Hannah
She woke just before dawn, as she often did. Still dark, but there it was again, the familiar streaks of pinky-orange just beginning to spread across the sky. She looked out the front window as if she could watch the color grow, see the light as it changed, like watching someone paint. Already she knew how the sky looked in the neighborhood depending on the time of day, the angles, the colors, what she could count on. But every week, it would shift now, depending on which trees had started releasing their leaves.
Liza Harris’s house had been shrouded when she first moved in. And every day, it revealed a bit more of its stone contours as the bright maples shed their leaves and the oaks stood firm, toasty leaves wrinkled but clinging, refusing to drop. Marcescence, she thought suddenly. One of those words on her high school list of words that she wanted to use. Well, there you have it, she thought. Cross one thing off.
Now, if she wanted to, she could count the glossy gray shutters, the black framed windows, the lights that blinked on and off on timers. Now she could see the expanse of the heavy front door, twice as big as Hannah’s, painted a color somewhere between black and brown, with copper planters flanking it. Black, brown, gray, rust. Colors that weren’t colors at all. She found herself hoping Liza’s room was brighter, neon pink, purple, something. As if it mattered anymore.
The spruces and firs that ringed the property stood green and firm as a fence. They looked wrong now without other leaves around to soften them, out of place, as if they were just waiting for their season, for snow.
Hannah was more attached to what was outside her new house than what was inside, she realized with a start. Would that change in time? Would she become more affectionate toward the creaky wide-plank floors of the kitchen and living room? The pale paint that changed depending on the light, the way her fiddle fern stood sentry against one window? Or would she always look around and see what she could or should do—change the backsplash to something brighter. Buy curtains instead of cheap blinds. She imagined her sister in her big house. Did she think of Hannah as just being on her property, convenient, in an outbuilding down the hill? She shivered, thinking of the term servants’ quarters. Had she been put in her place? And she wondered, for all of Hillary’s decorating prowess and money, if she was ever satisfied in her own home. If she spent mornings restless, unattached as well. Was this just how the Sawyers were, always searching for more, never quite settled?
She heard it before she saw it. A rustle, the sound of a flag or windsock. She stepped out onto the porch, thinking it was a flyer or paper lifting in the wind.
On one of the Adirondack chairs, tethered with a bungee cord, was a plastic suit bag. Inside, two different Halloween costumes. Mike must have dropped them off—Miles had probably told her, but she’d forgotten. The costume on top was a pilgrim, which made her smile. Wholesome. Sweet. When your son is named Miles, why not be a pilgrim every year?
But underneath, another brown felt get-up, more elaborate. Fur cuffs. Fur hood. An animal. A fox?
Jesus fucking Christ, Mike, she wanted to scream. Hadn’t it been costumes almost exactly like this on those boys last Halloween that had sent Miles into despair? Had Mike forgotten that awful week, his refusal to go to school, the search for the therapist, the phone calls to the other parents seeking apologies for something they couldn’t even articulate or name? They ganged up against him. They all dressed as animals to taunt him. They called him Fur Baby.
But then she stopped. Maybe the costumes weren’t Mike’s idea. Maybe they were Miles’s? She took them out of the bag and looked more closely. The fox costume was half the size of the other one.
Of course, she thought. It must be for Morgan. Miles must have asked him for both of them.
Still, she thought as her heart settled and she went inside, made the coffee. Whose idea had that been? She said a small prayer that it had been Morgan’s, trying to connect with her cousin, and not the other way around.