She left the bathroom, her flannel nightgown bundled in her arms, and walked across the bedroom to put it in her suitcase.
“Good morning.”
Carlynn stood up from her suitcase to see her sister smiling at her. Lisbeth was still lying in bed, her arms folded behind her head.
“Sorry,” Carlynn whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t,” Lisbeth said. “I was already awake when you went into the bathroom.”
“I was thinking I’d like to make just a quick trip back to the commune to say goodbye to everyone.” Carlynn looked at Alan. “I have a feeling he’ll be out for another couple of hours. Would you like to go with me and we can let him sleep?”
“Sure.” Lisbeth sat up. “Let me change and then we can go.”
Carlynn wrote a note to Alan and then walked onto the porch to wait for her sister. She sat on the step in the fog, thinking back to those socked-in mornings in the mansion, when she and Lisbeth were kids and would go out to the terrace and sit on the lounge chairs, pretending they were in a cloud.
“There you are,” Lisbeth said as she stepped on the porch behind Carlynn. “Didn’t see you for a minute.”
“Doesn’t this remind you of mornings at the mansion?” Carlynn asked.
Lisbeth stood next to her, looking out at the shifting cloud of fog. “I don’t like to think about the mansion, actually,” she said.
Carlynn stood up and put her arm around her sister. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know how much you miss it.”
“We should probably get some food to bring back to Alan for breakfast,” Lisbeth said, changing the subject.
They started walking down the shrouded path toward the parking lot of the lodge. “We can ask at the commune if there’s a store where we can get some bacon and eggs,” Carlynn said, “but I don’t think there will be one close by.”
“The lodge serves breakfast,” Lisbeth said. “We can eat there if we can’t find anything else.”
The fog in the parking lot was translucent enough for them to make out their cars. “I have no gas in mine,” Carlynn said. “We’ll have to take your bug, okay?”
“Sure.”
They started walking across the small dirt lot toward the Volks wagen. Carlynn looked out toward the road, where the fog seemed thicker as it hugged the coast.
“Maybe we should wait until later,” she said. “We’re really socked in here.”
Lisbeth stopped walking and followed her sister’s gaze to the road. “What do you think?” she asked.
Carlynn remembered her drive through the fog a week ago to reach the commune. This couldn’t be any worse than that. “Oh, let’s do it,” she said.
They got into the car, and Lisbeth carefully turned around and headed toward the road. She hesitated at the exit from the parking lot and looked to her left.
“Can’t see a damn thing,” she said with a laugh.
“Well, if anyone’s coming, they’ll be driving very slowly, I would think,” Carlynn said. “Are your fog lights on?”
“Uh-huh.” Lisbeth turned right onto the road, gingerly, the car jerking a bit with her apprehension.
Carlynn looked through the front windshield at the swirling fog. The foliage at the side of the road was quite visible, and the road itself suddenly slipped into view.
“That’s better.” Lisbeth sounded relieved, and she gave the car a little more gas.
“Just keep close to the side here,” Carlynn said.
Lisbeth glanced at her once they were under way. “I know why you really want to go back to the commune,” she said.
“Why?” Carlynn asked.
“You want to get your mitts on that baby again. What’s her name?”
“Shanti Joy.” Had she been that obvious? “Well, I really just want to say goodbye to Penny. But seeing the baby again would be a bonus.”
“Right.” Lisbeth smiled at her, and Carlynn knew she didn’t believe her. Her sister knew her too well.
“I have been having sort of a sick fantasy,” Carlynn said.
“What’s that?” The fog had suddenly thickened again, and Lisbeth’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, her head pitched forward in an effort to see the road.
“My fantasy is…well, I’m appalled at myself for it. My fantasy is that her parents would die. Maybe not die. Maybe just be unable to take care of her for some reason and they’d give her to me.”
A small smile came to Lisbeth’s lips, but she didn’t take her eyes from the road. “You still long for a baby, don’t you?” she asked.
“I thought I was past it,” Carlynn said. “I love my work at the center. And I’m thirty-seven years old, for Pete’s sake. But that little life in my hands…” She shook her head with a smile. “She’s so beautiful. She has a ton of dark hair, and…”
