“Are they fighting? You can tell me, Mrs. Duval. I know what’s going on here.”
“Like cats and dogs,” she said. “I’m to prepare one of the guest rooms for him. Thank goodness this house is big enough for them to avoid each other until it’s all settled.”
“You and Mrs. Caro knew this was coming?”
She rolled her eyes. “You know Mrs. Caro’s powers,” she replied. “You want a nice piece of freshly baked apple pie, maybe with some ice cream?”
“No. I think this will do, thank you.”
“Just ring if you want something else,” she said, and left. I ate almost all of it. I thought I would get up, even go downstairs, but I was still wobbly, maybe more from the sedatives than anything else. I drifted in and out until Jordan appeared again, looking quite flustered.
“You all right?” I asked.
“I’m fine. You don’t worry about me. His bluster won’t work this time. He’ll avoid us both until everything is settled.”
“And Kiera?”
“He says he’ll speak with her tomorrow, but I have my doubts. How do you feel?”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Well, you’re not going to school until next Monday. That’s settled. I’ll have your work brought home. Don’t worry.”
I didn’t argue. She looked more exhausted than I was, and I didn’t want to give her any more trouble.
“I’m going to go take something myself and get some sleep. I need my strength for what’s to come,” she said. She kissed my cheek and left.
The next two days were difficult for everyone at the March mansion. Donald took his anger out on the servants, complaining about work done on the grounds, the pools, anything and everything. He had no meals here, not even breakfast. Jordan’s initial glee and satisfaction with her legal actions against him waned. I could see the depression seeping into her face. Every phone conversation with one of her friends, despite how they sympathized, seemed more like salt rubbed into a wound. At dinner, she told me how she could hear the joy underlying their words.
“Joy? How could they be happy about what’s happened to you?”
“It makes them feel superior. Some of them actually came out and said they knew Donald was having affairs, making it seem as if I were the stupid one. Some claimed he even flirted with them, and one of my so-called friends told me he had propositioned her once. Everyone claimed she had kept it from me to avoid upsetting me. If that was true, if they really cared about how I felt and what the news would do to me, they would never have told me.”
“Has Kiera called you?”
“No,” she said, “and I’m not calling her. She’ll only upset me more by making me feel like this was somehow my fault. How about you?”
“Nothing, not even an e-mail,” I said. I did think that was odd.
“Well, you’re better off, too. You look much stronger. I know what we’ll do. You and I will go out to dinner tomorrow night. How’s that sound?”
“Good,” I said.
“Thank goodness I have you here,” she told me. I saw how sincere she was and nearly cried myself.
Afterward, I went to my room to do my schoolwork and read. My phone rang a number of times, as it had for the last two days, but as before, I let it go to the answering service and never even checked to see who had called. I wanted to be away from it all for a while. I kept checking my computer, however, looking for something from Kiera, but nothing came, and I didn’t want to contact her first. She was too indifferent and cold about Ryder’s death. For a while before I went to bed, I thought I might need another one of those sedatives, but I calmed myself and had only a cup of warm milk that Mrs. Duval brought to me at Mrs. Caro’s insistence.
“Is Mr. March home?” I asked out of curiosity.
“Not yet,” she said.
I thought he might not come home, that maybe he had gone to spend the night or the next few days with one of his girlfriends, but he did come home very late. He woke me up when I heard him practically pounding the stairs and the hallway floors. He must have been drinking, because he shouted something nasty, too. I listened to see if Jordan was going to come out to confront him, but she must have taken one of her sedatives. I lay back again and closed my eyes. I really was looking forward to returning to school now. I needed to get back into the world out there, if only to escape from the turmoil here.
Hours later, I woke when I thought I heard my door open and close.
“Jordan?” I called. She didn’t respond.
I started to sit up, and Donald suddenly appeared at the side of my bed. I was shocked. He was standing there dressed only in his underwear. In the light from a moon caught behind the haze of thin clouds coming through my windows, his eyes looked luminescent. He stared down at me with a crooked smile on his face. For a moment, he wobbled, and then he sat hard on my bed. It was more as if he collapsed on it.