Realizing I was a twenty-eight-year-old orphan was inconceivably numbing. I sat in my classroom sixteen minutes before the end-of-lunch bell rang, hung up the phone, and sobbed over my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, feeling like a small, abandoned child.
I called Imogen, and then my boyfriend, Wes, and my entire world crumbled beneath my feet, as though my teacher’s desk cracked in half and Hell opened up in the belly of my third-grade classroom. Imogen answered on the fifth ring in a sleepy voice. Her job makes for late nights, so I think I woke her up with this call, making her wish desperately that it was a very bad dream.
“It’s Mom,” I had managed to blurt out. “She’s gone.”
“Where?” Imogen groggily replied with a tinge of tension. “What are you talking about, Amelia?”
I relayed what Leo told me in dramatic, gasping whispers so no one passing by in the hall could hear me. The last thing I needed was a fellow teacher I barely knew popping their head in with a worried smile, asking, “Is everything all right?”
Imogen was silent for a long time, and I knew she was as confused and overwhelmed as I was.
With it only being my second year officially teaching and the very first week of the new school year, the kids who would fill the thirty seats in front of me minutes later were still complete strangers to me. Would they care about what I was going through? Would they even understand what it meant?
It didn’t matter. I knew I’d have to wipe my tears and plaster a smile on before that bell rang.
Before I knew it, the back-to-class bell shrieked through the speakers, making me jump, while giggling eight-year-olds pounced into the room in clusters. I envied them for being so slap happy in a moment like that. But they quickly behaved and slid into their seats. And as I looked at their tiny, round faces, I knew that each of them would experience such misery someday. Though, statistically, I know some already had.
I pulled it together and acted like my entire life hadn’t changed in the thirty minutes since I’d seen them last, and they were unfazed by my glassy eyes and pink cheeks. For the next two hours, I gave scattered lessons on US regions and fucking single-digit multiplication and pretended like any of it mattered. Because falling apart wouldn’t have done me any good, and my students count on me to be an adult of positive influence.
As I lay in my childhood bedroom thinking of the horrors that occurred two weeks ago, I once again have the same glassy eyes and pink cheeks.
I slip under my covers, unable to sleep, and imagine my sister in the room across the hall, probably wide awake and afraid of the world. The last time we felt like this was twenty-one years ago, when That Terrible Thing happened with Imogen.
4
IMOGEN
When I get up for the day, Amelia is already gone. I enter the kitchen looking for black coffee and find a handwritten note next to the stove.
Imogen,
Can you try to make progress on the office? We’ll leave the kitchen and dining room for last.
P.S. Bringing back sushi for dinner. I know what you like.
Love you sis, Amelia
Sometimes I forget we’re the same age, that I’m not the kid sister. Although I was born two minutes earlier, I don’t carry the crown of competence. She does. And I hate that I can’t ever seem to meet her where she is.
I read the note again and consider the idea of cleaning Mom’s office… or crying on the couch all day with a blanket wrapped around me like I’m some sort of phantom.
I deserve a day like that, don’t I?I think. Or, two weeks like that, since it’s all I’ve been doing since I got the call. Surely one more day wouldn’t hurt. Because there’s Productivity and then there’s Amelia Productivity.
The thought of chipping away at tasks makes me wishshe’dbeen the one to take time off work while I buried myself in customer conversation at Bar Henry, sneaking glugs of stinky, biodynamic wine any chance I got.
The sun is shining this morning, and I squint at its reflection off the lake through the gigantic, curtainless picture window in the center of the living room. By late morning, I’m sure it will retreat behind the clouds again and stay there.
Standing in the middle of the room, I can only see the edges of the lake and the shores near the houses on the opposite side. It’s far enough away to spot movement, but not specific people or features. Our deck wraps from the left side of the house to the back, boasting windows all around and two doors leading out to the patio: the side door, next to a gas fire pit and outdoor sofas, and then the lakefront door, also located on the patio but closest to the twenty-three-step staircase that connects to our dock. The house feels more secluded than it is, a line of trees bordering both sides of our property. You can’t see the Holloways’ house on the left or the Bensons’ house on the right unless you’re down on the docks or in the water.
When I was a child, the lack of visible neighbors turned me into more of an observer, grasping at any connection I could. I’d sit on the couch, a pair of binoculars pressed to my eyes, and invent lives for the strangers who lived across the lake. There was one house Iwatched more than the others—the black one on the cliff—with one person inhabiting it: a man with dark hair who I called Tim. Probably because he reminded me of Tim Burton. He had a telescope standing against his floor-to-ceiling windows and a tiki bar on the dock; his pontoon even flew a pirate flag. To young me, he was equal parts cool and mysterious. I’d often notice different women in his house and, because I loved a good story, I suspected the worst—that he might be dangerous. Maybe even a serial killer. I almost wanted him to be one just so I could crack the case.
Next door to “Tim” lived a fortysomething couple in the Spanish-style stucco house, who had a Saint Bernard and spent many evenings on their dock under string lights. When they weren’t outside, I could usually spot the man typing away at his computer under a single lamp, chain-smoking. I always imagined he was a writer, clicking away at an adventurous tale.
All the houses had stories, and I enjoyed conjuring them up, night after night until Mom would laugh and tell me to stop being a weirdo and get to bed.
Wondering if the same people live across the lake now, I consider walking out to the deck, embracing the sunshine, and looking. But instead, I collapse into the cloudlike sectional, allowing myself a few minutes of relaxation before I officially begin the day.
Breaking the peace is a familiar name being discussed on the TV above the mantel. It’s the name of a woman who went missing sometime last year. The name of a woman who was never found. Amelia must have left the news on when she headed out for work, as they’re beginning to discuss a developing story.
