Prologue
I KEEP SEEINGher face, upturned in the pool. Her long hair darkened by the water, stringy and tangled and noodling around her neck. Her eyes are closed, her body floating. Her lips are parted just slightly, and it looks as if she’s resting, tranquil and at peace.
Of course, it wasn’t like that at all. Her body was found facedown in a puddle of mud-soaked leaves. A shotgun blast had shredded her back. She was slumped down next to the edge of the lake, and near the silty shoreline, the lake water is the color of rust, not a sparkling turquoise. But the pool was the first place I saw her.
A week later, she wasdead.
1
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
THINGS ARE DIFFERENTtonight. Electric and humming. There’s a charge building in the air, crackling and buzzing through me, and I can pinpoint the moment this morning when everything shifted.
When my flat, dull routine of walking from room to room, collecting wads of wilted laundry, became something more luminous, something pulsing with an energy of anticipation so that even then, as I stuffed the washer with clothes and shook a thin layer of soap flakes over the top, I knew my day would follow a different course than the one usually mapped out by me, a stay-at-home mom.
—
I’M AT THElocal wine bar now, waiting for Erin. We’re meeting for happy hour and I’m outside at one of the bistro tables, the light from the sun dancing in my glass of chardonnay, the taste buttery and sharp on the back of my tongue.
It was a frigid thirty-eight degrees here this morning, but by late afternoon,it had climbed to eighty, our first warm snap this spring, and I’m taking full advantage, sitting out here like this.
I’m tapping on my iPhone, scrolling through my Facebook feed, but finding nothing interesting. Just more back-to-school posts even though we’re well into March. It’s endless.Day #63 of second grade!OrTime please slow down! They grow up too fast!—the kinds of updates I wince at and can’t bring myself to post. I place my phone down on the table and stretch my bare legs, letting the sun warm them.
It feels so good to be in a dress; I can’t remember the last time I wore one, and I’ve piled my hair in a neat but relaxed bun. Hoping for chic, but effortlessly so. Silver earrings in the shape of feathers tickle my neck as I turn to scan the crowd, hoping to spot them as soon as they arrive.
—
THIS MORNING, WHENeverything tilted, so that my day would end here instead of at the dinner table with Graham and Jack, watching Jack mop up spaghetti sauce with an elbow of crusty bread, adorable streaks of orange painting his cherub cheeks, I had just finished my morning jog on the trail that runs through the woods near our house. I had stepped inside the back door and peeled off my yoga pants, which were drenched with sweat and sucking and clinging to my thighs, and slid back into my comfy flannel pj’s. It’s cold here. Not Chicago cold, of course, but the humidity makes it a vicious, different kind of cold that grabs its icy paws around your bones and doesn’t let go.
Still shivering, I padded to the kitchen and steamed some milk for a second latte and rubbed my hands together, trying to warm up.
I powered up my laptop in the home office—just a small nook, really, in the back parlor—and was just beginning to type in my password for Facebook when I heard a loud banging at the front door.
I figured it was the FedEx man with yet another of my online purchases. Maybe a case of Illy espresso—our favorite—which I used to buy at the flagship store in the city, or, perhaps, the set of lime-green throw pillows I’d been waiting for. It’s hard to find cute textiles in this town, and lately I’ve fixated onmaking the inside of my house look like a dreamy spread from Pinterest, or, more specifically, how I imagine the inside of Margot’s home looks.
I’ve only seen glimpses of the outside, of course, from our mutual friends’ photos on Facebook, but all of that changed this morning when I was invited into her world.
—
THE LOUD KNOCKINGwas followed by the chime of the doorbell, then a quick, staccato rapping, so I jumped up and rushed to the front door. Where I found Mrs. Murphy from down the street. Yet again. She’s persistent. Ever since we moved in, she’s found an excuse to pop by at least once a week.
“Hello, dear,” she said, aggressively thrusting a crate of blushing grapefruits toward me.
“Thanks so much for these, Mrs. Murphy. They’re gorgeous.”
She craned her head around my shoulder, clearly fishing for an invite inside. But I just stood there shivering as cold shards of wind blasted us, a plastic smile frozen on my face.
“Well, then,” I said quickly, before she had a chance to fill the void, “I’d better get these beauties inside!” I leaned down and took them, gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “So nice of you to think of us. Jack and I will drop by soon, I promise.”
“Oh, I would love that! And Erin’ssohappy you’re back. She’s been filling me in on everything.” I flashed another smile and turned around, then walked inside and shut the door.
—
I PLOPPED BACKdown again in front of my laptop and finished logging on. My eye immediately caught the three new notifications glaring at me in red, which always give me a frisson of excitement. Sadly, not much else going on these days.
Janis White reacted to a photo you shared.
A heart, in “reaction” to a pic I posted of Jack, his hair wild with sweat, yesterday on a swing set.
