Chương 2
Now her attention had weight.
David noticed it too.
His gaze moved across the room.
Dozens of people were looking at him.
Coworkers.
Neighbors.
Members of Rachel’s church.
Two teachers from Abby’s elementary school.
The parents of children who had slept in Rachel’s living room during Abby’s last birthday party.
David’s shoulders changed.
Not much.
They lowered a fraction.
Rachel had seen that posture once before, twenty years earlier, after their father discovered a dent in the family station wagon and David realized blaming the neighbor boy was no longer going to work.
Vanessa reached for his arm.
He moved before she touched him.
“We should go.”
“No,” Rachel said.
David looked at her.
“Get out of my way.”
Rachel had not realized she was blocking the aisle until he said it.
Her heels felt unstable against the church carpet.
Behind her was Abby.
Behind David were the doors.
Rachel’s body wanted to stand there until someone stronger removed her.
Then she remembered Detective Ortiz saying, very calmly, Please do not turn your daughter’s funeral into the place where this gets decided.
Rachel stepped aside.
The decision felt like surrender.
David pulled his suitcase past her.
Vanessa did not follow immediately.
She stared at Rachel for several seconds.
There had been a time when Vanessa could walk into Rachel’s kitchen without knocking, take coffee from the wrong cabinet, and complain about Rachel buying generic paper towels. She had once driven three hours at midnight because Abby had been hospitalized with pneumonia and Rachel had been frightened.
Now Vanessa looked like a stranger trying to decide whether another stranger had become dangerous.
“Rachel,” she said quietly, “I don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“Neither do I.”
Vanessa flinched.
David said her name from the rear of the church.
She followed him.
The wheels of their suitcases rattled over the threshold.
Nobody spoke until the doors shut.
Then the church filled with whispers.
Rachel stood beside the coffin with the phone still in her hand.
Her pulse hammered against her throat.
Martha rose.
She picked up the framed photograph, checked that the glass had not cracked when Rachel struck the coffin, and set it carefully back in place.
Rachel watched her.
“I’m sorry.”
Martha shook her head.
“Don’t apologize to me.”
It was the only thing Martha said to Rachel that morning.
The funeral went forward seventeen minutes late.
Rachel remembered almost none of it.
She remembered Reverend Miles saying Abby’s name.
She remembered a woman in the third pew blowing her nose loudly and then looking embarrassed.
She remembered Abby’s teacher describing the way Abby drew tiny faces on the sun in every picture, even after being told the sun did not need eyes.
She remembered a little boy named Noah walking to the coffin with a folded piece of construction paper and asking whether he should put it “near her hands or where she can see it.”
Rachel had to sit down after that.
She did not remember the hymns.
At the cemetery, wind kept lifting the edge of her veil.
She pressed it down with two fingers.
Her phone vibrated during the final prayer.
She knew who it was before she looked.
DETECTIVE LENA ORTIZ.
Rachel let the call ring out.
She knew she had earned whatever Ortiz was going to say.
Ten minutes later, while people stood near their cars pretending not to discuss David, Rachel called back.
Ortiz answered immediately.
“Tell me you didn’t.”
Rachel looked at the row of vehicles leaving the cemetery.
“I did.”
A long breath came through the line.
“Exactly what did you show?”
“The voice message. Part of the video.”
“To David?”
“To everyone.”
“Rachel.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Rachel pinched the bridge of her nose.
Her pearl earring moved against her neck.
“I saw him walk into the church wearing the shirt.”
“You saw what appears to be the same shirt.”
“It is the same shirt.”
“You don’t know that yet.”
“Abby said his name.”
“I know what she said.”
“He was there.”
“We need to prove he was there.”
Rachel looked back at the small rectangle of raw earth beyond the chairs.
Her daughter’s coffin had been lowered.
The workers were waiting at a respectful distance.
Everything about death included waiting for other people to finish their jobs.
“What happens now?”
Ortiz was silent briefly.
“Now I need you to do exactly what I ask.”
“I can do that.”
“You told me the same thing at two-thirteen this morning.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
“Fair.”
“Where are David and Vanessa?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do not call them. Do not go to their house. Do not post the video. Do not send it to anyone who asks.”
“I haven’t.”
“Good.”
A pause.
“And Rachel?”
“Yes?”
“I’m not telling you the video means nothing. I’m telling you it has to survive contact with people who will say it means nothing.”
Rachel opened her eyes.
“That sounds like something a lawyer would say.”
“It’s something a detective who has watched good evidence get ruined says.”
Rachel looked at Abby’s grave again.
“I understand.”
This time she meant it.
At home, there were twelve casseroles.
Rachel counted them because counting was easier than opening sympathy cards.
Three lasagnas.
Two trays of baked ziti.
One chicken pot pie.
Something involving broccoli and crackers.
A pan labeled ENCHILADA CASSEROLE—MILD in black marker.
Someone had put paper plates on top of her refrigerator, as if grief temporarily canceled the ability to wash dishes.
Rachel stood in the kitchen for several minutes without taking off her shoes.
The house smelled like lilies, coffee, and food she did not want.
Abby’s purple water bottle was still beside the sink.
Rachel looked away.
Her father used to say that if you did not know what to do, you should take care of one thing that did not require thought.
May you like
He had usually meant changing a furnace filter or tightening a loose cabinet hinge.
Rachel took off her fascinator.
