Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Five months, one week ago

Dear Helena,

This is weird.

Is this weird?

This is probably weird.

I mean, you’re dead. And I’m here, writing you a letter. When I’m not even sure I believe in the afterlife. Truth be told, I stopped pondering eschatological matters in high school because they got me anxious and made me break out in hives under my left armpit (never the right; what’s up with that?). And it’s not like I’m ever going to figure out a mystery that eluded great thinkers like Foucault or Derrida or that unspellable German dude with bushy sideburns and syphilis.

But I digress.

You’ve been gone for over a month, and things are same old, same old. Humanity is still in the clutches of capitalist cabals; we have yet to figure out a way to slow down the impending catastrophe that is anthropogenic climate change; I wear my “Save the Bees & Tax the Rich” T-shirt whenever I go for a run. The usual. I do love the work I’m doing at the EPA (thank you so much for that rec letter, by the way; I’m very grateful you didn’t mention that time you bailed Sadie, Hannah, and me out of jail after that anti-dam protest. The U.S. government would not have liked that one). There is the small issue that I’m the only woman in a team of six, and that the dudes I work with seem to believe that my squishy female brain is unable to grasp sophisticated concepts like?.?.?. the sphericity of the Earth, I guess? The other day Sean, my team leader, spent thirty minutes explaining the contents of my own dissertation to me. I had very vivid fantasies about clocking him in the head and tiling his cadaver under my bathtub, but you probably already know all of this. You probably just sit around on a cloud all day being omniscient. Eating Triscuits. Occasionally playing the harp. You lazy bum.

I think the reason I’m writing this letter that you will never, ever read is that I wish I could talk to you. If my life were a movie, I’d trudge to your tombstone and bare my heart while a public-domain symphony in D minor plays in the background. But you were buried in California (inconvenient, much?) which makes letter writing the only feasible option.

All of this is to say: First, I miss you. A lot. A fucking huge lot. How could you leave me here without you? Shame, Helena. Shame.

Second: I am so, so grateful you left me this home. It’s the best, coziest place I’ve ever lived in, hands down. I’ve been spending my weekends reading in the sunroom. Honestly, I never thought I’d set foot in a house with a foyer without being escorted off the premises by security. I just?.?.?. I’ve never had a place that was mine, before. A place that’s going to be there no matter what. A safe harbor, if you will. I feel your presence when I’m home, even if the last time you set foot here was probably in the ’70s on your way back from a women’s liberation march. And don’t worry, I fondly remember your hatred of cheesy and I can almost hear you say, Cut this shit out. So I will.

Third, and this is less of a statement and more of a question: Would you mind it if I killed your nephew? Because I am very close to it. Like—sooo close. I am basically stabbing him with a potato peeler as we speak. Though it occurs to me now that maybe it’s exactly what you wanted. You never mentioned Liam in all the years I knew you, after all. And he does work for a company whose main product is greenhouse gases, so maybe you hated him? Maybe our entire friendship was a long con that you knew would end in me pouring brake fluid in the tea of your least favorite relative. In which case, well done. And I hate you.

I could give a comprehensive list of his horribleness (I curate one in my Notes app) but I like to inflict it upon Sadie and Hannah via Zoom. I just?.?.?. I guess I wish I understood why you put me in the path of one of the asswipiest asswipes in the country. In the world. In the entire damn Milky Way. Just the way he looks at me—the way he doesn’t look at me. He clearly thinks he’s above me, and—

The doorbell rings. I stop midsentence and run to the entrance. Which takes me like, two whole minutes, proving my point that this house is plenty large for two people.

I wish I could say that Liam Harding has shit taste in home decor. That he abuses inspirational-quotes decals, buys plastic fruit at Ikea, sticks neon bar lights everywhere. Sadly, either he knows how to put together a pretty nice house interior, or his FPG Corp blood money paid to hire someone who does. The place is an elegant combination of traditional and modern pieces; I’m almost certain that whoever furnished it can correctly use the word palette in a sentence, and that the way the deep reds, forest greens, and soft grays complement the hardwood floors is a little more than accidental. And there’s the fact that everywhere looks so?.?.?. simple. With a home as large as this one, I’d be tempted to stuff every room with tables and sideboards and rugs, but Liam somehow limited himself to bare necessities. Couches, a few comfortable chairs, shelves full of books. That’s it. The house is airy, full of light, sparsely decorated in warm tones, and all the more beautiful for it. “Minimalist,” Sadie told me when I gave her a video tour. “Really well done, too.” I believe my response was a snarl.

