Flynn, Penelope noticed, was just as circumspect, mostly focusing on his own meal, or Bree or Willa or some topic of conversation other than Jack and Grace.
After dinner, Flynn broke out the Risk board and poured them all vodka tonics; for himself he prepared two fingers of whiskey, something he almost never did. Flynn liked wine, sometimes beer. If he drank hard liquor, he mixed it. Penelope knocked back her drink, welcoming the heat behind her breastbone, the immediate rush to her head, and waved her hand toward the dry bar while Flynn grinned wickedly at her. Oh! Gonna be that kind of night, eh?
Jack remained standing, his hand clutching Grace’s, and said, “You all have fun,” with a little bow and then led her up the metal spiral staircase to his loft. They all heard the springs on his bed move under the weight of the two of them and a soft giggle (hers), followed by a low rumble (his). The four of them were quiet, trying to eavesdrop, but despite the echoing space of the great room, the words didn’t carry, just the rumble and pitch of their voices. Jack’s bed was pushed against the back wall, far enough back that no one could see them.
Flynn looked ill, his lips pale. Willa and Bree seemed not to notice as they set up the board in their regular colors. Penelope drained her second drink and stood, unsteadily. Willa looked up then, eyed Penelope, and rolled her eyes.
“I’m actually not feeling great,” she murmured to the group. Willa murmured, “Shocker,” and Penelope fumbled her way out of the room, down to her bedroom. Like a teenager, she threw herself facedown on the bed and cried, feeling stupid for it the whole time. She was twenty-two, for God’s sake! Her body ached with heartsickness.
Penelope had no idea how long she let herself cry—a few minutes—but she was still facedown on the bed, her cheek pressed against the cool side of the pillow, when she heard a soft knock on the door.
She stood, straightening her hair, to answer it. In the hallway, Bree put a finger to her lips and motioned for Penelope to follow her. Inside the storage closet at the end of the hall, Bree pushed open the little secret door and, with a sly smile over her shoulder, pulled Penelope in after her. They climbed the narrow stone staircase to the top; they could hear the voices of the others through the wall as they passed the main floor. At the landing, they paused, and Penelope felt a spasm of guilt shoot through her. She tried to turn to leave and hissed, “We shouldn’t be here!” But Bree held up her hand, exasperated.
Beyond the wall, Penelope could hear them. Their voices were low, but they were talking, thank God—she wouldn’t have wanted to hear anything else.
Jack: “Don’t worry. They’ll love you. They’re a tough crowd, that’s all.”
Grace: “God, the way she looked at me! Like I was a cockroach in her kitchen.”
Bree mouthed Willa at Penelope and covered her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing.
Jack (with a snort): “That’s how she looks at everyone.”
Grace, with low murmuring that Penelope couldn’t make out, and then: “Is she in love with you?”
Jack, a soft rumble in his voice: “Nah. We’re not like that. We’re close, like a family.”
Silence then, and Penelope envisioned them kissing, Jack’s hand cupped proprietarily on Grace’s hip, her fingertips tracing the deep groove of his jaw, where his dark stubble started at night. Penelope closed her eyes and remembered, her lips tingling, kissing that very spot, her tongue licking the salt from his skin and the soft groan he gave into her hair when she did it.
Grace, quietly: “None of you ever slept together?”
A beat of silence before Jack said: “No, we never did.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
February 24, 2020
Willa had gone out. She wouldn’t be home for dinner, she said. Kissed Penelope’s cheek before she left and whispered, “Probably good to give you all space.” She squeezed Brett’s arm and was out the door.
“Any idea where Willa went?” Brett asked Penelope, standing in the door between the bathroom and the bedroom. The man took more showers than anyone she’d ever met. The steam from the warming water was starting to curl into their bedroom.
“No,” Penelope said. Then, “Turn the water off; I want to show you something.”
She led Brett down the hall to Willa’s room and quietly pushed the door open. Tara was at Sasha’s house, and Linc probably had headphones on, playing a video game. Still, she didn’t want him to catch her.
