She returned to the living room and saw that Sam had disappeared. Finally, a few minutes alone. She returned to the kitchen and started brewing her fourth cup of coffee. Sneaking a glimpse out the kitchen window, she saw that the number of media vans seemed to have doubled. Now, in addition to reporters from all the local news outlets, the lead anchors of three of the major networks, CNN, NBC, and CBS, stood outside the entrance, hoping to get the first scoop. It made her sick.
She held the media partially responsible for her daughters’ deaths. Had she not feared them, feared how they would report what happened to Piper and Poppy, her daughters might be alive today. She knew their identities would have been protected because of their age, but she had also known that that wouldn’t have stopped some nosy reporter from digging deep.
Without Sam under her feet, she decided that now was a good time to go to the girls’ rooms. Before Jill came over, she needed to do this. She drained the last of her coffee, rinsed the cup, and set it beside the Keurig. If she were convicted again, she would hate going back to prison coffee.
She rolled her eyes at her own idiocy. Coffee was not important. This was simply her way of coping with stress. Thinking of things that are meaningless. Coffee. The too-large jeans she wore. Ankle monitors, which she did not like the weight of, but it was a small distraction compared to what she was about to do.
At the top of the stairs, she stopped once she was standing outside their rooms. She had to do this, get it over with, as postponing it again would most likely make it worse. A dozen images flashed before her. Before she allowed them to completely take over, she pushed the door to Piper’s room aside.
Her body stiffened in shock, the blood drained from her face. She began to shake as she stood in the center of the room.
It was exactly as it had been the day she had left for San Maribel. Her memory of this room was exactly as she remembered it from that last day. Nothing had changed. It was as though she had stepped back in time.
Shaking, she went over to Piper’s bed and saw that the lavender sheets were the same. As she had packed their clothes that fateful day, she had been surprised when Piper left the sheets all twisted at the foot of the bed. Carefully, she eased herself down onto the twin-size bed, running her hand across the silky purple comforter. Purple had been Piper’s favorite color.
Tessa smoothed the wrinkles from the comforter, then looked at the pillow, and swore it still bore indentations from Piper’s head. Tears filled her eyes, and she picked up the pillow, brought it close to her face, and inhaled. She inhaled again and swore she could smell the strawberry shampoo the girls loved.
It was impossible, she knew, given the passage of time. She must be imagining this because it’s what her mind wanted her to smell, and scent was a true memory provoker. A trick, she knew, but it didn’t matter; any small connection to her daughters mattered, whether real or imagined.
Tessa returned the pillow to the bed, then crossed the room, where she entered the bathroom that separated the girls’ rooms. Again, she was taken aback when she saw that it remained precisely as it had been all those years ago. The same red and purple rugs, the red-and-purple-striped shower curtain. She recalled shopping for the girls when they’d decided they wanted their signature colors in the bathroom. Unbelievable, she thought, as it, too, was the same.
She opened the drawers and was surprised to find they were empty. Opening the medicine cabinet, she expected to see extra tubes of toothpaste, a few stray hair barrettes—all the supplies she had put there herself, but it was also empty.
Saddened, but knowing she had to continue with what she had begun, she entered Poppy’s room.
Struck by the normalcy of the bedroom as she stood in the doorway, she had trouble connecting her little girls’ bedrooms to the images she had seen in the pool. Poppy’s favorite color was red. She had always told Tessa it was because her name was a red flower, and they matched. More tears, but had she not cried, she would have questioned herself.
The room was as she remembered. Poppy’s bed was made, her red-and-white-striped comforter was exactly as it had been the day Tessa had left for San Maribel, the last day she had seen her daughters alive.
Tessa had so many memories of her daughters in these two rooms. She had always spent a few minutes alone with each of them before they went to bed at night. Twins, but separate individuals, each with a unique identity, she and Joel did their best to encourage each of them to be true to herself. Just because they were twins did not mean they had to wear matching clothes or like and dislike the same things; but there were many things they had in common, and they said it made them feel connected. She had always heard twins were psychically in tune with one another, and she saw this in the girls.
Tessa walked around the room, touching the pillow, and again, she put the pillow up to her face, inhaling, but she didn’t smell strawberry shampoo. All she smelled was fabric softener. Odd, as she had not smelled this in Piper’s room. Had Sam or Darlene washed the pillowcase? And if so, why not wash Piper’s, too?
She pulled the comforter aside and sat on the bed, running her hands back and forth across the sheets. She leaned down to smell them, but they didn’t smell like Downy or Snuggle, the two fabric softeners she had always used. This struck her as odd, but everything about her life was odd, from the time of her
