13

As Mary Alice fell asleep Wednesday night, she went over her terrible day from sunup to sundown to figure out what exactly had gone wrong. It would have been easy to blame everything on Katherine—she often did that anyway—but to do so in this particular instance felt unfair. Right now, Katherine was a conduit for Michael, who was only gone because of Mary Alice. But the act of blaming herself was a bridge too far—and crossing it certainly wouldn’t help her insomnia. So she decided to place the blame away from herself and chalk up all the discomfort to the absence of something. Ellie. Ellie made things feel normal, and Ellie was missing from her morning, and mornings set the tone for the day, so, yes, it was Ellie’s fault that Wednesday was terrible. This solved everything. Bleary-eyed, Mary Alice grabbed her phone from her nightstand and typed out a message. It wouldn’t be seen until the morning, to be sure, as Ellie always went to bed before eleven o’clock, but that would be enough. Ellie, reliable Ellie, would happily change her plans.

Coffee tomorrow, if you don’t mind a third. My sister came for a surprise visit, but she’d love to see you.

It wasn’t technically the truth. Katherine hadn’t mentioned Ellie at all, but there was no ill will between them, so what could it hurt? After tapping send, she let her head sink into the pillow, and sleep finally came.

Once again she awoke to the smell of breakfast. Katherine must have tried again. There was the undeniable fragrance of bacon, which meant there must be eggs, as well as perfectly toasted bread, the kind that’s mere seconds away from burning. Then, hovering underneath was the smell of coffee. Carlye’s didn’t have anything but Folgers, but Katherine must have used something to make it smell better.

Then, a voice. Distance muffled its particulars, but the cadence was there. Ellie, being polite. And then Katherine, doing the same. Two wordless yet identifiable clouds of sound that Mary Alice took a brief pleasure in trying to decipher. Whatever they were saying wasn’t important; there were too many pauses and not a hint of anything bright. But still, they kept talking, filled with a nebulous unease, which she would have enjoyed had it not come from both sides.

She darted into the bathroom and did the bare minimum of a morning routine, as there was no time for a shower, not with her friend suffering God knows what horror story in the kitchen.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Katherine said, her back to her sister while pulling the perfectly cooked bacon out of the oven.

“I don’t know what’s come over me the past couple of days,” Mary Alice said, smoothing down the sides of her shirt. “I see you’ve been entertaining Ellie. So sorry about that, by the way, I’m such a dingbat, sending you that last-minute text and not even being here to greet you when you came.”

Looking at Katherine and Ellie, Mary Alice found the whole scene surprising and, honestly, more than a little upsetting. What she’d imagined as a tense affair from inside her bedroom was actually a rather relaxed conversation between two women who may as well be old friends. Ellie was smiling a real smile, the kind Mary Alice knew and loved so well, and Katherine was in the middle of a story about her husband, whom she had barely mentioned to her own sister in the thirty-six hours since her arrival.

“He said, ‘Katherine! I swear to God, if you don’t come over here quick, these burgers are going to catch fire!’ And he was right. We opened the oven, and the patties looked like they’d been napalmed.”

Mary Alice squinted disapprovingly in both their directions as they laughed. She had no interest in hearing how that story began, or why it was so funny to the two of them. No, no. Ellie was just being polite, she thought. And then she noticed the full carafe Ellie had brought resting on a trivet and insisted it was time for coffee.

“Oh, hell. Thank you for bringing that. Sorry we’re not outside.”

“I don’t mind a change,” Ellie said.

“You hear that?” Katherine said, filling three plates set side by side on the counter with equal servings of eggs. “Your friend here’s a modern woman. Not as rigid as some of her neighbors.”

“OK, OK.” Mary Alice turned back to Ellie. “What’ve you been getting on about?”

“Oh, just catching up. She tells me there’s quite a fuss happening in Atlanta right now.”

Mary Alice would have dropped her mug onto the floor, making a bigger mess than she had in, oh, hours, but a heroic muscle in her arm remained tense, saving the room from chaos. “Really? What’s the fuss in Atlanta?”

Katherine turned to her with a devious eye. “Homeowners association.” She took the tiniest pleasure in watching Mary Alice unclench. “They’ve turned authoritarian. New rules about lawns that’ve turned everyone on the street into raving lunatics.”

“Ah, of course. I don’t envy that.”

“I’m sure you don’t.”

Ellie sighed and took a large glug. Mary Alice looked at her quizzically, as though Ellie had something else to say. When it became clear she didn’t, Mary Alice’s face tightened and she put on a wry smile.

“Speaking of neighbors,” Mary Alice said, her voice turning sly and conspiratorial. “You know what I’ve seen when I look out the window for the past ten years? An empty driveway. You know what I’ve seen recently? Gerald Harbison’s brand-new truck. I didn’t think accountants needed to make that many house calls.”