And then there’s the art on the walls, which is unwelcomely growing on me. Pictures of lakes at sunrise and waterfalls at sunset, thick woods and lone trees, frozen grounds and blooming fields. The occasional wild animal going about its day, always in black and white. I don’t know why, but I’ve been catching myself staring at them. The framing is simple, the subject mundane, but there’s something about them. Like whoever took those photos really connected with the settings. Like they tried to truly capture them, to take home a piece of them.

I wonder who the photographer is, but I can find no signature. It’s probably some starving Georgetown MFA grad, anyway. They poured their soul into the series hoping it’ll be bought by someone who appreciates art, and instead here it is. Owned by a total ass. I bet Liam didn’t even choose them. I bet they were just a tax-deductible purchase for him. Maybe he figured that in the long run a nice collection is as good as stock dividends.

“I’ll need a signature,” the UPS guy tells me when I open the door. He’s chewing bubblegum and looks about fifteen. I feel decrepit inside. “You’re not William K. Harding, are you?”

William K. It’s almost cute. I hate it. “Nope.”

“Is he home?”

“No.” Mercifully.

“Is he your husband?”

I laugh. Then I laugh some more. Then I realize that the UPS guy is squinting at me like I’m the Wicked Witch of the West. “Um, no. Sorry. He’s my?.?.?. roommate.”

“Right. Can you sign for your roomie?”

“Sure.” I reach for the pen, but my hand stills in midair when I notice the FGP Corp insignia on the envelope.

I hate them. Even more than I hate Liam. Not only does he make me miserable at home mowing the lawn at seven thirty a.m. on the one day of the week I can sleep in, but he adds insult to injury by working for one of my professional nemeses. FGP Corp is one of those huge conglomerates that keep on causing environmental messes—a bunch of overeducated dudes in $7K suits who disseminate biotoxins around the world with utter disregard for the brown pelicans (and the entire future of humanity, but I’m personally more attached to the pelicans, who did nothing to deserve this).

I glare at the thick bubble mailer. Would Liam sign for an EPA envelope on my behalf? I doubt it. Or maybe he would. Then he’d tie it to red balloons his buddy Pennywise provided and watch it disappear into the sunset. I’m already 73 percent certain that he’s been hiding my socks. I’m down to four matching pairs, for crisp’s sake.

“Actually.” I take a step back, smiling, reveling in my own pettiness. Helena, you’d be so proud. “I probably shouldn’t sign for him. I bet it’s a federal crime or something.”

The UPS guy shakes his head. “It’s really not.”

I shrug. “Who’s to say?”

“Me. It’s literally my job.”

“Which you are performing admirably.” I beam. “But I still won’t sign for the envelope. Would you like a cup of tea? A glass of wine? Cheez-Its?”

He frowns. “You sure you won’t? This is express shipping. Someone paid a lot of money for same-day delivery. It’s probably really urgent shit that William K. will need as soon as he gets home.”

“Right. Well, that sounds like a William K. problem.”

He whistles. “That’s cold.” He sounds admiring. Or just scared. “So, what’s wrong with poor William K.? Does he leave the toilet seat up?”

“We have separate bathrooms.” I mull it over. “But I’m sure he does. In the very remote possibility I end up using his.”

He nods. “You know, when my sister was in college she used to have a roommate she hated. I’m talking warfare. They’d yell at each other the entire time. She once wrote an entire list of everything she hated about him on her phone and it crashed her Reminders app. It was that long.”

Uh-oh. That sounds familiar.“What happened to her?”

I cross my fingers that the answer won’t be She’s serving a lifetime sentence at a nearby correctional facility for shaving off his hair while he was sleeping and tattooing “I’m a bad person” on his scalp. And yet, what UPS guy ends up saying is ten times more disturbing.

“They’re getting married next June.” He shakes his head and turns around with a wave of his hand. “Go figure.”

More noise than music, really. The kind of ’70s German electronic crap that Liam owns in vinyl form and will sometimes play when one of his friends comes over to play first-person shooter video games. It’s loud and obnoxious and irritating, and it goes on for what feels like hours. Until I wake up and realize three things:

First, I have a horrible headache.

Second, it’s the middle of the night.

Third, the noise-music is actually just regular noise, and it’s coming from downstairs.

Burglars, I think. They broke in. They’re not even trying to be quiet—they probably have weapons.

I have to get out. Call 911. I have to warn Liam and make sure that he—

I sit up with a frown. “Liam.” But of course.

