The Safekeep(7)

Isabel still had the wet newspaper in hand. She was dripping on the floor. She said, “Louis.” They both noticed her then, a skipping pause—Eva’s laughter quieting, Louis’s hand still in midmotion—and then Louis was up, walking, saying:

“Ah, you’re back, great, wonderful, we’ve been waiting, see—”

“What are you doing?” Isabel asked, by which she meant, Why are you here?

Louis’s good humor faltered. He put his hand on the back of a chair. He seemed as though he’d hoped to find her in a better mood, and now had to rethink his approach. Louis only ever came to the house twice a year: Easter, and to visit their mother’s grave on the day of her passing. The cemetery was on the outskirts of Zwolle, a twenty-minute drive from the house.

Their mother died in September. It was now the end of May.

Eva said, “You have a lovely home, Isabel.” Her mouth was port-stained. The bleach made her hair frizz out of its pins. She was wearing a different dress today, just as badly made. The fabric looked like it had once been a quilt. Isabel wanted her out of the house.

“The thing is,” Louis started, and then Eva jumped in with “Darling, should I—” And Louis stilled her with a gesture, said, “No, no, just—”

“What are you talking about?” Isabel looked between the two of them. The rain clattered loudly against the windows. Louis took her by her elbow, tried to steer her toward the kitchen, and Isabel pulled away from him with an eye on Eva and said, “Don’t—just tell me what—”

“Please,” Louis said, and nodded to the kitchen door. “A moment, Isabel, just…”

She went, but wouldn’t let him touch her when he tried again. The rain cooled quickly on her skin, fabric heavy, and Louis and his girl hadn’t got any of the fireplaces going. The kitchen was colder than the rest of the house. It was several steps down, had a high ceiling for hanging game. No one hung game these days, but the rack was still in place, metal slats and a series of ropes, levers.

An old round table and a painting of the house itself over the mantelpiece. Isabel threw away the wet newspaper, went to wring out her braid over the sink. Louis gently closed the door behind them.

“So I have to go for a while, Isabel,” was how he started, hand still on the door handle. “Nelis was supposed to oversee the Brighton conference, but his wife just gave birth, he asked if anyone could go in his place and it’s a—an opportunity, you see, a big one, I don’t know how long before something like this could—”

“Fine,” she said. She didn’t care for the buildup. “Why are you here?”

“Eva,” he said, lowering his voice now. Trying to whisper.

Isabel leaned back against the sink. “No,” she said.

“She can’t stay alone in my room for all that time, can she? Sharing with Maurice? And—”

“Let her stay with friends. Let her stay with her own family.”

“She doesn’t have any.”

“No friends?” Isabel said it in the way she meant it: that Eva seemed like the kind of person to have plenty of friends, and that this, in Isabel’s view, spoke badly of her. Friendship had always seemed a distrustful thing to Isabel.

“No family,” Louis said. He was still whispering. Isabel wasn’t.

“Not my concern.”

“It’ll only be, what, a few weeks, a month at most, and you’re all alone here, Isa, all these rooms for what? All this space, for what? Why can’t she stay? And who knows, it might be good for you, no, for once, to have someone to—to get to—”

“It’s my house,” she said, and it was out and she knew she had misspoken, and Louis knew it as well, barely letting her finish the phrase to cut in with an “Is it, Isabel?” He took a step forward. “Yours?”

Isabel’s heart gave a dull thud. She looked away. Uncle Karel had promised the house to Louis, should he ever want it. The unspoken caveat was: should he ever want it for a family of his own. Isabel never had reason to worry: Louis never did seem to want for a family, never did seem to want the house at all. Had kept himself so far away from it. Isabel had developed a thought over the years and the thought was: They would allow her to stay here, her brothers. Her uncle. They had to, where else could she go? She had nothing else in this world. Nothing but these clean floors and neatly made beds. It was enough. If she could keep it, it would be enough.

She made herself stand taller. “Well, I’m the one who actually lives here, Louis, the one who keeps it in order, who cleans, who—So I get, I’m the one who gets to…” Her breath didn’t sound as steady as she intended.

Louis softened, sat down at the table. “Listen. The thing is, she really likes you, Isa. She barely stopped speaking about you since you met. You made an impression, you know. Actually, she was the one who suggested—”

“Oh, she did?”

“Don’t be like that.” He glanced at the door, went back to a whisper: “She’s very shy, you know. Don’t embarrass her about it. She’s not happy to be in this position, to have to, to… to be so reliant on—”

“She’s tricking you,” Isabel said. She hadn’t even thought the thought to herself yet. The words were out and then she had no choice but to own them as her own belief.