“Gerald Harbison?” Katherine said before Ellie could respond to Mary Alice’s prodding. “I remember him. When did his wife pass?”

“She died, oh, must have been ten years ago at this point,” Mary Alice said.

“Eight,” Ellie said quickly.

“Well, it’s about time he moved on,” Katherine said. “You, too. No harm in dating at our age. You know, I actually think I kissed him once.”

Mary Alice wondered when it had become so easy to talk about death. She tried to remember her adult life before Death had gotten himself so involved. The thought of someone other than herself dying was something she never considered. Friends and family seemed permanent; it was her own mortality that was ever in doubt. So she tried to stay active. She wasn’t prone to gluttony. She didn’t sneak cigarettes like her sister. And when Michael was born, she even toyed with going vegetarian—a strange weeklong experiment that ended with a Sunday roast. But once Samuel was gone, any sense of control she thought she had over life dissipated. She didn’t become any less healthy, but only because that would have involved the work of changing her lifestyle. Her routine was set in stone, and so were the ultimate deaths of herself and all those closest to her. It would happen eventually, and nothing she could do would stop it.

For years, Mary Alice felt like an anomaly. Her mother died of heart failure. A stroke took her father six years later. Once their high school homecoming king, Moe, died of a heart attack, her peers finally caught up with her acute sense of mortality. No conversation was over until talk of someone’s funeral came up. You couldn’t talk about the weather without transitioning into the results from a physical, or worse, a biopsy. Death was coming for all of them, so they might as well talk about it.

But still, Mary Alice found Katherine’s comments a little too callous. “There’s no alarm clock,” Mary Alice said. “She’s in no rush to find someone and neither is anyone else.” Katherine raised an eyebrow and took a bite from the plate she held in her hand.

Ellie suddenly felt like an intruder, despite her open invitation. She finished the eggs and bacon so quickly that Katherine nearly commented on her speed, and stood.

“I think it’s time for me to be going.”

Ellie’s obvious discomfort did nothing to faze Katherine, who waved with the hand holding her fork. “It was great to catch up.”

“It was a pleasant surprise to see you,” Ellie said. “We still on for tomorrow? No pressure if the two of you want bonding time.”

“We’ll get enough of that during the day. Don’t worry, come on over if you have the mind to. I won’t sleep in, promise.”

“Will do. See y’all tomorrow.”

She held up the plate as a show of good manners, but Mary Alice snapped, “Don’t even think about it. Just get out of here and go save some lives.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When the sliding door closed, Katherine turned to face her sister. “You know she’ll kill you when she finds out.”

“She’s not going to find out.”

“And how so? You’re just going to keep lying?”

“I’ll have you know I’ve never lied to that woman in my life.”

“Then what do you call making sure she thinks her son’s best friend is dead just like her own?”

“A misunderstanding that would hurt too much to correct.”

“Oh, I see. This is for her benefit. Sure. You’re a saint, Mary Alice! Move over, Mother Teresa.”

“I have things to do today—errands to run over in Trevino—and you’re more than welcome to come along. You’re also more than welcome to stay here and find something else about my life to judge me for. Take your pick. I’m leaving in an hour.”

Mary Alice left Katherine alone, another delicious breakfast not just uneaten but wasted. Is this what she’d become? A person who takes everything—from groceries to friendships to family—for granted? She escaped the room before coming to a decision, leaving Katherine behind like a canted statue lamenting the ills of domestic life. Once Katherine heard the bedroom door close, she returned to her meal and finished every bite on her plate before throwing everything else down the garbage disposal. After, she called John to check in on her nephew. Best to do it when Mary Alice wasn’t around, she thought.

“He’s barely eating,” John said, a hint of exhaustion in his voice. “But he’s fine.”

“Is he talking much?” Katherine took a seat at the bar.

“A little. He talked a little about work last night, how he feels, what’d he say, directionless without his job. Watched a little TV with me before creeping off back to sleep.”

“That’s something.”

Then, after a pause: “I wish you were here. This is hard, Katherine.”

“It’s no picnic here, either. Trust me. At least not until Saturday. And you know what? I have a feeling that won’t be much of one, either.”

“Why are we doing this, Kathy? Why are we fixing your sister’s mess?”

Katherine wanted to tell her husband what had been weighing on her the past few days, that Michael was the closest thing she’d ever have to a child, and that not doing everything she could for that boy was something she would regret for the rest of her life. Instead, she just sighed and said, “Because she can’t fix it herself.”

Upstairs, Mary Alice sat on the foot of her bed and listened to the muffled voice of her sister, then the whirring of the dishwasher. She conjured up an image of the whole morning scene being ripped apart and flushed down the drain, just like the garbage. As though it had never happened. As though she could give the day another shot.