Arrowood by Laura McHugh

Author:Laura McHugh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-08-09T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

* * *

The phone was ringing, and I thought maybe it was Josh, that I had overslept and missed our meeting. He had mentioned that he’d be in town to restock his books at the Miller House Museum gift shop, and asked if he could stop by to talk. I had suggested that we meet at the lock and dam instead, not quite sure about the idea of bringing him into the house. In my groggy state, I swiped around in the sheets trying to find my phone and inadvertently knocked it off the bed. It clattered onto the wood floor, and I realized the ringing wasn’t coming from my cell, it was coming from the house phone. It had been ringing every few days, the number always unknown, sometimes no message, other times a man’s voice—Arden, are you there?—with a brief interlude of staticky silence before the beep. Since the caller wasn’t saying anything creepy or threatening, I mostly ignored the calls, figuring whoever it was would eventually give up.

I rolled onto my stomach and dangled my arms between the bed and the wall to fish out my phone, flinching when my fingers unexpectedly encountered something soft and fuzzy, though I quickly realized it was only a dust bunny, one of many. I got down on the floor to get a better reach, and as I slid my phone through the carpet of dust under the bed, an envelope slid out with it.

I recognized the handwriting right away. My own. It was one of the many letters I’d sent to the twins at Arrowood, this one postmarked 1996. The envelope flap was open, though I couldn’t tell whether someone had carefully opened it or if the glue holding it together had simply dissolved over time. I pulled out the sheet of blue-lined notebook paper and unfolded it, dust gritting my fingers.

Dear Violet and Tabitha, I have read A Little Princess three times now. It is my favorite book.

I would have been ten at the time, living in a drafty Illinois farmhouse among the wheat fields, imagining myself as Sara Crewe, the privileged schoolgirl forced into terrible circumstances when her doting father dies. My father was still alive then, of course, and though he hadn’t ever doted on me, our former life at Arrowood had been idyllic in comparison. The letter went on to explain that Dad was now gone most of the time, trying to work himself to the top of a promising pyramid scheme after taking a Dale Carnegie course called How to Win Friends and Influence People. Our kitchen cabinets were packed with useless, unsold products—shake mixes and dietary supplements and homeopathic remedies and freeze-dried meals. The point, Dad explained, wasn’t to sell the products, but to recruit people under you to sell them. Even if they failed, you’d still make money, because they had to buy their way into the pyramid. The pipes in the rented farmhouse had frozen and burst that winter, and we had moved again.

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