Chapter 17 - The Woman of the House

I make my way home, but once I’m there I’m lost. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, my mind is left to wander around the house. It whines and creaks in pain with every step I take. I think about Angela and the family she left behind. Sara is on the edge of adulthood, while her younger brother, Teddy, probably still sleeps with a stuffed animal, and their dad, Jonathan, is left to raise them both on his own. I don’t know any of them, but somehow I feel like I do.

I walk down to the boathouse. Inside, I open one of the cardboard boxes I haven’t gone through yet and examine pieces of Sara and Teddy’s childhood—old toys, discarded dolls, and art projects long forgotten. I push that box to the side and empty another in front of me. This time, gardening tools, water toys, and deflated life jackets fall at my feet. I rummage through the wooden dresser in the corner and find a pen. I scribble “beach toys” on the top of the box. I pull another box toward me. My blood pressure rises with the physical exertion. Sweat dampens my armpits. The muscles in my arms and back feel sore. The more I move, the less I think. Soon, three boxes are labeled in front of me: “beach toys,” “fishing materials,” and “gardening tools.” Despite my progress, I’ve gone through only a quarter of what’s there. My throat is so dry it feels like I swallowed sandpaper.

As I walk through the yard back up to the house to get some water, something in the window catches my eye. The white linen curtain in our bedroom moves on its own. A breeze rustles the trees overhead, but from my spot in the yard I can see the window is closed.

I unlock the back door and walk inside the kitchen. Everything is as I left it. I tiptoe into the living room and listen.

“Hello?” I whisper as I make my way through the house.

Once I’m in the foyer I realize the front door is unlocked, but I know it was locked when I left. I peer out the window. Vick’s truck isn’t in the driveway. I feel for my phone in my back pocket and pull it out, holding it like a weapon in front of me as I ascend the stairs.

As I walk through the upstairs hallway, I listen for movement. Nothing. When I pass by a picture of Brian and me at our city hall wedding, I glance at my reflection. I hold my breath as I wait to see if the woman will appear. I brace myself for the moment her shadowy face materializes behind me, but all I see is Brian and me embracing on the concrete steps as I pop my heel like I’d seen in the movies. My reflection is my own, for now.

The door to our bedroom is closed. I pause outside of it. I picture the woman waiting for me just on the other side of the door. The Donahues are almost an acre away, and Brian won’t be home for another half hour or so. If I scream, no one will hear me. I open my phone. My fingers are sore from clutching it. The number 911 fills my screen, but I stop short of making the call.

I’m standing so close to the door, my nose is almost touching the wood. Fumes from the new paint waft through my nostrils and into my lungs. I place my hand on the door with my fingers spread out wide. The wood is warm beneath my palm. I close my eyes and imagine myself melting into the door so I can see what’s on the other side. Would I see Angela standing in front of me? Would she cock her head to the side, confused about why I’m in her house? Would she throw her head full of blonde hair back and laugh at my fear?

When I open my eyes, I’m still outside our room. I put my phone back in my pocket. I curl my fingers around the door handle, unsure if I even want to turn it, but then I do. The door creaks open while I stand rooted in my place outside of it. I expect the intruder to lunge toward me. My body tenses in anticipation of an impact that doesn’t come. Inside my bedroom, there isn’t a missing woman. Instead, there’s someone between girlhood and womanhood standing at the foot of my bed. Her bright blue eyes catch the last of the light coming in through the window as she turns to face me.

“Sara?” I ask. She’s added an oversized sweatshirt to her outfit since I last saw her. Up close, she looks younger than I expected. The blonde streaks around her face aren’t dyed, they’re highlights from the sun. Freckles are clustered on her nose and spread across her cheeks like the arc of a rainbow. When I saw her earlier today, she looked more mature. The way she lay on the sand with her long legs stretched in front of her and her head cocked to the side admiring her tan. Now, with the illusion of maturity broken, I can see the vulnerability of a child simmering just below the surface.

“How do you know my name?” Sara demands. Her eyes narrow. Even though she’s in my home, in my bedroom, she looks just as surprised to see me as I am to see her.

“Well,” I say as I try to get my bearings, “didn’t you live here?” My voice turns up at the end like a question. Her eyes flick away. The teenage angst drains from her face and something more like dread appears. She nods.

“It’s not breaking and entering if it used to be your home, right? Besides, I didn’t think anyone was here,” she says with more confidence than she should. I nod like I understand, even though I don’t. Her fingers, full of cheap silver rings, twist in front of her, knotted with anxiety. I think she’s playing me, pretending to be sorry she got caught. But I don’t care. I have questions and she has answers.

“That’s okay,” I say, not wanting to scare her off. I take a careful step toward her, like I would a small, injured animal.

“Have you been here before?” I ask, wondering if she’s the one I saw lurking behind me this morning. I try to picture her face, but I can’t. I don’t know if it was Sara. I don’t know who it was.

She shakes her head. “No, I just…” Sara trails off as she shifts her weight between her feet. “I just wanted to see the house, that’s all.” She looks around the room as if she’s remembering.

