After Nightfall

by A. J. Banner

I bundle up, tuck the key card into my coat pocket, and trudge over to the Eklunds’ place to pay my respects. I can’t bear to stay indoors. Lauren follows me everywhere—into the dining room, reaching over to refill Nathan’s wineglass. Staring down at her phone. Hurrying out the door. But perhaps nothing she did last night was relevant. She lived an ordinary life, until that life was snatched away by a freakish, unexplained accident.

  Out in the crisp, cold day, juncos chirp in the underbrush, as if life is the same. As I walk up the street, I expect Lauren to emerge from her house to pick up the newspaper, pull a weed along the path to the curb. Her hands were always moving, fingers combing her hair, plucking dead leaves off her plants. When we were little, she loved to braid my ponytails.

  On the stoop, I knock tentatively. The door slowly opens, and I draw in a breath. Jensen stands before me in a rumpled sweater, jeans, and white wool socks, his handsome face as creased as the jeans. He’s big, broad shouldered, solid. Our shared history comes rushing back. The three of us cavorting in the college apartments. Jensen laughing so hard, snorting beer out of his nose.

  “Marissa,” he says, looking past me.

  “Jensen, I don’t know what to say . . .”

  In one motion, he hugs me so tightly I can hardly breathe. His body is tense, holding off a breakdown. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

  “I know,” I say, hugging him back. She barges in between us, the memory of her. She adjusts his collar, and her cloying perfume lingers in the air. I look over his shoulder, up the stairs. Brynn stands on the landing, gripping the railing, her eyes puffy. She’s Lauren at sixteen. Almost. Same pout, same upturned nose and wide-set eyes. Only Brynn did not inherit Lauren’s curvy build. Jensen gave her his solid frame. She shakes her head at me, as if I am to blame for her mother’s death. Maybe I am. If Lauren had drifted out to sea, Brynn could still hope for her safe return. She could still be out there, treading water, waiting for a coast guard rescue. Lauren was always a strong swimmer. Race you to the pool, she says in my mind, running ahead to the community center near Old Town Lane, the street on which we grew up, her towel flapping behind her. Last one in is a rotten egg.

  Brynn charges down the stairs, spins a hairpin turn, and rushes through the house. The back door slams.

  Jensen releases me, wiping his eyes. “Don’t mind her. She’s not herself.”

  “None of us are,” I say.

  “Where the hell are my manners? Come in.”

  I step into the foyer. He’s standing close to me now, closer than he has stood in many years. Since he married Lauren, we no longer touch, except briefly to say hello or goodbye. In a formal way. At times, I’ve caught him looking at me in private contemplation.

  I glance toward the open coat closet. My throat goes dry. Everything of Lauren’s is still there, of course—her bright-red snow jacket, her knee-high boots. On the foyer wall, framed photographs show the family on a ski trip. Why did I think that with Lauren gone, the evidence of her life would disappear, too? I tear my gaze away from the photographs, produce the key card from my pocket. “Is this yours? Did you or Lauren leave it behind? I found it in the coat closet, on the floor.”

  He looks at the card, and his lips turn down. “No idea. Never saw it before.”

  “Could it have been Lauren’s?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  I tuck the card back into my pocket, perplexed. “How are her parents?”

  “Not good.” His voice is low, husky. “They think . . . they’re not happy with me.”

  “They think you should have prevented her fall?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Give them some time.”

  “It might be a while.”

  I ought to order flowers, a card—something. “If there’s anything I can do.”

  He nods, takes a deep breath. “When you found her . . . was she . . . ? I mean . . .”

  “You saw what I saw,” I say. He had raced down to the beach, shouting her name.

  “Yeah,” he says, drawing a shaky breath.

  “Did Arthur Nguyen tell you he saw something in the backyard?”

  Jensen nods, glancing in the direction of the house on the corner. “Who knows what Arthur saw? We get deer, bears coming down from the reserve all the time. Anything can set off the motion sensor light.”

  “Did the detective say anything? Does he think someone else could’ve been out there?”

