Hearts, Frozen

The four of us shared a town car from the airport.

My brother Reid got out at the gate, letting in a rush of frigid air, and punched in the code, then got back in the car before it eased up the long drive.

We got out and, despite the chill, stood silently in a line, rolling suitcases at our sides, and looked at the house we’d grown up in.

The Greek Revival mansion was white, three-story, with black shutters and four columns holding up the portico.

For the holidays, it was tastefully decorated with white lights on the high eaves, as well as around the edges of the portico. The columns were wrapped with pine boughs, wide red ribbons, and lights. A large pine-bough, red-beribboned wreath graced the front door, and smaller identical wreaths hung in each of the first-floor windows, five of which stretched in each direction.

For all its grandeur, the house looked warm, welcoming.

We knew better.

* * *

We left our suitcases by the door and found Mother in the drawing room. It was one of her favorite rooms, with pale yellow silk wallpaper and windows that stretched from the ten-foot ceiling to the floor. The antiques were tasteful, the objets d’art carefully chosen for their value as well as their presentation.

The lemon scent of furniture polish permeated the house. It brought back memories I’d done my best to banish. At home I used fragrance-free, or sometimes lavender. Even lemonade turned my stomach.

Tall and still straight-backed despite her age, she’d taken to using a wheelchair a few years ago even though she didn’t really need it. She liked the attention, as near as we could tell. Tonight, however, she was sitting in a Louis XIV chair.

Her white hair was pulled up in a precise chignon, and she wore a slate-blue sweater set and black skirt, with a strand of large pearls around her neck.

To our surprise, she wasn’t alone. A police officer sat on the sofa catty-corner to her. He stood upon our entrance.

He looked to be in his mid-40s, about the same as us. In fact, he looked vaguely familiar. His sandy-blond hair was cut short, businesslike. His face was dotted with pockmarks, but it felt as though he’d grown into them; they were a feature, not a detraction.

“You’re late,” Mother commented, her voice smooth and cultured because there was someone else present. Otherwise she would have snapped the words out, cutting.

We had, in fact, arrived at exactly the time we said we would. But Mother always found fault with all of us, justified or not. She simply would never be satisfied, and we’d all made peace with that long ago.

“And you are?” the officer asked.

Even though the four of us had waltzed into someone’s home unannounced, his hand had gone nowhere near his gun. That was one of the unspoken rules here: Don’t create a fuss. It was, no doubt, also the reason we hadn’t seen his car. People would talk about a police car spotted outside the Waverly Estate, and we certainly couldn’t have that.

Not that we looked like criminals, in our cashmere wool coats and expensive shoes.

“We’re her children,” Reid said. “What seems to be the problem, officer?”

“Someone’s been stealing from me!” Mother said. “Things are missing. Valuable things!”

“If you all wouldn’t mind waiting in another room until I’m finished talking to Mrs. Waverly, I’d appreciate it,” the officer said. “I’ll be with you shortly.”

We went to the smoking room, which hadn’t been used as a smoking room in more than a century, but still had its dark red leaf-patterned wallpaper and faux-distressed, chocolate-brown leather furnishings.

It was warm in here, as it was in the rest of the house. One thing our mother never skimped on was creature comforts, no matter the cost. She didn’t overheat so we were all in shirtsleeves, but if it was cold outside, the heat went on.

Except on the third floor. Nobody used it anymore.

Simon went to the bar and poured us all whiskey in cut crystal glasses. We threw our coats on a sofa and sat in a grouping of four chairs. Silently, we all took a hefty swallow.

“Well,” Vanessa said. “Things seem to be happening.”

“They do indeed,” I said. The whiskey warmed me from the inside out.

There wasn’t much else to say.

It didn’t take long for the policeman to find us. He introduced himself as Fontaine. He nodded at Vanessa. “We went to school together, didn’t we?”

Ah, so he’d been in Vanessa’s class. That explained why he looked familiar.

“We did,” Vanessa said. “I thought I recognized you. Bobby Fontaine.”

“Robert,” he said with a short nod. “As I recall, you were out frequently due to illness.”

I watched Vanessa fight not to let her emotion show. “Yes, it was … unfortunate,” she said.

