The Drowning House by Elizabeth Black

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    Is it a game? Do they truly believe that they are invulnerable? Mention the laws of nature, meteorology, geological evidence, engineering, laws of any kind, and they just smile and look away. Is this where Galveston Islanders get their reputation for tolerance? Live and let live .
    When the truth is, in a place so small, so interconnected, and so precarious, willful disregard can be a powerful form of self-interest.

Chapter 9

    WHEN FINALLY WILL ’ S PARTY WAS OVER and most of the lights were out, I left my bedroom, crossed the alley, and stepped back through the oleander hedge.
    The mass of the Carraday house rose up suddenly before me, the lighted windows bright against the black sky. It was impossible to approach it gradually, to accustom yourself to its immensity, to the welter of narrow chimneys and conical towers of different heights that bristled above it. I’d been coming and going there all my life, and still it took my breath away.
    The door was open and I let myself in.
    Nothing in that part of the house had changed. There was the dumbwaiter that connected the two floors. On rainy days, Patrick and I would take turns hauling each other, cramped and sweating, up and down, until Faline heard the hollow knocking of the wooden pulleys and dragged us out.
    Though it was late, a light still burned downstairs. I went down the half-dozen steps and through the doorway into the kitchen. It was in a half basement at the back of the house. Because it was below ground, the kitchen was always cool and pleasantly musky, like a root cellar.
    Faline sat upright in an upholstered wing chair in the corner. A low, plush-covered footstool, clearly new, stood to one side. Next to it lay a stack of newspapers. Behind her on the wall was a row of call bells for summoning a staff that no longer existed. Faline’s eyes were closed, her brows drawn together as if she were focused on somechore, but her lap was empty and her hands lay at her sides. I saw her eyelids flicker. I cleared my throat. When there was no response, I spoke her name.
    “No need to shout,” she said. She opened her eyes. “You try my étouffée? I can tell you don’t get any real food up north. You wouldn’t be so skinny.”
    I recognized this tactic—Faline was adept at diversion. “I don’t want to discuss the menu,” I said. “You told me to come back later. Faline, I need to know what happened.”
    “What happened? What kind of question is that? What you think happened? The party’s over. Everyone gone home. Except you. You always turning up. Ever since you been a small child.” She pointed to the refrigerator. “I saved you some brown-sugar bread pudding.”
    “Maybe later. First I want to know what you told them about Patrick and me.”
    “You come here at this hour to ask me that? Why you still fussing about something everyone else have long forgotten? What difference it make now? Anyway, I stand by what I did. It was best for you both.”
    “Why was it best?”
    “Why?” Faline stood abruptly, pulled a cloth off a rack and snapped it. “Why? Since when I got to justify myself to you? My conscience clean, is all you need to know.” She turned her back and began to polish the stove whose black-and-white surfaces already gleamed. I could see her shoulder working under her cotton blouse.
    “I want to know what you told them,” I persisted.
    She turned and shook the cloth at me. “I seen you tonight,” she said, “flirting with that fellow from the mainland. Cross your legs. Cross them again. You a married woman, getting on for thirty years old. You ought to had enough of that foolishness. In that flimsy skirt.”
    “I was just talking.”
    “You ought to be talking to your husband. But here you are now in the middle of the night. Look like you come from a shelter.”
    After the party, I’d fallen asleep briefly, then gotten up and changed into a T-shirt and jeans. I realized they were the ones I usuallywore in the darkroom, and they