I fling myself out of bed and stomp out of my room. I’m halfway down the stairs when it occurs to me: my curls are all over the place, I’m not wearing a bra, and my shorts were already too small fifteen years ago, when my middle school issued them free of charge as part of my lacrosse uniform. Well. Too bad. Liam’s going to have to deal with it, and with my “There Is No Planet B” T-shirt. It might teach him something.

By the time I reach the kitchen, I am considering one-clicking on a bullhorn to sneak up on him while he’s asleep every night for the next six months. “Liam, do you know what time it is?” I erupt. “What are you even?.?.?.”

I’m not sure what I expected. Definitely not to find the contents of the fridge cluttering every inch of the counter; definitely not to see Liam intent on slaughtering a stalk of celery like it stole his parking spot; definitely not to see him naked, very naked, from the waist up. The plaid pajama bottoms he’s wearing have a low waist.

Verylow.

“Could you please put something on? Like a baby-seal fur coat, or something?”

He doesn’t stop chopping his celery. Doesn’t look up at me. “No.”

“No?”

“I’m not cold. And I live here.”

I live here, too. And I have every right not to look at that brick wall he calls a chest in my own kitchen, which is supposed to be a soothing environment where I can digest food without having to stare at random male nipples. Still, I decide to let the matter go and push it to the back of my mind. By the time I’m ready to move out, I’m going to need therapy, anyway. What’s one more trauma to deal with? Right now, I just want to go back to sleep. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“My tax return.”

I blink. “I—what?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

I stiffen. “I don’t know what it looks like, but it sounds like you’re just banging pans together.”

“The noise is an unfortunate by-product of me making dinner.” He must be done with the celery, because he moves to slicing a tomato—is that my tomato?—and back to ignoring me.

“Oh, and that’s totally normal, isn’t it? Cooking a five-course meal at one twenty-seven in the morning on a weeknight?”

Liam finally lifts his eyes to mine, and there is something unsettling about his gaze. He seems calm. He looks calm, but I know he’s not. He is furious, I tell myself. He is really, really furious. Get out of here. “Did you need anything?” His tone is deceptively polite, and my self-preservation is clearly still asleep in bed.

“Yes. I need you to keep it down. And that better not be my tomato.”

He pops half of it in his mouth. “You know,” he says evenly while chewing, managing to talk with his mouth full and yet still look like the aristocratic product of several generations of wealth, “I’m usually not in the habit of being awake at one twenty-eight in the morning.”

“What a coincidence. Neither was I, before meeting you.”

“But today—that is, yesterday—the entire legal team I run ended up having to work past midnight. Because of some very important missing documents.”

I tense. He cannot mean—

“Don’t worry, the documents were found. Eventually. After my boss tore me and my team a new one. Sounds like something went wrong when they were delivered.” If he could incinerate people with eye lasers, I’d be long cremated. Clearly he knows everything about my little afternoon spite-attack.

“Listen.” I take a deep breath. “It wasn’t my proudest moment, but I’m not your PA. And I don’t see how it justifies you banging all the pots in the house in the middle of the night. I have a long day tomorrow, so—”

“So do I. And as you can imagine, I’ve had a long day today. And I’m hungry. Which means that I’m not going to keep it down. At least not until I’ve had dinner.”

Until about ten seconds ago I was angry in a cool, reasonable way. All of a sudden, I am ready to wrestle the knife out of Liam’s hand and slice his jugular. Just a tiny bit. Just to make him bleed. I won’t, because I don’t think I’d flourish in jail, but I’m also not going to let this go. I’ve tried to have measured responses when he refused to let me install solar panels, when he threw away my broccoli stir-fry because it smelled “swampy,” when he locked me out of the house while I was on my run. But this is the final straw. I’m done. The back of my camel is broken in two. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Liam pours olive oil in a pan, cracks an egg in it, and seems to revert to his default state: forgetting that I exist.

“Liam, whether you like it or not, I. Live. Here. You can’t do whatever the hell you want!”

“Interesting. You seem to be doing exactly that.”

“What are you talking about? You are making an omelet at two in the damn morning, and I am asking you not to.”

“True. Although there is the fact that if you had done your dishes this week I wouldn’t need to wash them so noisily—”

“Oh, shut up. It’s not like you don’t leave your stuff around the house all the time.”

“At least I don’t stack garbage on top of the trash can like it’s a Dadaist sculpture.”

The sound that comes out of my mouth—it almost scares me. “God. You are impossible to have around!”