We were all frequently “ill” during our school years to various degrees. If we slipped so far as to get an A-, Mother would lock us in our rooms with our schoolbooks for as long as she thought necessary to remind us that nothing short of perfection was required of a Waverly.

I think Vanessa, the oldest, got the worst of it.

She’s a neurosurgeon now.

We’d all succeeded. Reid was CEO of a major tech company, and Simon was an attorney. I was a bestselling crime novelist with a law degree. I was the biggest failure of all of us, with such a frivolous career.

“Have you noticed anything amiss?” Officer Fontaine asked. “Anything missing from the house?”

“We just arrived, I’m afraid,” Simon said.

“None of us has been here for several months. We’re back for the holidays,” I added.

“What has she said is missing?” Reid asked.

“Smaller objects, some jewelry.” Officer Fontaine glanced at his flip notebook. “All valuable, although nothing rare.”

“Are you sure she hasn’t simply moved things around herself?” Vanessa asked. “Redecorated? I mean, the house is enormous.”

“Is she prone to forgetting she redecorated?” he asked in return.

She hesitated, sighed. “I work with neurological patients,” she said. “Mother has seemed more … scattered the last time or two I’ve spoken with her.”

The rest of us nodded and murmured agreement.

“It seemed minor,” Vanessa went on, “but there’s no way to predict how slowly or rapidly these things progress.”

“She seemed alert to me,” Fontaine said. “But I know it can come and go as well.”

“You’re right,” Vanessa said and took a sip of whiskey.

“Now that we’re here for a few days, we’ll keep a close eye on her,” Reid said. “As well as keep an eye out for anything missing. Has she given you a list?”

“She mentioned quite a few things,” Fontaine said.

“If we could get a copy of that, it would help,” Reid said.

Fontaine promised to email it to him, and then Vanessa saw him out.

When she returned, we refreshed our drinks and knocked them back. A waste of good whiskey, but we needed to fortify ourselves, and our mother would be getting impatient.

It was going to be a long few days.

* * *

The annual Waverly Foundation banquet and fundraiser took place on December 23, the next night. The foundation took care of everything; Mother showed up early to ensure everything was to her satisfaction, and played the benevolent queen for the rest of the evening.

Martin Blankenship, the foundation’s director for several decades, was a short, solid man with black hair and a thin mustache. He was ridiculously good at his job, and also frightened of my mother, unable to say no to her. It wasn’t his fault; almost everyone had that reaction to her.

He met us at the door to the hotel, where the four of us wiped our wet shoes on the provided mats so we didn’t track on the expensive burgundy-and-gold fleur-de-lis pattered carpet. Above, chandeliers glittered, banishing the early darkness of one of the longest nights of the year.

A tasteful selection of holiday music wafted through the vast lobby.

In the time it had taken us to wrestle Mother’s wheelchair from the trunk and get her situated in it, and the short walk to the hotel’s front doors, I felt chilled to the bone. I was loathe to remove my coat or hat or gloves just yet.

Mother was, of course, swathed in mink, including her hat. The fur items had been passed down from at least her grandmother, so nobody could really complain that she’d been instrumental in the animals’ death.

At any rate, what anyone thought about the fur, or her, they knew to keep to themselves.

“Mrs. Waverly, it’s always such a delight to see you,” Martin gushed, leaning down to take Mother’s leather-gloved hands in his. “Happy Holidays. How have you been?”

“Well enough,” my mother said. She didn’t add Merry Christmas. It wasn’t her job to make people feel merry.

We started walking across the lobby, Reid pushing our mother’s chair. Martin walked beside the chair, and the rest of us followed.

The concierge approached to take our outerwear, and I reluctantly divested myself of it, folding my cold fingers in my palms.

“I have to thank you so much for your generous donations,” Martin said as we continued. “The auction will be talked about for months — no, years.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Mother said.

“Why, all the things you donated,” Martin said. “There’s going to be bidding wars on everything. We’ll break all records with how much we make.”

“You must be mistaken,” Mother said.

“But —”

She waved a hand, and he stopped.

The vast banquet room also had glittering chandeliers as well as flickering candles on every table. The only area that was brightly lit, however, was over the auction tables that lined the wall behind the podium.

