Lavender House: a Novel by Lev AC Rosen

Author:Lev AC Rosen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

NINE

The rain is gone by morning, and the sun streaming in through the window is the sort of clean light you don’t get in the city. It hasn’t passed through smoke or exhaust or bad memories. It’s hitting you right from the source.

I bathe and pick out more clothes from the wardrobe, this time finding a gray plaid jacket that’s a little loose on the shoulders but will work, black trousers, a white shirt, and a pea-green tie. The tie is daring. I would have turned away if I’d seen someone on the street in this tie, in my old life, especially on a Wednesday morning. Now I like it. Maybe. I swallow, studying myself in the mirror. I’m not sure. But I’ll risk it, at least for a little while.

I go downstairs, where breakfast is laid out, same as yesterday; Cliff in his dressing robe, head on Henry’s shoulder as he reads the paper, Pearl and Margo in dressing gowns, Elsie already dressed. No one is talking, and a radio I hadn’t noticed before is on the windowsill, Doris Day singing “Would I Love You” softly from it. Elsie and Pearl both mouth the lyrics during the chorus.

My dad used to do that, while we were on stakeouts. Watching for some lowlife who had faked an injury for the insurance payout, or waiting to see if a thief showed up. He’d turn on the radio and just mouth the words, never sing them. I got to know all the top songs on the radio real well. I kept doing it as a cop, too. Radio on, mouthing along to the lyrics. My partner asked why I didn’t just sing, and I told him I would spare him that. Seeing Pearl and Elsie do it makes me feel at home, somehow. Like I’m lying in sunlight. But it’s not my home, of course. And my dad is dead.

“Good morning,” Pearl says, and the others nod at me as I sit down. Pat immediately brings me a cup of coffee and a plate of waffles and bacon.

“Thanks,” I say to him. I eat quietly as the radio turns to Nat King Cole’s “Too Young,” and then to Phil Harris’s “The Thing,” which is when Elsie leans back and turns the radio off.

“Thank you,” Cliff says. Elsie smirks. The silence is comfortable and then Margo stretches and gets up.

“I’d better bathe and get ready for the fundraiser,” she says. “Pearl, do you mind terribly if I borrowed some brooch or earrings of Irene’s? I was thinking it might be good to wear something of hers for this, in case my photo ends up in the paper. Then people will see it, and think of her.”

“That’s … a good idea,” Pearl says, but she looks sad as she says it.

“Really, only if you don’t mind,” Margo says.

“No, no, it’s a good idea. There was that brooch she always wore to these events. A bouquet of flowers in various gemstones. I’ll see if I can find it when I’m done eating.

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