“That’s just too bad, since I’m here.”

“Then just move the fuck out!”

Silence falls. An absolute, heavy, very uncomfortable silence. Just what we both need to replay my words over and over in our heads. Then Liam speaks. Slowly. Carefully. Angry in a scary, icy way. “Excuse me?”

I regret it immediately. What I said and how I said it. Loud. Vehement. I am many things, but cruel is not one of them. It doesn’t matter that Liam Harding has displayed the emotional range of a walnut, I said something hurtful and I owe him an apology. Not that I particularly want to offer him one, but I should. The problem is, I just can’t stop myself from continuing. “Why are you even here, Liam? People like you live in mansions with uncomfortable beige furniture and seven bathrooms and overpriced art they don’t understand.”

“People like me?”

“Yes. People like you. People with zero morals and way too much money!”

“Why are you here? I’ve offered to buy your half about a thousand times.”

“And I said no, so you could have spared yourself about nine hundred and ninety-nine of them. Liam, there is no reason for you to want to live in this house.”

“This is my family’s house!”

“It was Helena’s house as much as it’s yours, and—”

“Helena is fucking dead.”

It takes a few moments for Liam’s words to fully register. He abruptly turns off the stove and then stands there, half-naked in front of the sink, hands clenched around the edge of the counter and muscles as tight as guitar strings. I can’t stop staring at him, this—this viper who just mentioned the death of one of the most important people in my life with such angry, dismissive carelessness.

I am going to destroy him. I’m going to annihilate him. I am going to make him suffer, to spit in his stupid smoothies, to break his vinyls one by one.

Except that Liam does something that changes everything. He presses his lips together, pinches his nose, then wipes a large, exhausted hand down his face. All of a sudden something clicks inside my head: Liam Harding, standing right in front of me, is tired. And he hates this, all of this, just as much as I do.

Oh God.Maybe my broccoli stir-fry really did stink, and I should have put it in a Tupperware. Maybe the Frozen soundtrack can be a tiny bit annoying. Maybe I could have signed for that stupid package. Maybe I wouldn’t react well to someone coming to live under my roof, either, especially if I didn’t have a say in the matter.

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. Maybe I am the asshole. Or at least one of them. God. Oh God.

“I?.?.?.” I rack my brain for something to say and find nothing. Then some dam inside me breaks, and the words explode out. “Helena was my family. I know you don’t get on with your family, and?.?.?. maybe you hated her, I don’t know. Granted, she could be really grumpy and nosy, but she?.?.?. she loved me. And she was the only real home I ever had.” I dare to glance at Liam, half expecting a sneer of derision. A snarky comment about Helena that will make me want to punch him again. But he’s staring at me, attentive, and I force myself to look away and continue before I can change my mind. “I think she knew that. I think maybe that’s why she left me this house, so that I’d have some kind of?.?.?. of something. Even after she was gone.” My voice breaks on the last word, and now I’m crying. Not full-on bawling like when I watch The Lion King or the first ten minutes of Up, but quiet, sparse, implacable tears that I have no hope of stopping. “I know you probably see me as some?.?.?. proletarian usurper who’s come to take over your family fortune, and believe me, I get it.” I wipe my cheek with the back of my hand. My voice is rapidly losing heat. “But you have to understand that while you’re living here because you’re trying to prove some point, or for some sort of pissing contest, this pile of bricks means the world to me, and?.?.?.”

“I didn’t hate Helena.”

I look up in surprise. “What?”

“I didn’t hate Helena.” His eyes are on his half-made omelet, still sizzling on the stove.

“Oh.”

“Every summer she’d leave California for a few weeks. Where did you think she went?”

“I?.?.?. she just said she spent her summers with family. I always assumed that?.?.?.”

“Here, Mara. She came here. Slept in the room next to yours.” Liam’s voice is clipped, but his expression softens into something I’ve never seen before. A faint smile. “She claimed it was to check up on my world-pollution plans. Mostly, she nagged me about my life choices in between meeting with old friends. And she kicked my ass at chess a lot.” He scowls. “I am positive she cheated, but I could never prove it.”

“I?.?.?.” He must be making this up. Surely. “She never mentioned you.”

His eyebrow lifts. “She never mentioned you. And yet you were in her will.”

“But?.?.?. But, wait. Hang on a minute. At the funeral?.?.?. I thought you didn’t get along with your family?”

“Oh, I don’t. They’re pretentious, judgmental, performative assholes—and I’m quoting Helena, here. But she was different, and I got on with her. I cared about her. A lot.” He clears his throat. “I’m not sure where you got the idea that I didn’t.”

