"No!" Her voice rose. "I said everything already. Why doesn't anyone believe me!"
She stood too quickly. Her fork clattered onto the plate. Sauce splattered the table.
We looked at each other over plates of half-eaten pasta, over the roses Rowan had brought over a few days earlier, already drooping in their vase. The silence had gone brittle. One more wrong word and it would shatter.
Mia spun and marched from the kitchen, up the stairs, to herroom, where her door slammed shut. Beneath the table, Apollo whined and sniffed at my feet, seeking reassurance.
I sat for a few seconds, pulses of anger and fear beating under my skin like a second heart. Then I forced myself to move. I cleared her plate first and scraped it into the trash. I rinsed plates, loaded the dishwasher, and wiped the table.
My body ran through the motions while anxiety curdled in my stomach.
We needed a lawyer, a strategy, the truth—and none of them were coming. I checked my phone on reflex. No messages. No Viv, No Camille, No Rowan. It hurt more than I wanted to admit.
Outside the kitchen window, the sun sank toward Lake Michigan in a blaze of copper, rose, and crimson, staining the water below in streaks of molten gold. Ribbons of clouds drifted along the horizon, their edges lit from within as if they'd been set afire.
I dried my hands and stood in the middle of the kitchen, listening. I could feel her upstairs, sealed off, her walls up. Press harder, and she retreated.
I couldn't keep interrogating her. Not tonight. I had to stop pushing before I lost her completely.
Right now, I just wanted to be with my daughter.
I stepped to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. "Mia?"
No answer. A faint creak as she moved, or sat, or lay down. Impossible to tell.
"The sunset looks nice," I called, pitching my voice lighter than I felt. "Do you want to walk on the beach for a little? Just to get out of the house?"
The silence stretched. I let it. The clock in the hall ticked. From somewhere down the block, a dog barked twice, then stopped.
"I guess." Muffled, from behind her door. "Whatever."
Relief made me weak in the knees. I took the stairs two at a time, Apollo right behind me. Her door was half open. She must have opened it after slamming it shut a half-hour ago.
I knocked on the jamb anyway as I stepped in. Mia's room wasdim, the curtains drawn. A mess, as usual. Mia lay on her stomach on the bed, scrolling through her phone. She glanced up as I entered.
Something caught at the edge of my vision.
The curtains ruffled in the breeze. A cool draft blew into the room, raising goosebumps on my skin. Mia had left the window open again.
I crossed her room, sidestepping a pair of dirty sweatpants piled on the floor, and reached the window.
I pushed the ruffled sage curtain back, about to close the window, and stopped.
My gaze dropped to the windowsill. Her beach stone and sea glass collection lined the sill. She kept them in careful order, everything organized by color and shape like a tiny museum. Nothing random. Nothing out of place.
Except something was out of place.
The usual treasures were there, catching the last weak light. The sea glass glowed softly in translucent blues and greens. Polished agates, granite, limestone, sandstone, and Petoskey stones lay in their usual rows, sorted by size and color.
In the midst of them sat a rock that did not belong.
It was fist sized. Grayish brown, the color of old concrete. The surface was rough, not polished by waves, its edges still sharp. It squatted among the gleaming glass and smooth pebbles like something ugly, grotesque.
I stepped closer.
"Mom?" Mia said from behind me. Her voice sounded like it was coming from a great distance. Ice water flooded my chest. I forgot how to breathe.
Dark spots mottled one side of it. Not uniform, not part of the stone. Irregular splatters and crescents dried into the porous surface. Rust-colored. Brownish red. Matte.
