Free The Tulip Eaters by Antoinette van Heugten

look at herself in the mirror told Nora that she was her mother, her coal-smudged eyes set in skin too-pale, paper-white.
    Turning away, she wondered if she should have acceded to Anneke’s pleas that she live with her. If she hadn’t agreed, at least her mother would be alive and she would still have Rose. No, she could not have done otherwise. When she saw her mother’s radiant face as she’d exited the blurred Customs door in Houston, she’d known that there was no other choice. Her mother’s piercing look of longing and love had overwhelmed her.
    And Nora did need her. When she found out that she was pregnant, it had sealed their commitment to each other, walking the ancient path of life: mother, daughter, granddaughter.
    She wiped away her tears and looked at the dining table, so dark, heavy and worn. Four plain chairs surrounded it, the fourth rarely hosting a guest. Although born in America, Nora was raised in an undeniably Dutch home. Dinner at six every evening—meat, potatoes, gravy and applesauce—vegetables optional. And canned, never fresh. Family meals passed through her mind, the quiet murmur of Dutch as they related the small details of their day. The house always spotless, the stoep scrubbed every day with her mother’s hard bristle brush and a cake of old-fashioned soap. Work was work, duty was duty, family was private.
    As she walked through the downstairs hall, it struck Nora that Anneke had changed nothing since Hans’s death. Every object on the walls and tables, every stick of furniture, every candlestick and piece of silver, was precisely the same as it had been when Hans drew his last breath. Did it give her comfort to keep everything the same? Did she love him?
    The banging of opening and closing drawers from upstairs brought Nora back to the present. Marijke had taken her instructions to heart.
    Opening the hall closet, Nora pushed the winter coats aside and looked at the floor. Nothing. She ran her fingers down the row of jackets and suddenly felt something familiar, the coat Anneke had bought for Hans only months before he died. His cancer had made him so weak that he was freezing all the time. Nora tried to imagine what that felt like—to have Siberia in your bones. Raising the thermostat to its highest setting hadn’t helped. Anneke had abandoned the Dutch rule against extravagant spending and bought him a full-length navy cashmere coat. From the moment he slipped it on, Nora knew that he would never take it off. On the morning he died, it was wrapped tightly around him, as if he had created his own shroud to avoid further troubling his wife or daughter. She crushed her face into the soft sleeve, wishing he were here now to help her.
    An hour later, she was finished. And not one step closer to any discovery than when she began. She felt too exhausted to cry. She heard footfalls as Marijke came downstairs and into the hallway. Marijke looked at her and shook her head.
    Nora closed her eyes. Maybe she should take a nap. She hadn’t slept more than a few hours at a time since that horrible day. And Marijke must be dead tired, too. As Nora watched her open the door and walk into the garage, she felt a stab of guilt. Had she had taken terrible advantage of the fortuitous visit of her dear friend? If her mother died, Marijke would never forgive herself for not being there. Well, a few hours’ sleep might give them both the strength they needed to carry on.
    But then she thought of the attic. She hadn’t been up there since she was a small girl, playing hide-and-seek with Hans. She went into the hallway and looked up at the trapdoor, its worn rope dangling from the ceiling. Despite Nora’s height, it took her two attempts to grab it and yank it down. The old wooden stairs finally released and lowered, groaning as dust and dirt fell onto her head.
    Nora wiped her eyes, stared up into the dusty abyss and then went into the kitchen. She opened the drawer where her father had always kept the