“Say cheese,” Mae says.
I don’t say cheese. Instead, I flick her off and say, “Put it away, or I’ll tell Uncle Elliott when he comes back.”
I don’t have to ask for a third time, because they know they’ll get in trouble for being on the iPad. They leave it behind on the chair. They throw the towel off and go running across the concrete, ignoring Emily, who tells them not to run again, calling out, “If you’re not careful, you might fall!”
I wish they would at this point, to teach them a lesson if nothing else, though thinking thoughts like that is bad karma.
That night, I put Daniel’s necklace on. I run my fingers over the beads, thinking about what Emily said, about them forminga pattern, though I don’t think she’s right, I think they’re just beads. I slip back into my jean shorts from my pajamas, pulling a different shirt over my head. There is body spray in my bag. I spritz some on, hoping Daniel notices and that he likes it, and then I move from the porch toward the cottage to leave, like I’ve done every night for the last couple nights.
It doesn’t get easier. I’m never not scared of getting caught.
It’s black in the cottage when I go in. I feel my way with my hands.
I haven’t gotten more than a couple steps when a lamp in the living room flicks on. Dull, yellow light enters the room, not reaching the corners so that they stay dark.
I flinch, taking a step back, my hand going to my heart.
Emily is on the sofa.
“What are you doing?” she asks, pulling her hand away from the lamp, her voice doomy.
Slowly, she pushes herself into a sitting position as I ask, without answering her, “What areyoudoing? Why aren’t you in bed?” But then I see. The pillow. The blanket. Sheisin bed. She and Nolan must have gotten in another fight and she’s sleeping on the sofa. I wonder what this one was about. His job or lack thereof. Her being overly controlling or him questioning her parenting in front of us kids, or D: All of the Above. The possibilities are endless.
“I fell asleep on the sofa,” she says, as if it happened by accident, as if she didn’t intentionally lift a pillow from the bed and bring it downstairs with her, as if Nolan didn’t intentionally close the bedroom door after she left.
“Well?” she asks before I can really feel sorry for her.
“Well what?”
“You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing awake? It has to be almost midnight.” It’s not just that I’m awake. It’s that I’m fully dressed, though, if she notices, she doesn’t say.
“I was thirsty, okay? I wanted water,” I say, moving around the edge of the sofa for the kitchen, her eyes following me as I go.
“Did you sleep at all, or have you been awake all this time?”
“I was asleep. I woke up and I was thirsty,” I say again. “Is that not okay? To drink water?”
“No, it’s fine. I was just curious.” She pauses, then asks, “Is that what you wore today?”
I look down, like I don’t even know what I have on. It isn’t what I wore today. But I say, “Yeah. Don’t you remember? I guess I must’ve fallen asleep in it.”
She stares too long. Nods. Says, “I guess so.” There’s another pause, and then she says, tilting her head, “You smell good. Is that perfume?”
My stomach tightens. Dramatically, I inhale. “I don’t smell anything.”
I reach into the cabinet for a glass, filling it with water that I don’t even want, that I won’t drink. “You should go upstairs and sleep,” I say. I tell her good-night. I go back onto the porch with the glass. I sink down into bed, lying on my side. I pull the covers up to my neck, feeling this nagging pain in the pit of my stomach that I won’t be able to see Daniel tonight after all.
It’s not only that I want to go, that I want more than anything to be with him.
It’s that I wonder what happens when I don’t show up. I wonder what he’ll do.
Courtney
I sit in the front seat of my car, still parked outside of the Matthewses’ house, thinking about something Joanna just said, how Sam wouldn’t give up on finding Kylie. I need to be doing more to find Reese. I can’t only rely on the police to do it.
I search online on my phone for Daniel Clarke, and though Clarke is a common enough name, I find only one living on Moon Road, which is a mile and a half from where Joanna and Sam live.
I start the engine. My GPS takes me to Moon Road along the backroads, which are a far cry from the nearby vacation resorts where suburbanites with nice and sometimes luxury cars spend their time roughing it in the woods. The disparity is evident. Though the scenery around here is breathtaking, it doesn’t nullify the poverty we’ve seen, people living in small, dilapidated houses and run-down trailer parks.
