Chapter 13 - The Woman of the House

Frances and I walk along the water into town. A cool breeze lifts off the lake and blows my hair back. Even though the sun is shining and the leaves have barely started to turn, it feels like a warning for winter.

As we get closer to town, I can tell it’s vacant. With summer over and school well underway, the offseason has officially begun. The short strip of buildings ahead of us looks fake, like a movie set waiting for actors. Everything seems dingier without the tourists here to fill the streets and distract from the town itself. The blue paint on the outside of Barrel Barbecue now has a gray cast without the throng of people waiting outside for a table. Next door, the neon sign on the town’s only bar flickers, which wouldn’t be noticeable if a band were playing inside and the whole block was thumping along with the bass.

“I think someone was in our house last night,” I say.

“What do you mean?” Frances asks as she turns toward me, her forehead riddled with questions.

I pull my denim jacket tighter around my neck and expect a chill that never comes. “When I was making dinner last night, the back door was open. It could have been nothing, but I just had this feeling someone else was there.”

“Who do you think it was?” Frances twirls a rogue piece of frizzy hair around her index finger.

“I don’t know. There’s something about that house, though. It’s like there’s someone watching me, even when I’m alone.”

“Weird,” Frances says. She picks a leaf off a nearby bush and starts tearing it to shreds.

Down by the shore, a few men are removing the docks from the water to store for the winter. One of them is driving a tractor that’s plucking the pier out of the lake piece by piece. After the tractor dumps a few of the pieces on the ground, it looks like a pile of mismatched bones lying in the sand.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about Angela, about how she disappeared. I can’t shake the feeling that something happened to her.”

“Hold on,” Frances says, digging out a pack of cigarettes from one of her deep coat pockets. She uses her hand to shield the wind while she lights up then takes a long, deep drag. Once the secondhand smoke wafts past me, I do the same. “Okay. Now, tell me: What do you think happened to Angela?”

“I don’t know, but until I find out more, I don’t think I’ll feel comfortable in my own house.”

She taps her cigarette with her pointer finger and looks out at the water. The sun hits the lake just right, so I can clearly see the seaweed swaying below the surface. Long green tentacles reach up toward the sun, sick of being stuck in the lake. The longer she stays silent, the more I can feel the anxiety fluttering around in my stomach. She’s lived in this town longer than I have, and if I’m going to find out what happened to Angela, I’ll need her help to do it.

“Well, someone around here must know something,” Frances says as she looks around. Farther down the block, the rusted hanging sign for Bob’s Bar and Tap echoes in the breeze.

“Vick knows something,” I say, relieved that Frances seems willing to help me. “Or at least there’s something he’s not telling me.” Usually Vick spoke in a free-flowing stream of consciousness, but yesterday his tone was measured. His words were chosen with caution, and I knew he was holding back.

“You’re talking to the wrong people,” Frances says. The words come out of her mouth slow and deliberate, like she’s deep in thought. “If you want to get to the bottom of this, you need to talk to the people who knew her well.”

“You’re right,” I say. “Vick did say she owned a boutique in town.”

“I know the place.” Her eyes are wide with excitement as she picks up the pace. “It’s just up here.” For every long stride she takes, I take two.

A few minutes later, we approach a small shop. The Lake House Home is just around the corner from the main stretch. As the only boutique in town, it probably got a lot of foot traffic during the summer season, but even with the “Open” sign waving slightly in the cool afternoon breeze, it looks empty.

“Go and talk to them,” Frances says.

“Who?”

“Them.” She motions her head toward the window. Inside the store, there are two women who look like they’re in their forties. One of them is perched on a stool scrolling through her phone while the other is tinkering with a bouquet of fake fall flowers.

“You know them?” I ask.

Frances shrugs. “I like to keep to myself. You’re kinda my first…” Her voice trails off.

“What?”

Her eyes scan the sidewalk between us as she shoves her hands deep into her pockets. “You’re my first real friend around here.”

I put my hand on her arm but feel only the puff of her jacket. “Hey, you’re mine too.”

The ends of Frances’s mouth tick upward as she smiles without showing any teeth.

“Let’s go,” I say, but as soon as the words leave my mouth, the smile on Frances’s face falls. She shakes her head slightly.

“I can’t go in there,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“The people around here, they don’t like me.” Despite the fact that we’re the only ones on the sidewalk, her voice is low, almost a whisper.

“I’m not exactly a people person either, but—”

“No, you don’t understand. It’s more than that.” Her mouth is in a hard line. “Look, it’s just better you go in alone, okay?” She takes a few steps away from me.

“But what should I—”

“Just get them talking,” Frances says over her shoulder. “I’ll catch up with you later!”

Without Frances by my side, I suddenly feel vulnerable. When I turn back toward the boutique, it looks taller than it did a few moments ago. I swallow hard before I cross the street and push open the metal door. The women behind the counter look almost as surprised to see me as I am to be here. I stroll toward a candle display.

“Anything we can help you find today?” the woman with the flowers asks.

I pick up a pumpkin spice candle and bury my nose in it.

“No, just browsing,” I say.

“Let me know if you need any help,” she says with a smile.

I walk past an array of whitewashed pieces of wood with the word welcome painted in thick black cursive, toward a table of throw pillows.

“Halloween already?” I say, picking up a pillow with a ghost sewn onto it.

“Never too early,” the woman on the phone says without looking up.

I swallow hard, remembering what Frances said about getting them to talk. I take a deep breath and make my way toward the women behind the counter, uncertain of what I’ll say once I get there.

“Hi,” I manage to say through my dry mouth.