Reid pushed the chair to the front of the room between the tables, barely squeezing past the empty chairs. Anyone who was anyone was desperate to attend. Martin created the guest list; our mother reviewed it, approved or disapproved, and sometimes added. The gala was nonetheless a popular one, and the more attendees, the more money would be raised. Mother liked the adulation she received from that success.

And she loved the power she had over who would be there and who would be snubbed.

I could smell the tantalizing aromas of the banquet coming from the kitchen, but they didn’t interest me. Eating was a touchy thing around mother. Eat too much, and you had no manners (not to mention what it would do to your figure); eat too little, and you still had no manners.

It was a wonder none of us had developed eating disorders.

We arrived at our round table at the front of the room, and a tuxedoed staff member whisked away Mother’s chair while another took our drink orders so we didn’t have to wait at the bar. Mother eschewed a cane, instead running her eyes over each of us until she chose my arm to lean on. My siblings looked relieved. I braced myself and hoped the drinks arrived soon.

She didn’t need to lean on me so heavily, so I could only imagine she did it out of spite.

When we reached the tables laden with auction items, she gasped. I blinked. My mother was rarely caught off guard. Her fingers tightened painfully on my arm.

“I didn’t donate these things. I never would. Some of these have been in the family for generations!”

I recognized the items she was referring to: A roughly six-inch square painting of a saint, done by an Italian Renaissance master. A pair of Meissan porcelain flower-encrusted potpourri vases with ornate covers. An antique gold pocket watch.

“But … we have your signature on the tax forms,” Martin stammered. He frantically waved over his assistant, murmured his request, and she rushed off.

She returned a few minutes later with a manila folder. In the time she was gone, Mother had threatened to fire everyone who worked for the foundation — no, sue all of them — no, have them arrested for theft. …

Martin had gone ashen and looked as though he was going to vomit.

“This is the form,” Martin said, holding out a multi-page document. “You signed two, one for your files and one for ours.”

“I don’t understand,” Mother said. She stared at the last page of the contract, at the signature, a furrow between her carefully plucked brows. “I would never …  There must be some mistake.”

Simon took it from her hands and scanned the pages. “That does look like your signature, and this was dated two days ago. Everything looks legitimate.”

“You had them delivered the day before yesterday,” Martin said. “You’d given me the list of items ahead of time, and I couriered the contracts to you the day before, and you sent back one contract with the donations.”

“But I don’t … There must be some mistake,” Mother repeated. She was leaning so hard on my arm that I had to put a hand one of the auction tables. “Let’s sit you down,” I said, and led her back to our table, with its gold-inked place cards and centerpiece of a hand-decorated, live balsam.

“Why would someone steal from you only to donate the items to an auction benefiting your foundation?” Reid asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t, but …” For the first time, I saw a flicker of doubt cross our mother’s face.

Suddenly she said, “It’s some kind of scam! That’s what it is — a scam. Someone will low-ball the bids and then sell everything at a higher price.”

Vanessa pulled a chair around so she could sit in front of our mother. She took Mother’s hands, thumbs resting on her wrists, and peered at her. Voice soothing, she said, “Mother, you’re getting agitated. I’m worried about your heart.”

“My heart is fine,” my mother snapped.

“That’s not what your doctor said the last time I spoke with him,” Vanessa said.

Again my mother frowned. “That’s ridiculous. He never said any such thing to me.”

“Are you sure? He said he discussed lifestyle changes with you.”

“Of course I’m sure! I’m not an idiot. I would remember that.” Mother’s hands gripped the padded arms of the chair.

“Just like you would remember donating the items to the auction?” Simon murmured.

The four of us exchanged worried glances.

“No!” Mother said. She rarely raised her voice, so even though she was just speaking more stridently, it sounded as though she were shouting. “I never would have donated those precious heirlooms.”

Vanessa reached into her black leather medical bag, which she always carried with her. It was smaller than the traditional ones, but had the basics for emergencies.

“I’m going to give you a light sedative,” she said. “Just to keep your blood pressure stable.”

“I don’t need a sedative,” Mother protested.

“Who’s the doctor in the family?” Vanessa asked with a raise of her eyebrows and a smile.

