were texting back. She swung the bags wildly as she crossed the parking lot. She was eleven, not twelve, and twelve was still terribly young, wasn’t it? Because make-up sent a signal. It telegraphed an interest in being interested in, which was a horribly non-feminist thing to say but this was the real world and her daughter was still a baby who knew nothing about rebuffing unwanted attention.
Michelle silently shook her head. Such a slippery slope. From lip gloss to MRSA to Phyllis Schlafly. She had to lock down her wild thoughts so that by the time she got home, she could present a reasoned explanation for buying Ashley make-up when they had made a solemn, parental vow not to.
As they had with the iPhone.
She reached into her purse to find her keys. It was dark outside. The overhead lights weren’t enough, or maybe she needed her glasses because she was getting old—was already old enough to have a daughter who wanted to send signals to boys. She could be a grandmother in a few years’ time. The thought made her stomach somersault into a vat of anxiety. Why hadn’t she bought wine?
She glanced up to make sure Ashley hadn’t bumped into a car or fallen off a cliff while she was texting.
Michelle felt her mouth drop open.
A van slid to a stop beside her daughter.
The side door rolled open.
A man jumped out.
Michelle gripped her keys. She bolted into a full-out run, cutting the distance between herself and her daughter.
She started to scream, but it was too late.
Ashley had run off, just like they had taught her to do.
Which was fine, because the man did not want Ashley.
He wanted Michelle.
Sunday, August 4, 1:37 p.m.
Sara Linton leaned back in her chair, mumbling a soft, “Yes, Mama.” She wondered if there would ever come a point in time when she was too old to be taken over her mother’s knee.
“Don’t give me that placating tone.” The miasma of Cathy’s anger hung above the kitchen table as she angrily snapped a pile of green beans over a newspaper. “You’re not like your sister. You don’t flit around. There was Steve in high school, then Mason for reasons I still can’t comprehend, then Jeffrey.” She glanced up over her glasses. “If you’ve settled on Will, then settle on him.”
Sara waited for her Aunt Bella to fill in a few missing men, but Bella just played with the string of pearls around her neck as she sipped her iced tea.
Cathy continued, “Your father and I have been married for nearly forty years.”
Sara tried, “I never said—”
Bella made a sound somewhere between a cough and a cat sneezing.
Sara didn’t heed the warning. “Mom, Will’s divorce was just finalized. I’m still trying to get a handle on my new job. We’re enjoying our lives. You should be happy for us.”
Cathy snapped a bean like she was snapping a neck. “It was bad enough that you were seeing him while he was still married.”
Sara took a deep breath and held it in her lungs.
She looked at the clock on the stove.
1:37 p.m.
It felt like midnight and she hadn’t even had lunch yet.
She slowly exhaled, concentrating on the wonderful odors filling the kitchen. This was why she had given up her Sunday afternoon: Fried chicken cooling on the counter. Cherry cobbler baking in the oven. Butter melting into the pan of cornbread on the stove. Biscuits, field peas, black-eyed peas, sweet potato soufflé, chocolate cake, pecan pie and ice cream thick enough to break a spoon.
Six hours a day in the gym for the next week would not undo the damage she was about to do to her body, yet Sara’s only fear was that she’d forget to take home any leftovers.
Cathy snapped another bean, pulling Sara out of her reverie.
Ice tinkled in Bella’s glass.
Sara listened for the lawn mower in the backyard. For reasons she couldn’t comprehend, Will had volunteered to serve as a weekend landscaper to her aunt. The thought of him accidentally overhearing any part of this conversation made her skin vibrate like a tuning fork.
“Sara.” Cathy took an audible breath before picking up where she’d left off: “You’re practically living with him now. His things are in your closet. His shaving stuff, all his toiletries, are in the bathroom.”
“Oh, honey.” Bella patted Sara’s hand. “Never share a bathroom with a man.”
Cathy shook her head. “This will kill your father.”
Eddie wouldn’t die, but he would not be happy in the same way that he was never happy with any of the men who wanted to date his daughters.
Which was the reason Sara was keeping their relationship to herself.
At least part of the reason.
She tried to gain the upper hand, “You know, Mother, you just admitted to snooping around my house. I have a right to privacy.”
Bella tsked. “Oh, baby, it’s so sweet that you really think that.”
Sara tried again, “Will and I know what we’re doing. We’re not giddy teenagers passing notes in the hall. We like spending time together. That’s all that matters.”
Cathy grunted, but Sara was not stupid enough to mistake the ensuing silence for acquiescence.
Bella said, “Well, I’m the expert here. I’ve been married five times, and—”
“Six,” Cathy interrupted.
“Sister, you know that was annulled. What I’m saying is, let the child figure out what she wants on her own.”
“I’m not telling her what to do. I’m giving her advice. If she’s not serious about Will, then she needs to move on and find a man she’s serious about. She’s too logical for casual relationships.”
“‘It’s better to be without logic than without feeling.’”
“I would hardly consider Charlotte Brontë an expert on my daughter’s emotional well-being.”
Sara rubbed her temples, trying to stave off a headache. Her stomach grumbled but lunch wouldn’t be served until two, which didn’t matter because if she kept having this conversation, one or maybe all three of them were going to die in this kitchen.
Bella asked, “Sugar, did you see this story?”
Sara looked up.
“Don’t you think she killed her wife because she’s having an affair? I mean, one of them is having an affair, so the wife killed the affair-haver.” She winked at Sara. “This was what the conservatives were worried about. Gay marriage has rendered pronouns immaterial.”
Sara was having a hard time tracking until she realized that Bella was pointing to an article in the newspaper. Michelle Spivey had been abducted from a shopping center parking lot four weeks ago. She was a scientist with the Centers for Disease Control, which meant that the FBI had taken over the investigation. The photo in the paper was from Michelle’s driver’s license. It showed an attractive woman in her late thirties with a spark in her eye that even the crappy camera at the DMV had managed to capture.
Bella asked, “Have you been following the story?”