Now alone in the room, Honey began her inspection for bedbugs. Honey rubbed her palms on her thighs and got to work, starting with the mattress seams. She didn’t travel much—she was a homebody by default—but one summer her parents had insisted on a weeklong trip to the Jersey Shore for their third vow renewal. It had involved sage smoke, matching linen pants, and a fair amount of illicit substances Honey had to pretend not to see. Honey had spent most of it counting down the minutes until she could leave and the next two weeks itching the constellation of welts she’d picked up from a charming little Airbnb with a very active infestation.
Since then, she never unpacked a bag without checking the corners of a mattress.
She lifted the edge of the comforter and pulled back the pillow.
That’s when she saw it: a photo tucked beneath.
Honey hesitated.
Then, she looked.
The image was faded and a little crinkled at the corners. The woman in the photo was laughing, her head tipped back but staring beyond the camera, directly at whoever was holding it. She had long, sun-bleached hair and lipstick the color of raspberries. There was something wild in her eyes, like she lived loud and made no apologies for it.
The opposite of Honey.
A flicker of envy curled low in her chest. It didn’t make sense. Honey liked her quiet life, her color-coded checklists and clean linens, her tidy rows of plans and outcomes. She didn’t want wild. Not really. She certainly didn’t want a photo taken when she wasn’t ready.
And yet?—
The way the woman looked at whoever was behind the camera…it tugged at something.
She promptly flipped the picture over.
“Melly?” Honey called out.
There was no answer, just the distant creak of a floorboard. Holding the photo between two fingers, Honey followed the sound down the hall to the open doorway and peeked in to find Melly carefully arranging a circle of stuffed animals around the spare twin bed. Each one faced outward, like a team of sentries. Marlene stood at the window, her brow furrowed as she looked out.
Honey waited in the doorway. “I think you forgot something.”
Melly turned and, when she saw what Honey was holding, her eyes widened. She ran over and clutched the photo to her chest. “That’s my mommy.”
“She’s very beautiful,” Honey said, her voice soft.
Honey glanced around the room at the plain, practicalfurnishings, the matching quilts and blue wrought-iron beds. There was no trace of that woman beyond this one well-loved photo. She was sure that if she knew her better, she could spot a few echoes in the girl’s features. A tilt of the nose. The curve of a smile.
There were no framed portraits on the wall, no coat on the coatrack, no perfume clinging to the curtains.
She wondered if the girls’ mother was even alive. And if she wasn’t, why no one had said a word about her.
It wasn’t her place to ask, but it still sat heavy on her tongue.
Honey crouched to Melly’s level. “Would you like me to help you find a safe place for her?” she asked gently, nodding to the photo. “Somewhere she can keep watch while you sleep?”
Melly considered, then nodded solemnly. “Yeah. She likes being close.”
Honey swallowed the lump rising in her throat and entered the room, wondering how someone could be so vividly present in a single photograph and yet so heartbreakingly absent everywhere else.
Honey rested the photo against the little white lamp on the nightstand. “There, that’s the place.”
Marlene, still by the window, gave a little nod of approval. Then she turned to Melly and said, “Go on, sweet pea. Get your daddy. I’ve got to head out.”
Grabbing the headless stuffed animal, Melly skipped out of the room, completely oblivious to Honey’s inner turmoil.
Marlene exhaled as she scooted a stuffed unicorn to the side and eased herself down on the bed. Her eyes went to the photo and softened. “She was always a wild one.”
Honey made a sound of acknowledgment.
“Leticia wasn’t a bad person,” Marlene added, quieter now. “Just...different. Some people are born with too much inside them, and no one ever teaches them where to put it.”
