“But that’s what friends are for, right?” he asks.
Aimee narrows her eyes, but doesn’t respond.
“Look, I’ll reach out to Gwen,” he says. “Tell her it’s my fault. Would that make it better?”
“A little.” She watches him take out his phone and send a quick text.
“Done,” he says. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
After breakfast, Aimee and Scott get the kids dressed and ready to head out. She’s halfway out the door when she pauses. “Did you hear back from Gwen? She knows we’re coming, right?”
Scott looks at his phone. “Actually, she didn’t respond.”
Aimee hesitates a moment. Gwen is one of those people who always texts back immediately. Shecouldjust pop in.Surprise!Gwen is a close enough friend that she will roll with it. If the situation were reversed, Aimee would happily take George and Rafi.
Still, as she heads down her walkway, she feels uncomfortable in a way she can’t quite articulate. When she notices a car parked outside Gwen’s, the feeling intensifies. She knows every car on this cul-de-sac, and this dark, late-model sedan does not belong here. Something is up. She walks up to Gwen’s front door and rings.
“I don’t want to stay with all the boys,” Noa says, appearing at her side. “It’s too loud. I hate it.” She puts her hands over her ears.
“You can listen to music. You can use Gwen’s iPad.”
“I don’t want the iPad. I want to be with the kittens. I want to feed them with the bottle.”
Aimee’s heart sinks; she feels like a terrible mother. The kind that works on Saturdays and tries to talk her kid into using a screen instead of doing something healthy like playing with animals. If only Scott hadn’t changed the plans this morning. The twins run around the side of the house and unlatch the gate, letting themselves into the backyard.
“Go with your brothers,” Aimee tell Noa, who glares at her in response, her lower lip trembling ever so slightly. For a millisecond, Aimee fears her daughter might collapse into one of her epic tantrums. But then Noa runs down the path, after her brothers. Aimee watches until she disappears into the backyard and then looks back at the street, where the sedan is parked. She counts four antennas—is it an unmarked police car?
She thinks of the fight she overheard last night.
The anger, the yelling—I’m not going to let you ruin my life.
She shakes the thought away as footsteps inside the house growcloser. This is Gwen and Anton. They’re lovely people. Flawed, yes, but fundamentally good. She’s been on vacation with them twice now—once in Vermont at Gwen’s parents’ place and over the summer at the Outer Banks. They’re not the type of people who get visits from the police.
The door opens. Gwen’s eyes are red-rimmed and moist, and she is holding a tissue to her nose.
“Honey, what is it?” Aimee asks. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Anton. He’s dead.”
5
NOW
Gwen sits curled up, her knees pulled to her chest, across from a man in a maroon dress shirt and black tie. His thick black hair is pulled off his face, reminiscent of an old-time crooner, the kind her grandparents listened to on their record player.
According to the card he gave her, he’s Detective Jay Salazar from the Montgomery County Police Department. And she guesses that he’s dressed in a tie and jacket because he’s been tasked with breaking the bad news to her.
Anton’s body was found in an alley in downtown Bethesda. He’d been hit by a car.
“Let me ask you…” he starts, but Gwen holds up a finger to pause him while Aimee walks through the living room like the Pied Piper, followed by all five kids.
Aimee stops at the door. “I’m going to take everyone over to Lisa’s, and then I’ll be right back.”
Gwen nods, waving goodbye to George and Rafi, who are jostling each other and seem oblivious to this strange man in a suit in their living room. They haven’t noticed that Anton was not here when they woke up. But she will have to tell them what’s happened at some point. The thought seizes her, and she starts to tremble. This will crush her sweet boys. How could it not? Their lives will forever be divided into two—before their father died, and after. The enormity of it all looms in her imagination. Gwen chokes back a small sob.
“Can I get you something?” the detective asks. “Water? Tissue?”
Shaken from her thoughts, Gwen looks up at the man in frontof her. His dark eyes are fixed on her, as if he can see straight into her thoughts. Discomfited, she looks away, her gaze settling on the chevron pattern of the rug under the coffee table. “No, no thank you. I just don’t want them to hear any of this. I want to tell them later. I want them to have one last morning of a normal childhood, before everything changes.”
