As they traipsed into the house, the smell of pizza lingered in the air. Sheena dozed on her lambskin bed in the corner of the living room and Laird came running at them, olives stuck on each of his fingers as he held his hands up.
"The pizza's ready," he yelled and threw himself at their father, who lifted his small frame and threw him up in the air.
"How's my little man?" He set Laird down and ruffled his hair just as Tera came out, grinning. She held a glass of white wine and was wearing light grey pima pants and a white cotton spaghetti strap top that showed off her long, smooth, taut midriff and the spray of freckles that fanned out across her chest. Her reddish-chestnut hair hung thick and a little damp to her shoulders. She had milky skin and light brown eyes that conveyed an open, friendly spirit. She was pretty in that girl next door sort of way.
"Hi you guys." Her eyes wandered over the three of them. She lost the grin, composing her features into a more serious expression appropriate to the circumstance that brought them all there on a Wednesday instead of a Friday, during the wrong week. "Pizza's here," she said. "Jesse, I got you one with cheese, sweetie."
Jesse rolled his eyes.
"Hey," their father said. "What do you say?"
Jesse's eyes widened mockingly. "Thank you," he drawled. "Can I go put my stuff away now?"
Their father gave a slight nod and he scampered off up the stairs.
Steve encircled his arms around Tera's waist, pulling her toward him for a quick kiss. "Smells delicious. I'm starving."
"Hungry, Dad," Sara corrected. "You're not starving," she scolded.
"That's right," he said and flashed her a that's-my-girl grin.
"Why don't you girls go put your things up and then come on into the kitchen," Tera said.
Laird stood watching them, eating the olives off his fingers.
"Don't take a long time," he added.
Barbara smiled and chucked him under the chin. "We won't."
"Hey," he said and stuck out his lip in a pretend pout.
"Did you see her?" Barbara could hear Tera asking in a low voice as they climbed the stairs. Sara moved past as Barbara paused to listen.
"No. Erica asked me not to come in, said she wasn't ready to see me."
"It's just so sad," Tera mumbled.
"Yeah," Steve replied distractedly. "Which one is the cheese?"
Barbara climbed the rest of the stairs and went left toward the two bedrooms that faced the ocean. She was next door to her dad and Tera. She pressed the light panel and waited until the little green dots were half lit up, creating a rosy glow in the room, and then placed her bag in the walk-in closet. The shades had automatically closed over the windows with the coming of night. Barbara noticed the room had been recently cleaned. Tera's housekeeper Belinda, a young woman in her mid-twenties, was an undergrad at UCLA. The bed, perfectly made, looked like a display at a mattress store with the pillows evenly lined up. The furniture gleamed and the scent of orange cleaner hung in the air. Barbara went into the bathroom to wash her hands and stared at her reflection, her green eyes, pale skin and loose wavy hair so different from Dora's dark looks. When she was little, their mother used to get mistaken for the babysitter. By the time Sara and Jesse came along, the questions about Dora's relationship to her children had mostly stopped. However, the assumptions were still there, unsaid in the polite smiles of older white women. What Barbara thought was funny, though, was the fact that when white women had brown children, everyone knew they were the mothers.
Dora's terrified eyes, large and luminous, flashed again through Barbara's mind, and the thought came like a slap. She's not a woman anymore. She's a girl. Somehow the woman part of Dora had disappeared, and the girl who once existed had traveled to the future. Is that what happened? And if so, how? Barbara turned the faucet back on and splashed her face with cold water to take down the heat spreading across her cheeks.
"Shit," Barbara whispered. Her eyes blurred from the warm watery tears suddenly clouding her vision. She splashed her face again, grabbed the white waffle linen hand towel and dried herself, pressing the cloth up against her eyes to stem the tears.
14
Serene - July 1996
She came at her, the flesh of her exposed legs jiggling—tight jean shorts. The waist riding up high to meet the loose black and white striped t-shirt with the deep V-neck. Her breasts half leaped out of the constraint of her pushup bra. But it was the pink lipsticked mouth that Serene focused on, and the dull brown eyes sunken with grief.
"Serene!" She yelled. Taylor's mom marched toward her. She'd left her car parked with the tail end jutting too far out into the traffic, causing drivers to swerve around and honk out their annoyance.
"Don't you turn away from me," she shrieked.
And she didn't.
Serene stayed put as the woman drew closer, her hollow eyes like deep dark caves. Serene had seen that look before. She knew that kind of sadness. A sadness that stays with you forever, no matter how many miles you run, or how much raw food you consume, or hours you spend fucking a moronic blond twenty-five-year-old man. Nothing, nothing can take away the grief from losing a child.
They stood almost toe-to-toe as Abby Davis' chest heaved out her emotions. She opened her mouth and the sharp gasp of pain struck Serene in her sinuses, a sensation like she'd inhaled saltwater up her nose.
"What happened?" Abby managed to whisper a pulse visible in her throat.
Serene stood very still. There was safety in stillness, invisibility. Don't