“Pen, this probably isn’t a great idea,” Brett’s said, his voice faltering. He followed her anyway.
At the side of Willa’s bed, Penelope sat cross-legged on the floor next to Willa’s simple black duffel bag. She unzipped it, carefully pushing past all the clothing she’d seen earlier in the day—blouses and jeans, a dress, a sweatshirt. In the bottom of the bag, she felt nothing. Just an empty expanse of fabric. She rustled her hand around a bit more, careful of the fact that she was rummaging for a sharp knife, and came up empty. What the hell?
“It’s missing,” she said to Brett. She pulled the sides of the bag apart, and delicately removed the clothing, shaking it out and refolding it. No knife.
“What’s missing?” Brett was impatient and glanced nervously back toward the hallway.
“I found a knife in here earlier,” Penelope said. She pushed all the clothing to one side of the bag and back again, her motions growing frantic, her heart galloping. Dammit! It has to be here!
“You went through her stuff?” Brett asked incredulously.
“Yes. That’s not the point. There was a knife in here. I think it may have had blood on the handle.” She replaced Willa’s clothing in the bag, frustrated. She knew her husband thought she’d finally lost her mind. First the necklace—what necklace?—now this. She’d never had anything less than a near-perfect memory, and she’d certainly never invented actual events, conjured objects from her mind like knives and necklaces. This was absurd.
“But it’s not there now?” Brett asked. He took a step backward, like he was ready to leave. Bored with this conversation. Did he really not believe her?
“No. And the cell phone’s gone too.” Penelope sat, dumbfounded for a moment, before slamming her hand down on the hardwood floor. She longed to throw something—a glass, a vase—and hear it shatter against the wall. She was so tired of feeling this way—helpless, a little confused, unsure if she’d seen or heard what she thought she saw and heard. She wasn’t used to it.
She stood, dusting off the front of her jeans. Looked around at the pin-neat space. She pulled open the side table drawers, opened the drawers in the little guest room writing desk. All empty.
“What cell phone?” Brett suddenly looked interested.
“She had a kitchen knife and a burner phone in her bag. One of those phones you can buy at, like, CVS?”
“What did it look like?”
“I don’t know! Just black. Like a small, cheap smartphone. Plain screen. No case.” Penelope waved him out into the hall and back to their bedroom. In their room, she hissed between her teeth, “I don’t think the important part here is the phone. She had a knife. Maybe with blood on it.”
Brett let out a breath. “Look, Pen. She escaped an abuser. Of course she grabbed something to defend herself with. That makes sense to me. And I don’t know about blood or not, but you said it was a small smear, so maybe she nicked herself putting it in the bag? Maybe she packed in a hurry? Maybe it’s fucking ketchup, and she pulled it out of the dishwasher on her way out the door. There are so many possibilities that aren’t your friend from college is a mass murderer waiting to kill our family.”
“You are ridiculous. I never said she was a mass murderer. Why is it always zero to sixty with you?” Penelope stomped around their bedroom and then stopped, spun, and glared at her husband. “Why do you always defend her, no matter what?”
“I don’t! I just don’t see how you can be constantly suspicious. All the things you’ve mentioned—every single one of them—have a reasonable explanation. She’s your
friend. If you’re this uncomfortable with her, ask her to leave!” Brett ran a hand through his hair and lowered his voice. “Where do you think the knife is now? And the phone?”
Penelope felt her reality slip a little. The room felt too dark, too stuffy. “I don’t know. I guess she could have taken it with her?”
“Could you have been mistaken?” Brett asked, a quiet hitch to his voice.
“Like I hallucinated a knife?” Penelope snapped, and he shrank back. “And a phone. And a necklace. And the smell of solvent on the floors. What else? Am I just making everything up?”
