She walked into the front hall on cold, numb feet. In the living room, the lights and the lamps were on. The curtains were closed. Beth unwound her scarf and walked into the room. Her mother was sitting in one of the orange-upholstered chairs, while her father stood by the window, a drink in his hand, his back to the curtains. As Beth walked into the room, neither parent looked at her.
In the corner of the room was a Christmas tree, a real one, giving off a cold, pungent pine scent. It had been delivered today, set up by someone hired to do so, and it wasn’t yet decorated. There were no gifts beneath it. The tree sat in shadow, out of place and a little sinister.
Sitting on the sofa, the one that matched her mother’s chair, was a girl.
She was a year or two older than Beth, perhaps. She had blond hair, long and straight, combed neatly down her back. She wore a navy blue skirt and a blue and white checked blouse, dark knee socks, black oxfords on her feet. Her hands were folded politely in her lap. She looked at Beth and smiled.
“Hi there,” the girl said.
“Beth.” Her mother turned in her chair, smiling, as if she’d just realized Beth was there. The smile was tenuous, mostly sober but not quite. Mariana had put her hair up, and she wore a string of pearls around her neck. Beth had not seen that string of pearls since the last time her mother had tried to go to church, at Easter. She had put them on with her dress and then gone back to bed and fallen asleep when whatever pill she’d taken that morning kicked in. “Hi there, honey. I’m so glad you’re home. This is your cousin Lillian.”
Beth stared in shock. She didn’t have a cousin Lillian; she didn’t have any cousins at all. Her father was an only child—hence the large inheritance—and her mother had a sister who was dead. Lillian was Beth’s middle name. But she could see no hint of a lie in her mother’s fragile smile, her father’s blank face. She looked back at the girl.
“Hello,” she said obediently.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Lillian said.
“She’s come to stay for Christmas.” This was her mother again, her fingertips rubbing the pearls around her neck. “Isn’t that nice? You’ll have a little playmate. Two sweet, matching girls. The two of you can be friends.”
By the window, her father made a disgusted sound and took a sip of his drink.
“I like dolls,” Lillian said. “Do you like dolls?”
Beth looked at her, and for a long moment nothing else existed. Her parents, with all of their terrible grown-up problems and confusing undercurrents, were gone. The half-lit room in this uneasy house was gone. Even the chill in her feet, in her bones, was gone. There was only her and Lillian.
“I like dolls,” she said.
Lillian slid off the sofa, as if she agreed that the two adults in the room didn’t exist. “Good,” she said. “Let’s play.”
* * *
—
“How old are you?” Beth asked Lillian when they were in her room. Now that they were alone, surrounded by Beth’s actual dolls, the new girl seemed to have lost interest in playing. Instead she looked around Beth’s room, touching the bed and the pillow, looking in her drawers. Beth sat on the edge of the bed, watching in fascination.
“Eight,” Lillian said. Her blond hair was so perfect it shimmered in the gloomy light. She picked up one of Beth’s books—an old Dick and Jane from when she was learning to read, which suddenly made her feel like a baby—and flipped through the pages. “Are all of these things yours?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you here by yourself?” Lillian put the book back and picked up a teddy bear, turning it over, pressing her fingers into its neck as if she thought something might be inside. “Don’t you have any friends?”