I smile at the two old friends as I think of our own friendship. Every time I see Scarlett, memories flood back. I know the next days will be hard. I know what’s coming—tears, frustration, that familiar helpless rage at not having been able to keep my daughter safe, and wanting to blame everyone for what happened.
Each month that goes by I press a bandage over the wound, pretend it’s healing. And soon after, I rip it off and feel the blood spill out all over again.
“Are you okay?” Scarlett narrows her hazel eyes as she lowers Coco to the floor.
I blink away tears and nod.
Of all the friends I pushed away, she’s the one who refused to be forgotten. The one I couldn’t completely sever myself from. But there’s distance between us now, an invisible but solid wall that separates who and what we were from what we’ve become.
Still, I will always consider her my friend. And I know she grieves Sadie almost as deeply as I do. She knows the pain of losing a child better than anyone, and I had helped her through her own grief years ago.
Scarlett now looks around the apartment. “It feels strange coming back here.” She pauses, touches my arm. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes. Of course.” I close the door behind her and lead her to the guest room Alice prepared for her.
Standing in the doorway while she perches on the edge of the bed, I consider showing her the photo I was sent. But I’m afraid she’ll react like Gabriel did, that she will dismiss it and shatter the fragile hope I’m holding onto.
“I’ll let you settle in.” I reach for the door handle.
“I’m so sorry, Judy”—the same words she offers every few times we speak on the phone—“I miss her so much. I couldn’t stop thinking about her… on her birthday.”
I nod, biting down on my lip. Sadie’s birthday was sixdays ago, and it was painful to get through.
“I miss her too.” I leave her in the room with Coco and head to the kitchen, where I wrap my fingers tight around the teardrop garnet pendant—Sadie’s birthstone—that hangs fromthe fragile silver chain around my neck. I do my best to hold myself together but it doesn’t work.
Unsure what else to do, I step out onto the balcony. Warm air embraces me, heavy with salt and a flowery scent drifting up from the pots on the terrace below. The light breeze lifts the edge of my black silk blouse and caresses my skin.
The sea stretches out in front of me. It’s deceptively peaceful, like it has nothing to hide. But I know it’s hiding secrets in its depths. Only it knows what really happened that night.
Closing the balcony doors, I lean against the railing and call our housekeeper, Alice. She will only be coming back to the apartment tomorrow to do a light cleanup, but I can’t wait till then to ask if she knows anything about the envelope.
“Judy?” Alice says, her voice warm as always but a little out of breath. “Did you arrive all right?”
“Yes, thanks, Alice.” I try not to let my emotions make it through the line. “And everything looks perfect. Thank you for getting the apartment ready for us. It’s spotless, as always.”
“Of course. I aired out the rooms this morning and took care of everything on your list. I also stocked the fridge with your favorite things.”
“You’re amazing.” I swallow. “You always take such good care of our place. We really appreciate you.”
Alice used to take care of more than just our apartment.
Before she became our housekeeper, she was Sadie’s nanny. She started babysitting for us when she was fifteen and Sadie was two.
When Gabriel first suggested keeping her on as a housekeeper once Sadie was older and we no longer needed a nanny, I was against it.
“We can manage our own place,” I’d argued, wincing at the thought of Alice scrubbing our toilets, wiping toothpaste fromthe sink, gathering our scattered laundry, when she felt like part of the family.
What finally swayed me was knowing she needed the money. She was saving for college.
After high school, her dream was to leave town for the big city and study tourism and hospitality management in Orlando, where she had a boyfriend at the time.
This was how we could support her dreams, I told myself. Even so, I still found myself tidying up before her visits, as if that would make things less awkward between us.
Sadly, the same month she got her acceptance letter, her father was diagnosed with a degenerative neurological condition that slowly took away his mobility and left him housebound. Alice was the only one to care for him. It had been just the two of them since her mother died when Alice was a baby.
In the end, Alice never left the small town, but over time she began managing and maintaining several luxury properties like ours. Now, at twenty-nine, she has keys to many homes along the shoreline and makes a good living. Gabriel and I always make sure she is paid more than the job requires.
We love her like family and do our best to keep her close.
