The Widow's Watcher

by Eliza Maxwell

  ALSO BY ELIZA MAXWELL

  The Grave Tender

  The Kinfolk

  The Unremembered Girl

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Eliza Maxwell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503901049

  ISBN-10: 1503901041

  Cover design by David Drummond

  For Isabel,

  my wild, willful, wonderful child

  CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  1

  “You didn’t have to leave the dog behind.”

  Jenna kept her eyes on the road, wheels between the lines.

  “I did, Cassie. You know I did.” An undertow of weariness dragged at her limbs.

  “The first rule of writing: make your protagonist relatable. Likable, even. Abandoning the dog with strangers? Not so much.”

  Jenna sighed.

  “I’m not a protagonist, Cass. This isn’t a novel, and the Davises aren’t strangers.”

  “They’re strange all right. Especially their creeper son.”

  Each word dripped with teenage derision. It wore on Jenna like sand against stone. It was always there, rubbing. Given enough time, it could take down mountains.

  “He’s not a creeper.”

  “Beckett doesn’t like him,” Cassie said, as if that were the final judgment of the universe. “Beck likes everybody.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this. Beckett’s fine. You know I couldn’t bring him.”

  In the span of silence that followed, Jenna hoped her eldest daughter had let it go. The relief was short-lived. Cassie merely changed her tactic.

  “Opening a book with the main character driving a car is a cliché, by the way.”

  Jenna clenched her jaw and bit back a retort. Breathe, she thought. Just like the nurses told you during childbirth. Breathe.

  Who knew that was intended as a life lesson?

  When the nurse had laid Cassie in her arms, Jenna had laughed, wide and openmouthed. Warriors in battle the two of them were, she and her brave, howling daughter. They’d fought valiantly, shedding blood and coming up victorious on the other side. Her laughter blended with Cassie’s cries, their voices rising together.

  “I know, love,” she’d whispered to the little life in her arms. “This is new for me too. We’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out together.”

  Such confidence. Such naivety.

  “Where are we going anyway? Do you have the faintest idea?”

  “Cassie, lay off. Please.”

  “A scene should have a point, Mom. Cause and effect, a drive toward a goal. Wandering aimlessly with no apparent destination isn’t going to cut it.”

  “Enough!” Jenna said. Her breath quickened, her anxiety cranking up at the badgering. “Enough now, Cass.”

  I have a goal, Jenna thought. Just not one I intend to discuss with you, thank you very much.

  As Cassie had grown, Jenna had slowly but inevitably discovered that this child, her child, wasn’t an extension of herself.

  “They spend their whole lives walking away from you,” the kindergarten teacher had said on her little girl’s first day. “Your job now is to be there when they look back.”

  Jenna’s eyes had searched her daughter out as she introduced herself to a little boy, the two of them launching into an animated discussion about whatever pressing matters five-year-olds discuss.

  But Cassie never looks back, Jenna thought then as she stood in the doorway waiting to wave goodbye to a child who’d forgotten she was there.

  Oh, but the stories. The stories were the flickering light of a lone star in an inky-blue sky. The fantastical, sweeping stories that had begun before Cassie could even write them.

  This, Jenna had thought. This is it. Tangible evidence my DNA runs somewhere through this kid.

  There’d been times she’d wondered. Was it possible the child had been switched in the hospital? Had some sly nurse slid into her room while she dozed and slipped a changeling into her arms, then snuck away into the night with her real daughter?

  What had become of the daughter Jenna always thought she’d have? The shy, studious girl who would hide when visitors came? The child who would pull the bottom drawer out of her dresser, dump out the contents, and snuggle into her self-made nest with a pillow and a picture book?

  That daughter came later. They named her Sarah, their second born.

  But Cassie wasn’t her sister, or her mother, and never would be.

  Accepting that made it easier for Jenna to appreciate and celebrate the daughter she did have. The wild, willful, wonderful daughter.

  “Unless your goal is to end up stranded on the interstate in the middle of nowhere—which is fine if you’re going for horror, but not really your style—you need to put gas in the car, Mom.”

  “Thank you, Cassie, for that astute observation. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Neither do I.”

  If the stories were a star in the sky, Jenna had been tracking that star her entire life. From a practical distance. She’d majored in journalism. Journalism was a marketable skill.

  A springboard, she’d told herself. I’ll write that novel one day. When the time is right.

  When Matt had encouraged Jenna to take a hiatus from her job and write the book she’d always planned, she’d hesitated.

  “If not now, then when?” His optimism confounded her.

  Cassie had other plans.

  “I’ve decided to self-publish my book,” her daughter had declared at dinner a few months later.