“No, Pen, I just . . . I don’t know what to do here, that’s all.” He sounded defeated, almost hopeless. “I don’t think it’s entirely healthy to let her stay here and then watch every move she makes like a hawk. I get that you don’t trust her, based on whatever happened with you guys years ago. And to be honest, I have no idea what that was. Neither of you seem happy to talk about it, but yet you both carry it around with you every minute of the day. It’s a bit exhausting to be around you both.” Brett ran a hand through his thick hair, scratched at the back of his neck. “But you need to decide what you can deal with and what you can’t. Whatever you want to do, I’ll support you.”
“Oh, that’s new.” Penelope knew it was a nasty dig. She also knew it wasn’t entirely true or fair. But it was a little true and maybe a little fair.
Brett paused in the doorway to the bathroom and stared at her for a long moment. “When Willa leaves, we should really talk.” And he shut the door with a quiet click.
Downstairs, she could hear Brett opening and closing the refrigerator. She imagined he was making himself dinner—sandwiches or something easy. She was in no mood to cook (she’s doing what you can’t). Her phone pinged with a text from Tara.
Mom, do you have baby pictures of me? I need it for a school project.
Sure, when?
I just have to bring them in tomorrow.
With not a little resignation, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and padded her way to the walk-in closet. She had bins of baby pictures, back from when you printed photos at the pharmacy. She’d always delighted in taking her camera, and then later her phone, to the store, plugging in the little memory card. Holding her babies in little four-by-six images. She hadn’t done it in years—everything was digital now. She pulled out the bin of pictures, and on top was an eight-by-ten black-and-white. She picked it up and studied it, positive she’d never seen it before.
It was an old photo, taken over ten years ago. In it, Penelope was holding a preschool-age Linc on her lap on their front porch. In their old house, on a rickety porch swing that she had loved but Brett had rightfully argued would not fit in in their new new home. Linc had been crying, the swelling evident in his face even in the black-and-white photo. She was midkiss to the crown of his head.
Her first thought was, How sweet—Brett took and saved pictures of me?
She’d never seen him take a photo in her life. Of anything, really. Zoo trips, family vacations, beach jaunts. All the photos were taken by her. Even once, at Home Depot, he showed her a fertilizer he’d wanted for the lawn but wanted to research the ingredients first. He’d pointed the back of the bottle in her direction—Take a picture of this, please.
The second realization hit her harder. The photo had been time-stamped: 1:32:19 p.m. She actually remembered this day. Linc had come home from preschool crying. A boy had tripped him on the playground.
Brett hadn’t been home. How odd. She put it aside and dug through the bin of photos, old Polaroids, four-by-sixes, five-by-sevens, gap-tooth school pictures, chubby baby pictures, their edges worn. She probably should have put them all in an album by now, but life got in the way. Would a better mother have albums for her children? Maybe.
Penelope reached into the bin and pulled out a stack, spread them out on the floor, looking for Tara’s signature Michelin Man legs. She’d always been such a chubby, happy baby. Always laughing.
Another black-and-white eight-by-ten nestled in the middle of the bin, among the other photographs. Penelope felt a chill slide up her spine. She hadn’t taken that one either.
The four of them emerging from the theater after Tara’s role in The Addams Family. She’d been Wednesday Addams, and the four of them had been laughing so hard, Penelope knew that if she could zoom in, there would be tears on her cheeks.
She put the two eight-by-tens together, haphazardly grabbed a few of Tara’s baby pictures, and ran her hand through the rest of the photos, making sure there were no more surprises. There weren’t.
She held them apart, one in each hand. They were each bordered in white, time-stamped with the time and date taken. They looked like they had been taken with either identical, or similar, cameras. The same font on the stamp. But (she did the math) eight years apart?
Quickly, Penelope snapped the lid back on the Rubbermaid tub and pushed it back into its place. She left the walk-in, her breath coming short. There had to be a reasonable explanation for them—but what?
Penelope sat on her bed to think. She looked around the room—not spotless, or entirely clutter-free, but very clean. Her bedroom was her sanctuary, her place to breathe. Lately, it had begun to feel suffocating.
There was something behind the mirror above her dresser, a white paper protruding between the wall and the glass. She stood, crossed the room. Penelope used her nails to extract it, to slide it neatly from between the brackets.
Another photo.
