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John lay sprawled over the rough carpet, one finger resting over a cigarette-burned hole. The melted, blackened edges of the

synthetic fabric were hard, and John winced at the thought of fire on flesh. He looked up dazedly at the two concerned faces

peering down at him.

He was clothed yet felt naked, exposed. Did they know? Had they seen the Grey Man, felt the pain and shame John experienced

in the House? Without thinking he put an arm across his chest, an instinct to shield himself.

“Are you OK?” Persephone asked shakily.

John sat up and found it difficult to meet their eyes. “Yes.”

“No portal,” Ruben said, “but we saw something.”

“I can’t believe they did that to him,” Persephone said hoarsely. “I—it just—” She shut her eyes and tears rolled down her

cheeks. “They were supposed to be his new parents.”

She hadn’t seen the vision, the fog, the Grey Man, in the Grey House.

Ruben’s own eyes shone red. “That poor kid.”

Ruben hadn’t seen any of it, either.

Persephone swiped away a tear. “I don’t know where the wife was when her husband did all those terrible things, but they were

supposed to love him and protect him more than anyone. God.”

For a long moment, no one spoke. John shook away the remnants of the vision of the Grey Man and the Grey House with its twisted

allegiance, tried to free himself of the questions that seeped into his mind just as the fog had seeped through the floorboards,

because to question the ownership of the House was sacrilege.

The House is mine.

He closed his eyes in an attempt to gather more about the freckled bully and to expand the linen closet so that he could see

his way out, but the dark space broke apart, reflections over rippled water.

Ruben sniffed. “What were you doing in the linen closet?”

“Mabel said I liked it there. I found it peaceful and...” He cringed. They didn’t need to know any of this.

“It has to be hard,” said Ruben. “I mean, that was your own memory, and I know you get random glimpses from people, but—but

do you see stuff like that all the time? Terrible things from other people’s pasts?”

“Sometimes.”

“Ours?”

John hesitated. Nodded.

Neither Ruben nor Persephone replied. And then she said, “I’m sorry you have to see that stuff.”

“Me, too,” said Ruben.

John felt his body relax, as if for one moment, he’d let go and was sharing an emotional weight he was unaware of carrying.

The weight was still there, but it was easier. He felt less alone. Or rather, he could see now that he had been alone because

now he was not, and for this he appreciated them, which felt like a tiny, soft explosion in his chest. He laughed.

“Um, you OK?” Persephone asked.

He opened his mouth to tell them how he felt, but as they stared back at him with their confused expressions he felt silly

for the laugh and foolish for being on the receiving end of what he feared might be their pity. He rose to his feet. “Thanks,”

he said self-consciously, “but you two should get some sleep.”

13

At eleven the next morning, John sat with Ruben and Persephone and Parker in the Cross living room. After John and Persephone

went to the bank, they’d all picked up food from Raymond’s Fish Fry Dine-In & Take-Out to, in Parker’s words, celebrate , and were now (sans John) stuffing their faces. Mrs. Cross was at bingo.

John, like the day before, had no desire to eat. The scent of french fries seemed to, increasingly, overwhelm the city itself,

but just as quickly as it happened, when the odor reached peak reek, it’d disappear. As it was, the stench of fried potato

drifting from everyone’s disposable trays had driven him outside, and he’d only recently stepped back in to catch up with

the conversation.

“A little here and there adds up to a lot,” Parker was saying to Ruben and Persephone. “But I spent some fixin’ up Nefertiti.”

Persephone glared at her brother. “Your bike?”

“She’s my pride and joy. How you think she got so good lookin’?”

“You said Mama needed money for meds!”

“I wasn’t lyin’ about that.”

“So you spent all the money you stole on that bike and Mama’s medication?” Persephone said in disbelief.

“I couldn’t tell you the whole truth. You wouldn’t have taken it serious. And not all. I saved. Had a bag put away for Mama,

for me. For the future—school, maybe. I don’t know.”

Persephone huffed in annoyance. John had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last time Parker found himself in this sort of trouble.

“Hey, man,” Parker said to John, “you’ve been lookin’ a little, how do I put it... more see-through.” He took a slurp of

Coke and gestured toward John. “Y’all notice this?”

Ruben was sitting back in the chair, his eyes beginning to droop, and so said nothing, but Persephone looked down at the carpet

and said, “Yeah, it happens sometimes.” Her mobile rang from inside her purse. “It’s Hannah.”

