Read Online Five Roses by Alice Zorn - Free Book Online

the main room was painted brown, walls and ceiling. The roll-down blind had been tacked to the window frame. The room was a cave. Fara felt a strangeness — that was somehow familiar? — but ignored it. She opened the closet, which was empty except for a pole and two hangers. She imagined the walls painted white. Or a pale wash of rose. A dining room or maybe a study.
    Through the wall she heard Frédéric running water and flushing the toilet. Behind her Yolette was quiet. None of her usual chatter and pizzazz — for which Fara was grateful. She didn’t like being told where and how to look.
    The kitchen counters were buckled and would have to be replaced. There were square-edged gaps for a refrigerator and a stove. Dribbles of what looked like hardened molasses on the wall. But also two large windows, lots of cupboards, and a walk-in pantry lined with shelves.
    Fara brushed her fingers down the deep moulding of the door frame and walked back to the main room. She could picture their sofa against the far wall.
    Yolette said, “Do you …”
    Fara had turned to gaze out the window. The tiny backyard was large enough for a garden.
    â€œDo you have a problem with suicide?”
    The word was a blade that touched her, sharp and cold, but she wouldn’t let it pierce her. She faced a window but felt herself standing in a dimly lit room. A bed with the duvet thrown back. Green plastic. Striped pajamas. A thin body. Socks balled on the floor. Clothes dragged off a chair.
    Yolette cleared her throat. How much time had passed? Fara made herself look at her. The manic arch of her eyebrows. Her white dress smudged across the hip. What an idiot to wear white to walk through an old house.
    â€œThat’s why the owner is selling. His son killed himself here.”
    â€œHis son,” Fara repeated.
    Yolette skimmed a glance at the white-and-gold ceiling fan, and as quickly away again.
    That wobbly fixture of gold paint and plastic? Fara nearly scoffed. It wouldn’t hold the weight of a purse, much less a person.
    â€œIt happened more than a year ago but he still won’t step in the house.” Yolette tried to sound concerned, but Fara could tell she had no idea how suicide rent your life — how you were forever marked by the guilt that you weren’t there when someone close to you chose death over life.
    â€œHe’s selling as is,” Yolette said. And more carefully, “His son’s clothes and belongings are still upstairs.”
    Fara felt the cool edge of the blade again and willed herself not to. The clothes and belongings of a person who’d chosen to die were the detritus of a life that had been rejected. Winter boots and summer sandals jumbled at the bottom of a closet. A coffee mug that had been a gift. Fridge magnets. Photos. Mementos kept for years — but not worth staying alive for. Why should they mean anything to Fara if they’d meant nothing to Claire? No, not Claire . This boy.
    â€œHe’s asking hardly anything,” Yolette said softly. “Only a hundred and fifty.”
    â€œA hundred and fifty thousand for the house?” The condos they’d looked at last winter were a hundred and sixty. “What’s wrong with it?”
    â€œNothing. He and his son started renovating, so the plumbing is all new and the wiring on the first floor has been redone.” Yolette knocked on the wall. “This is drywall. Insulated. Upstairs you’ve still got the original plaster.” She opened both hands like an emcee. “You won’t find a house this size for this price anywhere else in the city.”
    â€œWhy is it so cheap then?”
    â€œPeople won’t buy where there was a suicide. But you two are looking for an empty house.”
    Frédéric walked into the room and winked so Yolette didn’t see. Fara could tell he liked the house. He crossed to the kitchen, where he gushed water into the