I always set it to the right of my laptop, my pen clipped neatly to the top. Now it lay skewed at an angle, next to the desk lamp, with the pen out of its clip, lying on top of the notebook instead.
A prickle of unease ran along my scalp.
I hadn't noticed the placement when I'd checked a few minutes earlier. Had I moved it? This morning felt like a year ago. Perhaps I'd flipped it open to jot something down and forgotten.
I took notes longhand, old-school, ink on paper. Writing by hand slowed my thoughts, allowed me to make sense of them, and anchored them in my memory.
I glanced at the window over my desk. Still closed. Still locked. I needed to get hold of myself. I couldn't spiral, not now when Mia needed me most.
This was what stress did. What grief did. It made you forget small things, invent patterns that didn’t exist, and made your mind spiral with paranoia, unsure which fears were real or imagined.
My therapist had warned me about hypervigilance after Marcus died, how trauma could make you see threats everywhere.
But what if some of those threats were actually real?
I slid the notebook back into its proper place and flipped it open, but I couldn't focus on any of the notes I'd written for the current article.
Instead, I tried to focus on the screen.When your teen shuts you out, that's often when they need you most...
The sentence felt hollow. Cliche. I deleted it and tried to write it again.
My phone buzzed on the desk. Vivienne's name lit up the screen:I need to talk.
I responded that I'd be right over. A second later, another text appeared:I can't take another minute in this house. Can I come to you?
I was already on my feet and headed down the hall toward the kitchen and the back door, texting as I walked:Meet me on the patio.
Chapter Eight
The patio stones were uneven beneath my feet, cracked and sloped from years of erosion. I'd meant to fix them when we first moved in. Another item added to the list of things I'd failed to do.
I stood at the edge where the patio met the grass. Just past the patchy lawn, a mere twenty feet from the foundation of my house, the bluff dropped away in a steep 100-foot plunge to the beach below. Lake Michigan stretched endlessly beyond, darkening from steel-blue to slate as the sun began its slow descent.
At 60 miles across, Lake Michigan often felt more like an ocean than a lake. On a clear day, I could occasionally make out the indistinct outline of the Chicago skyline on the opposite side of the immense lake due to the height of the skyscrapers and atmospheric refraction.
I wrapped my jean jacket tighter against the damp chill rolling off the lake and stared out at the horizon, the line blurred where water met sky. I tried not to think about Vivienne's daughter lying broken halfway down the bluff.
Behind me, footsteps crunched on gravel. I turned.
Vivienne stood at the corner of the house. Her face was pale inthe fading light, dark circles marred her usually flawless complexion. Her ink-black hair hung limp and unkempt around her face.
"Vivienne. I'm so sorry."
Her features went slack. "Someone killed my baby."
"I know."
"I can't be at the house. Every corner reminds me of her. Every time I walk past her room... Daniel tries, but it's too much. I cannot be responsible for his grief and my own. I just can't do it right now."
I gestured to one of the mismatched metal patio chairs beside me, each painted a cheerful blue, purple, red, and green. Another Goodwill find. "Come, sit."
We settled into our seats. Vivienne refused my offers of tea, coffee, or water, so I simply sat beside her, waiting quietly, offering whatever comfort with my presence that I could.
She broke the silence first. "Don't say sorry. I can't stand hearing it anymore."
I clasped my hands in my lap. "Okay."
She stared out at the lake. "I'll never see her again. Never argue about stupid chores or laugh at inside jokes. She'll never roll her eyes at my lectures or sneak out past curfew. All those little moments... gone. How am I supposed to be a mother without a child?"