  “Wait . . . what?” Jenna’s fork stalled midair.

  “Have you considered how to do it?” Matt asked. Cassie launched into a surprisingly well-researched discussion about platform and distribution, marketing and cover design.

  The glob of pasta on Jenna’s fork lost its bala
nce and plopped onto her plate. Her insides felt similarly flattened.

  “It’s crazy,” she whispered to Matt that night while she massaged lotion onto her face. Her skin had started to show wear and tear approximately the day Cassie was born.

  “I don’t know if crazy is the word I’d use.”

  “What would you call it, then?”

  Matt shrugged, his back turned as he pulled off his T-shirt. “Proactive? Enterprising?” He walked toward her and put his hands on her shoulders. He pulled her into a hug. “I’d call it brave.”

  His chin rested on the top of her head. She listened to his strong, steady heartbeat.

  “You don’t understand. You’re supposed to toil and shed blood and paper your walls with rejections. You learn from that, and they’re hard lessons. That’s how you become a writer.”

  Matt shrugged again. “I guess Cass decided to do it her own way, Jen.”

  “But what if the book’s not ready? What if she’s not ready? What if it’s not good enough and she’s buried under the failure?”

  Jenna backed up to look her husband in the eyes as she shared her real fear.

  “She’s so talented, Matt. And so young. What if she gives up?”

  Matt managed to hide the smile lurking beneath the surface, but Jenna knew it was there.

  “Then she’ll deal with that. And we’ll be there to help her. But, honey . . . our daughter? She’s not the kind of girl that gives up. She’s not that fragile.”

  He didn’t say it, didn’t mean it, didn’t even consider what Jenna would hear in those words. Despite his intentions, not like her mother rang clearly in her head.

  Jenna’s fears were unfounded. They often were. Cassie’s book was good. Could she see her daughter’s youth in places? Sure. But there were also glimpses of the woman Cassie would become—strong, decisive, and confident in herself and her words.

  Cassie was destined to become the woman Jenna aspired to be.

  And every vestige of that was gone now.

  Jenna’s eyes were drawn to the passenger seat of the van, to the old wooden box that had been her grandmother’s.

  It was all gone.

  Jenna jerked the wheel and drove the minivan she no longer had any use for onto an exit ramp.

  Everything was gone.

  She was left with nothing. Nothing but her eldest daughter’s voice in her head and a carved wooden box that cradled the ashes of the family she used to have.

  2

  The restaurant next door to the service station drew Jenna in. She wasn’t hungry, though she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. Nebraska, maybe.

  But the nearly empty parking lot lured her with a promise of quiet and coffee. A chance to catch her breath, settle her nerves.

  Jenna stared, unseeing, out the window of the restaurant. For how long she couldn’t have said. The sound of children broke her reverie. The coffee had gone cold.

  A boy of about twelve, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and earbuds, sat slumped in a chair across from his mother. His face shone with the artificial light from the tablet in front of him.

  Two little girls half his age—twins from the look of them—ran back and forth between the vintage coin-operated mechanical horse and their mom.

  Their chatter was bewitching.

  The woman, deep in conversation on her cell phone, held up a hand to ward them off while they took turns clamoring for attention. Lips pinched, the mother tapped her fingers against the table. When the waitress offered menus, she managed a tight smile and a nod.

  “No, Frank, that’s not going to work. The sitter canceled, remember?”

  “Mommy, Mommy, can we have some quarters?” asked the little girl in blue. Her sister was clambering onto the top of the horse, yelling, “Giddyup!”

  “Lainey, stop. Mommy’s on the phone,” the woman said.

  “Pleeease,” the little girl whined.

  “Lainey, go play with your sister.”

  “But, Mom, we need quarters.” The child tugged on her mother’s sleeve and moved into her line of sight.

  “Lainey, not now!”

  The woman pulled her arm back and turned away from the girl. The boy slid farther down his seat.

  Jenna didn’t think as she rose and walked toward them.

  Her eyes skirted the edges of the little girl seated on the back of the horse, as one might avoid looking directly at the sun. She dropped two quarters into the slot for the machine.

  The second girl ran by Jenna to climb on with her sister when the tinny mechanical music began.

  “Thanks, lady!”

  Jenna’s hand came up of its own accord, presumably to ruffle the girl’s hair as she passed, but she stopped short of making contact, her hand floating disconnected at her side.

  Meeting the eyes of the mother who’d witnessed what she’d done, Jenna read the indecision there. Part of the woman probably felt judged, which wasn’t Jenna’s intention.

