“Thank you,” I say.
“I mean, I can’t even imagine,” she adds. Then Tasha throws a quick glance at Alec and adds, “Well, I can’t say there weren’t times I didn’t fantasize about it.”
She seriously says this. Right in front of her son.
Tasha follows up with “You have a child here?”
“My son, Max. Sixth grade.” I nod over to the school. “He just walked in. Said he wanted to do it on his own.”
Tasha puts a hand on her chest. “Bless his heart, sweet thing.” Then the hand moves to the top of Micah’s head, and he looks annoyed by it. “We wanted to go in with him on the first day. Meet the teacher, establish a connection, you know, make it a little more…special and supportive. But how brave for your son just to trot right in there all alone.”
I glance at Alec and his eyes contain half apology, half amusement, as if he’s given up trying to figure out why Tasha is so evil and now just accepts the dark humor of it all. I feel sorry for him. He still has to share raising a child with this woman, which must be like constantly scooping water out of a sinking life raft.
Even more, my heart goes out to Micah.
“He’s brave all right,” I say.
“Tasha, weren’t we in a rush?” Alec says.
“Yes, yes. Only because you were late.” Back to me. “Well, Rose, great to see you. We’ll have to get together for some wine. I can introduce you to some other parents. I’m sure…social activity is important at a time like this for you.” Tasha doesn’t bother waiting for a response. She simply grabs Micah’s hand and leads him away.
“I guess we’re going in now,” Alec says, leaving me with a smile that nearly lifts the haze of unpleasantness left in Tasha’s wake. “See you around, Rose.”
“See you,” I say, watching him leave. My gaze moves from him to Tasha, from Tasha to the front door of the school, and finally to a lone window, behind which I imagine Max sitting all by himself in a classroom as other children cluster together in their pre-established friendship groups.
Goddamn me.
I should have walked in with him.
Goddamn you, Riley.
Why did you have to be the person you were?
Thirteen
I immediately knew my husband was dead.
When I touched his bare shoulder, no energy radiated from him. Not warmth, but energy. A sense of life we absorb around us from others but never realize its presence until it’s gone.
The moment my fingertips stroked Riley’s shoulder, I knew I was alone in that room.
I floated above myself, above our bed, detached completely but yet so focused, reaching over to the bedside table and grabbing Riley’s phone to dial three numbers.
911, what’s your emergency?
Yes, hello, thank you. I think something’s wrong with my husband.
I said that. I said thank you. Who says thank you to a 911 operator at the beginning of a call?
That phone call started my path to where I am now.
Back here, to this house.
My fingers hover over the keyboard of my laptop, frozen. My brain doesn’t know what to tell them to type, so they wait there patiently for a command.
It’s been two hours since I dropped off Max at school, and I’m sitting in the covered back porch, the midmorning sunlight strong and heavy, weighing on me like a blanket. Through the open windows, I can smell the musk of the lawn, freshly cut by the landscapers, likely one of the last mows of the season. A cup of black coffee cools in a mug on the side table next to me.
My job at the moment is to inherit another world, the world of Jenna Black, Missouri detective, as imagined by J. L. Sharp. J. L. Sharp is my pen name, one chosen for the non-gender-specific initials and vaguely sinister last name.
I have three books published in the Jenna Black mystery series, all with the same boutique publisher. My fourth comes out in January, and I was about ten thousand words into my fifth when Riley died.
I need to dive into Jenna’s head, see how she’s planning to piece together the clues in her latest cold-case investigation, this one centering on a sixteen-year-old girl found raped and dead in a Topeka barn in the midnineties. I want to absorb Jenna’s strength, be guided by her moral compass, but yet again here I sit, fingers poised, a blank canvas with no painter in sight.
Other thoughts pinball inside my head:
I feel guilty by writing. I should be outwardly mourning. I never wear black.
I’m worried about Max. Maybe I made things worse by moving us here.
I need to find a job, a real job, just so I don’t have to totally rely on Dad. I don’t want to be kept by him.
I’m afraid of being lonely but don’t want to admit that to anyone.
And…
I place the laptop on the side table, stand, and walk into the kitchen.
Slowly. Up the hardwood stairs, sixteen steps I’ve climbed thousands of times.
Second floor. The hallway stretches before me, shorter than I remember as a child but long enough to still swallow all my courage in the middle of the night.
It was here.
This hallway.
The hallway, and then the stairs.
It ended on the stairs.
I close my eyes, as if inviting the memories back, and they come.
That night.
His face.
His fear.
This is why I’m here, isn’t it? To exorcise my demons? To face my past head-on? That was the plan, but this house has so far won the battle; it continues to scare the shit out of me.
My eyes open at the distant sound of my phone ringing. It’s a relief, as if the universe knew I needed to be pulled away from my thoughts.
I race down the stairs and into the kitchen where my phone is charging. The caller ID display ices my stomach.
MIDDLETON PREP
“Hello?” I say.
“Hello, I’m calling for Rose Yates.” The tone of the woman’s voice doesn’t do anything to assure me.
“This is she.”
“Hi, Rose. This
