I watch as she hurries away in her thick-soled white shoes. When she’s out of sight, I wander toward the parlor. Hemi trails slightly behind, maintaining his prickly silence.
The house is a sad echo of itself. Dreary and faded, filled with dated relics from a time when the Mannings boasted one of the finest homes on Park Avenue. Little is familiar, save a few antiques and some of the art on the walls. Even the new furniture—if it can be called new—has seen better days. Tired-looking armchairs and settees with slumping cushions. The carpets are worn to the jute in places, and the once-gleaming floors are dull from lack of care.
It gives me a perverse sense of pleasure to see how far down the Mannings have come in the world, all their careful machinations come to naught, my father’s ill-gotten empire smashed. I steal a look at Hemi and see it in his face too.
The rhythmic hiss of thick white stockings alerts us to the return of the nurse. We meet her at the base of the staircase. “She says to go up. She’s in her room. It’s the last door on the right.”
“Yes, thank you. I know where it is.”
We push past her, up the staircase, and then along the gallery, and I’m briefly reminded of the night of that fateful dinner party, when Corinne and I hovered at the top of the stairs while my father made excuses for my mother’s unseemly behavior. I shove the memory away as we move past my old room and then my mother’s. And then I’m standing in front of Corinne’s door. It’s open. I look around for Hemi and see that he’s standing a few steps behind. He nods reassuringly, and for an instant, I glimpse the old Hemi behind his smile.
My stomach churns as I step through the door. The room is overly warm and smells musty, like dirty clothes and unwashed hair. I take a quick inventory of my surroundings. Like the rest of the house, its best days are behind it. The cabbage-rose wallpaper has long since lost its bloom and, despite numerous repairs, is peeling in several places. The draperies are familiar, too, though the once-fine brocade is limp now and rusty with age.
Corinne is seated in a high-backed chair beside the bed. The bed itself is unmade, the covers thrown back as if she’s just gotten out of it. She was always lean, but she’s reed-thin now and her dressing gown hangs on her, exposing a length of pale collarbone and sallow, crepey skin. Her hair has thinned and lost its color. She wears it in a coil, pinned to the top of her head, like a messy crown. Suddenly I’m reminded of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard—the aging maven holding court in her crumbling mansion. The thought fills me with revulsion—and what might become pity if allowed to take root. But I won’t allow it.
Her eyes settle on me, pale and strangely dull. “Well, well. Look what the wind has blown to my door. Were you homesick, my darling?” Her voice is harsh and phlegmy, her words slightly slurred. She feigns a little pout. “Have you missed me terribly?”
“The nurse said you aren’t well,” I say, ignoring her sarcasm. “Is it serious?”
The pout falls away, leaving a wan, strained countenance in its wake. “Brain tumors generally are. Whatever you’ve come to say, I suggest you say it fast. I’m expecting the doctor.”
A brain tumor. I absorb the news, wondering briefly where her children are and why they’re not here to look after her. Perhaps she’s driven them away, too, and has no one but a paid nurse to see to her needs. Perhaps I’ll feel sorry for her when I’ve had time to process it. Perhaps not. For now, I need to focus on why I’ve come.
“I don’t intend to stay long.”
Corinne’s eyes flash dully. “No, of course not. You’re so awfully busy, aren’t you? Awards to accept, accolades to receive. It seems that bleeding heart of yours has served you well after all. To hear the papers tell it, you’re bucking for sainthood.”
I’m startled to learn she’s kept track of me and feel a pang of unease about what else she might know. “I see you’ve managed to keep the house.”
“Only just,” she says, running slow eyes around the room. “I suspect they’ll pull it down the minute I’m gone. Not long now. But not on my watch.” Her eyes snap back to mine, suddenly alert. “What do you want? I hope it’s not money because that’s all gone.”
“No. I didn’t come for money. I brought you a visitor. An old friend of the family.”
Her eyes skitter to the empty doorway, alarmed and then wary. “I don’t want to see anyone. And certainly not any friend of yours.”
“But this was a friend of yours too,” I say, glancing out into the hall. “Let’s see if you remember.”
As if on command, Hemi steps through the door, wordless, and waits.
Corinne scowls at him, brows knitted over her pale eyes. And then it’s there, the recognition I’ve been waiting for. “You . . . ,” she growls, a low, feral rasp. “You!”
“Yes,” Hemi says with a languid smile. “It’s me.”
Her head snaps in my direction. “How dare you bring him to this house. Get out! Both of you!”
I stare at her, unmoved. “We have some things to discuss.”
“Out! This instant!”
“The letters, Corinne. What did you do with them?”
Her eyes cloud briefly before sliding away. “I don’t know anything about any letters.”
“You switched them. How did you do it?”
She stares at me, her face a careful blank. She’s as smug and unrepentant as I remember, still convinced she can control everyone and everything. But she’s wrong. She was wrong then and she’s wrong now.
“We came for answers, Corinne, and we’re not leaving until we get them. So unless you’re prepared to throw us out bodily, you might as well tell us what we want to know.”
She runs her eyes over Hemi, slow, appraising. “So it’s we now, is it? You and the paperboy, together at last? Have you come for my blessing?”
“There is no we,” I tell her coldly. “You saw to that. It’s the how we can’t figure out. Tell me how you switched the letters.”
Corinne leans forward in her chair, an attempt to look menacing. Instead, she looks sullen and childish—and the tiniest bit shaken. “You’ve got some nerve waltzing in here and making demands. As if I owe you something. I don’t owe you anything. Now leave, both of you, or I’ll call the police.”
“Call them. Call the papers, too, while you’re at it. I’m sure they’d love to hear all about this. New Yorkers can’t get enough of the Mannings’ dirty laundry. I have all afternoon.”
Corinne eases back in her chair, arms stretched out beside her, an aging queen on her threadbare throne. She closes her eyes and draws a long breath, her lips blanched of color. “Leave me alone.”
Hemi takes a step toward me, shaking his head. “Let it go, Marian. She can’t tell you because there’s nothing to tell. Though I do applaud your attempts to badger a confession out of a dying woman. Not even your sister could have pulled off what you’re alleging.”
Corinne sits back in her chair, silent a long moment, as if sizing up her opponents. “And what, precisely, is she alleging? What is this thing I couldn’t possibly have pulled off?”