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The Tour that Doesn’t End So Great
Lunch was delicious and perfect for a day like this; warm tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich. I haven’t mentioned the blowing curtain or rocking chair to Mrs. Hallovich. I don’t want her to make up an excuse about the playroom being drafty or something. I know what I saw. I’m a little freaked out, but I still want to go up and play again.
As promised, Mrs. H. is leading us up the staircase to the right side of the second floor. Tommy hangs on her hip, looking over her shoulder at me. He grins. I think he is the cutest thing on the planet, and my heart melts.
When we get to the top, Mrs. H. opens the first door.
“This is my room,” she says.
It’s beautiful. She has a canopy bed too! It has a pretty, flowery bed cover. She plants Tommy on a bouquet of embroidered roses in the center, and hands him a set of old-fashioned keys from her bedside table to play with.
She turns to a beautifully carved set of bookshelves and hands me a framed photo of a young woman with dark hair. “This is my mother. She was eighteen in this photo, about a year before she met my father.”
I examine it for a moment before she takes it back and replaces it with a heavy gold frame. “Does this look familiar?”
It’s a larger version of the photo of her parents from her locket.
“They don’t look any happier in this one do they?” She teases me.
“Not really,” I say.
“They were happy though, Ella. I had a wonderful childhood.” She replaces that photo too, then shows me more of her trinkets and whatnots on the shelves. She hands me a silver frame. “Do you recognize her?”
At first I’m confused. It’s a different young woman. How does she think I’m supposed to recognize someone else on her bookshelf? But there is something about her that seems like someone I know.
“That’s you!”
“That’s me. I was 21 in that photo. It was taken during a summer visit to my aunt, about a month before I met my husband.”
“You were really pretty,” I say.
“What?! I’m not pretty anymore?”
Oops! “I didn’t mean it like that. I . . . “
She’s laughing at me. “I know what you meant, Dear. And thank you.” She gives my shoulder a squeeze. “I’m pretty sure Sam thought so too.” She winks at me and places the photo back on the shelf.
She leads me around the bed where Tommy is still playing with the keys, and points to another photo on the bedside table. She picks it up and turns it toward me.
“My children.”
I’m no longer surprised at the idea of her as a mother. I’m thinking she was probably a wonderful one. I take the photo as she holds it out to me. This one is a match to the photo in her locket.
“Gertrude was four in this picture, and Henry was nearly two.” She reaches and gives Tommy a playful poke in his tummy. “Almost exactly the same age as you, little rascal.” Mrs. H. sits down beside him and gathers him into her lap.
I’m thinking that Henry and Tommy look a lot alike, but then all two year old boys look alike, don’t they?
“Do you have any pictures of them when they’re older?”
“No, Ella Dear, I don’t.” She sighs and looks sad. “When Gertrude passed, my husband ended up taking down all images of both children and destroying them. I found this one years later among my mother’s possessions.”
“Why did he do that?” This has to be one of the most terrible things I’ve ever heard!
“Grief affects people differently.” She kisses the top of Tommy’s head and continues. “I told you that Sam took our daughter’s death exceptionally hard. He changed. It was actions like that that eventually drove Henry away from home. He just couldn’t make his father understand that he still had a son whose life had not ended. By the time Sam began to recover, it was too late. Henry was gone.”
“That’s so sad,” I say, handing the photo back.
Mrs. H. nods and replaces it to her nightstand. She runs her finger softly down the side of their faces. My heart feels like it’s breaking in two. I want to ask more about Sam. What happened after Henry left? Where is Sam now? But I’m feeling that for once, my questions need to stay in my mouth.
Mrs. Hallovich stands. “On to the next room!” she exclaims setting Tommy on his feet. “Forward! March!”
Just like that, the sad stuff is left behind.
The next room is just a plain bedroom for guests. It’s nice but not full of stories and photos like the last one.
“This was Henry’s room,” she says. “A long time ago.” She doesn’t say anything else. I think she’s trying to get her happy back.
There’s a nice bathroom in between with one of those cool bathtubs that have lion’s claws on the bottom. I imagine myself in there, surrounded by a mountain of bubbles.
After the tour, I ask if I can return to the dollhouse.
“That would be fine. I’ll take Tommy to the study and read to him for a while before he goes down for his nap.”
We walk down the first set of stairs together, but as I continue up to the playroom she calls up to me. “Would you like to join me on the front porch for hot chocolate a little later?”
Hot chocolate on a rainy day is about the only thing that would pull me away from the dollhouse. “Sure!” I say.
“I’ll come get you in a bit then.”
When I return to the playroom, no curtains or chairs, big or small, are moving. Now that I’ve had a tour, I realize how much this dollhouse is built to resemble the original. There’s no upstairs bathroom, but Mrs. Hallovich said that was added later. Some of the furniture has been changed or moved around. The miniature house has an attic. I stand up and step back out into the hallway. There’s a trapdoor in the ceiling. It probably has one of those ladders that drop down. I’ll have to remember to ask Mrs. H. about it.
I close myself back inside the playroom and start comparing the things in the dollhouse to what is in the real house. The desk in the study is almost the same. So is the picnic table in the kitchen. The room that Mrs. H. said was Henry’s is definitely furnished for a young boy in the miniature version. It’s interesting. It’s like looking back in time to what the house was like when her kids were home. That thought brings my attention to the parlor.
The mother, father, and boy doll are where I left them, but the big sister doll isn’t there. Just then, I hear the creak of floorboards outside the playroom door.
“Mrs. Hallovich?” I call.
I can see the shadow of her feet under the door and wonder why she isn’t coming in. Then she knocks.
“Come in!” I say. Weird.
I turn back to the dollhouse and see the big sister doll propped up in the hallway outside the playroom door. I turn. The playroom door is opening. I grab the sister doll and return her to the parlor with her family. The door to the playroom stops moving. I’m kind of afraid to breathe. I want to call for Mrs. Hallovich, but my throat is closed up.
I sit like that for a long time. I’m afraid of the dollhouse. I’m afraid of the hallway. I’m afraid to call out. The rocking horse across from me has an evil face. If any rocking chairs start rocking I’ll die. Once again footsteps make their way down the hall toward me. I glance down at Big Sister and see she’s still in the parlor. The playroom door opens all the way and Mrs. Hallovich walks in. I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life.
“Ella Dear, whatever is wrong?”
I fly into her arms. I don’t want to tell her that her daughter is a ghost. Who wants to hear that? I just know I’m done with dollhouses for a while. Maybe forever.
“I’m okay,” I finally say. “I was just wondering when the hot chocolate would be ready.”
Mrs. H. pulls away and looks at me closely. She knows that’s not what I was thinking, but she nods anyway and gives me a hug.
“It’s ready now,” she says.
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