Private Property (Rochester Trilogy 1)

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Nothing.” I make a funny face to distract her. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

“What did that man want from you?” The distraction failed.

“Oh, he came to the dinner party last night. Do you remember him? He just wanted to talk to me about something real quick. Grown-up things.”

That earns me a massive eye roll. Honestly, the attitude on this six-year-old. I don’t even know what’s going to happen when she becomes a teenager. Will she create more attitude? Or is that impossible? I shouldn’t find it so endearing. My heart sinks. I won’t know her then. “Grown-up things. Mommy was always talking about grown-up things. I couldn’t be in the room.”

Caution invades me, but I focus on looking casual. She doesn’t bring up her mother very often. And she brings up her father even less. I have to tread carefully. I googled some articles on how to deal with children with grief. It said to let them open up when they were ready. Don’t push but don’t shut down the conversation if they want to talk, either.

“What is so interesting about grown-up stuff?” she asks. “I saw Mommy’s diary one time and it was all about B says this and R says that. So much talking.”

I’m torn by emotion—amusement that she found her mother’s diary so boring, grief that she’ll never get to see her mother again. I wonder if I’m supposed to chastise her for reading something she clearly shouldn’t. “Maybe that’s what makes it grown-up stuff,” I say lightly. “Only grown-ups like it. And only kids like kid stuff.”

She considers this. “But you’re a grown-up, and you like my stuff. Don’t you?”

I didn’t like it when Beau Rochester called me young and naive. I didn’t particularly like it when Mateo Garza called me innocent, either. Maybe every nineteen-year-old woman wants to seem older. We can vote and have sex. We can enlist in the military. In so many ways we are grown, but in other ways we aren’t. “Maybe I’m in between,” I say, which is a big concession. I have all the responsibilities of being a grown-up, but I have the desire to play. “And I do love our games. Painting and taking walks in the woods. I think I’m even getting better at Monopoly.”

She giggles. “I can still beat you though.”

“That’s probably true,” I concede. “What should we do for the rest of the day?”

It’s Saturday, so we don’t have to do more schoolwork. Even though there’s still a backlog of worksheets from before I came here, I like to give her time off to rest and recharge.

Her head leans back on my forearm. I’m touched by the gentle trust she shows in me.

“I dunno. Maybe we could write in our diaries. Do you have one?”

“No,” I say, drawing the word out. “But if I had one, you definitely couldn’t read it.”

She sticks her tongue out. Then she gets serious. “I don’t know. Maybe Mommy did think someone would read her diary. She said that she thought someone would hurt her.”

Goose bumps run over my skin. I have to work hard to keep my expression neutral. I’ve seen too much domestic violence in my life to pretend like this is nothing. “Did someone hurt you?”

Her gray eyes are solemn. She shakes her head without breaking our gaze. “But I wasn’t with her when she died. What if someone did hurt her?”

My breath catches. All I know about her parents’ deaths is the one article. A boating accident, it said. Could a boating accident have happened on purpose? Then why would they both have died? “I don’t know. We could ask Uncle Beau about it. I’m sure he knows what happened.”

“No way,” she says. “I tried talking to him, and he told me I was wrong.”

I suck in a breath. Mr. Rochester does have a rather abrupt way of handling things, especially messy, emotional things. “Maybe he felt too sad to talk about it then. We could try again. This is important. If you feel afraid, then we have to talk about it.”

She tucks her head in my shoulder. Her dirty blonde hair covers her face. “You’re the only person who talks to me anyway.”

I plant a kiss on top of her head. “I know. It’s hard for Uncle Beau to open up. He’s not naturally very chatty, but I’m sure he’ll learn.”

“I don’t just mean now. Before, too. Daddy was always working. And Mommy would leave for her trips. They never had time for me.”

A wrench in my heart. I suppose it always feels like you’ll have more time. Maybe they were terrible parents. Or maybe they were good parents who were just too wrapped up in their lives to see the moments running through their hands like sand. “Who would stay with you?”