She glanced at Martin and his assistant. Martin made the briefest of nods. He saw what we had seen. He was concerned for Mother’s health, too.

“But my things,” she protested.

“We’ll take care of everything,” I promised.

Which we did.

* * *

The next day, Christmas Eve, we told Mother that we were concerned enough about her sudden mental lapses that we’d jointly decided she needed greater care.

She was sedated enough not to protest too strongly.

Vanessa had already found a small, private facility. Money had exchanged hands. We’d all contributed.

There would be no questions.

Mother was clearly mentally impaired.

They picked her up that very day. We each kissed her forehead as they wheeled her out on the gurney.

Simon would file the power of attorney paperwork on the 26th.

It had never been hard to forge Mother’s signature.

Then we waited.

* * *

While we drank our fortifying whiskey, Reid asked, “Do you think she kept to her threat of writing us out of the will?”

“I doubt it,” Simon said. “It was just something to hang over our heads. She’d need us to continue being Waverlys.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t want any of it. Whatever comes to me, I’m giving to the foundation.”

The others murmured agreement.

We already knew none of us was ever coming back here.

It was about 11:30 when we finished our drinks and climbed the stairs to the third floor, our feet silent on the carpet, none of us speaking. Mother had closed the floor off years ago, and the air was heavy and stale, and cold because the heat had been turned off.

We stood in front of the door to what had once been Mother and Daddy’s bedroom suite.

Vanessa pulled the key from her pocket, the one on a 24-carat-gold chain that she’d removed from around our mother’s neck. It had hung there for a good 30 years.

“Who wants the honors?” she asked.

“I’ll do it,” I said, reaching for the key. The others understood why, and they didn’t argue.

Even though it had been in the pocket of Vanessa’s heather-gray wool slacks, the key felt so cold that it was burning my skin.

I unlocked the door, turned the knob. As one, we pushed the double doors open and back.

If the third floor had smelled stale, this room smelled dry, musty. I almost breathed a sigh of relief; I’d expected worse.

Someone found the light switch.

The antique light fixture on the ceiling illuminated the king-size bed with its ridiculous number of pillows.

And the mummified corpse of our father lying upon it, knife still buried in his chest.

* * *

I had been 12 when it happened. Unlike the others, I had witnessed it.

The others were older, and thus on a different school schedule; I always arrived home before they did. After dropping my schoolbag and shoes and sweater by the door (a servant would whisk them up to my room before Mother saw them), I made my way to the kitchen for a snack, as I always did.

The kitchen was renovated every ten years or so, to keep up with current fashion and technology. Currently it had stainless steel appliances that echoed the top of the kitchen island that was longer than I was tall. The cabinets were stark white, the backsplash tile, the counters Carrera marble.

Belatedly, I remembered that it was our cook’s day off, when she left a prepared meal for us to rewarm in the oven.

I knew where she kept the treats she snuck us, of course. I found a batch of homemade brownies and was heading to the back stairs when I heard my parents’ voices.

I wasn’t supposed to have a brownie; I wasn’t really supposed to be in the kitchen at all. I didn’t have time to make it to the stairs.

On stockinged feet, I slid sideways into the butler’s pantry and crouched down. I could see them through the door’s glass panel.

“They’re not your children,” my father said, his voice weary, as if they’d had this discussion before. “Their ours.”

“They are Waverlys,” my mother hissed.

Daddy had taken Mother’s name when they married, because the family insisted the Waverly line must continue as Waverlys.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t have a say in their upbringing,” Daddy said.

“It does when you criticize me,” Mother snapped back.

Then it was Daddy who seemed to snap. “That’s it. I’m done trying to reason with you. The children are neither safe nor happy here.”

“They have the best of everything,” Mother protested, waving a hand to encompass the house and contents and, probably, our private school.

“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. You are controlling, demanding, and abusive.”

“I’ve never laid so much as a finger on them!” Mother said.

“Emotional abuse. Psychological abuse. Gaslighting,” my father said. “They’re children, not show ponies or robots. And I. Am. Done. We’re leaving.”

In the deadly silence that followed, I pressed a hand over my mouth to choke back whatever emotional noise was pressing in my upper chest, threatening to burst up and out of my mouth like a horrifying belch.

