Starting way back when.
If she wanted this house, she was going to have to do it. Because without the trust money, she didn’t have a chance of buying back her happiness.
Chapter 9Lorna Is Nine
They move in with nana one summer when the honeybees are buzzing around the honeysuckle and the sprinklers run every morning. The wisteria in the backyard has gone wild, and purple blooms are everywhere, vines curling around fences and one dead tree.
“We get our own bedrooms,” Kristen says. “We’ll be next to each other so I can come in whenever I want.” Her tone is both menacing and loving.
Lorna loves her bedroom. It has a padded bench just below windows that crank open. The boughs of an enormous oak tree brush against the side of the house when the wind blows. The closet is dark and deep, and in the back, a little trapdoor leads to the attic. “You should lock your closet at night so the ghosts don’t get in,” Kristen says soberly.
“There are no ghosts, Kristen,” her mother snaps. “Stop scaring your sister.”
But Lorna isn’t scared—she wants to see ghosts.
There are built-in corner bookshelves and thick crown molding. The carpet is worn but plush. It feels bouncy under her feet. “It smells like cat piss in here,” Kristen says. Her room is an exactcopy of Lorna’s, but with three windows instead of two, and no attic door.
“No, it doesn’t,” Mom says. “Don’t let Nana hear you say that.” She takes out a cigarette and lights it. She sits on the padded window seat and blows smoke through an open window. She looks like she is staring at something in the neighbor’s backyard.
She looks sad.
Lorna knows her parents are divorcing. They didn’t tell her, but Kristen did. “It’s about time,” Kristen said when she informed Lorna. “They hate each other.”
“They do?”
“Haven’t you noticed?” Kristen asked as she put on the lipstick she’d stolen from Mom’s purse.
Lorna doesn’t know what divorce means in practice, other than her dad is not going to live with them anymore. He promises her he will see her every week. She hasn’t seen him in at least two.
Lorna and Kristen have spent many nights in this house before, usually without their parents. Her mom’s presence makes it feel different. A little less fun, because Nana spends a lot of time with Mom.
She likes to sit at the top of the stairs where she can overhear Mom and Nana talking downstairs.
“He’s been running around with some bitch from work,” Mom says.
Lorna knows that word is bad. Why would her dad be running around with a bad person?
“That’s so typical of men,” Nana says, and Lorna hears liquid being poured over ice in a glass. She knows it is the stuff in the ice-blue bottle that Nana keeps on top of the fridge. Nana has been drinking a lot of it.
Kristen finds her and pulls her downstairs. She yells at Momthat they are going outside. The backyard is overgrown since Papa died.
“Watch out for snakes!” their mother shouts from the kitchen door.
“Ooh, let’s find some snakes,” Kristen says, excited. They wander down to the fence to look for them, but there aren’t any. Beyond the chain-link fence is a small creek with water running through. The gate is overrun with wisteria and jasmine vines, so they can’t open it. “We have to figure out a way to break out,” Kristen says.
Break out? Why would they want to leave this house? Lorna thinks it is wonderful. It’s big and rambling, with a lot of creaks and moans and weird things, like niches in the walls. She can’t believe she gets to live here all the time now.
“This is the best thing that’s ever happened to us, you know that, right?” Kristen adds as an afterthought, as if she is reading Lorna’s mind. She gives the gate one last tug. It won’t budge. “At least we don’t have to listen to them fighting anymore.”
“I hate when they fight,” Lorna says. Her parents yell so loud, and her mom throws things. Sometimes she and Kristen crawl into the same bed and pull the covers over their heads to hide from the shouting until Kristen says she is hot and throws the covers off.
Kristen doesn’t find a way to break out, at least not that day.
That summer, Lorna and Kristen find new life at Nana’s. They play in the sprinklers. Mom lets them walk to the corner store for popsicles. They watch TV, endless hours of cartoons and old sitcoms.
Eventually, Kristen befriends two girls who live down the street, Mary and Tanya. They are a grade below Kristen. Kristen is tanned and blond and has a body like in the magazines. Everyone likes her. Tanya’s brother Todd really likes her. Lorna is talland pasty-skinned with a mess of hair Nana says came from their crazy great-grandfather. No one seems to notice Lorna when they are outside with the kids on the street. But everyone notices Kristen.
Their new friends come over to watch TV on very hot afternoons. Mary is quiet and doesn’t say much. Tanya is the opposite—she talks all the time and copies everything Kristen does. She wants to be like Kristen. Lorna knows this because she does too. Tanya looks at Lorna and sneers. “Does she have to be here?”