“Does it look different?” I ask gently. I want to keep her talking. The more she talks, the more I can learn about Angela.

“A little. The bed was over there.” She points to the wall opposite. “And the dresser was next to the closet.” My glance follows hers as I try to see what she sees.

“What else?”

“It wasn’t this gray color,” she says with a small chuckle, waving toward the walls. I can’t remember what color it was when we first bought it. When we signed the paperwork, Brian said the first thing we had to do was get the bedroom repainted. He called his mom the second our offer was accepted and asked her to pick out paint swatches for us. Gray was her idea.

“What color was it?”

“Yellow.” The beginnings of a smile start at the corners of her mouth, but it quickly fades. She looks down at her tangled fingers. “I just wanted to see it one last time. I don’t know why I thought it would be the same.”

“Was that your mom’s favorite color?”

She looks up at me from underneath her lashes. The sun has set and her eyes look darker now. “I should go,” Sara says, picking up her backpack from the ground.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“I shouldn’t have come here. It won’t happen again.” She wipes a hand across her face and heads for the door.

“No, stay,” I say, without a reason to offer her. She pauses in the doorway. Now we’ve switched positions and she’s the one looking in on me. “Tell me why you’re really here, please.” Sara stiffens. Her backpack hangs at her side. She looks taller now. More in control. It makes me uneasy, as if I’m the stranger in someone else’s home.

“Why were you following me today?” she snaps back, answering my question with one of her own. Beneath that vulnerability is a harshness I’m afraid I underestimated.

“I wasn’t following you—”

“Yes, you were. I saw you at the beach. You left when we did and followed us into town.”

I rock back on my heels. My eyes scan the floor between us while I think of what to say.

Are you going to let a silly little girl talk to you like that?

“I was just going for a walk. I didn’t even realize it was you.” It’s a terrible lie with an equally terrible delivery, and Sara knows it too. From the way she clicks her tongue, I can tell she doesn’t believe me for a second. She folds her arms across her chest, demanding the truth. “All right, I was following you. But it was only because I wanted to talk to you.”

“Why?” she asks, barely reveling in her success.

I don’t know where to start. If I ask her about her mom’s disappearance, I’m afraid she’ll shut down. And if I bring up the woman I’ve seen lurking around the house, she’ll think I’m crazy. Maybe I am.

“I wanted to know about your mom.”

“She’s gone.” Sara spits the words back at me. Her cheeks are flushed and her brows are bent in anger.

“I know, but—”

“But what?” Sara takes a step closer to me. It feels like a challenge. “She’s gone and she isn’t coming back.” Her eyes are hot and her lips are curled in frustration. I know this feeling well. It’s the type of anger daughters reserve for their mothers.

Sara takes a tube of lip gloss out of the front pocket of her backpack. She moves the tube around her lips in one smooth motion, making them shine like glazed donuts. Embarrassment floods my cheeks as the realization sinks in: I’m married and have my own home, while she still has to ask permission to use the bathroom during math class. I’m supposed to have the upper hand here, but I don’t and she knows it.

“Why did you come back here?” I ask again. My words come out just above a whisper. I pick at a piece of skin hanging off the nail of my thumb. My forefinger digs deeper into the surrounding skin until finally my hand feels cool and wet. I don’t dare break eye contact with Sara to look down, but I know it’s bleeding.

Sara smiles as if the answer to my question is obvious. “Because I could,” Sara says. She puts the lip gloss back in her bag before turning on her heel and walking down the hall. A small chuckle echoes in her wake.

I could yell at Sara and tell her to never come back here again. Tell her what she did was illegal, that next time she enters my home she’ll be carried out by the cops. Instead, I collapse onto the bed. A few moments later I hear the front door open. Downstairs, Sara’s voice floats through the house. Then there’s another voice. It’s deeper. Brian is home. I’m out of the room and down the stairs before I know what I’m going to do when I get there. When I reach the front door, Brian and Sara are both looking up at me.

Brian’s work bag is still hung over his shoulder. He hasn’t taken off his shoes. I can tell the last thing he expected to see when he got home was a teenage girl standing in his foyer, and now he’s trying to understand the situation. Sara glances back at me, her face full of amusement as I try to hide the panic in mine.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” Brian says.

“Sara Walsh.” Sara holds out her hand to Brian, blinking her eyelashes one too many times.

“Sara Walsh,” Brian repeats as her name registers. He glances back up at me. His jaw tightens. It’s so subtle only I can see it.

“You have a beautiful home,” Sara says to Brian.

“Well, thank you. We owe it all to your parents.” The words would have sounded forced, corny even, had they come from anyone’s mouth besides Brian’s. But Brian is sincere.

“Thanks again for inviting me over,” Sara says, looking back up at me. She winks. It’s fast, like the flutter of a bird’s wing. Brian doesn’t see it. Just how she intended it, I think.

Sara Walsh closes the front door behind her, as she’d done a hundred times before when she lived here. Only this time, she won’t be coming back.