Wedding Eve Goodbye novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Kettle

Elin goes home to her stepmother, who is too warm and offers a paper to sell the house; Elin refuses, and Dominic's assistant arrives at the door in the rain.

I played the tape three times in the truck behind the church.

The third time I held my phone up to the speaker and recorded it, in case the old tape snapped.

My father's voice was the same each time, humming and warm.

My father had hummed that tune to me every night until I was ten.

"Little wolf" was his name for me, because I howled the whole first year of my life.

Nobody else on earth had ever called me that.

Dominic had said it into a recorder for another woman.

I drove home with the radio off and my teeth locked together.

Rhonda was in the kitchen with a fresh pot of tea, and she looked up at me with red eyes.

She had changed out of her church dress into a grey sweater, and she looked smaller in it.

"I've been out of my mind," she said. "Three reporters have called the house."

"Rhonda, did you know about this?"

I put the cassette case on the table between the sugar bowl and her teacup.

She picked it up and turned it over.

"Declan's handwriting," she said softly. "Where did you get this?"

"Odile Haldane."

"That woman." She put one hand flat on her chest. "What's on it?"

"Dad singing."

I pushed play on the phone, and the tune filled the kitchen.

Rhonda closed her eyes.

When it finished, she opened them and wiped one with her thumb.

"He sang that to you every night. You were his little wolf." She took a breath. "Last night that man took something sacred and gave it to a girl on his payroll."

"How would Dominic even know the song?"

"Your father worked with the Haldanes for years, sweetheart. They sat in the same rooms. Dominic must have heard Declan humming it on the phone."

It was a smooth, sensible answer.

"I'll keep the tape safe for you," she said, and she slid it across the table into her own hand. "These old ones fall apart. I'll have it copied properly."

"I already copied it."

"Of course you did. You're your father's daughter."

She smiled, and she did not give the cassette back.

I let it go, because I had it on my phone and because I was too tired to fight over plastic.

She got up and brought me a folder from the sideboard.

"There's one other thing, and I hate to bring it up today," she said. "A man from the real estate agency came by on Thursday."

"Why?"

"He has a buyer. They want the house, and the offer is generous. I thought if you wanted to start fresh, away from Hartford, away from all of this..."

She laid a stapled paper in front of me and put a pen on top of it.

It was a listing agreement for my father's house.

The date typed at the top was Thursday's.

The signature line at the bottom said Elin Marden, and it was empty.

"I'd handle everything," Rhonda said. "You'd never have to look at this place again."

I read the first paragraph and put the pen back down.

"This is Dad's house."

"It's a house, Elin. And it's much too big for two women."

"It comes to me, doesn't it? When I turn thirty."

She smiled at me, and for the first time all day it took her a moment to do it.

"Or when you marry, as you were going to do this morning." She patted my hand. "Which is why I think we should sell and have the money safe."

"I'm not signing anything this week."

"Of course not. Think about it."

She left the paper where it was.

I went upstairs and lay on my bed, still in my jacket, and played the tape off my phone.

Dominic had sat in a room with a recorder and sung my father's lullaby to a girl of twenty-one.

He had called her by the name my father gave only to me.

I lay there and counted all the nights I had stood outside his door, hoping he would say one soft word to me.

He had saved every soft word for her.

I told myself I would never forgive that.

I did not cry, because I was too angry, and then I fell asleep sideways with the phone on my chest.

The doorbell woke me at dusk.

Rain was coming down hard on the roof.

I went down in my socks, and Rhonda was already in the hall with her hand on the lock.

"Don't open it," she said. "It's the press."

I opened it anyway.

Mina Lowell stood on the porch with a duffel bag over her shoulder and her braid soaked flat.

She was shaking so hard her teeth clicked.

Her eyes went over me, over Rhonda's face behind me and back.

"Miss Marden," she said. "Mr. Haldane told me to come to you."

I stared at her.

"He said I'm not safe at his house anymore," she said. "He said you're the only person who'll keep me safe."

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