  “All he said was they found her cell phone broken on the rocks. She took it out with her. Was she trying to make a call in the middle of the night? What was she doing?”

  “I’m sure the police will determine—”

  “She was pissed off at me . . .” His eyes fill with tears. I want to reach up and throw my arms around his neck to comfort him.

  “You don’t have to say.”

  “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do without her.”

  I touch his arm, which seems okay, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m here if you need me. Us. We. Nathan and I are here.”

  “Thank you, Marissa.” But he’s looking past me, as if I’m not even here, a haunted expression in his eyes.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I could go straight back to Nathan’s place, but once outside I feel drawn toward the gazebo. Brynn’s silhouette forms a lonely figure beneath the cupola. I step up beside her, rest my elbows on the wood railing. “How are you holding up?” I say.

  “I told her I hated her. Last thing I said.” She looks at me morosely.

  “I said that to my mother, too, when she left my dad. I was old enough to know better.”

  “Did she ever go back to him?”

  “I hoped she would, but it never happened.” She returned to visit only twice after she left—once for a conference, and once for my father’s funeral.

  Brynn’s mouth trembles, and I regret making the comparison. Unlike my mother, Lauren wanted to be here for her daughter. Her eyes lit up whenever she mentioned Brynn.

  “My dad wouldn’t let me go to the beach to see her,” Brynn says. “Was she . . . ? Was it terrible? He wouldn’t tell me.”

  “No,” I lie. “She looked peaceful.”

  “Like she fell and that was it. She was gone.”

  “That was it.” But I wonder, How long did Lauren live after she fell? How long did she suffer?

  “That’s good then,” Brynn whispers.

  “Look, I won’t say she’s watching you from heaven. I don’t know what comes after death. But I’m almost a hundred percent certain she knew you loved her. And she loved you, too. She talked about you a lot.”

  “You guys were good friends, right?” Brynn kicks the floor slats at her feet. Leans over the railing again.

  I let the air out of my lungs, a heaviness inside me. “Yeah, we were great friends,” I lie. “Best buddies.”

  Brynn glances back toward the house. “They’re all bawling. I don’t want to go in there.”

  “You don’t have to. I’m here if you need me. You could come over.”

  “I keep thinking she’s going to come out of her room or something.”

  “I know,” I say. There is nothing else. No answers, no comfort.

  “How can she be gone?” Brynn’s face contorts in pain. Her fingers grip the railing. Her face looks drawn, the skin pulled tight, as if the shock of Lauren’s death has siphoned the life out of her.

  “I know,” I say, touching her back tentatively.

  She shrugs away. “I can’t even cry. I feel emptied out. Like I don’t even believe this. Like it didn’t even happen.”

  “I know what you mean.” I look up at the sunlight breaking through a thin cloud, indifferent to the suffering below. Lauren’s voice plays back. Everything is the end of the world when you’re sixteen. How can I explain to Brynn that her life will go on, when I’m not sure I even believe this myself? “Just focus on being with your dad,” I manage to say, but it sounds like a cliché. “You two need each other right now
.”

  “He’s in his own world. He doesn’t know anything about me. He didn’t even know my mom was going to send me away.”

  “She wouldn’t do that. Send you where?” Images of straitjackets and mental hospitals flash through my mind.

  “Wasatch Academy, a boarding school in Utah.”

  “You applied there?”

  “Hell no. She just wanted to get rid of me.”

  “I very much doubt that was true. Were you having trouble in school?”

  “I guess you could say that.” Brynn grimaces. “It’s my fault. Mom took me to counseling. And she told me all about how she was wild when she was young, and how she wished she had buckled down. How she wanted the best for me. I hated those talks. But now . . .”

  “I get it,” I say. Now you would do anything to have her back again. I thought the same thing when I graduated from the University of Washington with a Master of Science in Speech Language Pathology. My father watched me from his seat in the stands, and I imagined my mother beside him, applauding. I would’ve done anything to have her there.

  “I wouldn’t have gone anyway,” Brynn says. “My mom and I . . . We butted heads about it.”

  “You fought about the boarding school thing.”