  Good manners won out, and the woman put her free hand over the mouthpiece of her phone, her lips forming the shape of the words thank you in Jenna’s direction.

  She inclined her head in reply. A smile was impossible.

  Jenna was halfway back to her booth, straining with the effort not to run, when she stumbled and hung her head. She gripped the back of an empty chair to keep from falling. She had no plan, no ulterior motive. Yet her feet had an agenda of their own. She doubled back.

  Sliding uninvited into the empty chair between the mother and her son, Jenna placed both hands flat on the table.

  “Put down your phone,” she said to the woman, whose name she didn’t ask.

  The woman’s eyes widened. She glanced at her son, who looked up, interested in something other than his electronic lifeline for the first time since they’d walked into the restaurant.

  “Excuse me?” The woman rotated the phone from her mouth while keeping the other end next to her ear.

  “Put down your phone,” Jenna repeated.

  A man was speaking on the line, his voice muffled and indistinct.

  “I’m sorry, do I know you?” the woman asked.

  Jenna felt her control spiraling dangerously away.

  “No. But I know you. I was you.”

  “Frank, I’m gonna have to call you back.” Frank was still speaking when the woman ended the call, her eyes never leaving Jenna’s.

  “Lady, I don’t know who you think you are, but—”

  “You can do better. Put your phone down and pay attention. Listen to what they’re saying. Listen to what they’re not saying.” Jenna nodded toward the silent preteen watching the exchange with bulging eyes.

  The woman’s shoulders squared and she leaned away from Jenna, her mouth opening, then closing, as she searched for words.

  “You’re going to regret it. One day, when you’re living in an empty house and this is all a distant memory, you’ll have nothing left but regret.” Jenna’s eyes pleaded with the woman, this stranger she’d never see again.

  “Of all the . . . ,” the woman sputtered, looking from Jenna to her son, who shrugged. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this. Girls!” She held out an arm to usher her younger children toward her. They ignored her.

  Jenna sighed. Some rational part of her regretted the way her words sounded.

  “Don’t go.” Jenna struggled for composure as she rose from her seat. “Enjoy your meal. Look at them. Listen to them. Love them. Then love them some more. I’m leaving anyway,” Jenna said with a catch in her voice as she turned and hurried out of the restaurant.

  She crossed the deserted parking lot, indifferent to the snow that had started to fall, and listened to the thing locked inside of her rattle its cage. She couldn’t hold it in forever. She was running out of time.

  “I’m leaving anyway,” she whispered to no one.

  3

  The silence was suffocating inside the vehicle. Jenna considered the radio, but the idea of chipper, disembodied voices pushing
opinions into her space was worse.

  Lost in her graveyard of memories, Jenna drove on as the minutes ticked past. She hadn’t made it back to the interstate but meandered for miles down roads in and out of towns she neither knew nor cared to know the names of.

  City blocks gave way to rural farm-to-market roads, but the destination Jenna was moving toward had no requirements for time or place. One was as good as the next.

  Field after field passed, sitting empty and fallow for the winter, waiting for spring to come. A different world than the concrete Houston suburb Jenna had left behind.

  She turned the van right, then left, then right again, eventually snaking along a curvy road that wound down a hill into the shadowy embrace of a stand of evergreens. The houses, modest and neat, sat far from the road, nestled snugly in their places.

  The airy flakes of falling snow added to the shameless charm. A break in the trees flickered past, and she caught a glimpse of a lake illuminated by the early-evening light of the dying sun.

  “When all else fails, you can always rely on a fantastic setting,” Cassie said, serene and matter-of-fact.

  Jenna pulled the minivan to the side of the road. She paused to take it in.

  There was no traffic. There was no sound at all, save the call of geese flying in formation overhead, heading south in the direction Jenna had come from. Even their passage was muffled.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

  Quickly now, her decision made, Jenna glanced around the interior of the van. She’d brought nothing from home but the wooden box and her soft leather messenger bag. She grabbed the bag and turned its contents out into the footwell. Gum packets, receipts, wallet—detritus of a life interrupted.

  Slowly, with more care for the contents of the box than she’d had for the bag, Jenna made sure the lid was secure, then slipped the box into the now empty satchel.

  There, she thought, as she slid the shoulder strap across her torso. There.

  With the box safe by her side, Jenna opened the door of the van and shivered against the sharp bite of the wind.

  It’s time.

  4

  Jenna had been shaking on the inside for so long, she welcomed the cold seeping through her skin. To shake on the outside as well felt right.

  She wondered if anyone was home inside the faded brown bungalow-style cabin she passed as she walked down an unknown homeowner’s driveway. Perhaps, but it didn’t feel that way.