The Ghost in the Glass House by Carey Wallace Page B

“Tell us all the boys you’ve kissed.”
    Even Denby watched Clare now with something approaching interest.
    â€œCome on,” Teddy said. “Tell us what you’ve done with them.” He leaned forward, his legs spread wide, his elbows on his knees.
    Suddenly, Bram was on his feet. “Leave her alone,” he said.
    Bridget looked up at Bram, stricken.
    Teddy eased back in his chair, his eyebrows high, his grin twisted.
    â€œSit down,” Denby ordered.
    Bram watched Teddy for a long moment. Then he sat back down again.
    Bridget’s gaze shifted to Clare, where it hardened.

Fourteen
    C LARE’S MOTHER UNHOOKED THE thread of tiny freshwater pearls from the back of her neck and hung it on one of the red lilies Tilda had brought up to her that morning. The strand hung down over her dressing table like a piece of loose rigging.
    Clare shifted from one foot to the other in the doorway.
    Her mother turned back with a smile. “Hello, love,” she said.
    Clare took up a perch at the foot of her mother’s bed.
    â€œAdeline Lewis is hosting a bridge party on the beach,” her mother told her. “I doubt she was expecting children, but I also doubt the conversation will rise beyond a child’s comprehension. Would you like to come along?”
    Clare shook her head. “I just came home,” she said.
    â€œDid you have a good time with Bridget?” her mother asked.
    Clare hesitated.
    Her mother rummaged through the velvet chambers of her jewelry case and pulled another necklace out. This one was an old-fashioned setting, blue topaz petals and emerald leaves on a white gold vine.
    Clare knew immediately where it must have come from. Her mother’s girlhood bangles were all paste, carved wood, hand-painted glass over butterfly wings. And the vine was too ornate to date from the past few years, when all the jewelry was made to look like airplanes or skyscrapers.
    Her mother lifted her chin to show off the gems. “What do you think?” she asked.
    Her mother’s reflection was strange in the glass: her eyes familiar, but traded, the wrong side of her smile crooked, the wrong eyebrow arched.
    It might have been this strangeness that gave Clare the courage to ask, “Did Daddy give you that?”
    Her mother’s hands froze above her head, like a dancer listening for the strains of the next movement. Then she turned around. Her eyes hadn’t filled with tears, as Clare had feared. In fact, they seemed to have a kind of question in them. “He did,” she said.
    â€œWhen?” Clare asked.
    Her mother touched the jewels at her throat.
    â€œThe day we got married,” she said. To Clare’s surprise, her mother’s lips twisted as if she’d just heard a joke. “He told me he’d had it for weeks, but he waited until the deal was sealed so I couldn’t raise enough money to run off before the wedding.”
    Her smile broke into a grin at the memory.
    Then she stood and gathered Clare into the sheer layers of fabric at her waist. Clare’s hands found hiding spots in her mother’s skirts. Her mother smoothed Clare’s hair.
    â€œHe loved you so much,” her mother said.
    This was a benediction her mother had said over Clare a hundred times since her father’s death. It might even have been what Clare had come in search of. But for the first time since his death, the familiar words didn’t settle her heart.
    Her own memories of her father had long since worn thin, like faces in a photograph that faded a bit more each time she touched her finger down to point at them. And they had only ever been a child’s memories. She had never been old enough to study him the way she now studied everyone she met. Even when her memories had been whole, they had never been enough to tell her what kind of man he’d been.
    But the more Clare learned about other men and boys, the more she wished she knew about