Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

It's as if Rose split into two people when she watched her nanny die: The little girl of before—a gifted student with the vocabulary of a much older child.

And the expressionless child who sits before me now, suffering from traumatic mutism.

Rose has seen the top doctors in the region. None can say when she will talk again. It could be in a day, or in six months.

Beth sits on the edge of her daughter's bed, twisting her hands together again. I catalog it as a nervous tic.

Beth probably thinks I don't understand what her daughter is going through.

But I'm one of the few people who does.

There are different kinds of mutism that afflict children. Some kids can't speak in certain environments, such as at school. That's called selective mutism.

Mutism can also occur after brain trauma or surgery.

Rose suffers from a condition that's far rarer and not well understood: traumatic mutism. The onset is swift and overwhelming, and as the name suggests, it occurs after a severe trauma. One documented case involved a girl who was mauled by a dog and didn't speak for six weeks. Another case—not documented—occurred when a girl discovered the body of her mother.

That girl was me.

I was a little younger than Rose when I experienced the sensation of my throat closing up around my words, sealing them away. I couldn't speak for months after I saw my mother's lifeless form on our living room floor.

Charles knows this; it's why he asked me to work with Rose. He believes I'm in a unique position to understand her.

Back when I was a child, traumatic mutism wasn't understood at all. Some people believed I was being defiant, that I was perfectly capable of speech. Perhaps being punished would remind me how to talk.

I push away the memory fast.

I spend the next few minutes talking about a horse I once met named Pacino who loved peppermints, then admire the row of perfect little origami cranes decorating the top of her bookshelf.

"Rose made those," Beth tells me.

When I thank Rose for letting me see her room, she doesn't give any indication she has heard me.

"I'll be back tomorrow to talk with your dad, so I'll probably see you again then," I tell Rose.

Beth takes my cue and stands up. I watch as she walks over and drops a kiss on Rose's forehead, telling her daughter she'll be back in a moment.

Rose picks up her book again. But the jacket gapes away from the book cover, and I glimpse the title printed on the spine.

The first word isn't Anne .

It's The .

It's an old trick to hide books beneath different books' jackets to camouflage what you're reading. I had a friend in junior high school who did it with Judy Blume books to fool her strict mother.

If the book Rose is so engrossed in isn't Anne of Green Gables , what is it?

I can't linger any longer. Beth is in the doorway, looking at me expectantly.

I follow her as she retraces our path downstairs. When we reach the entryway, she begins to head for the front door. I quickly ask, "Actually, can I take you up on that glass of water now?"

I'm not thirsty. I want to get a look at more of the Barclays' home. Plus, it will give me a chance to talk more to Beth.

The kitchen is in the rear of the house. We walk down the narrow hallway, passing a small library with an exposed stone wall and floor-to-ceiling shelves, as well as several other rooms with closed doors. I see activity going on in the backyard through the clear panes of the sliding kitchen doors that lead to the patio.

Parked to one side of the yard is a work truck with the name of the company in big letters— TRINITY WINDOWS —and beneath it, a line of script that reads Plexiglass: The Safe, Clear Choice for Today's Homes .

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Beth open a dark wood cupboard and pull out a blue tumbler, filling it with filtered water from a small tap on the side of the deep sink.

I clock the cement countertops, the copper cabinet handles, the stone floor. Modern luxury renovations tend to incorporate products like solar panels or glazed tiles on the walls, but all the materials I've seen in this house were available a century ago.

I turn my focus onto two men unloading a pane of what looks like glass—but must be plexiglass—from the back of their truck, carrying it down the ramp toward the house.

"Stella?"

I look over to see Beth holding out the glass of water.

When I take it, it feels strange in my hand. Much lighter than I expected.

I examine it more closely and realize it isn't glass, even though it looks identical. It's the sort of acrylic that is shatter-proof. I know because Marco's sister, the one who is pregnant with her fourth child, switched to those when her kids knocked one too many drinks off the kitchen table.

It's a discordant modern detail in a home that seems frozen in time.

My eyes flit to the truck again. It's filled with large, rectangular shapes. Dozens of sheets of plexiglass.

Enough for every window in this enormous house.

"Well, it's a busy morning. And Rose needs to get back to her schoolwork."

"Her schoolwork?" I echo. It's a Saturday, and I can't imagine a third-grader has much homework.

"My mother-in-law has been homeschooling Rose. We thought it would be best to take her out of school temporarily, given everything…" Beth's voice trails off. "Thank you for coming."

She is dismissing me. She smiles, but the expression doesn't reach her eyes.

Her behavior is unusual. Typically, parents are desperate to curry favor with me, to show how competent and kind they are. Or to sneak in a bad word about the other parent.

Beth reaches for the tumbler in my hand, even though I've only taken a few sips. I relinquish it.

Then she begins walking to the front door. I reluctantly follow. There's something nagging at the corner of my mind. A series of clues I've filed away that add up to something just beyond my grasp.

Right before we reach the front door, I glance back at the grand curving staircase. When I climbed it, I was distracted by Rose's somber expression in the pictures.

That prevented me from noticing the other detail I'd tucked into my subconscious—until now.

My skin prickles as the realization hits me.

The photos are bare in their frames. Unprotected by a layer of glass.

I rub my fingertips together, still feeling the surprising lightness of the acrylic water tumbler.

Now I look beyond my initial observations, taking in the details I didn't see: There are no crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceilings. No mirrors in Rose's room or in the hallway. No china cabinets with clear panes.

And workmen are replacing all the antique windows with sheets of clear plastic.

Nothing in this house is made of glass.