Steve must have known what became of her mother. Angeni had heard he’d moved shortly after her mother died—just a coincidence, or something more meaningful, Angeni would never know. It wouldn’t have been hard for Steve to reach out to Angeni in the wake of her mother’s death, before she’d changed her name. She hated that he never did, that he found it so easy to leave her behind forever. With the name change, she’d be harder to find now, even if he wanted to. Sometimes, she told herself he did, he tried, but Britt Taylor no longer existed.
Angeni went through three rapid-fire rounds, thinking about Steve and about her mother, about Erik and the fragile state of their union, about her book that absolutely could not be a memoir, about Freya refusing her breast, about all the haters on Instagram, about the @nurture.mother.official account.
She shot and she shot and she shot, hitting the trunk each time, until she was out of ammunition and her body felt calm and spent, as if she’d just run a marathon or had the best sex of her life.
She resumed her seat on the rock and packed up the duffel bag. Her breasts ached. They were so full. She should have pumped after Freya refused to feed, but she’d never had to pump before. She’d purchased one of those hand pumps when she was pregnant, figuring it might come in handy at some point, but she refused to buy an electric one. She wasn’t going to succumb tomachines.
She made her way out of the forest, feeling like a new woman. She would need to find Sitka and Freya so Freya could feed. Now that she felt more serene, her higher self was present and encouraging her to talk to Sitka, woman to woman. Angeni would thank Sitka for keeping Erik company during his bouts of insomnia. She would watch the expressions on Sitka’s face and determine a course of action. Spirit would guide her. Spirit always did.
When she got back to the house, she put the duffel bag back in the closet, behind the winter coats and boots. Then she got in the shower to wash off the faint smell of the gunpowder, a scent that took her back to Steve, to her mother, a scent she had to immediately remove and replace with her homemade vanilla body wash.
She braided her wet hair and put on her favorite dress, a stretchy cotton maxi dress that had accommodated her belly throughout her entire pregnancy. Then she went looking for Sitka and Freya. She hadn’t seen them out back, so she headed for the front porch. She watched them through the screen door, the two of them sitting and swaying in the porch swing Matt and Jer had built. Freya was asleep, nuzzled into Sitka’s armpit. She pushed open the screen door, and it slammed shut behind her—the hydraulic mechanism that usually made the door close slowly had recently broken. She winced at the sound and mouthedSorrywhen Sitka looked up at her. Thankfully, Freya didn’t stir.
“I need to remind Erik to fix the door,” Angeni said in a whisper as she approached the swing. “How long’s she been asleep?”
Sitka shrugged. “I kinda lose track of time. A half hour, maybe.”
“She hasn’t been crying to eat?” Angeni asked.
She felt her boobs leaking, looked down to see the circles of wet forming on her dress.
“She hasn’t cried,” Sitka said. “Seems pretty content to me.”
Angeni wasn’t sure what to do. Should she wake Freya to eat? Obviously, Freya wasn’t hungry, or she would be awake and crying. Babies were simple in the expression of their needs. But Angeni’s breasts were throbbing. If she used her hand pump, she would just dump the milk. She didn’t want to use bottles yet—or ever.
Angeni decided that this wasn’t the right time to talk to Sitka. That could wait. She didn’t want to introduce a possibly stressful conversation when Freya was resting so comfortably.
“Okay, I’ll check in a bit later,” she said, deciding that she would use the pump. She didn’t know why Freya wasn’t hungry, but figured it was just an off day. They would be back to normal soon enough.
She pressed her lips to the back of little Freya’s head. Her sweet, precious child. She could hardly believe she had created this perfect creature. As she walked back toward the front door, she felt the ache of separation she always felt when stepping away from her daughter. This was why she couldn’t fathom sending her daughter to school. It was nearly unbearable to be out of arm’s reach on the same property.
She noticed the mail slot by the front door was overfull, junk inserts and envelopes sticking out the top. She would have to bring this up at their next family dinner. They hadn’t formally assigned anyone mail duty, had always said that whoever saw the mail should just bring it in, but it seemed a formal assignment was necessary.
She pulled out the stack of mail with a forceful tug, started riffling through it as she went back into the house, this time making sure the door didn’t slam behind her. A bright-red envelope caught her attention. It was addressed to her. No return address. She set the stack on the small table by the front door and opened the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet of white paper. Across the center of the page were typed words, all caps, that made her lose her balance.
You Should Be Charged With Murder.
That was all it said. Just those words.
She stumbled backward.
She turned the paper over, then over again, thinking that more words, an explanation, would magically appear.
There was nothing more, though.
She looked again at the envelope, addressed to her. It was typed, no handwriting to decipher. No return address. She squinted to make out the postmark. Seattle.
You should be charged with murder.
Aurora had taken the ferry to Seattle last week to attend an art show. Would she have sent it from there? Why? Why now?
Unless it wasn’t her. But it had to be her. She was the only one who knew what had happened all those years ago. Unless she wasn’t.
A wave of nausea rolled through Angeni. She felt like she was at sea, put her hands on the wall next to the door to steady herself. Her vision went blurry as she realized it was happening again. Her body, in all its wisdom, decided that consciousness was too much for her in this moment. Her body, in all its wisdom, fell to the floor.
Chapter 23
