After Monet’s Playhouse, Regan walked around the mall, searching for things she could acquire that would make her feel less like a goldfish trapped in a Ziploc bag. She caught a glimpse of herself in a shop window. She was no longer adorable. She hid her formerly size-six body under size-fourteen dresses. Her thighs rubbed together when she walked. She’d had babies, she’d nursed babies, and she tried to be proud of the havoc this had wreaked on her body. Regan loved preparing—and enjoying—good food. Her mother had spent her life on one diet or another and Regan was trying to set a healthier example for her girls. Still, being invisible instead of cute kind of sucked.
In front of a travel agency, Regan stared at a poster of a chaise longue and sun umbrella. The tagline readGet away…to anywhere but here!
Regan put her hand to her throat. She felt choked with yearning. “I want to get away,” she said, gazing at the pink chair, the fruity drink beside it. Rat poison, pillow suffocation, cutting the brakes on the Tundra truck…but none of these plans would result in what she most desired, which was to be free.
Regan made herself walk past the travel agency without going inside. She was due to volunteer in the gymnasium at Savannah Country Day in a half hour. It was an expensive school, but every time Regan drove up to the campus and saw her children in their smart uniforms, she felt a surge of accomplishment. Her father had been a lawyer, but after he died, money was tight. Charlotte had kept them afloat by getting her real estate license.
Charlotte had been a mediocre realtor. Once in a while, she’d sell a big house to a retiree from somewhere expensive or for a friend from church, and these sales supported them during Regan’s high school years. Regan could remember lean times, too: Charlotte hunched over a stack of bills wearing her CVS reading glasses and pecking at a calculator. There were weekends when Charlotte brought Regan and her homework to her open houses, pasting on a smile when lookie-loos meandered in. At those times, Regan was touched by her mother’s effort, but it was hard to see Charlotte later in these evenings: exhausted, worried, eating a sad McDonald’s cheeseburger for dinner.
Somehow, Charlotte had found enough money for Cord and Lee to finish up at Savannah Country Day, then hightail it out of town to college. But Regan was sent to public school in her sister’s hand-me-down sweater sets. Her art teacher called her gifted, but there was no money for “extras,” such as art classes at the Telfair or SCAD.
Regan allowed herself a deep sigh. She’d worked so hard for her big, new home, her big husband, her two delightful daughters. She’d surrendered herself to give her girls the mother she’d always wanted: present, attentive, enthusiastic. But she knew that as soon as she struck the match, her life was going to explode. She was both terrified and so very ready.
Regan parked her minivan in the visitors’ lot at Savannah Country Day. She grabbed her Tory Burch gym bag, used her volunteer badge to enter the school, and changed into track pants and a pink T-shirt in the teachers’ restroom. It was Volleyball Appreciation Week.
In the Pledge-scented gym, Regan stood to the left of Coach Randy (What a name!was a joke Regan had told to no one). She mimed his “ready position,” feigning excitement. Regan’s daughters, nine-year-old Isabella and seven-year-old Flora, smiled at her, lit up by her presence. Regan knew there’d be a day when the girls didn’t want their mom roaming the privileged halls of their school. She read blogs titled “I Forgot to Cherish Every Moment” and “The Last Time My Son Wanted a Hug—If Only I’d Known.” So Regan did her best to cherish the damn moment.
After school, Regan took the girls for ice cream. At home, on She Crab Circle, she made them take a bath and combed out their long blond hair with No More Tangles. She fastened them into sundresses, gave each some bubbles from the dollar bin at Target, and sent them out to play in the backyard. Isabella pretended to think bubbles were babyish, but Regan knew her elder daughter was still darling beneath her eye-rolling and hip-jutting poses. As soon as Flora blew through her bubble wand, Isabella dropped her airs and ran barefoot with her sister.
By six, Matt was not home. Regan’s calls to his cell went unanswered. She fed the girls pasta with butter and let them watchFinding Nemo. When the movie was over and Matt still wasn’t back, Regan put the girls to bed and took the phone and a mug of tea into the backyard.
For a few minutes, Regan hesitated. She tried Matt again but the call went to voicemail.
Get away…to anywhere but here!
Regan knew she should hold off, just console herself with After Eight mints and her mother’s cast-off romance novels. (They lacked the dirty bits, which Charlotte piously ripped out, causing jarring lapses of continuity.) But she was tired of being patient.
Regan gazed at her garden, where she’d considered planting deadly oleander or belladonna. She’d even googled “plants that kill no trace” and then erased her search history. Now, she dialed her oldest friend, Zoë, in Atlanta.
“Hi, stranger!” said Zoë. “To what honor do I owe an evening phone call?”
Regan was careful with her words.
Zoë was silent for a moment, then said, “Hmm. Do you think you should hire a tail?”
“What?” said Regan, biting her thumbnail.
“Believe it or not I know a guy in Savannah,” said Zoë, a police officer.
“I believe it,” said Regan.
“He’s good. Kind of an investigator slash bounty hunter slash sculptor.”
“Okay,” said Regan.
“I’m calling him for you,” said Zoë. “I know you won’t call him yourself.”
“Oh,” said Regan. “Okay, thank you.”
“It might be nothing,” said Zoë.
“Right,” said Regan, pushing against the ground to lift herself into the air. She closed her eyes and imagined everything catching fire: her manicured lawn, her house, every item of clothing in her closets. She would save her girls, and that was all.
FOR THREE DAYS, LEEdrove from Los Angeles to Savannah, where she would take refuge with her mother. Her credit cards maxed out and her bank account empty, she drove all day and curled up in the backseat of her leased Prius at night. Like a child. Or a dog. She paid with Charlotte’s ATM card (given to Lee when she went to college to use “in an emergency”) for gas and snacks. She called Charlotte as she filled the tank in Atlanta, four hours from Skidaway Island. When Charlotte answered her landline, Lee said, “Hi, Mom, it’s me.”
“Lee Lee!” cried Charlotte. It warmed Lee that every single time she reached her mother, Charlotte said, “Lee Lee!” as if the call were the greatest thing in the world.
“Mom, I have a surprise,” said Lee, her voice rusty from disuse. How long had it been since she had talked to anyone? A week, maybe ten days?