  “Yeah, it sucked. No way was I going to go. She would’ve tried to drag me there. I would’ve run away. But now I guess I don’t have to worry about that.” Her jaw hardens, and she looks at me with sudden coldness in her eyes.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The rain catches me on my trek across the yard. In the house, Brynn’s cold gaze haunts me as I take off my wet clothes and stuff them into the dryer. I know so little about her, aside from what Lauren told me. Evidently, Brynn was a willful toddler, loud, fond of saying no to everything. Then she said yes to everything, excelling in sports, her classes, reading, and writing. Smarter than most kids. Prone to brooding silences. Fond of Anna, whom she babysits on occasion. She even volunteers to read to the dogs at the local Humane Society. But when she looked at me just now, her eyes were empty. Is she only pretending to grieve? Ridiculous. What am I thinking? She loved her mother.

  The washing machine is broken, laundry piled in a basket on top. I pull out Anna’s bird-print pajama bottoms from beneath a wet towel. How did she get those mud stains on the cuffs and knees? Did she kneel in the dirt? What was she doing out there in her nightclothes?

  I hastily throw on jeans, a sweater, and shoes, and rush outside again, slip around to the back of the house. Anna’s shoeprints disturb the ground beneath her window. But why was she out here? The wind shudders in across the sea. An alder stump rises from the soil, close to the window. She could hoist herself up this way. I look over toward the Eklunds’ house. If I crouch outside Anna’s window, I have a partial, angled view of the gazebo. And beyond the gazebo, Arthur Nguyen’s rows of vegetable gardens, next to his oversized fishing pond. He’s out there with Bert on a leash, waiting while the dog does his business.

  Inside the house again, I take a hot shower, change back into the same clean jeans and sweater. My body feels tenuous, as if I might melt away. As the dryer tumbles, I tidy up some more, straightening the jumble of shoes by the front door. I tuck the key card into my purse, the one I found with the oak tree logo. To whom could it belong? I sent Nathan a text, but he said he knew nothing about it. That leaves Lauren. The key card must have been hers, even if Jensen didn’t know. Husbands don’t know everything about their wives, do they? And vice versa?

  I stand at the kitchen window, soothe my nerves with a cup of chamomile tea. Lauren’s parents come out to their car, Jensen and Brynn in tow, watching as Lauren’s father backs down the driveway. In the passenger seat, Lauren’s mother blows her nose with a crumpled tissue. I hope they’re not leaving already. Maybe they’re only going into town. Brynn is looking at me, watching me watching her. I can’t read her expression, but I sense the coldness in her eyes.

  I step back into shadows. The blood rushes in my head as she breaks from her father’s grip and strides through the yard toward the path leading down to the beach. She’s holding her cell phone to her ear.

  Cell phone. I drop the cup in the sink, head back to Anna’s room. I know I’m trespassing on her private space, but I can’t help being nosy. I check her desk drawers for her phone. The photograph of Anna, Nathan, and Rianne taunts me from the desk, the quaint forest in the background. Rianne appears to be the queen of calm. But she wasn’t calm today when she stormed through the woods. The first time I met her, when she had come to pick up Anna from school, she wasn’t calm, either. Her eyes were filled with worry. Anna’s devastated by the separation, she said. She blames me.

  Maybe she blames herself, I said. Children often do when their parents split up. Rianne was so distraught when she arrived today, she didn’t even acknowledge my presence.

  I check under Anna’s bed, find a stray balled-up sock. In the closet—shoes, a backpack, shirts and dresses on hangers. Board games piled on the top shelf. A pink tutu hangs in the back, the one she wore in ballet class a year ago. Her pink ballet slippers gather dust on the floor. This year, she wouldn’t be caught dead wearing pink.

  In her desk, I find a jumble of multicolored rubber bands, paper clips, and construction paper, and in the next drawer, beaded bracelets and a do-it-yourself jewelry set. She keeps art pencils in the bottom drawer, on top of a photo album. No cell phone and no jewelry box.

