They set to work, Kris taking over with mopping duties, Sadie meticulously misting every other surface with a burst of Pledge and wiping it all down with a clean rag. Their chores did not take long. By the time they were stripping the old sheets from the mattress, only one other song—“Cosmic Dancer” by T. Rex—had followed the Stones.
Kris dropped the fitted sheet on top of the others in a pile at the foot of the bed. Later, she would unload their luggage from the car and find the clean sheets she had brought from home.
“This is your room now,” she told Sadie. She hoped her smile didn’t look as bittersweet as it felt.
Sadie said nothing. She did not even nod to acknowledge her mother’s words. She stared at the bedroom in the same way she greeted her new classroom each year at school.
Across the hall from Sadie’s room was the second closed door, slightly narrower than the others. Unlike the tarnished brass handles on all of the other doors, this one had an intricately cut crystal knob. Sadie admired its many edges as she slipped her hand around it.
“The bathroom,” Kris told her.
Sadie gave the knob a twist.
There were no windows in this room. What little light fell in from the hall revealed a floor of black and white diamond tiles.
Kris reached over Sadie’s shoulder, and her hand disappeared into the blackness. She slid it blindly across the wall, feeling the loose ends of wallpaper that lapped at her fingers like dry tongues. Finally her hand slid across the slick, glazed ceramic of a light switch cover. She flicked the switch up.
Overhead, a fluorescent light buzzed and gave a few strobe-like flickers as it attempted to come alive. Kris and Sadie stared into that flashing light, the glimpses of the room appearing and disappearing too quickly for their eyes to get a solid grasp on any details.
There was something in there, pale and rippled, seemingly suspended in midair.
Kris tried to force her brain to capture the image like a photograph, but just as she felt close to understanding what she was seeing, the space before her was swallowed by the dark.
She took a step closer. An inexplicable thought slithered into her mind: Whatever it was, it will be closer this time. It will be right in front of you.
The thought made her brow furrow, her eyes narrow, and she took a slight step backward just as the light clicked and the room became illuminated beneath a radiant white dome.
There was no furious specter waiting for them. The pale thing Kris had seen was an old shower curtain hanging from a curved metal rod. Beneath it, she glimpsed the lionlike paws of a claw-foot tub.
But she was wrong. Something was there. It was a little girl, staring back at them with wide green eyes, as green as Sadie’s, as green as Kris’s had been all those years ago, before life and pain and disappointment dulled their sheen.
Kris gasped, her heart suddenly pounding against the inside of her rib cage.
It looks like Sadie because it is Sadie, her mind reasoned.
She let out a slow breath.
The entire moment had taken no more than three seconds: one second of confusion, one of fear, and a final second of relief as she realized the voice in her mind was right.
She was staring into an oval mirror in a silver frame mounted over a dingy white sink with separate hot and cold faucets stained by age. It was an odd sensation to stare into those eyes, her daughter’s eyes, once her own eyes, and for a brief moment to believe that the redheaded girl in the gray-and-black checkered shirt and light blue shorts was a stranger.
Sadie must have experienced a similar sensation, for she raised her right hand and her tense body relaxed as the girl in the mirror did the same.
It was a reflection. Of course it was. What else would it be?
Without a word, they began their job, experts after only three rooms.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE BATHROOM TOOK a bit longer to clean than Sadie’s room, mostly due to the bathtub. After three decades and who knows how many renters since Kris’s last stay at the lake house, it appeared no one had bothered to give the inside of the tub a single scrubbing. Dirt ringed the floor and walls, and a grayish-black mildew crept up the sides and over the lip like a fossilized plant.
At least their chores had a soundtrack.
Mom’s jams, Kris thought, and she found herself smiling as she continued the painfully mundane task.
The eerie, jangly chords of “I Let Love In,” accompanied by the off-key croon of Nick Cave, drifted in from the great room like a wandering spirit as Kris worked her way out from the doorway with the mop.
“Despair and deception, love’s ugly little twins … came a-knocking on my door … I let them in …”
It took two passes, half a can of abrasive Comet, and a sponge left in tatters before all of the muck was loosened from the sides of the tub. Kris twisted the stainless-steel cross handle marked Hot. Water swirled around the tub and spiraled down the drain. Once the porcelain was white and pristine, Kris twisted the handle back, shutting off the water. She wiped fresh sweat from her face and sat down on the side of the tub.
Sadie had crawled under the sink and was meticulously cleaning the curve of the trap.
She’s such a good kid, Kris thought. And she was right. Sadie was a good kid. Despite everything she had been through recently, there she was, helping her mother clean room after room in an abandoned lake house to which she had never asked to come.
“You getting tired of this?” Kris asked.
Sadie looked over, and for a moment, her eyes said, Yes, I was tired of this halfway through the kitchen. But instead she shook her head and mumbled a halfhearted, “No, I’m fine. I like helping you.”
And she does. She does like helping you. That’s the problem. She’s eight and you’re forty-one and you should be helping her, not the other way around.
Kris set the sponge on the edge of the tub and twisted her hair into a tight ponytail.
“Why don’t you go play?” she said.
Sadie remained crouching, frozen, as if it were a test.
“Come on, seriously. You’ve helped so much. Do you want to stop?”
Nothing. And then Sadie gave a small, sharp nod, her curls bobbing around her downturned face.
“Come here,” Kris said.
Leaving her sponge on the tiles, Sadie carefully scooted out from under the sink and crossed the damp tiles until she was close enough to fall into her mother’s arms. Kris held her tight, burying her face in Sadie’s hair and breathing in a scent that still held the faintest hint of the bald pink scalp she had smelled that first day, when a nurse laid a newborn baby girl into her arms.
“I love you,” Kris whispered, her lips brushing the inside curve of Sadie’s ear.
In the great room, the fuzzy, dreamy sound of the Jesus and Mary Chain launched into “Just Like Honey.”
For a long moment they sat in silence. Kris leaned against the tub, and Sadie leaned against her. Kris listened to the soft, steady breaths drifting in and out of her daughter’s slightly parted lips. She closed her eyes, and the sound became the slow roll of the tide stretching lazily across sparkling white sand before folding back into the hush of pristine waters.
“We’re done cleaning for today,” Kris said finally. “Cool?”
Sadie nodded, her wild hair tickling Kris’s cheek.
Kris stood up from the side of the tub, forcing Sadie to stand with her.