“Well, you not coming to the funeral fooled me.”

“Knowing Helena, do you think she’d have cared?”

I think about my second year. The one time I organized a small surprise party for Helena’s birthday in the department, and she just?.?.?. left. Literally. We yelled Surprise! and dropped a handful of balloons. Helena gave us a scathing look, stepped inside the room, cut a slice of her birthday cake while we stared in silence, and then went to her office to eat it alone. She locked herself in. “Okay. That’s a good point.”

Liam nods.

“Do you know why she left me the house?”

“I do not. Initially I figured it was some kind of prank. One of her chaotic power plays. Like when she’d guilt-trip you into watching old shows with her?”

“God, she always picked—”

“The Twilight Zone. Even though she already knew all the twist endings.” He rolls his eyes. Then his expression changes. “I didn’t know her health had gotten so bad. I called her two days before she died, exactly two days, and she told me?.?.?. I shouldn’t have believed her.”

My heart sinks. I was there. I know the exact conversation Liam is referring to, because I heard Helena’s side of it. The way she fielded questions and minimized the concerns of the person on the other side of the line. She lied her way through an hour of chatter—it was obvious that she was happy about the call, but she wasn’t honest about how bad things had gotten, and I felt uncomfortable about the deception. Then again, she did that with everyone. She’d have done the same with me if I hadn’t been her ride to doctors’ appointments.

“I wish she’d let me be there.” Liam’s tone is impersonal, but I can hear the unsaid. How painful it must have been to be kept in the dark. “But she didn’t, and it was her decision. Just like leaving you the house was her decision, and?.?.?. I’m not happy about it. I don’t understand it. But I accept it. Or at least, I’m trying to.”

For the first time, I realize what my arrival in D.C. must have been like from Liam’s perspective: Some girl he’d never even heard about, some girl who’d had the privilege to be with Helena during her last few days, suddenly showing up and forcibly wiggling her place into his home. His life. While he was trying to come to terms with his loss and mourn the only relative he felt close to.

Maybe he acted like an asshole. Maybe he never made me feel welcome or wasn’t particularly nice, but he was in pain, just like me, and?.?.?.

What a total mess. What an obtuse idiot I’ve been.

“I?.?.?. I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I didn’t mean any of it. I don’t know you at all, and?.?.?.” I trail off, unsure how to continue.

Liam nods stiffly. “I’m sorry, too.”

We stay there, in silence, for long beats. If I go back to my room now, Liam will order a pizza and I’ll be able to fall sleep without having to hunt down my stash of earplugs. I almost leave to do just that, but something occurs to me: Things could be better. I could be better. “Maybe there could be a?.?.?. a truce of sorts?”

He lifts one eyebrow. “A truce.”

“Yeah. I mean?.?.?. I could?.?.?. I guess I could stop raising the thermostat to twenty-five degrees as soon as you turn around. Wear a sweater, instead.”

“Twenty-five degrees?”

“I’m a scientist. We don’t really do Fahrenheit, since it’s a ridiculous scale and?.?.?.” He’s looking at me with an expression that I can’t quite decipher, so I quickly change the topic. “And I guess I could lay off with the Disney soundtracks?”

“Could you?”

“Yeah.”

“Even The Little Mermaid?”

“Yes.”

“What about Moana?”

“Liam, I’m really trying, here. If you could please—” I am ready to storm out of the kitchen when I realize that he’s actually smiling. Well, sort of. With his eyes. Oh my God, was that a joke? He jokes? “You’re not as funny as you think.”

He nods, and doesn’t say anything for a moment or two. Then, “The Disney soundtracks are not that bad.” He sounds pained. “And I’ll try to be better, too. I’ll water your plants when you’re out of town and they’re about to die.” I knew he’d let my cucumber die on purpose. I knew it. “And maybe I’ll make a sandwich for dinner, if I get hungry past midnight.”

I lift my eyebrow.

Liam sighs. “Past ten p.m.?”

“That would be perfect.”

He crosses his huge arms on his equally huge, still bare chest, and then rocks a bit on his heels.

“Okay, then.”

“Okay.”

The silence stretches. Suddenly, this situation feels?.?.?. tense. Sticky. A verge of some sort. A turning point.

A good time for me to leave.

“I’m going to?.?.?.” I point toward the stairs, where my bedroom is. “Have a good night, Liam.”

I don’t turn around when he says, “Good night, Mara.”