“Really?” The early eighties were when my family moved away from Woodland Dunes. “Why did the town want this specific house?”
“Well, I don’t know that they actually wanted this particular home, but from what I heard, they got it at a great price. The people who’d lived here before couldn’t sell it.”
“Why was that?”
Jan made a show of looking around, even though there was no one else near us. “We’re not supposed to talk about this,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper, “but a lady died here.”
I was quiet. I felt as if I was holding my breath and didn’t know how to let it out. I’d never known where my mom was when she died or exactly how it had happened. I was only seven at the time, and I didn’t remember anything—nothing at all—which had always troubled me. And yet my father and I rarely talked about the subject. When we did, or I should say when I did, it was too painful for him. She became ill, he would say, tapping his head as if to indicate some injury or disease in the brain. His eyes would cloud over, making me fearful he might cry. I knew I looked like her in some ways—my slim build, my wide shoulders, my long sandy hair. I always assumed that resemblance, combined with the horrible memories, made it too painful for him to talk about her death. And so I never stayed on the topic for long. What difference did it make, really? Eventually, I managed to ignore the issue altogether. But that letter had let loose the wonderings again.
“There was some talk, I guess,” Jan said. “The rumor was that someone had done something to her. I got this all secondhand, of course. I was just a baby when it happened.” She checked her watch. “Anyway, let’s finish up.”
She started to take a step away, but I grabbed her arm. She looked at my hand, then at me in surprise.
“I’m sorry.” I took my hand away. “I didn’t mean to startle you, but can you tell me what you mean by the rumors. I mean, what were the rumors, exactly?”
Jan gave me another wary look and rubbed at the spot on her arm. “I don’t know really. Like I said, we’re not supposed to talk about this on the tour, and I wasn’t around to hear about it at the time.”
“I understand.” I tried to make my voice easy, conversational. “But what have you heard? I’m just curious.”
Jan paused a moment, then shrugged. “Well, to be honest, I heard someone killed her, but no one was ever charged, so I’m sure it’s one of those old wives’ tales. Now let me show you the master.”
I trailed behind, her words reverberating in my mind. Someone killed her.
We entered the master bedroom, a large space with a huge bay window of curved glass at the opposite end. A secretary’s desk was tucked into the bay, but I remembered how my mother had installed a long bench under that window and covered it with pillows. I would often find her there, writing in her journal or just looking through the glass onto the front lawn.
I studied the rest of the room, and the cold feeling returned. I remembered so many things all of a sudden—my parent’s king-size bed against the right wall, a bureau of cherrywood with a mirror over it, more flowers, my mother’s yellow sweater hanging over a chair, an armoire to match the dresser, paperbacks and tissue on one nightstand, a lone alarm clock on the other. Recollections poured into my brain with such speed that they startled me. And yet, there was something else about the room that I couldn’t recall.
“Thank you,” I said, interrupting Jan’s remarks. “I have to be going.”
I turned and left the room.
“Is something wrong?” Her voice followed me.
I hurried down the stairs, distantly hearing Jan’s feet pounding behind me, until I made myself stop on the landing. Be calm, I told myself. Be calm. It wouldn’t be good to act crazy when I’d come here seeking answers.
I opened my mouth to say something, but as I gazed down the stairs, I saw my mother again in the powder-blue suit. She was struggling to stand, holding a hand to the back of her head. The doorbell rang once, then again, then pounding came from the door. My mother moved slowly, inching toward the doorway, the white of her hand never leaving her head, holding it gingerly, as if she was keeping her hairstyle in place.
“Is something wrong?” I heard Jan say again.
“No. Nothing at all.” And I turned away, because if I said anything else, I might have told her what I suddenly knew—that my mother, Leah Sutter, died in this house.
4
After leaving the Marker Mansion, formerly the Sutter home—my home—I drove slowly, not sure where I was going, letting the sights of Woodland Dunes fill my head and refresh my memories of the place. I passed the town’s riding stables, matching white barns with green roofs resting on a large field, a white fence surrounding the property. Patsy and I used to ride there on Saturdays, eating brown-bag lunches in the long grass behind the barns when we were done. The town’s championship golf course with its rolling greens and intermittent circles of sand appeared the same as it did years ago, just like the lighthouse at Murphy’s Point.
I turned left on the outskirts of town, then left again toward the lake. And suddenly, there it was. A square plot of land on a hillside dotted with trees and sprinkled with gray and white headstones. The Woodland Dunes Cemetery. I hadn’t realized I was so close. In fact, I didn’t know if I could have found it if I tried.
I pulled into the lot, the tires of the rental car crunching over the gravel. As I got out, I remembered where to go. My dad had brought me here a few times before we moved. I walked toward the far left corner, the heels of my loafers sinking into the damp, spongy ground. I passed an older man in jogging clothes squatting over a small, simple headstone. He pulled stray weeds with a quick hand as if accustomed to the movement.
I stopped when I came to the tall white column made of stone, an angel on either side looking down, protecting the grave. A grayish-green film had made its home in some of the crevices of my mother’s memorial, around the angel’s wings and in the edges of the lettering that read: Leah Rose Sutter, Beloved Wife and Mother, 1942–1982. The rest of the grave site was remarkably clean. No weeds or sand on it like some of the others nearby.
Then I noticed it. A single yellow tulip lying at the base of the monument. I stood completely still, staring at it, my mind latching onto our old house again, wandering the rooms inside, seeing it the way my mother had always kept it. Flowers below the porch, blooms in the vases in the library, and more flowers in her bedroom. In the spring, when the air was new and clean as it was now, those flowers were usually tulips, mostly yellow.
I wrapped my arms around myself. The fact that my mother loved yellow tulips, and the fact that this one had been placed by her headstone had to be a coincidence. I wasn’t aware of anyone who visited her grave. My mother’s own parents had died a few years after her, and she had no siblings. Once we moved away, my father and I never returned. As far as Dan and Caroline were concerned, I didn’t know where they were. They had both been so much older than me. After my mom died, Caroline had gone off to boarding school and Dan to college. We never really saw them after that. My dad and I moved all over for his work at the firm—San Francisco, London, Paris, Long Island—and when I asked about Caroline and Dan, he said that they had their own lives and families. He gave the impression that they didn’t want to be a part of ours any longer.
Maybe the flower had come loose from a nearby bouquet. I glanced at the other grave sites. Some were untended and nearly overgrown. A few had small flower arrangements but no tulips.
When I looked back at my mother’s grave, I had the odd feeling that someone was watching me. A few more glances around told me that I imagined it. The man in the jogging clothes had turned away, walking back to the parking lot.
I bent down and lifted the bud. It looked fairly new, only two of the petals showing signs of droop, probably no more than a day or two old. I laid it gently on the cool stone again,