Annie was on her bed, folding laundry, when Lena called to ask about the dress code for Laurel’s graduation.
“Is a sundress appropriate?” Lena asked.
Annie glanced out her window. The sky and ground were the same dove white, and in between them were giant drifting snowflakes.
“How can you even think about sundresses in this weather?” she said. “It’s casual. I guarantee that whatever you put on, you’ll be the best-dressed there.”
“Does Laurel have a dress yet?”
Annie plucked Hank’s T-shirt from the laundry basket and shook out the wrinkles. “Laurel does not.” She folded the shirt, reached for another.
“Laurel does not what?” Laurel said. Her head poked in Annie’s doorway. She had on her snow jacket and hiking boots.
“Lena asked if you had a graduation dress.”
“Tell her I’m wearing sweats under my gown,” Laurel said, but she was smiling.
“Are you going up to Sierra’s?”
“Abe’s.”
“Again?” This was the second time in a week. “Is your phone charged?”
“Yep. I’ll be home for dinner, byeeeee.”
“She sounds happy,” Lena said. “Lighter.”
“She does.” Annie paused.
“But?”
“Have you met Abe?”
“He’s very handsome.”
“I think he’s on the spectrum.”
“Ah,” Lena said. “I can see that.”
“I mean, the kid has an aide. They pretend he’s a babysitter, but what seventh grader do you know who has a babysitter? I’m not trying to be judgey, it’s great if Laurel has neurodiverse friends, but … what do they have in common? Abe is really into video games and Laurel has been fighting all year to be treated like a grown-up.” Annie paused. “I just don’t get it.”
“For one,” Lena said, “he looks like a teen idol. And she wasn’t into running before this year either. She’s exploring new interests.”
“True.”
“How does she seem, in general?”
“Happier.”
“I would focus on that then. Maybe Abe’s company is just what she needs.”
Lena could have stayed on the phone with Annie all morning, but Annie had to dash off to the ice rink to drop off Hank at a skating party.
Lena half wished Annie had invited her to tag along. On this quiet Saturday, her house felt suffocating.
She switched on the news for some noise, opened her laptop.
Melanie had for years teased Lena about her shopping problem, and Lena always countered that clothing wasn’t inherently frivolous. Clothing announced who you were, Alma had taught Lena. Lena had even, for a millisecond in her youth, considered a career in fashion.
In another life, maybe she’d be behind a desk, barking orders at scurrying assistants.
It was the quiet, Lena presumed, that kept her mind perpetually tangled in all of these alternate paths: What if there had never been an accident, or what if she and Rachel had left Cottonwood together?
We can’t stay here.
The first time Lena thought it had been during Bryce’s funeral. Two middle-aged men in navy suits had materialized like FBI agents. Lena got a flare of adrenaline before realizing how silly she was being. Only on television did they arrest people at funerals.
Lena still had no idea if the men had been mourners or staff, but they’d helped Lena remove a hysterical Rachel from St. Mary’s and put her into the backseat of Lena’s car.
We can’t stay here.
Lena had reached into her bag, bit a Xanax in half, and held it out to Rachel in the backseat. Rachel had leaned forward to accept it in her open mouth like a baby bird.
That night, Rachel had slept on the sofa, hands flung defensively over her face. The directive returned, tapped Lena on the shoulder.
We can’t stay here.
But Lena’s mind felt scrambled and frantic. Where would they go? How could she take that first step? She’d watched the sun dip behind the mountains. The realization advanced cold and slow as a glacier.
Lena was an infection that must be quarantined. What Rachel needed most of all was to be free.
She can’t stay here.
Melanie’s cousin was a trustee at a New Hampshire boarding school with a decent reputation. The next morning, Lena called him and recited an early version of The Story, that she needed to put miles between Rachel and the gossip about her father. A sizable donation helped secure a spot.
Out of all the possible paths forward for Lena, she had chosen the one that gave her nothing but space and time to think, a self-imposed house arrest.
It might not be state-mandated punishment, but she had suffered. At heart, Lena was drawn to festivity, was a lover of parties and noise—and she had not allowed herself to enjoy any of it. (It was slightly pathetic, how she was treating Laurel Perley’s graduation like a coronation.)
Now, Lena forced herself to focus on the thumbnail images of clothes on her computer screen. Her mouse hovered over a magnificent Pucci caftan, its print an echo of a minidress Lena had worn to one of her parties a billion years before.
It was a shame she’d donated that dress, which would have looked great on Annie, who dressed too sensibly in fleece pullovers and yoga pants. She’d probably wear overalls to Laurel’s graduation.
Annie would look great in the caftan, too, though. Lena’s blood warmed as she pictured it: Annie, hair straightened, with a dramatic cat eye.
Annie didn’t mind Lena’s fussing the way Rachel would have. She would tilt her smiling face upward, sit patiently and wait for Lena to apply that cat eye.
Better to focus on the caftan than that unanswerable question: Have I suffered enough?
Two swift clicks, and Lena had bought the dress.
I noticed the outfit right away. It was old-fashioned, and I heard some people fussing over it, but to me that type of thing always comes off costumey.
I remember specifically thinking the choice in footwear very impractical, given that the ground was still wet from the spring snow.
After the body was found, the detective said as much, that the shoes may as well have been banana peels. Anyone foolish enough to hike in them on wet rocks, he said, was basically asking to slip.