Rebecca Makkai - The Hundred-Year House

“Well, I suppose I am. And that’s a northern catalpa. It can’t be as impressive to you, coming from the south. But up here, it’s got the largest leaves of any tree, by quite a lot. It isn’t always so ugly.” In early summer, it had been sublime in its inflorescence: white flowers hanging like bridal trains, foot-long seed pods, leaves as big as dinner plates. But now the leaves were sickly yellow, the pods brown and distressingly phallic.

“No, it’s very pretty,” Amy said. “It is.”

“Don’t lie.”

“Oh.”

Amy looked as if she might cry. Grace was tempted to push her further, to see if she would, but instead she said, “Come sit with me a minute.” She led her to the bench by the koi pond. She’d have to ask Max soon what was to be done with the fish once the weather fully turned. She didn’t know if they’d be brought indoors, or if they continued to live here, sealed beneath a sheet of ice. They sat, and Amy immediately buried the toes of her saddle shoes in the leaves. She was a child, Grace reminded herself. Max said she was eighteen, and she looked it, but there was something much younger about her, something stuck at seven. Grace said, “Your uncle has a visitor.”

There was just the shortest flicker of confusion before Amy said “Yes.” Of course. Because Max, Grace had figured out weeks ago, was not Amy’s uncle. Max had been flawless in his story, introducing Amy back in July with a proud hand on her shoulder, including just the right number of details: “the daughter of my sister Ellen,” and “took the train all the way from Florida by herself,” and “planned to stay with friends but it’s all fallen through.” Grace had bought it completely. Why wouldn’t she? She’d said Amy could stay as long as she needed. And in August, when he’d come to her again and said that Amy would really love to work, that she could use the experience, Grace had thought of what her own mother would do, the manners and generosity she’d seen modeled for years before she learned, in history class, to call it noblesse oblige . The housekeeper, Mrs. Carmichael, was ancient and nearsighted and gouty, and Grace had been sure she wouldn’t mind the help. Amy could fill in wherever needed, Grace had said, and Amy had broken her own outpouring of gratitude only to say that she didn’t have a green thumb at all, that she could clean and help in the kitchen, but the gardeners would be better off without her.

Then certain details started to needle Grace. There was something so raw and low about Amy, a harshness to her vowels that was separate from her southern accent. Her teeth were crooked, she didn’t know what a sideboard was, she bit her nails. In asking Mrs. Carmichael how to reshelve the records in the library, she pronounced “Mozart” with a soft Z. Whereas Max was a true Brahmin. Grace had no idea of his background, besides his long attachment to the colony, but the man spoke fluent French and subscribed to Harper’s . It didn’t fit that his sister would be Amy’s mother. And so Grace had devised a test. She found Max in the garage one day in September, and said, “I’m thinking already about Christmas. I know, here we are roasting to death — but it’s my first Christmas as a married woman. How did you celebrate, Max? When you were growing up? I need inspiration.” And he’d told her about sticking cloves into oranges, about opening gifts by candlelight on the Eve, church service at nine in the morning, duck for dinner, carols and eggnog after. And then, the next day, Grace had come into the kitchen and asked the same thing of both Amy and the cook. Amy had swallowed hard and said, “Well, we always had bowls of nuts on the coffee table. That was a real treat.” Grace pressed further and heard about turkey the night before, leftovers for Christmas dinner itself, a mad rush for gifts at dawn.

Grace was certain, then: There was no way a woman who’d grown up in the house Max had described would invent Amy’s Christmas for her own children. It answered her question, but it raised many more: Who in heaven was this Amy Hall, and why did Max want her here, and what did she want from Laurelfield? There was something about her weakness that made Grace want to hurt her, to test how long she could hold herself together. Perhaps it was the same instinct that had led George to pin Amy to the tree. She and George were so similar, after all.

Grace said, “Who is she?”

Amy seemed relieved that the question was this easy. “Miss Silverman. From New York City.”

“ Silverman . And she — Miss Silverman is a friend? Of your uncle’s?”

“I think so.”

“Jewish. A name like that.”

“Oh. I wouldn’t know, ma’am.”

“Had you met her before?”

“No, not before.”

“She seems quite odd. Don’t you think?” She leaned toward Amy and whispered, twelve-year-olds in the schoolyard. “She dresses like a witch.”

Amy let out a short giggle.

“Is she still here today?”

“She went down to the Art Institute,” Amy said. “On the train. I worried about her, going all alone, but I guess if she’s from New York City she can find her way around.”

“Certainly. And is she— attached to your uncle? In a romantic sense?” Even though the witch seemed older than Max. She was gray, and he was not.

“Oh, no! I mean, she hasn’t seen him in years. That’s what I gathered.”

“Amy,” she said, “one thing I admire about you is your power of observation. No one could have learned this place faster than you. I’m still learning it myself.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“I’m just trying to find out what I can, because I don’t want to make your uncle uncomfortable. The truth is that he never asked to invite a guest.”

“Oh, but he didn’t know she was coming!”

“Are you sure?”

“You’ve never seen anyone so surprised. He — well, I don’t know. He was upset that she’d come. It’s really not his fault, I think.”

Grace decided to be quiet until Amy said something else. This was one of her father’s negotiation tactics, and she rarely had reason to use it. Perhaps she was still improving her mind after all. She stared at Amy, and Amy kicked the leaves and looked generally terrified. It only took a few seconds.

“I’ll tell you what she said, though. It was after he got over his shock, and they’d sat down at the table, but I was still on the stairs. She said, ‘I had to see for myself. You have no idea what I went through to get away.’ And then they were quiet a long time, and I thought they were either laughing or crying.”

Grace was impressed, despite herself, with the old-fashioned Yankee accent Amy had put on for Miss Silverman’s voice. She was a good mimic. Why, then, did she so doggedly keep her wretched twang when she was capable of speaking properly? Grace would like to write out the ways Amy might elevate herself.

“I imagine she was referring to the colony,” Grace said. “To the colony closing. Do you suppose it’s an artist rushing here to see the damage?”

“She said — she said no one in New York knew where she was. I left that out. She said she’d told them all she was visiting her brother in Wisconsin.”

“And where does she sleep?”

“Oh, not — not with — he asked if I wouldn’t mind sleeping down on the couch in the mechanical room. And I don’t. So she’s got my quarters, and I don’t mind at all.”

“You’re very helpful, Amy. You truly are.” She hated the sound of Amy’s name in her mouth. Such horrible vowels, such an egregious mangling of the French Aimée— loved , but who loved little Amy? Not her. Not George. Probably not Max.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Part of what bothered her about this girl was how much the two of them resembled each other. Both blonde, both with long eyebrows, strong chins. Though Amy was at least twelve years younger. And prettier, even discounting age. Grace, at eighteen, had not been as pretty as Amy at eighteen. It was only fair. Amy had been luckier in looks, and Grace had been far, far luckier in breeding. If she were Amy, though, she might find it odd that this woman, this sad and tired Mrs. Grace Grant, should be elevated so far above her, in defiance of the hierarchy biology itself had bestowed. In the court of femininity, looks trump all. The gorgeous lady-in-waiting can always smirk pityingly at the plain-faced princess. And this was what enraged Grace. She’d finally pinpointed it. That Amy pitied her. Their similarities invited comparison, and Amy must be measuring herself against Grace all the time. And pitying, and gloating, and letting George claw her by the tree.