  I pull out the photo album, sit on the edge of the bed and flip through the pages. The pictures begin in a sunny place—flowers and bright skies. She notices what other people might overlook—the subtle range of colors in the autumn leaves, the reflection of tree branches in puddles. A pileated woodpecker, a barred owl. Her family. Dad, Anna, Rianne. Dad and Anna. Anna and Rianne.

  I’m turning the last page when I spot a photograph peeking from the pocket in the back cover. I remember now. Nathan handed his iPhone to a stranger, who snapped the shot of the three of us—Nathan, Anna, and me—grinning into the camera, each of us holding a large stick of swirling cotton candy at the county fair last summer. Nathan’s on the left, Anna in the middle. I’m on the right. Or at least, I’m supposed to be. The entire right side of the picture has been snipped away, leaving only Anna and her dad.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  When Nathan and Anna return, I wait until she has gone back outside with the camera, and in the living room, I show the vandalized photograph to Nathan. “She cut me out.”

  “I’m sure she didn’t mean it,” he says, frowning. “She loves you.”

  “Love? She told me to go home.”

  “She didn’t know what she was saying.”

  “Remember when I first stayed over here?” I say, sitting heavily on the couch. Could it have been nearly eighteen months ago already? We hadn’t been dating long.

  “What about it? She was fine with it.”

  “You thought she was fine, but she came to me while you were in the shower, and she told me I can’t move in and we can’t get married. She said it would be weird.” I remember feeling my stomach drop.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “At the time, I wasn’t planning to move in or get married. And I thought she would get over it.”

  “She did,” he insists. “But if you had told me, I would’ve talked to her.”

  “Maybe we are rushing things, especially now.”

  He takes my hands in his. “No, don’t say that. She needs you. We need you.”

  “Last week, she got on my case for not recycling an empty carton of milk. She took it out of the trash and accused me of killing the environment.”

  “What the hell?”

  “To be fair, Anna’s not always this way,” I say. “Plenty of times we’ve had fun together. But there was something else.”

  “What?” He looks out the window at her.

  “A couple of weeks ago. She said her mom always leaves the blinds down. She doesn’t like that I pull them up. It gets too bright.”r />
  His shoulders tense, and I feel a wall go up between us. “She’s a kid. Cut her some slack. She has to get used to the idea of someone new moving into the house.”

  “I’m not someone new. And I haven’t moved in yet.”

  “But in Anna’s eyes, maybe you have. It’s hard for her. When I was almost sixteen, a nurse practically moved into our house. She pulled up the blinds, too. Drove me crazy. My mom was dying, and here was this nurse acting all cheery, yanking up the blinds and letting in way too much light.”

  I touch his arm. “You lost your mom so young—”

  “She had a weak heart. Ironic, isn’t it? She married a cardiac surgeon, but in the end he couldn’t save her. Every time the nurse raised those damned blinds, the light gave me a headache. All I wanted to do was sleep forever.”

  “Who could blame you?” I feel that way now sometimes—like I could lie down and let the earth take me. Anna has the right idea, crouching out in the grass close to the ground.

  “The nurse eventually left, but you’re not—”

  “I’m not going to leave Anna,” I say. “But maybe we should step back, give this some time.”

  “I told Anna she would still have her mom,” Nathan says. “She would have all of us. This is all new for her, but you’re good for us. For her.”

  “I doubt that’s easy for her to understand at her age. She must come first for you—and now with this tragedy. What if she runs away again? But farther this time. I should go home for a while.”

  “Don’t you run away from this now,” he says.

  “I can’t see the merit in staying. My presence agitates her.”

  “Your presence calms us,” Nathan says.

  “I need some calming myself. My mind is going a mile a minute. Everyone I see, I wonder if they killed Lauren.” I run my hand along the rough, thick fabric of the couch cushion, trying to calm my nerves.

  “That’s because she just died, and your brain is trying to make sense of it.”

  “Something is off. She didn’t jump. Someone wanted her gone. I can’t let go of that thought.” I focus on the fireplace, on its pattern of masonry bricks which appear a uniform, pale pink at first, but the more I look, the more complicated the colors become—black and white and yellow all mixed in.