Lenora can’t answer by tapping. I rephrase the question. “Was it a girl?”
One tap.
“So it was a boy.”
Lenora nods this time, a flicker of a smile crossing her face. It quickly fades when I say, “What happened to him? Did he die?”
One tap.
“Did you give him away?”
One tap.