THEN
Margaret clambers into bed first, her hair wet and smelling of lavender shampoo. We had a cold bath tonight, lowering ourselves in gently, our legs prickling when the ice water hit our skin.
“How much longer?” Margaret asked. Dad had been tinkering with the air conditioner since he got home a few hours earlier, but still, it wasn’t fixed. I could hear him muttering cuss words beneath his breath as he slammed around various tools, the sleeves of his work shirt rolled to his elbows. His collar damp with sweat. “It’s so hot.”
Mom turned to us then, her elbow resting on the edge of the tub. Her curls were in a ponytail draped over one shoulder, the ends swirling and sticking to the sweat on her chest. It reminded me of the algae that I sometimes saw growing on the bottom of the dock, stringy and green, like strands of hair pulsing with the waves. When I was younger, I used to think there was a body stuck beneath it, mollusks for skin.
“Not much longer,” she said, trailing her fingers along the surface of the bathwater. She scooped up a handful of suds, clumped together like a tumbleweed of sea foam coasting across the beach on a particularly windy day. “We’ll be comfortable soon.”
“By morning?”
“Sure.” She smiled. “By morning.”
We got out of the bath and put on our matching nightgowns, little yellow daisies, our sweat immediately pushing back up through our pores, skin like squeezed sponges. The heat is oppressive tonight, especially inside. It makes the entire house feel like an oven. Like we’re trapped in it.
Margaret plops on top of the mattress now while Mom rips off the comforter and tosses it to the floor. I walk over to the window, unlatching the lock and hoisting it open. Immediately, I smell the marsh, that prehistoric stink, but it isn’t as strong as it normally is. The water is twinkling in our backyard, deeper than usual, and that’s when I notice a full moon reflecting off the surface like there’s some kind of orb submerged underneath. The intensity of it is masking our yard in an eerie kind of glow—somehow both dark and bright at the exact same time—and I remember that Dad had told me about this once. It’s called a spring tide. When the earth, moon, and sun all find themselves in perfect alignment, something extreme happens.
I turn around and find Margaret nestled in bed, her body like a pill bug, curling in on itself. She looks so small like that, so compact. I know that sleeping together will only make us hotter, body heat radiating, but I also know that Margaret’s mind is her own worst enemy. She feels safest in the company of others.
“Don’t forget to say your prayers,” Mom says now, sitting on the edge of the mattress. I slide into bed beside her, already feeling the heat from Margaret’s limbs searing into the sheets. She has her doll in her arms, those unblinking eyes staring straight into my soul. “My two beautiful girls.”
“You forgot Ellie,” Margaret says, lower lip jutting out.
I look up at my mom and register her expression—her tired eyes and drooping smile; those thin, delicate fingers that rise to her sweat-dotted lip like she’s trying to tamp something down, keep it from escaping.
“Yes, well,” she says, clearing her throat. “Of course we can’t forget about Ellie.”
Margaret smiles then, pinching her eyes shut and placing her palms together, fingers stiff like they’re stuck together with glue.
“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
I glance over at the thermostat glowing in the corner, watching as the degrees tick upward—eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-six—wondering how high it could go. How much more we could possibly take.
Then I look back over at Margaret, her eyes still shut.
“If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
My mother smiles, kisses us on our foreheads, and clicks off my bedside lamp before standing up and walking into the hallway. The room is enveloped in darkness now, the shroud of night, but I’m still looking at Margaret. At the way the moonlight is streaming in through the window like a spotlight, casting its glow directly on her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
NOW
At first, my house felt strange with Waylon in it, the comfortable companionship we built up this week seeming to dissolve as soon as he stepped through the door. We spent the first couple of hours dancing around each other, sidestepping one another, like late-night lovers who forgot each other’s names.
He’s offered to cook dinner tonight, a thank-you, I think, for opening up my home. He went out for groceries earlier, and now that he’s started cooking, we’ve slipped back into that easy camaraderie I’ve felt all week. I think it’s the way I’m kicked back in the kitchen, watching as he hops around, tending to the bubbling skillets and boiling water. Cooking feels like a chore when it’s done out of necessity—not for the taste or presentation, but for survival alone—but when you throw another person into the mix, it turns into an activity, a pastime. Enjoyable, even. An intimacy in the mundane.
“Red or white?”
Waylon pulls two bottles of wine out of a large paper bag, hoisting both into the air. I point to the red, and he nods, uncorks the bottle,and glugs a healthy amount into an empty wineglass, pushing it in my direction.
“Thank you,” I say, taking it by the stem. A relaxed silence settles between us as he unloads the rest of the groceries, and I can’t help but think about how we met on that airplane; the bizarre juxtaposition ofthenandnow. I never would have imagined that in just one week, we’d somehow find ourselves here: no longer strangers, but partners. Maybe even friends.
“What was the case you solved?” I ask, suddenly remembering. “You mentioned that you solved a cold case. On the plane.”
“Oh yeah,” he says. “Another missing child.”
He diverts his eyes as he chops a few cloves of garlic, and I wonder if he’s avoiding my gaze for a reason. If he knows that whatever comes next is something I won’t want to hear.