Moody helps me into the shower and stands there—her clothes drenched—holding me up as I scrub the sweat from myself. She steadies me when I sway, and she works the shampoo through my hair. Iris took my clothes and I asked her to put them in the wash. I didn’t get any of Tim’s blood on them, but you can never be too careful.
I’m feeling better by the time the hot water runs cold. I wrap myself in a towel and sit on the toilet lid while Moody brushes my wet hair. She’s being so sweet with me, like I’m a doll that turned up again after she thought she’d lost it for good.
My eyes close. I’m safe, the way I felt in the rare times my sisters were able to visit me at Elaine’s, or we were placed in the same group home.
“What were you and the neighbor doing out last night?” she asks me, her voice gentle.
Dara. I knew I would have to share her secret with Moody and Iris—it’s for her own protection that they know, so that we can help her if the police come around. There are still details to be sorted. I’llhave to go back and work the kitchen over with something to oxidize the blood so it won’t show up under the luminol spray. Peroxide is a favorite, but it will have to depend on what’s already in her bathroom cabinet, because now is not the time for suspicious purchases, and one bottle won’t do the job.
“Tim is dead,” I say.
The brush stills in my hair. Moody takes a step back and looks at me. “Sissy,” she rasps. “You didn’t.”
“Dara,” I say.
Moody searches my eyes, and then something like a smile starts to form. “No,” she says. “Really?”
“With a steak knife.”
Moody lets out a long, low whistle as she resumes brushing my hair. “What’d you do with him?”
“All seven pieces of him are off to their final resting place at the city dump,” I say. “Before you get mad, I know we said no dumpsters, but there wasn’t time—”
“Hey. Sis.” Moody kneels before me. Only when she takes my hands do I realize that I’m trembling. A wave of nausea pulses through me, but I force it down. “You know what you’re doing,” she says. “You did what was best. I trust you.” She’s giving me her rare gentle sweetness, which I haven’t seen in months. When Iris fell into her typical depression after her last kill, we climbed onto the bed beside her and Moody doted on her like a mother hen.
I clean the blood and keep us safe, but Moody holds the three of us together. She’s the foundation beam in our little family. Throughout my long and lonely childhood, all I ever wanted was for someone to love me and worry about me, but now, seeing the look on Moody’s face, all I feel is guilt that I’ve scared her so.
I’m pregnant, Moods. I fucked up. I need you to help me fix it, because I don’t think I’m strong enough to do it.
But the words don’t come. Only an infuriating well of tears. Moody doesn’t ask what’s gotten into me, why I’m being so weak. She sits beside me, both of us crammed on the small oval lid, and she rocks and shushes me like I’m a child. We’re nine years old again, huddled under the blanket of the bunk bed in our group home. I was so relieved when she arrived with her suitcase in that sea of cold, unfriendly faces that I sobbed myself to sleep while she whispered, “I’m here, I’m here,” over and over like the chorus of a song.
“I love you,” I tell her now. I need to say those words to someone who can feel them the way that I do. I need to say them to someone who will always stay.
—
IRIS IS NOT HAPPYwhen I tell her about Tim. She says she knew Dara would make trouble for us. But Iris, ever practical and collected, spends the morning dutifully prescribing me spoonfuls of peanut butter for the protein, a multivitamin, and an endless river of tea. “Maintaining her trust is even more important,” she says, tucking the blanket around me on the couch. “Rest up and then go check on her. Make sure that girl doesn’t crack.”
Tim’s not our kill, but if Dara has a crisis of conscience, he may as well be. We’ll all go down for this. Fleeing would be easy enough. We never unpack our suitcases. Nothing in any of these cabinets belongs to us apart from the food. Our IDs are fake; we pay rent by stuffing cash into an envelope and dropping it in the deposit box by the mailroom. But the thought of leaving Dara to fend for herself gives me an uneasy feeling.
She’s not your friend—she’s Jade’s,I remind myself.
I’m heartened by how calmly my sisters are taking the wrecked car and the new complication with Dara. But I still haven’t told them the worst of it. I already know what they’ll say.
Sis, sweetheart, you can’t keep it.
We wouldn’t be able to bring a baby with us.
It’s not mine.I make myself think the words. I will say them over and over until I understand. It’s a piece of Jade, and once we leave Arizona, Jade—and her lover, and her dreams, and all her pretty thoughts of love—must die.
It’s not mine.
“Take a nap,” Moody says. “You look like shit.” She takes my phone as she heads for the stairs. “When your boyfriend calls to check on you, I’ll handle it.”
I push down the anxiety I feel at Moody taking even this small bit of control.Don’t be a child,I tell myself.Let her help you.Moody knows that I’m exhausted and that I’m likely to make a mistake right now. We can’t afford to be vulnerable with anyone but one another, the three of us.
My sisters love me in a way that no romantic partner ever could. They have seen me ugly, naked, covered in blood. They’ve read my journals, heard my loud and hideous laugh—the real laugh I give only when I’m not playing a role. And when the time comes, they’ll see me in the depths of grief. Only once Edison’s gone will I confess my great sin of wanting to keep him, of trying to dream up any possible way. They’ll forgive me. They’ll understand, tell me there’s a lover or two they fantasized about running away with. It’s just how it goes. It’s these sacrifices that prove, over and again, our loyalty. Our trust.
If someone in this world had wanted us, our lives might have been different. But we learned the truth at the very beginning, which isthat there are three of us—only three—and there will never be room for more.
