Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Tea With Rosalie**

Selina POV

At eighty one, Rosalie Whitmore still got out of a car like a fifty year old lady. Her driver opened the door. She swatted his hand away and climbed out on her own, the first thing, you see was her silver cane, then one leg of her expensive shoe, then the other. 

She was in a cream coat buttoned to the throat, and her white hair was pinned up like she'd been awake for hours. She probably had. Rosalie didn't believe in sleeping past five. I ran downstairs barefoot, pulling a cardigan over my nightgown.

Mrs. Park was already in the hall, smoothing her apron. Her eyes went to the stairs behind me. Then to the coat hooks, where Damien's jacket should've been. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to.

The front door opened. "Selina." Rosalie held out both hands. "My girl."

I took them. Her fingers were cold and thin but strong. "Grandmother. It's not even seven."

"I'm old. Every hour is a gift. I don't waste them in bed." She looked past my shoulder, up the stairs. "Where's my grandson?"

My throat tightened. "He left early," I said. "A meeting."

Rosalie looked at me for a long moment. She had the same dark and sharp eyes as Damien. The kind that took you apart without asking.

"A meeting," she repeated.

"Yes."

"At seven."

"He's very busy."

"Hmm." She patted my hand. "Mrs. Park, we'll take tea in the morning room. The real tea, not the bags and toast. This child looks like she hasn't eaten since Tuesday."

The morning room was the only room in the house I liked. It faced the garden, and in the mornings, the sun came in low and turned everything gold.

Rosalie sat in the green armchair by the window and I sat across from her and wrapped my hands around my cup so she wouldn't see them shake.

"You've been crying," she remarked.

"Allergies."

"In October?"

I almost laughed. Damien had said the exact same thing, in the exact same voice.

Rosalie sipped her tea. She didn't push. She looked out at the garden instead, at the old oak near the wall.

"He used to sit under that tree," she said. "When he was seven. After his mother left."

I went still. In two years, nobody had ever told me anything about Damien's childhood. Not him. Not his friends. I'd heard pieces at dinner parties, half-sentences that stopped when I walked in.

"His father brought him here the week of the divorce," Rosalie went on. "Dropped him off with one suitcase and a box of toy cars. Said it would be two weeks."

"How long was it?"

"Eleven years."

My breath caught.

"He waited by that window every Friday," she said. "For his father's car. Or his mother's. Either one came. He'd put on his good shoes and sit there until the cook called him for dinner. Every Friday, for almost a year."

"And they never came?"

"His mother sent postcards from Spain. His father sent money." She set her cup down very carefully. "Then one Friday, he didn't sit by the window anymore. He went out to that tree with a book and didn't come back until dark. And he never waited for anyone again."

I looked at the oak. I tried to picture a little boy in good shoes, watching a gate that never opened. I hate it was easier to picture him than I wanted it.

"I'm not telling you this, so that you'll forgive him," Rosalie said. "But because I know my grandson didn't come home last night."

My head snapped up.

"I'm old, Selina, I'm not blind." Her voice softened. "Mrs. Park's face could curdle milk this morning."

I looked away. I didn't trust my voice.

"He's not a bad man," she said quietly. "He's a frightened person. He thinks if he never needs anyone, then nobody can leave him on a doorstep again."

"I didn't leave him anywhere," I whispered.

"I know, darling. I know."

She squeezed my wrist without saying a word. We sat like that watching the sun's reflection on the carpet. 

She picked up her tea cup again, but this time her voice was sharper, the way it did at family dinners when she was about to embarrass someone.

"Well. I'll tell you what would fix that house of cards he lives in."

"What?"

"Great-grandchildren."

My hand moved before my brain did. It went straight to my stomach and pressed flat, the way it had all night. I realized that a second too late. I pulled it back and reached for the toast instead, like that had been the plan all along.

But Rosalie's eyes had already followed it. They went down to my stomach. Then up to my face, then down again. She didn't say a word.

I buttered my toast thoroughly that the knife scraped the plate despite being careful.

"More tea?" I asked.

"Please."

I poured, some of it went in the saucer.

Rosalie watched me do it, and something moved behind her eyes, something careful. Then she smiled and looked back at the garden like nothing had happened at all.

She stayed an hour. She talked about her roses, and her doctor who was "too young to know anything," and a cousin in Edinburgh who'd married a man with three ex-wives. But she didn't mention children again.

At the front door, her driver held her coat. She let him help her into it this time, which she never did.

Then she turned and took my face in both hands, her palms were cool. Her eyes were wet.

"Your mother sat in my kitchen when she was twenty years old," she said. "Did you know that? She cleaned for me one summer, before she met your father. She used to sing in the pantry when she thought nobody could hear."

I shook my head, my eyes burned.

"The night of the accident, I held her hand in that ambulance. She couldn't talk anymore. But she squeezed my fingers, and I knew what she was asking me."

"Grandmother—"

"So I made her a promise. And I'll make it again, to you, so you never forget it." Her thumbs brushed my cheeks. "You will always have a home with me. Whatever he does. No matter Whatever happens in this house. Always."

I couldn't speak. I just nodded.

She kissed my forehead. Then she walked out to the silver car, cane first, and didn't look back. I stood in the doorway until the gate closed behind her.

The house went quiet again. Mrs. Park was in the kitchen, banging pans louder than she needed to. And at Upstairs, his side of the bed was still made.

*Your mother sang in the pantry.*

I hadn't known that. Five years since she died, and there were still things about her I didn't know. I needed to see her.

I grabbed my keys and drove to my parents' graves.