Chương 2
I drove to the hardware store on Main Street.
A bell jingled when I entered.
The man behind the counter looked vaguely familiar, though I could not place him until he said, “You’re Evelyn’s daughter.”
My throat tightened at hearing my mother’s name spoken casually by someone who had no idea what kind of afternoon I was having.
“Yes.”
“Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I usually come during the week.”
He nodded.
“What can I do for you?”
“I need to change some locks.”
He asked what kind.
I showed him a photograph of the front door hardware.
While he explained my options, I stared at a display of work gloves and tried not to imagine champagne soaking into my mother’s couch.
“Something happen?” he finally asked.
“Family.”
He gave a small, understanding grunt.
Apparently that explained enough.
I bought two replacement locksets, a toolbox because mine was at home, contractor trash bags, rubber gloves, and a cheap folding chair.
The chair was an impulse purchase.
I had no idea what I intended to do with it.
At the register, I added a bottle of water and a package of peanut butter crackers.
My hands were shaking badly enough that I dropped my credit card.
The cashier pretended not to notice.
Outside, I called Daniel.
He answered on the second ring.
“Hey, I thought you were heading to the lake.”
“I’m here.”
Something in my voice made him pause.
“What happened?”
“Where is Rose?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think carefully.”
“Claire.”
“Where did she tell you she was spending her birthday?”
Silence.
Not long.
Maybe two seconds.
It was enough.
“Daniel.”
“She mentioned the lake.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“And what did you say?”
“I thought you changed your mind.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because she said you did.”
I looked through the hardware store window at the cashier straightening a row of paintbrushes.
For some reason, watching him perform such an ordinary task kept me from shouting.
“She took my keys.”
“What?”
“She took them from our house, drove up here, and filled Mom’s place with people.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
“I watched a man use one of Mom’s pillows as a napkin.”
Daniel made a sound under his breath.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Claire, I’m coming up there.”
“I don’t want you here yet.”
“She’s my sister.”
“That is exactly why I don’t want you here yet.”
He went quiet.
Daniel’s instinct was always to mediate.
It was one of the things I loved about him when mediation meant talking me down after a terrible day or helping neighbors settle an argument about a fence.
With Rose, it had become something else.
A permanent cushion between her choices and their consequences.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I haven’t decided.”
That was not entirely true.
A shape had begun forming in my mind.
Not revenge exactly.
Revenge was breaking her phone or humiliating her online.
I wanted something Rose could not laugh away by Monday.
“Please don’t do anything crazy.”
I almost laughed.
“Your sister stole a key to my dead mother’s house.”
“I know.”
“No, Daniel.”
I watched a pickup truck turn slowly onto Main Street.
“I don’t think you do.”
I ended the call before he could answer.
Then I sat in the parking lot eating peanut butter crackers that tasted like cardboard.
My mother would have told me to call the police.
Actually, that was not true.
My mother would first have called Rose herself and frightened her so badly that the police would have become unnecessary.
The thought made me smile despite everything.
It disappeared when my phone buzzed.
Rose had posted a photo.
I was not following her closely enough to see most of what she put online, but she had tagged Daniel.
There she was on my mother’s terrace, smiling beside a silver balloon shaped like a two and another shaped like an eight.
Behind her, Lake Briar stretched blue and calm toward the opposite shore.
The caption read, BEST BIRTHDAY ESCAPE EVER.
Escape.
As though she had rented a cabin.
As though the woman who had planted those flowers and sewn those pillows and spent her last healthy summer repainting the kitchen cabinets had never existed.
I saved the post.
Then another detail caught my attention.
At the edge of the photograph stood a man holding a beer beside the grill.
Behind him, the grill lid was open.
My mother had never owned a grill.
I enlarged the picture.
It was sitting directly against the cedar siding.
I called Rose.
She answered laughing.
“Hey, Claire.”
The laughter around her died almost instantly.
She knew.
I said, “Move the grill away from the house.”
Silence.
Then, “What?”
“You heard me.”
Another pause.
Her voice dropped.
“Are you here?”
“Move it.”
“Claire, I can explain.”
“You have five minutes to get that grill away from the siding.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t touch anything else that belongs to me.”
She exhaled sharply.
“You’re making this sound way worse than it is.”
There it was.
The sentence Rose used whenever consequences came close enough to touch her.
I looked at the new locks sitting on the passenger seat.
“No,” I said.
“You made it worse than it was.”
Then I hung up and started the car.
I drove back toward the lake, but I did not turn into the driveway.
Instead, I parked down the road where I could see cars beginning to leave.
Rose had apparently announced that the party was over.
People emerged in irritated little groups, carrying bags, coolers, jackets, and half-finished drinks.
Some looked embarrassed.
Others looked annoyed.
One man threw an empty can into the bed of his truck and missed.
He left it on the ground.
I wrote down his license plate.
Petty, maybe.
At that moment, pettiness felt medicinal.
Forty minutes later, only Rose’s car remained.
My phone rang.
I let it ring twice before answering.
May you like
“What?” I said.
Her voice had lost its birthday brightness.
