9
Winter
Alex parted with Dawes near the divinity school, at a sad horseshoe-shaped apartment building in the grad school ghetto. Dawes hadn’t wanted to leave the car in Alex’s care,
but she had papers to grade that were already late, so Alex said she would return the Mercedes to Darlington’s home. She could tell Dawes wanted to refuse, papers be
damned.
“Be careful and don’t … You shouldn’t …” But Dawes just trailed off, and Alex had
the startling realization that Dawes had to defer to her in this situation. Dante served Virgil, but Oculus served them both. And they all served Lethe. Dawes nodded, kept nodding, nodded all the way out of the car and up the walkway to her apartment, as if she
was affirming every step.
Darlington’s house was out in Westville, just a few miles from campus. This was the Connecticut Alex had dreamed of—farmhouses without farms, sturdy red-brick colonials
with black doors and tidy white trim, a neighborhood full of wood-burning fireplaces, gently tended lawns, windows glowing golden in the night like passageways to a better life, kitchens where something good bubbled on the stove, breakfast tables scattered with
crayons. No one drew their curtains; light and heat and good fortune spilled out into the
dark as if these foolish people didn’t know what such bounty might attract, as if they’d left these shining doorways open for any hungry girl to walk through.
Alex hadn’t driven much since she’d left Los Angeles and it felt good to be back in a
car, even one she was terrified of leaving a scratch on. Despite the map on her phone, she
missed the turn into Darlington’s driveway and had to double back twice before she spotted the thick stone columns that marked the entry to Black Elm. The lamps that lined
the drive were lit, bright halos that made the bare-branched trees look soft and friendly like a winter postcard. The bulky shape of the house came into view, and Alex slammed
her foot down on the brakes.
A light glowed in the kitchen window, bright as a beacon, another up in the high tower
—Darlington’s bedroom. She remembered his body curled against hers, the cloudy panes
of the narrow window, the sea of black branches below, the dark woods separating Black
Elm from the world outside.
Hurriedly, Alex turned off the headlights and the engine. If someone was here, if something was here, she didn’t want to scare it away.
Her boots on the gravel drive sounded impossibly loud but she wasn’t sneaking—no, she wasn’t sneaking; she was just walking up to the kitchen door. She had the keys in her
hand. She was welcome here.
It could be his mom or dad, she told herself. She didn’t know much about Darlington’s family, but he had to have one. Another relative. Someone else Sandow had hired to look
after the place when Dawes was busy.
All of those things were more likely, but … He’s here, her heart insisted, pounding so hard in her chest she had to pause at the door, make herself breathe more steadily. He’s here. The thought pulled her along like a child who had hold of her sleeve.
She peered in through the window, safe in the dark. The kitchen was all warm wood and patterned blue tiles— the tiles are Delft—a big brick hearth and copper pots gleaming from their hooks. Mail was stacked on the kitchen island, as if someone had been in the
middle of sorting it. He’s here.
Alex thought of knocking, fumbled with the keys instead. The second one turned in the
lock. She entered, gently shut the door behind her. The merry light of the kitchen was warm, welcoming, reflected back in flat copper pans, caught in the creamy green enamel
of the stove that someone had installed in the fifties.
“Hello?” she said, her voice a breath.
The sound of the keys dropping onto the counter made an unexpectedly loud jangle.
Alex stood guiltily in the middle of the kitchen, waiting for someone to chastise her, maybe even the house. But this was not the mansion on Orange with its hopeful creaks and disapproving sighs. Darlington had been the life of this place, and without him the house felt huge and empty, a shipwreck hull.