• • •

John’s parents had thought he and Carrie were marrying too soon. They’d made that clear. They’d kept saying they should wait until they had more money, were more settled. And Carrie simply hadn’t understood what they were talking about. How much more settled could people who’d been dating for four years be? They both had job, owned cars, had clean credit histories. Wait for more money? To a girl who had eaten ramen for an entire month when her father had left them with nothing and her mother had been unable to sell the cracked and peeling house, they had plenty of money. When Carrie started getting paychecks that covered more than her needs, she would stare at the bank statements and raise her eyes to the sky and just thank God for her good fortune. And Carrie’s mother and grandmother? They probably would have been in favor of the marriage even earlier, in college. They’d loved John unconditionally, in a way John’s parents couldn’t quite reciprocate, and Carrie was afraid it had something to do with her more humble upbringing.

His parents had said the same thing about having a baby—that they should wait. You haven’t traveled to Europe yet. You don’t own a house. But Carrie was twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine, and she’d been with John for ten years! If that wasn’t long enough, how long was? Occasionally they’d return from a family holiday party and Carrie would grouse that his parents didn’t love her. When he asked her why she felt that way, all she could cite was one word: cautious. They were so cautious and polite around her. So happy in photos, so happy with other people. All those teeth! Where was that unbridled enthusiasm for Carrie? John said she was describing how dogs acted, not people. Then she asked if he was saying his parents were cats, and he laughed and said, yes, maybe. Maybe that was all it was.

After Ben was born, John’s parents pressured them to move closer, to buy something in their town, not Carrie’s. They even remembered that Carrie’s father was buried in their church and that Carrie herself had insisted on joining that parish.

“You’re here every Sunday anyway,” John’s mother said. “If you lived even closer, we could pick you up on the way to services. Or if you found a carriage house on one of these charming little lanes, you could walk to church!” Her eyes shone at this possibility, as if Carrie and John could ever afford anything nearby. Carrie’s mother was a Realtor: she’d taught her daughter that charming was just another word for overpriced.

John had held them at bay until Ben had gone missing, and then he’d brought it up again himself. It’s safer there. There are people all around. No one locks their doors! But they were John’s people, not Carrie’s.

As she drove home from church, anticipating their arrival and how tentative they’d be, her stomach gurgled. She turned off River Road and went home the long way. This route changed her approach, bringing her to her street from the opposite end. She drove past the larger homes, the ones closer to the pond. Was one of those the house of the man with the dog? She’d thought the one he’d pointed to was smaller, like theirs. A dusty car sat in one of the driveways, a bucket nearby. Maybe that was the one. Or maybe she remembered wrong.

She turned onto her street. Three news vans littered the right-hand side of the road, their loud logos and splashy graphics assaulting her like graffiti in the quiet neighborhood. Action News. Eyewitness News. News Now.

She drove past her house slowly, looking but trying not to look like she was looking. John’s car was gone. A black sedan she didn’t recognize was parked in the driveway. Great, just great. Instead of people following me discreetly, they are doing it blatantly now! No, she thought. It must have to do with the search warrant. Yes, that was it—the fingerprint technician or the DNA person, that was whose car it was. They were probably waiting for her with the warrant. At the other end of the street, she considered going farther, driving to the Marriott, staying away as long as she could. No, she thought, making a U-turn. I’ve done nothing wrong, and I’m not going to act as if I have. That was what Susan Clark had said: You have nothing to hide; let them search till the cows come home. All they have now are gloves in the glove compartment and milk in the refrigerator.

She doubled back and pulled in next to the black sedan, and as she opened her door, she heard the sliding of van doors, footfalls of running feet. Like deer, she thought as she walked as quickly as she could up to her own door. Just ignore them, like you ignore the animals.

“Excuse me,” they called to her. “Mrs. Morgan? Do you have any comment?” “Did you kill your son, Mrs. Morgan?” “Do you know who did?” “Would you like to tell your side of the story?” But she didn’t turn. If she saw Maya Mercer near her driveway, with her big glasses and her phony empathy, it would be too much. She walked up to her front door, opened it, put one foot in, then realized, with a sharp intake of air, that she’d been holding her breath. As if she couldn’t bear to inhale what they flung into the air.

She stepped into the foyer and half jumped when a man stood up in the living room.

“Dr. Kenney!” she said, her hand against her chest. “What are you doing here?”

“John called me. You had an appointment later, remember? He thought you’d need help navigating this gauntlet,” he said quietly, “and he had to go to a meeting. So I cleared my schedule. We can meet right here instead.”

“Okay, but…did he let you in? Or the officers? Are they still here, searching—?”

“No, I let him in,” a voice said from the kitchen, softened with splashes of water from the sink. Carrie thought she must be hearing things; she wiggled her finger in one ear.

The woman stepped into the living room. Motes of dust sparkled above her head in the light. Her bobbed hair, streaked with gray. Eyes that squinted down to nothing when she smiled. Carrie’s lip trembled with the weight of memory. The candy hidden in Mason jars in the narrow kitchen closet. The poems decoupaged to the coffee table. The tap shoes, old and worn and used on any wooden surface she could find.

“I tried to keep him in the vestibule,” she said, smiling, “but he snake-charmed his way inside.”

She wiped her hands on two dish towels knotted together around her small waist. Who needs an apron? she used to say. An apron is just a towel with strings! How long had it been—eleven years? No. Thirteen.

“Yes,” Dr. Kenney said, “your neighbor was kind enough to answer the door.”

“My neighbor?” Carrie’s quivering lip broke into a smile. “Yes, the neighbors around here are always so…helpful. They just, um, appear out of thin air whenever you need them.”

“It’s good to have support.”

“Yes, so you see, I, uh, don’t need you here, Doctor, truly.”

“Carrie, John told me you’ve been having some issues, and—”

“Doctor,” the woman said suddenly, “I’ll stay right here with her. Not that she needs much mollycoddling.”

“Well…let’s make another appointment then. For later today or first thing in the morning?”

“She’ll check her calendar and give you a jingle, won’t you, Care Bear?”

Carrie closed her eyes for a long second. No one else had ever called her that.

“Yes,” Carrie said. “I will.”

“You must promise me, Carrie,” Dr. Kenney said solemnly.

He stood up, and Carrie nodded. He’d heard this before, she knew. John saying one thing, Carrie saying another. Neither of them making complete sense.

“I’ll see myself out,” he said. “No sense getting the natives restless. Nice meeting you, Mrs.—”

“Oh, just call me Gran,” she said. “Everybody else does.”

Carrie bolted the door behind him, then turned to her grandmother.

“Care Bear,” Gran said and reached out her arms.

Carrie leaned her head against her shoulder, and the memories came flooding back. Birthday parties, Thanksgivings, Christmases, and just plain Saturday mornings. She’d come over with something she’d baked, still warm from the oven, and listen to Carrie talk about her week while she swept the floor and did the dishes and let Carrie’s mother sleep in.

Carrie leaned in close, inhaled her earthy, cinnamon scent. How was it possible for someone dead to smell so much like cookie crumbs?