The point is, Christmas sucks, and even when you lock yourself away in a mansion for seven years and only interact with the outside world through package delivery and British TV shows from the 1980s, it still finds a way to creep in.
It reared its head in the ugly sweaters that Daisy, the head of my security team, wore as she listened to NPR in the gatehouse and stopped any paparazzi from sneaking onto the grounds. It popped up in the songs that Arnold, my housekeeper, sang as he bustled around the cavernous kitchen, putting away the groceries for the week. It was even detectable in the peppermint latte bath bombs that my friend Hadley sent me in her seasonal care packages. It was everywhere.
Honestly, the fact that Daisy had to be on-site so much at all was a sign of the season. The first year I moved into Edgecliffe Manor, the crumbling old country house I’d inherited from my grandparents in Birch Bay, Maine, the paparazzi had hounded me endlessly, and Daisy was a lifesaver, finding them wherever they were hiding on the property and kicking them out.
Installing gates and fencing around the grounds had helped, as did the passage of time and fresher celebrity scandals. But every December, the paparazzi came back, hoping that this would be the year I’d talk, or at least the year I’d be sloppy enough to let them get pictures of me. So every December, Daisy was onsite non-stop, catching up on podcasts, eating the cookies Hadley sent, and expelling the occasional photographer who was dumb enough to climb the fence.
If I could have slipped into a dreamless slumber for the entire month of December, I would have. But since that wasn’t possible, I did the next best thing—tired myself out with endless exercise, chores, and work, in the hopes that I’d be able to avoid the crushing guilt.
It hadn’t worked yet, but I was still hoping.
Anyway, that was why I was up at six a.m. on a Thursday, throwing on old sweats and getting ready for my morning run. It wasn’t light yet, but the sky was blushing that pearlescent, pre-dawn pink, and mists cloaked the coast. There’d been a storm last night, which meant the path down to the beach was going to be treacherous. I’d need to watch my feet.
My phone buzzed to inform me of a new text as I laced up my shoes. I sighed. I already knew who it was from.
I only talked to two people, and my mom was on a month-long Mediterranean cruise right now, firmly out of range. It could only be Hadley, up later after communing with the stars or something.
She meant well. I knew that. But that still didn’t mean I wanted to talk to her. Somehow, her brand of gentle caring was even harder to deal with than the press. At least they seemed to understand that I was the bad guy. Hadley’s insistence that I was too hard on myself only made me feel worse.
Sure enough, when I touched the screen to see what she’d said, her signature chipper compassion felt like a lead weight in my stomach.
HADLEY: Hey hey! Haven’t heard from you in a few days? You ok? Also, opinion on this lamp I found at an estate sale yesterday?
She’d sent a picture of a ceramic lamp in the shape of a chameleon, the body and legs of the lizard making up the base, his outstretched tongue wrapping up the stem to where the lightbulb screwed in. It was orange and green and covered in bumps. Truly hideous—which meant that Hadley undoubtedly loved it.
If I didn’t respond, it would only get worse. She’d keep up a steady string of texts and phone calls leading up to December 29th—the anniversary, and the date I was dreading. I knew I should just reply quickly and stop avoiding it. Instead, I turned my phone upside down and left it on my nightstand as I headed out the door.
My great-great-great-someone-or-other had made his fortune in the fishing and canning industry ages ago, and built Edgecliffe Manor, the massive clifftop mansion I now called home, as a retreat for his family. It looked more like a castle than a house, all imposing red brick and more turrets than you could shake a stick at. It sprawled in seven different directions and was a nightmare to heat in the winter and cool in the summer.