Chapter 16 - The Woman of the House

I run on the footpath that snakes along the perimeter of the lake. Some parts of the path are more well-kept than others. Tiny bits of gravel and weed killer encourage walkers not to stray onto the manicured lawns, whereas other places are so overgrown with shrubbery it’s hard to make out the path at all.

The water is so still that I can almost see the reflection of the house on the surface. The regular breeze that whips my hair around my head is absent. Besides the sound of small rocks rolling around beneath my feet, it’s quiet.

I’m running for only a few minutes before I’m in front of our neighbors’ house. A white porch full of rocking chairs wraps around the exterior. It’s inviting. The cream-colored shingles make it stand out against the green of the surrounding trees. Like our house, it’s edged into a slight hill, but where our house looks propped up, theirs looks nestled. Movement in one of the windows catches my eye, and I slow my run from a jog to a brisk walk. Mr. Donahue, who is probably about Brian’s parents’ age, is sitting in a large leather chair reading the newspaper. He licks his finger before turning the page. Mrs. Donahue is seated next to him. They’re not speaking. They’re sitting peacefully, content with the fact that after all these years together there’s not much left to say. He looks over at her and smiles.

If someone were to walk by our house at just the right time this morning, they would have seen a picture not unlike this one. Brian gingerly rubbing my arm while we drink our coffee. Maybe they would have smiled to themselves at the sight of the happy couple.

From the outside of our house, people see a devoted wife and a handsome husband, but they don’t see the web of lies the devoted wife has spun to make her handsome husband fall in love with her. How could they? People only see what they want to see.

After I pass through a small clearing, the path opens up to a sea of sand and I make my way down to one of the beaches that stretches along the shore. The beach is mostly empty, except for a few colorful towels and discarded plastic toys. Three women are sunbathing on the far end, trying to squeeze out every last bit of the warm weather before the cold settles in for good.

As I walk closer, I realize they aren’t women but teenage girls. Their faces, slightly rounded at their jawline, betray their mature bodies. Their legs are a pile between them and they all have the same light brown hair that’s cut just beneath their shoulder blades. The one in the middle holds up a phone and tilts it left and right every so often so the other two can see it.

I tug at the white T-shirt clinging to my chest, trying to make myself as invisible as possible, while these girls are on full display. They’re wearing matching black string bikinis they probably begged their mothers to buy them and oversized black sunglasses that hide their innocent eyes.

One of the girls nudges the other two. All three of them look up at me. I turn my head back to the water, too quickly, so now it’s even more obvious that I was staring at them. A giggle ripples out from where they’re sitting, and suddenly I’m thirteen again. I don’t have to look at them to see them speaking a language full of raised eyebrows and rolling eyes. They think they invented it, this nonverbal abuse that can make a grown woman with her own house and husband blush, but it’s been around since before they were born.

It’s only when I turn to continue down the path back up to the house that I notice one of the girls removing her too-big sunglasses and running her fingers through her hair. I’ve seen her before. Her hair is longer now than it was in the picture on the boat, and thanks to puberty, her cheekbones are more defined, but it’s her. Her eyes narrow when she sees me, challenging me to look away, but I can’t.

It’s Angela’s daughter, Sara Walsh.

—

I find a bench on the edge of the beach and pretend I’m enjoying the view of the lake, when really I’m watching Sara and her friends. From here they seem like they could be in their early twenties, but I know from stalking Jonathan’s social media accounts that Sara can’t be older than fifteen. She leans back on the palms of her hands and tilts her face toward the sky. Streaks of blonde hair catch the sun. She’s pretty and she knows it.

Even though I’ve seen only a few pictures of Sara, her resemblance to Angela is uncanny. People probably told them that all the time. I imagine strangers walking by them on the street making throwaway comments about how they look like sisters. Sara would throw her head back and laugh, amused by the thought, and Angela would beam down at her daughter, feeling proud. I wonder what it feels like to look so similar to the woman who made you. Where my eyes were round, Mother’s were narrow. Where my nose dared to be soft, hers was sharp. Mother always said she didn’t know where I came from, often asking out loud if the doctors gave her the wrong baby at the hospital. Sometimes, she’d grab me by the chin and search my face for traces of herself. I’d look up at her, desperately hoping that this fleeting moment of tenderness would end in an embrace, but it never did. Instead, she’d push my face away, her long nails grazing the side of my cheek as she clicked her tongue in disgust.

