Storms 01 - Family Storms

can’t think of a better place to recuperate from anything,” she added.
    I looked up at her. Was it really possible that no one in the house except the Marches knew what Kiera had done and why I was there rather than with some relatives or in an orphanage? Mrs. Caro looked sincere. I wondered if Mrs. March believed that I would never say anything, or was she so confident that even if I did, no one would risk repeating it or discussing it? From the way she described her husband and how he always excused and buried whatever wrong things Kiera did, I imagined thathe had given Mrs. March strict orders to keep it all from their servants.
    It didn’t take me long to understand that it was a house built on secrets and whispers. There was more living in the shadows than in the light, despite the bright chandeliers and lamps. A family that lived more in the shadows was a family of the blind.
    The patio Mrs. Caro wheeled me to faced the pool and the tennis courts. There were two tables with chairs, a settee with a small table, and what looked like a pile of stones in a circle with benches around it. I asked Mrs. Caro what it was, and she said it was a fire pit to keep people warm when they sat out there on cooler nights. Right then, the sun was still high in the blue, nearly cloudless sky. It was about the same time of day as when I had seen those teenagers there. Would they return? What would happen when they saw me, if they did return?
    “I’ll set you in this shady spot,” Mrs. Caro said. “Not too warm for you?”
    “No. I’m fine.”
    “Will you be all right here by yourself for a while? I have to check on some things in the kitchen for tonight’s dinner,” Mrs. Caro asked. “It could be twenty minutes.”
    “Yes, I’ll be fine,” I said.
    “I’ll bring some fresh lemonade when I return,” she said, and left.
    I sat staring out at the beautiful grounds. There was so much to see. It was still hard to believe that one family owned all of this. Just a short while ago, the only space Mama and I had had to ourselves was bordered by thecardboard walls of some box. It almost felt as though I had been taken to another planet.
    The Marches’ estate wasn’t just big; it was busy. Judging by the short time I had been there, it seemed there was never a time of day when someone wasn’t working on something. Right then, two men were repairing a pole lamp on the driveway to my right, and two others were working around the cabana. One was touching it up with some paint, and the other was adjusting a door.
    Wheeling myself out a little farther, I could look to my left and see part of the long driveway that curved around the side of the grand house to where Mrs. March had said the garages were. When I heard the sound of a vehicle, I leaned as far as I could to see if it was the limousine that had brought me. If so, it was probably Mrs. March returning. Instead, I saw what I knew to be a gold-colored Rolls-Royce. I had seen a few of them in Santa Monica, and Daddy used to vow that he was going to have one. Mama always mocked that and made him angry.
    “You’re lucky you can afford the old truck you drive,” she had told him. “If you’re going to have a dream, at least have the sense to dream about something relatively possible.”
    As the Rolls approached, I could make out a good-looking, light-haired man driving. He didn’t look my way and followed the driveway around the house. Was that Mr. March? I was sure Mrs. March had said he would be gone longer. I watched and listened but heard and saw no one. When Mrs. Caro returned with my lemonade, I asked her if Mr. March had returned.
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Is Mrs. March here?”
    “She is. I told her you had been out here about twenty minutes, and she told me to take you up in a little while so you could rest, maybe take a nap before dinner. I’ll have to get started in the kitchen soon myself.”
    I drank the lemonade and nodded. I couldn’t make myself ask about Kiera, and Mrs. Caro said nothing about her. She offered to wheel me around to see the garden before we went up to my suite. Gardening had been and still was a passion for her. She bragged about the way flowers grew in Ireland, and she said, “My duties here make it difficult to get my hands into Mother Earth.” The garden was so big. It looked like something in a park. Mrs. Caro knew the names of every flower, when they bloomed, when they should be planted, even how they should be