Freshen up? Who used words like that, except old people? Rose nodded, not an answer so much as a dismissal, and then stepped into the large, shadowy entrance hall. From the tall windows, the occasional shaft of amber light fell on the polished wood floors. A staircase rose majestically with a lovely curving banister that cried out for a kid to slide down it. But here was another hope dashed: there was a stair lift fitted to the banister that made it impossible to slide down. That was how her grandmother ascended to the upper realms of the house where her bedroom was, as well as various guest bedrooms, a study, and a small library devoted mostly to books about plants and horticulture.

“You know, dear, your grandmother is often at her best when she’s in the greenhouse. Very alert when she’s fiddling about with her plants,” Betty said as she closed the front door behind Rose.

“Don’t call it fiddling, Betty.” Her grandmother appeared in the arched doorway beneath the stairs, leaning on her walker. “It’s anything but fiddling.” She was swathed in shawls. A pair of reading glasses dangled from a ribbon around her neck, and her thin, white hair looked as if it had been tossed with salad tongs, then pinned with what appeared to be chopsticks. A calligraphy of wrinkles creased her cheeks. Her eyes were a pale, almost colorless blue. She was neither thin nor fat but seemed rather shapeless. It was her feet, however, that fascinated Rose. She wore old-lady shoes that were black and laced up tight. Her feet were puffy, oozing over the edges of the shoes like rising bread dough in a small pan.

“Come along, dearie. Betty can have Cook send in a snack.” Rose had noticed that the live-in cook was only ever called Cook—she wasn’t sure if it was actually her name or not.

For the past twelve days, Rosalinda hardly seemed to acknowledge Rose, let alone the death of her mother, and now she wanted her to “come along”? Rose shook her head. “I have homework to do,” she said, wondering: Why is she asking me now? She had spoken of Rose’s mother as having been misplaced, not dead. Had she grieved at all? There was certainly no sign of grief. Did being eighty years old with dementia give one a pass on feelings?

Rosalinda was already pivoting with her walker to return to the greenhouse. “Oh, come along, we’ll only be a minute.”

But it wasn’t a minute. For that was the first instance that time started to go a bit catawampus, as her grandmother would say. It was there in the greenhouse that time would begin to strangely warp.

Chapter 2

Dirt Memory