“You think you’re better than everyone else because of your good looks?” she’d ask, slurring her words. “ ’Cause you’re not.”

“No, I don’t,” I’d say, my voice low and eager to please her.

I wanted to belong to Mother, but all she did was reject me. It didn’t matter if I cleaned up after she trashed the apartment, held her hair back while she puked after a vodka-fueled bender, or woke up every hour to make sure her liver didn’t fail in the middle of the night. My long hair, clear skin, and wide eyes made her hate me on a genetic level. I doubt Angela ever hated Sara. She wouldn’t know how.

From the other side of the beach, I watch as the living, breathing, younger version of Angela sunbathes in the sand. It must be hard for her, I think, to look in the mirror and see the person she misses most in the world.

Soon, the sun is behind us and the girls fold up their beach towels. I want to ask Sara about her mom’s disappearance, but I don’t know how. I text Frances. Angela’s daughter is at the beach, should I talk to her?

The blue message joins a string of others, all unanswered. It’s been over twenty-four hours since Frances left me standing alone in front of the Lake House Home. I let my phone drop to my lap as I wonder if I did something to upset her. I think back to how we parted. I thought she left in a hurry because she was nervous to talk to Heather and Krisha, but maybe I’d said something that offended her. Or maybe she thought I was crazy and didn’t want to investigate Angela’s disappearance with me anymore. Maybe she was ignoring me in the hopes that I’d just go away on my own. One by one, the girls put on their T-shirts and shorts and walk toward the path. I get up from the bench and have every intention of walking in the opposite direction toward my own house, but instead I follow Sara and her friends down the path toward town. Just like the night I followed Brian home, I leave a healthy distance between us. These girls aren’t drunk and walking clumsily down a dark sidewalk like Brian. Instead, their arms are linked together as they stroll down the street in the middle of the day, their heads thrown back with laughter. There’s no reason for me to linger behind them. No excuse to make sure they reach their destination safely. But I follow them anyway.

From several yards back I hear the occasional eruption of laughter as the girls affectionately knock into each other like bumper cars. Even from far away, I can tell they’re comfortable with each other, like friends are supposed to be.

It’s about a ten-minute walk from the beach to the main strip of town. I follow Sara and her friends past the only bar, restaurant, and ice-cream shop in a ten-mile radius. When they walk by the marina, Sara ducks behind one of her friends. I reach the marina a few moments later and look inside to see who she was avoiding. A man, around my age, maybe a little older, with scraggly brown hair and a matching beard is hunched over a paddleboat in the middle of the garage. He doesn’t look up when I pass, but he looks familiar. I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve seen him before.

We walk another half a block, and soon it’s clear they’re headed toward the sandwich shop on the corner. Sara listens as her friends talk. She laughs when they look at her for approval, but the second they look away she seems to shrink a little. It’s only when we cross the street that her facade breaks completely and she falls back. Sara stands on the sidewalk staring up at the Lake House Home as her friends walk on, seemingly unaware of their friend and her grief.

“Sara!” one of her friends yells back over their shoulder. “Come on!” Sara doesn’t respond. With her arms limp at her sides, she stares at her mom’s store, like she’s looking at something, or someone, who isn’t there. I watch the lake air fill her lungs as her chest rises and falls. I wait for the moment to pass, for whatever trance she’s in to break. But instead of turning toward her friends, she turns and looks back at me. Our eyes lock. Now that we’re facing each other, the distance between us seems shorter. I think about dropping to my knees and pretending to tie my shoe, but I don’t. Instead, I just stand there looking at Sara looking at me. The sound of waves crashing along the shore goes quiet as the sun beats down directly above us like a spotlight. As my eyes widen, hers narrow. A lump grows in the back of my throat as I watch her try to place me.

This is your chance. Ask her about what happened to Angela.

I take a cautious step forward.

She wants to tell you what happened. Do it. Now.

Sara’s fingers twitch at her side.

Don’t fuck this up, you worthless piece of—

“Sara?” I ask, my voice cracking.

Somewhere up ahead her friends have stopped walking. “Sara!” the other friend screams from almost half a block away. “I’m hungry!”

“Coming!” Sara yells over her shoulder. She holds my gaze for a second longer before turning away to join her friends. And just like that, the moment is gone.