John nodded. They all knew the call was inevitable. She couldn’t bear to not know everything, and frankly, he was surprised

she’d waited this long.

John followed Persephone down the corridor to a small room. There were two beds, a twin and a daybed with a white metal frame.

He waited for Persephone to leave before speaking. “Hannah.”

“Your phone is dead—I tried you all morning. Now, what’s this craziness about seventy grand?”

“How do you know about it?”

“Hal called me.”

“Why?”

“Because I told him to. Any suspicious transactions, call me. Because I knew this kind of thing was just a matter of time.

Who’s the culprit? Some long-lost relative you happened to find on your way to Texas? It’s a Corpus Christi bank address.”

“Everything’s fine,” John said, “and I’ll explain when I get back.” Probably he wouldn’t.

“John,” Hannah’s voice tightened. “What’s the deal with you and the woman who lives in that house, the one in Venice? Ruben

lives there, right?”

“And who told you—”

“When Hal couldn’t give me any details about the money, I asked Bean and Wayne to take me around, figured it’d help me think.

So we went by Persephone’s—she needs to move house, by the way.

Had no idea she was staying in a guesthouse.

The security issues alone...” She took a breath, and when she spoke again, there was an eerie calm riding the tightness of her voice.

John didn’t like it. “So then we went to Ruben’s.

Imagine my surprise when I realized I’d been there before.

Just outside. So I ask Bean about the woman who lives there, but he says no woman does.

And I tell him I know for a goddamned fact that one does and that she happens to be a home-wrecking bitch.

He swears she doesn’t, but John, the drapes are the same.

” The pitch of her voice was rising. “The same tacky floral motherfucking drapes that used to push aside every time my stupid idiot of a husband paid that whore a visit. So you tell me what the flying fuck is going on, John.”

It took a moment for John to stop thinking about Bean actually having a conversation, but then his brain jogged forward to

Hannah’s estranged husband having an affair with some mystery woman at Ruben’s house, which felt too coincidental. “Hannah,

I’m as lost as you are.”

“Yeah,” Hannah said after a few seconds. And then: “Are you in some kind of trouble? Is it this guy and the money? You sound

stressed.”

“It’s being handled.”

“It’s just really weird, John. Really weird.”

“I won’t be here long. When I’m back in LA I’ll come to the beach house, how’s that?”

“Thank you so very much for giving me the privilege to watch your back.”

“Hannah.”

“You’re not going to tell me what the money’s for?”

“Hannah.”

“Boundaries. Right. Well, let’s see how that works out for you.”

14

Persephone had just finished explaining to her mother why she hadn’t returned to Texas. It hadn’t been the entire truth and

she said nothing about Parker’s troubles, but she had mentioned wanting to make something of herself. And she may’ve thrown

in a little something regarding parental pressure. And how Parker, the Golden Son, hadn’t had to deal with nearly the same

amount of it.

“Sephie,” Mama said, “is that what you been thinkin’ all these years?”

Persephone didn’t answer, choosing instead to push around her bacon cheddar green bean casserole with her fork. Earlier, she’d

told her mother she wasn’t hungry, after which Mama loaded her plate down anyway. It’s like they’re not feedin’ you over there , Mama had muttered more than once, even after Persephone tried to explain that it wasn’t the old studio system and so no

one was telling her what and how much to eat.

“You must really hate me,” Mama said. Her dinner remained, like Persephone’s, untouched. “Some part of you does. And for a

long time, to hear you talk.”

“I don’t, Mama. I never hated you. I just...” She was about to say that she’d always felt as if she had to earn her mother’s

love, but then she realized that, really, she’d felt unworthy of it in the first place. “Maybe I was disappointed.”

Her mother’s shoulders slumped, and Persephone wondered if that was worse to a mother, being a disappointment. “I don’t mean

you were a disappointment to me. I just meant I was disappointed in how things were. You know, in our relationship.”

Her mother took a breath, one that seemed to steady her, and Persephone thought that maybe her mother was the tiniest bit

comforted by the clarification.

“Every parent knows the dirty secret,” her mother said. “They never talk about it. Never allow themselves to even think it.

And maybe it isn’t even every parent. Could be there’s some mamas and daddies who don’t fall into the majority. But Sephie,

nearly every parent has a favorite child.”

Persephone bit the inside of her bottom lip, wishing Mama understood that she didn’t have to come right out and say what they

both knew.

“It isn’t because you danced like a prodigy,” Mama said slowly, “or because you’ve always been so pretty.”