Page 25 of Behind These Four Walls
Anyway, when Eden said that about her mother, Isla slowly stopped sweeping. What did she want Isla to say? Did she want one of those lines people said that didn’t really mean shit?Condolences for your lossandprayers for your family, which Isla supposed people meant even if they couldn’t really empathize. What did the grieving really want in that moment when they’d said their loved one was gone?
Isla pushed the broom head back and forth. “My dad ended up in the river because he was too nice to say no and caught the heat for something he didn’t know about. And as for my mom, well, a baby wasn’t a good look for her, so ...” She shrugged. “Who knows where she is now or evenifshe is now, you know what I mean?”
That sparked life in Eden, and she watched Isla like she was alive and not the zombie she’d just been.
“Death sucks.” Isla swept again, this time with a little shrug as she did it. “You know?”
“Thank you,” Eden said, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe Isla’s audacity. She’d been expecting those true but empty lines ofsympathy. She hadn’t been expecting the truth. Isla had taken a chance with a surprise attack, and she wasn’t sure why. She didn’t know Eden from a hole in the wall. She’d seen her around, sure, at the counter or in the drive-through. They’d never talked. And Eden had never dined in until today. Isla had shocked her into forgetting temporarily about impending death with a death that had already happened, as if she were saying, “See, I got nothing and am still sweeping.”
They saythe rest was history. But for Isla and Eden, it was also a beginning.
Hearing Elise struggle opened up a wound Isla had barely begun to heal—the death of her dad and her life as a ward of the state. She was pissed at the world, at God, at fate for letting someone as good as Elise die sad and still thinking about someone from her past. It was one thing to see someone you cared about leave and never come back. It was worse to actually watch them die. Isla couldn’t take the room, or how warm it was in there because Elise was always cold. She couldn’t take the smell of impending death, both sour and sweet, anymore. She had to step out, abandoning Eden for the first time ever. She’d have done anything for Eden. But this thing, watching Elise die, was one thing she couldn’t do. She couldn’t be the strength for either of them, for all her tough talk. All she could do was run away.
She didn’t go far, though. Just right outside the door, where at least a wall could be between them. Where she could still be there without beinginthere.
Elise said, “You are the best gift he could have given me. You know that? My Garden of Eden.”
Eden sniffed. “Some gift. I can’t even help you.”
“But you can. And you were my perfect baby girl. The best thing. You are loved, Eden. By me. By him. Go back, okay? That thing that happened. Forget it all. Sell this house. Use the money I’ve left you.Do all you want to do, but let the past go, okay? Forgive yourself. Take this.” There was movement, and Eden protesting, “I can’t take that.”
“Please. So I’ll always be with you. My chain to your bracelet, a matching pair. It shows he loves you. Please talk to him.”
“Sure, Mama” was Eden’s reply. She sounded light and chipper on the outside. But Isla could tell it was all bullshit. Whoever Eden was supposed to forgive and talk to, she wouldn’t. Whoever had caused her and her mother to be here, she’d never let go. Isla knew that because Eden had told her over and over. But she’d tell her mother anything she wanted to hear. Elise had lived a life of hurt and regret. And Eden would take on her mother’s pain in the deepest grudge, which Isla would never understand.
“All right, then,” Elise said. Isla took the cue to peek in on them, watching as Eden gripped her mother’s hands.
Elise’s sigh was deep and tired. “You should go now. I want to rest. Just put my pills on the stand in case the pain comes, but I have the IV to help too.”
The machine would only dispense pain medication every few hours so that Elise could never administer too much.
The thought made Isla cold inside and out.
Eden hesitated before finally coming out of her mother’s room. She gingerly touched the gold chain that was now around her neck. Her mother had always worn it, just as Eden had always worn the bracelet on her wrist. Neither of them had ever been without these pieces until now.
Eden and Isla stayed up in the living room with the TV on, though Isla couldn’t have told you what was on. They fell asleep to the methodic beeping from the machines in Elise’s room. Then, at 2 a.m., something woke Isla. A light breeze moved across them where they sat withMurder, She Wrote, one of Elise’s favorite old shows, playing in the background. The breeze was light as a feather, grazing the tips of the hairs on Isla’s skin, making them rise. And just as it had come in, it was gone, like the scent of perfume lingering behind. She and Eden looked at each other, not needing to say what they both knew because the machines had started beeping.
Elise found a way to administer too much.
Chapter Twenty
Present Day
Panic was what chased Isla awake the following morning in an unfamiliar room with all its piped-in hotel-fragrance scents. She’d slept a fitful sleep full of memories she hadn’t wanted to think about.
It took a moment for her mind to get itself in order and begin to recognize where she was. The Corrigan estate. She nodded, confirming this was correct. The next thought was why she was there. To infiltrate this family in order to find Eden.
Eden.
The revelation slammed into her as if she’d been punched in the chest. She even placed her hand over her rib cage to help steady the heart that was rapidly beating harder and faster. Their Edie Corrigan—the elusive sister who was supposedly living abroad, practically banned from being mentioned by the family—was her Eden Galloway. Her best friend. The friend she’d mourned all these years. The one who’d vanished into the dark that night after telling her to hang tight and that she’d be back. Only, she never did come back.
All Isla wanted to do was get away from this place and regroup. Go back to the tiny motel where life wasn’t like living under a microscope. A place she controlled. She had to go now. She’d think of another way in when she was in her space, but for now, she needed out. She lurchedout of bed and searched for her clothes. She found them on the bench at the end of the bed, folded and placed beside a white retail bag from a high-end store. In the bag was a fresh set of clothes.
Isla shot up on full alert, searching for danger and where the person still lurked. She stepped away from the bench as if there was an improvised explosive device in it about to go off. When it didn’t, she paced the floor, nibbling on a nail, deep in thought. When exactly had the bag materialized and the clothes, which she’d thrown carelessly all over the floor as she’d rushed into the room after Eden’s true identity blew up her world, been folded nice and neat? Alarmed, she looked at the door. Someone had been in her room while she slept. She put her hand over her mouth at the realization that she hadn’t even realized when she was not alone.
She went to the door and turned the handle. It was locked. Then how? She couldn’t remember locking it when she’d returned and apparently slept the sleep of the dead. Despite her unease, Isla manage to shower and dress in the new clothes that happened to be her size. After placing her old clothes in the bag, she left the guest room. She checked Holland’s room and found it empty, so she went ahead downstairs, nodding at the various staff who passed her along the way. She reached where the double stairs connected and was once again in the presence of that majestic family portrait that had a whole new meaning for her now. Before, it had held intrigue and allure. Now Isla felt it held terrible secrets and maybe monsters behind the glamour of the perfect family. The secret of why one of the members wasn’t in the portrait, glaring down at her like the others. Erased as if she didn’t exist anywhere except Victor’s study.
One of the house staff happened to be passing as Isla took the last step, and Isla asked where she could find a ride back to town. When the young woman gave Isla an annoyed look for being interrupted, Isla nearly called her on it but checked herself. The regular Isla would have given the girl a taste of her own medicine, but she was not supposed tobe regular Isla. She was a guest and had better stay in character at all times, like Rey had repeatedly drilled into her.