“Can’t I come visit my daughter?” she asks with an edge of bitterness in her tone.
Mom and I were never close. She was bitter because Nana and I were, resulting in me choosing her over Mom often. In arguments and where I spent most of my time growing up.
In return, I harbored resentment because I was made to feel like I couldn’t choose her. Because if I did, I would only be rewarded with another underhanded comment about eating another cookie I can’t afford.
She’d complain my ass would get too fat, but little did she know, that’s exactly what I wanted.
To this day, the woman still doesn’t understand why I don’t particularly like her.
“Are you here to try and convince me that I’m wasting my life away in an old house?” I query, throwing myself into the rocking chair by the window and propping my feet up on the stool.
The same one my great-grandmother and I tend to get stalked in.
Sitting in this chair forces my thoughts back to last night, the creepy note and answering all of two questions from the police officer before he said he’d hold on to it for evidence and make a report.
Waste of time, but at least the police will know that it was foul play if I end up dead in a ditch somewhere.
“I have an open house today in town. I figured I’d stop by and see you beforehand.”
Ah. That explains it. My mom wouldn’t drive an hour to come to visit me just to have a tea party and play nice. She was in town, so she decided to come lecture me.
“Do you want to know why Parsons Manor deserves to be torn down, Adeline?” she asks, her tone dripping with condescension. She sounds like she’s about to school me, and suddenly I feel very wary.
“Why?” I ask quietly.
“Because a lot of people died in this house.”
“You mean the five construction workers in the fire?” I ask, recalling the story Nana told me when I was a child about Parsons Manor catching fire and killing five men. They had to tear down the charred bones and restart. But the ghosts of those men still linger—I just know it.
“Yes, but not just them.”
She stares at me hard while my hesitance worsens. I turn to look out the window beside me, contemplating if I should just make her leave now. She’s going to tell me something life-changing, and I’m not sure I want to hear it.
“Then who else?” I finally ask, my eyes glued to Mom’s shiny black Lexus parked outside. Schmancy. So schmancy that it almost seems mocking. A stark difference to this old house, as if to say I’m better than you.
Being a real estate agent pays well. When I was born, she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. But considering the turmoil of our relationship as I got older, that notion soured, so she threw herself into becoming one of the top sellers in Washington.
Honestly, I’m proud of her accomplishments. I just wish she felt the same about mine.
“Your great-grandmother, Gigi,” she declares, pulling me out of my thoughts. My head snaps towards her, shock curling through me. “Not only did she die in this house, Addie, but she was murdered here.” I couldn’t keep my mouth from dropping open if I tried.
I shoot upward, the rocking chair slamming harshly against the wall behind me.
“She did not,” I deny. But if my mother is anything, it’s not a liar.
Nana spoke about Gigi often. Her mother was her entire world. But she definitely never told me Gigi was murdered. I had only asked once about her death, and Nana only said that she died too soon. Nana closed down after that and refused to say anything more.
At the time, I was too young to give it much thought. I just assumed she was still hurting and left it at that. It hadn’t occurred to me that Gigi’s death was tragic.
She sighs. “That’s why your Nana always had this weird… obsession with the manor. She was young when it happened. Her father, John, no longer wanted anything to do with this place, but Nana threw the world’s biggest temper tantrum and forced him to stay in the house his wife was murdered in.” She glances at me, noting the droll look on my face from her insult. “Those were my grandpa’s words, not mine. At least about the temper tantrum. Anyway, the second she was old enough, he gave it to her and moved out, and she lived on in the manor, as you already know.”
I face the window again, the beginnings of the storm pattering against the glass. In a few minutes, it’ll be a downpour. Thunder rolls, building to a crescendo before a loud crack shakes the foundations of the house.
It matches my mood perfectly.
“Do you have anything to say?” she pushes, her eyes boring a hole into the side of my head.