Daddy was nothing like Mother. He loved us, and showed it with affection and kindness. I’d never dreamed we could be free of this life, that Daddy could rescue us.

“What did you say?” My mother’s voice was low. Some might have thought she sounded calm, but I knew better. In her careful hush, she sounded terrifying.

“I said, the children and I are leaving.” Daddy’s voice was calm, too, as if now that he’d said it out loud, it was ordinary.

“You will do no such thing!” Now my mother’s voice raised. She rarely displayed loud anger, which made this all the more unnerving.

“I can, and I will,” Daddy said. “If you oppose me, I’ll tell everyone what you’re really like. I have photos, videos, journals detailing everything you do to those children you profess to love.”

“You will do no such thing!” my mother repeated, and it was a scream.

I saw her turn, grab something from the counter, whirl back.

A glint as the knife she held came down into my father’s chest.

The stunned look on my father’s face before he crumpled and fell out of sight behind the kitchen island.

I didn’t think I made a noise then, but Mother, looking down impassively at my father, said, “I know you’re in there. You know better than to spy on your elders. Come here.”

I left the brownie on the butler’s pantry floor and obeyed. Not obeying would be far, far worse.

“Wait here,” she said. “Don’t let anyone come in here or see this.”

She made me wait there with her, as the copper stench of blood filled my nose even as the blood pool grew around my beloved, dead father.

* * *

When my siblings arrived home, she immediately herded them into the kitchen. I had thought someone turning white was just a description in books, but Vanessa’s face lost all color, and Simon grabbed her elbow before she fell. She put a hand on the island.

“Breathe,” he murmured into her ear.

“Mother,” Reid began. “What—”

“You will all be quiet and listen to me,” she said. She held out a shower curtain. “Simon, Reid, roll that onto this.”

That. Not him. He was already no longer a person to her.

She made us all help carry him up to their bedroom — thankfully she allowed us to use the elevator — and put our vile package, our father, on the bed. Then she turned to us.

“You have all helped me move and hide a dead body,” Mother said, her voice low and even and icy cold. “If you ever, ever tell anyone, anyone about this, I will swear you killed him, you moved him, you tried to cover it up. The Waverly name will not be tainted in my generation. I’d rather it didn’t in yours. Think about that.”

Then she sent us to our rooms.

I never understood why she kept his body. She had the finances and the resources to have it disposed of discretely, never to be found. I know it wasn’t out of any sense of guilt.

Maybe it was a sense of triumph, of having thwarted his plans and bested him.

But in truth, I suspected it was to serve a reminder to us that we were just as vulnerable. Or that we were Waverlys above all else.

And you don’t cross the Waverlys.

Especially not when the Waverly was our mother.

* * *

Vanessa had brought a body bag, and we lifted the surprisingly light corpse of our father into it. I eased the knife out of his chest and dropped it in next to him before she zipped the bag up.

We each took a handle as we crossed the snow-covered back lawn, as if we were pall bearers, even though we held him between us, not on our shoulders. The night was clear and shockingly cold.

Despite the temperature, the sharp, fresh air was a blessing, even as it burned my sinuses.

If anyone later questioned our footsteps in the snow, well, is it all that unreasonable for family members to visit their forebears during the holidays?

I thought I heard church bells ringing midnight, welcoming Christmas, but it had to have been my imagination, because our estate wasn’t close enough to any churches.

The family mausoleum was made of dark gray, veined marble, but now the snow covering it glowed in the starlight.

Reid had that key, and hauled the wrought iron door and then the inner door open.

Inside, we’d already opened a crypt. We’d put the body in and slide the stone into place. The fit was precise and the lines were almost invisible, so without a nameplate, no one would be the wiser.

No one would really care. We were the last Waverlys, and none of us would be buried here. When the house sold, we’d ensure the mausoleum was permanently sealed.

I lit the candle we’d already set up in here, and we placed our hands on the thick black bag, acknowledging our father within, and what he tried to do for us.

I felt something crack inside of me, like an ice cube in a glass of whiskey. As if I had been frozen since that day, and now the frigid barrier had broken away.

“It’s okay, Daddy,” I said. “We’re finally safe. You can rest now.”