“Hi,” the woman with the flowers says. Her friend still hasn’t looked up from her phone. Now that I’m close enough, I can see she’s scrolling through social media. Dark roots are growing down into her self-dyed, yellow-blonde hair. The woman with the flowers cocks her head while she waits for me to say more.

“I’m Rose,” I finally blurt out.

“Heather,” the woman with the flowers says. Heather’s brown hair is in a short pixie cut. Her oversized cardigan covers a T-shirt underneath that says live laugh love. “Here on vacation?”

“No,” I say. I wonder how many times she’s had this same conversation. I fiddle with a magnet that has a mermaid on it, feeling a little sorry for Heather. She’s stuck in a place most people are just passing through, watching from behind a counter as other people live their lives. She’s like me before I met Brian, alone on a bench watching life play out right in front of me. “I just moved here, actually. I’m up on Edgerton Drive. Just past Van Buren.”

The woman on her phone looks up. I have her attention now.

“2200 Edgerton?” Heather asks.

I nod. The two women look at each other. Shock and sadness pass between them, and I’m caught in the middle of it.

“You know the house?” I ask with a bit more surprise than I intend.

“Yeah, we know the house,” the phone addict says, repeating my own words in a way that makes it hard to tell if she’s mocking me or not. “Our friend lived there.”

Unlike Heather, the phone addict has an air of defensiveness that makes me regret coming here in the first place.

“The Walshes? I never got a chance to meet them during the move. Are they still in town?”

“Jonathan is,” Heather says matter-of-factly while she fidgets with the bouquet of fake flowers.

“And his wife?” I ask, trying to sound as casual as possible.

“Ang—” the phone addict starts. The edge in her voice is gone. “Angela…” She trails off after swallowing.

I pick up a pair of turquoise earrings from the countertop display to distract myself. The phony stone shakes in my damp hand.

“You must not have heard,” Heather says. “Angela is missing.”

“Missing?” I say in my most sincere voice. I place my hand on my chest for emphasis.

“We opened this place together,” Heather says, looking around as if Angela is going to walk through the door any second.

I shake my head like I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

Heather and the phone addict give half smiles of appreciation but say no more. I don’t know where to go from here. I put the earrings back where I found them while the other two seemingly look for answers in their hands. I think I know what to ask, but the longer the silence grows between us, the harder it is for me to find the words. I take a shallow breath before turning back to Angela’s friends. “If you don’t mind me asking,” I say almost in a whisper, “what happened?”

The phone addict sighs.

“I wish we knew,” Heather says. “She dropped her kids off at school and then poof.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” the phone addict says.

“She’d never leave those kids,” Heather says. Now the two of them are talking like I’m not even here.

“She wasn’t herself, though, before—”

“No, she wasn’t,” Heather says, cutting her off. “Something was off.”

“And then Jonathan—”

“No, he adored her,” Heather says, waving away the suggestion with her hand.

“But you never really know what happens behind closed doors,” the phone addict says.

“That’s true, they were having problems.” I nod, as if she’s talking to me. “Have you seen Paul lately?” Heather asks.

“Here and there, but I haven’t talked to him.”

“Paul?” I interject. Their conversation feels like a house of cards I don’t want to blow over.

“Angela’s brother,” Heather says to me on the side.

“I heard when he’s not at the docks, he’s at the bar,” the phone addict says.

“Krisha,” Heather snaps like she’s scolding one of her kids.

It’s now or never. Heather has already started looking for something else to tinker with, and I can tell Krisha is about to pick up her phone and resume her endless scroll. The words are in the back of my throat, itching to come out. All I have to do is open my mouth.

Ask these townies what they know. Ask them right now, you spineless little worm.

I push my fear aside and remember how Frances had called me her friend, her only friend. I know she wouldn’t want me to leave without new information, and I can’t let her down.

“Did she ever say anything weird about the house?” I ask.

Just then the door swings open behind us. A cool breeze passes through the store. Heather pulls her sweater tighter. Two women in their mid-seventies walk in, bickering about what time the bakery next door closes.

“Hi, welcome!” Heather says to the new shoppers, pretending she didn’t hear what I said, even though I’m certain she did. It doesn’t matter now. My question is gone. The breeze swept it up and carried it away as soon as the door opened.

Heather walks around the counter, leaving me behind. Krisha runs her finger across her phone, bringing it to life once again. Our house of cards, so carefully constructed, has collapsed.

“Dammit,” I say once I’m alone on the street. I pace up and down the sidewalk, kicking myself for not being more direct.

I cross my arms over my jean jacket and walk against the wind, back toward the house. The sun has sunk in the sky and the once calm water is now throwing itself against the shore in a dramatic performance. I turn onto a side street, leaving the irritated water to fight off the wind on its own. When I’m halfway up the hill, I go over what I’m going to tell Frances. Heather said Angela wasn’t herself before she died. That there’s a brother with a possible drinking problem. And were Angela and her husband Jonathan having issues? Even though Krisha barely looked up from her phone, it seemed like there was more she had to say. My thighs burn from climbing the hill back up to the house, but I don’t slow my pace. The harder I walk, the more I’m convinced that the conversation wasn’t a complete waste.

Anxiety stirs in my stomach the closer I get to the house. The top of the roof peeks out through the trees. The deep blue shingles appear behind a sea of green leaves. Soon the chimney, shutters, and porch come into view. A wave of eeriness hits me like a gust of wind. It’s emanating off the house, flowing from the floor-to-ceiling windows and the wooden rocking chairs on the porch. I can’t ignore it, but I also can’t look over my shoulder or hide from my reflection forever.

Brian might think this is all in my head, but I know it’s not.