Page 103 of The Treasure House

“I think there’s a bit of that going on tonight.”

“She’ll survive. I hope.”

“So,” I said, with studied casualness, “do you want to point out your family?”

“Sure. Just over there, behind Lainey, that woman with the blond ponytail? The one telling off the teenager—probably for making a supercut to humiliate her little sister—that’s my sister Gaby.”

The woman in question was tall and broad-shouldered, in a blazer and jeans. She was hissing furiously at a girl I assumed was her daughter.

“The one being told off is Imogen. Maddy is off somewhere with her friends. She snuck out of the performance halfway through and never came back. And there,” he said, gesturing to a knot of men in intense conversation, “is my brother-in-law Hayden. He looks like he’s talking football, which is his religion.”

“And Marly?” I asked, dying of curiosity, scanning the group of people around Lainey.

“And Marly is…” he said, scanning the crowd, “coming right this way.”

My heart leapt to my mouth. It was like meeting a ghost. Or a figment of your imagination.

Jake’s grandmother Marly wasn’t at all what I was expecting. She was tall and elegant, clad in tailored slacks and a soft wool sweater, both in caramel tones. She had silvery white hair chopped into a stylish pixie cut and very sharply observant hazel eyes. Elton had told me she was in her eighties, but she looked fighting fit. And nothing like the sad cat lady with the broken heart that I’d spent months imagining.

“So, Jake,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “This is the woman who bought the house.” She turned those sharply observant hazel eyes on me.

“It is,” Jake agreed. “Zoe, this is my grandmother, Marilyn. But most people call her Marly. And Grandma, this is Zoe Copeland.”

“Hi,” I stuttered. She was nothing like the Marly of my imagination. And she looked nothing like a “pixie stick.” My stomach twisted. I’d made so many assumptions. This poised woman with her expensive haircut and bounty of grandchildren and great-grandchildren didn’t resemble the tragic figure I’d conjured at all. I’d spent so much time fixating on the sad character I’d invented that it was hard to believe this Marly was real.

“And how are you finding it, Zoe?” Marly asked me smoothly. “Little old Oxeye?”

“I love it,” I gushed. I couldn’t stop staring at her.

Her greenish hazel eyes twinkled.

“Until recently I thought you’d lived in the house,” I told her. “I imagined…” My throat grew tight. I’d imagined her life was like my childhood, I realized.

“I can’t bear to think what you imagined,” Marly said, and I noticed she reached for Jake and pressed her hand unobtrusively against his arm. To offer comfort.

Jake’s mother was her daughter, I thought faintly. The house on Tinker Street had been her house. The reality of it was stark. Jake and Marly thought of her whenever I mentioned the house. Once again, I tried to picture his mother and I couldn’t. Marly had been the woman who’d stolen my imagination. How had Jake’s mom ended up surrounded by all that culch? Had she filled the house with treasures to remind her of her life when her memory started to fade? Had she squirreled away parts of her childhood, pop beads and old books and tin toys, to try to keep her life wrapped around her, when she could no longer remember who had given her the beads or read her the books?

“Jake tells me you’ve been restoring the old place,” Marly said softly. I think she could tell by my pained silence where my thoughts had gone. “I’m glad. It needs some love.”

Jake was leaning into Marly as though drawing comfort from her. And she was leaning into him, receiving comfort in return. I felt a deep and very old pain. And an envy so sharp it cut me like a knife. What must it feel like to have family like that?

“It deserves love,” I told Marly through my ever-tightening throat. And I meant it with all my heart. That house had so much treasure in it, a wealth of lives lived in its embrace; it did deserve love.

And maybe so did I.

“Mom, I’m having a second 7Up and you’ll just have to deal with it, because I have had a night.” Flo barreled up, her roses still hugged tight, interrupting the charged moment.

“Nice try.” I took the can of soda off her.

“And who’s this?” Marly asked, although I could tell by the way she glanced sideways at Jake that she already knew.

“This is Florence. My daughter.”

“Flo played Sandy the dog in the play,” Jake told his grandmother.

Marly looked impressed.

“Flo, this is Jake’s grandmother,” I told her. I cleared my throat. “Marly.”