She fiddles with the lid of her pill bottle. Is she avoiding eye contact?
“Actually, it’s not important, I’ll fill you in another time.” She pushes back her chair. “I’d better go, I’ve to do paperwork before I go down to hockey camp.” She gives me a quick half-hug. Greta is not tactile, and this takes me by surprise. “Turn off your phone,” she adds as she leaves.
I watch from the sitting-room window as she walks down our driveway, phone clamped to her ear, and I do as she suggests and switch off mine.
• • •
Just before 10 a.m., the drama escalates. I’d switched back on my phone in case Jon was trying to reach me, and it almost jumped off the table, buzzing and chirping with notifications, including a text from a number I don’t know:
You got away lightly last night. You deserve to die for that message and what it’s done.
And even though it’s the kind of keyboard-warrior empty threat I’ve heard about on social media, there’s something about seeing it here on my own phone—directed at me—that sends a sick feeling snaking through me.
I blink back tears. Why would I deserve to die? Someone having a bad day and taking it out on me? Or has my message triggered something I don’t know about? And what does “you got away lightly last night” mean? The broken window? Maybe the text is from kids at the school, assuming that’s who threw the brick? God, imagine the glee in some quarters of the pupil cohort, getting their hands on a teacher’s phone number. They already do whatever they can to find us on social media, which is exactly why I use a made-up name online. Now that they have my phone number, all bets are off. A small part of me feels stung, hurt. I’ve always prided myself on being firm-but-fair. I genuinely thought I was reasonably well liked. Nobody is liked by everyone, I suppose, and never has that been clearer than now.
I send a screenshot to the email address the guard gave Jon last night and try calling Jon, but it goes to voicemail. Just then, a calendar notification reminds me that I’ve overlooked an appointment, one I’d been dreading, yet completely forgotten. Maybe this is my out? On autopilot, I snooze the notification and sit in my kitchen, trying to order my thoughts. My eyes keep going back to my phone, to the text. If this happened to anyone else, I’d tell them to ignore it, but it’s different when it happens to you. It’s weird and uncomfortable and upsetting and kind of scary. I’m lost in a spiral of confused thoughts when my calendar reminder pops up again. I really don’t want to leave the house. I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything. But that’s what happened the last time, back when Bella was new and I was failing. And that’s why I need to go.
5
Susan
Wednesday
I text Greta, but she’s out and can’t babysit. I rarely ask her—she has Long Covid, which means good days and bad days, so I keep requests to a minimum. Her text is brief—“sorry, can’t, am out”—which isn’t odd in itself, Greta can be terse, but it’s strange that she didn’t mention anything when she was leaving my house earlier—I’m nearly sure she’d said she was going home to do paperwork? Maybe the call she got when she was leaving pulled her away to something.
I figure I’ll ask Leesa instead. Unlike Greta and me, Leesa doesn’t live in Oakpark. She livesallthe way across in Rowanpark, a ten-minute walk away. Meaning the three of us are back living where we grew up. Our twenty-year-old selves would have balked at the term “home birds,” yet here we are. Leesa’s not starting work till two today, I think, as I text. She has the best work–life balance of anyone I’ve ever known. Made redundant from her IT job three years ago, she now contracts for the same company that let her go (with a very good pay-out) doing however many or few hours she likes, for an eyewatering hourly rate, and always from home. With all this post-pandemic work from home going on, I’mstarting to regret my career in teaching. Leesa replies “of course” to my babysitting request, so at eleven, I drop Bella into her and go to see my counselor.
• • •
Two hours later, emotionally drained, I collect Bella from Leesa’s and walk home along a route that takes me past Celeste Geary’s house. I’m not sure why. Maybe the likes-to-be-liked side of me is hoping for forgiveness. That Celeste might pop her head out the door, tell me it’s all a fuss over nothing, and wave absolution.If only.Hers is one of the bigger homes in Oakpark—a five-bedroom double-fronted house with room for three or four cars in the driveway, though right now there are none. Twin camellia trees bookend granite porch steps that lead up to a heavy sage-green front door. The blinds on each window are drawn three-quarters way down and I get the sense nobody’s home. Celeste will be at work, of course, and Warren too. My mind goes back to the last time I saw him. His secret dalliance at the opening of Bar Four. Not so secret now, thanks to me. My cheeks heat up and I push the pram toward home.
As I reach our driveway, I have the sudden sensation that someone is watching me. My head swivels side to side. I’m still the hot topic of the neighborhood, so maybe someoneislooking out their window right now, judging me. That’s not it though…it’s more than that. I pick up my pace to get Bella’s pram up the driveway. The broken upstairs window gleams in the sun and I wonder now if that’s what’s causing it. Because, last night, somebodywasactually watching, right here, in our driveway. As I fumble in my bag for my key, unnerved and eager to get inside, a shadow falls over me. I jump, and spin around, heart racing.
Right behind me, there’s a man; tall, bearded, with a cap pulled low over his forehead. He nods a greeting.
“Jon Mullane live here? Called looking for a glazier?”
I nod, give a shaky smile, and let out a breath.
• • •
When the glazier leaves, I tip my half-eaten lunch into the bin and settle on the couch to feed Bella, thinking back over all of it. One thing jumps out now: Greta’s comment just before she left this morning.
There’s something else about Nika Geary.
What did she mean? I know Nika; I’ve taught her over the years. She’s confident, glossy, popular, polite. Polite with a hint of…fake. A sense that behind the beaming smile, she’s quietly laughing at you. I text Greta to ask her, but she doesn’t reply. It’s three, though; she’ll be out on the pitch at the camp she runs. I send a second text, asking her to call in on her way home.
On Google now, my face heating up as I imagine anyone seeing me, I type Nika Geary’s name. All her socials are private, and part of me is glad—snooping on a pupil’s Snapchat or TikTok feels like a step too far. She comes up on our school website, for Student of the Year in first year, Spirit of the School in second year, and Sportsperson of the Year in third year. No prizes in fourth year or fifth year; maybe her halo slipped. Other mentions for hockey wins, but nothing that tells me what Greta meant.
The next search result is from Hollypark, her primary school, the same one my nieces, Aoife and Maeve, used to go to. I click into a sixth class graduation photo and spot Nika in the front row, and something snags at my memory—something familiar about her in that uniform…It hits me now: not often, but occasionally, in Leesa’s house, Nika was there. Of course. She was friends with Maeve. Not any more though, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them together in secondary. Does that mean something? Greta will fill me in later, I’m sure.
• • •
Just after five, Leesa calls in to see how I’m doing, followed soon by Greta. Leesa chatters while she makes tea, wondering about the mood inthe Geary household, reassuring me that it will all blow over, raving about a film she saw, then speculating that Samir, her husband, might divorce her for watching it without him. Samir travels a lot for work and sometimes Leesa goes to the same film twice rather than confessing that she’s already seen it. Greta is unusually quiet through all of this. I ask her if she’s OK and she grimaces, shaking a bottle of pills. Code for bad day.
“Greta, what did you mean earlier when you said, ‘There’s something else about Nika Geary’?”
Greta and Leesa exchange a glance so fleeting I almost miss it.