Penelope and Brett on a date, a year ago, right after he was laid off. At a table al fresco, Penelope gazed off into the distance; Brett looked at his watch. If the picture had been snapped a split second before or after, it might have caught her laughing—she remembered that date. She remembered it being melancholy, a little quiet, but not awful. They still laughed together, the wry, dark humor that typically came along with hard luck. This photo looked staged. If it had been at a gallery, it might have been called Date Night Fight.
Penelope closed her eyes, felt herself sway. She looked around her room. Where else?
On impulse, she got down on her hands and knees, checked under the bed: Penelope with Tara, walking to the bus stop in their old house, the giant blooming pear tree behind them, Tara talking a mile a minute and Penelope smiling down at her.
At the bottom of her underwear drawer, buried by old lingerie she hadn’t worn in years: Linc, last year, on the lacrosse field midcradle, his bicep roped with newly thickened muscle.
Finally, under Brett’s pillow, a photo that stole the breath from her lungs. Penelope, in Jaime’s foyer, five days ago. The photo was taken from the street but zoomed. Her hand curled around the back of his neck, both of their mouths open, lips barely touching. Her eyes half-lidded. Their bodies pressed together, the desperation palpable. His hand gripping her hip—she could feel it just looking at the picture, the way he’d clung to her. Time- and date-stamped, but she didn’t even have to look. The juxtaposition of the date night with Brett and the passion in her face, her eyes half-shut, when she was almost kissing Jaime made her feel sick.
She gathered all the black-and-whites into a small pile and fanned through them again. What the hell was she going to do with these? They were snapshots of her life—a full sixteen years of her life. Her life with Brett. Her almost-affair with Jaime.
Where had they come from? Did he have her followed their whole lives together? Nothing made sense. Could she ask Brett? Would he just think she was crazy somehow again? She remembered his tone when he said we should talk.
She looked around the bedroom, anxiously scanning for a place to keep them all. She needed time to think about what to do with them. Confront Brett?
The bookcase: high up on the top shelf sat a large false book underneath a vase of marbles. She stood precariously on the second shelf, retrieved the vase and the false book. After snapping it open, she slid the photos inside and returned the book and vase to their spot on the top shelf.
Downstairs the front door opened, and a happy voice called up “Hello!” with a burst of laughter. It sounded like Tara and Willa, arriving home together. She was just emerging from the closet when a soft rap came on her bedroom door. Penelope swung the door open, and Willa stood in the hallway, raspberry-red lips open in shock.
She peered past Penelope into the room beyond and smiled, white teeth gleaming. “I thought maybe you had a boyfriend in there,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTY
February 24, 2020
Later, she waited for Brett to come out of the bathroom. He’d shaved, his pajama pants hanging loosely around his hips. He rubbed a towel across his jaw and then hung it on the hook on the back of the door.
Penelope held the photo close to her chest, breathing, just waiting. He turned down the corner of the bed, picked up his cell phone. He’d set an alarm for the next morning. His nighttime routine was so ingrained in her she could have recited it, eyes closed.
Penelope laid the photo on the bed. She and a kindergarten Tara, walking hand in hand to the bus stop, oblivious. She made her voice light. “Look what I found today. Isn’t that a beautiful photo?” She smiled then; it felt stiff and unnatural. Brett picked it up, his features softening.
“That’s really nice,” he said, a small smile on his face.
“Did you take that?” Penelope asked, rubbing lotion on her hands for something to do, something else to appear preoccupied by while she studied her husband.
“Take this picture? No, I missed Tara’s first day of kindergarten, remember? We had a four a.m. call with China. Don’t you remember? I was so mad.”
She did remember. She cleared her throat, planned her next words delicately. “Would you have . . . hired someone to take this picture?” His face changed, and she continued quickly. “You know, so you wouldn’t miss it.”
“What? That would be pretty weird if I didn’t tell you about it.” He knitted his eyebrows and studied the photo again. “No, you know it was probably that neighbor friend in our old house. What was her name? Luna? Lila?”
The Spires Page 18
