“Nothing. He knows my schedule for that day. The weekend is documented on social media. I’m sure he can discern where I was and what I did via my smartphone data. They have video of Geneva leaving our house unharmed on Friday. I think he was just goading me. Trying to get me to react.”
She stopped short of telling Will she wanted to come clean with the police about the woman from the train. Something inside kept her from uttering the words. Why?
Maybe because more than anything, Selena wanted this to just go away. Was that still possible?
She spent the rest of the ride turning back the clock. If she’d left after the sexting. Or after the Vegas incident. How would things be different? But you couldn’t do that, could you? Not when there were children, people formed from your love for someone. There was no undoing the bad without losing the good. That was the trick of it all. The tangle of life. Just move forward, recalculate, recalibrate, find a new path.
There were no reporters at her mother’s place, and they pulled into the garage that had been left open in anticipation of their arrival. They sat a moment after Will killed the engine. It ticked in the silence that fell. She didn’t want to go inside; she couldn’t go home. She let herself sit a moment, collect her resources to deal with the boys.
“I wish…” Will started, putting his hand over hers.
Beth’s warning rang in her ears. It was solid advice from a good friend. What she needed was space and time, to find her footing.
“Don’t,” she said. He kept his eyes on her. She felt the heat of his gaze, though she didn’t return it.
“That I went to that party with you.”
It wasn’t what she expected him to say. She turned to look at him. He ran a hand through those wild honey curls.
“What party?” she asked.
“The night you met Graham. Remember?”
She remembered. Of course she did.
Cora and Paulo’s garage was meticulously organized—tools hung, bicycles on racks, kids’ gear from scooters to roller skates mounted or in clear bins. A stupid thing to notice, except that it struck a stark contrast to the disorder in her own life.
Will’s voice was soft when he spoke again. “I was supposed to go with you. But I had to work late.”
“Don’t do this,” she whispered.
He lifted his palms. “I’m just saying. How would things be different?”
“You don’t have kids,” she said. “It’s easy to say you regret how things went. But I have Stephen and Oliver.”
“I know. Just—”
“Don’t.”
He nodded slowly, dipped his head. She flashed on the younger version of him, a day at the beach when he was tan and laughing, their toes buried in the sand. The girl who loved him was so free; she didn’t even know what freedom was then. Was he controlling? He used to buy clothes for her. She remembered liking that, that he knew her size, what looked good on her. But, yeah, sometimes she wore things she didn’t like to please him.
“I’m—here for you. And for Graham.”
With his hand still on hers, she felt the warmth of him, but also something else.
He still loves you, Graham always complained. They’d all tried to be friends. So evolved, weren’t they? But dinners were always awkward, conversations stilted. Then Will and his wife divorced. It’s like he’s just waiting for you to find your way back to him.
She disagreed. Will’s wife, Bella, was beautiful and sweet; they’d seemed happy. Together—in that way that people were or weren’t, loving looks, casual touches. But obviously she’d been wrong. So many marriages imploded before her eyes—her parents’， her sister’s, more than half of her friends’， her own. Maybe you just weren’t supposed to be together forever. Maybe it was too much to ask.
She pulled her hand away gently, touched him on the leg. He watched her for a moment, then lowered his eyes.
Whatever there was still between them, this wasn’t the time. She wasn’t the girl she was with Will, the woman she was with Graham. She wasn’t sure who she was right now. Maybe she was just a mother; that was all she had energy for as her life fell to pieces.
He pressed his lips together, gave a tight nod of understanding, then helped her unload the car. Or maybe, she found herself thinking, as she hefted her suitcase from the car, maybe this was the moment where she found herself—not her parents’ daughter, Will’s girlfriend, Graham’s wife, Stephen and Oliver’s mom. She was all those things, or had been, would always be a mother. But now that her life was cracked, fractured beyond repair, maybe this is where Selena emerged, more herself than she had ever been.
Inside the house, Stephen clung. But Oliver kept his distance, dark eyes on Will.
“Where’s Dad?” he asked.
“Boys,” said Paulo. “Come help me with dinner. Real men know how to cook.”
He marshaled the boys into the kitchen.
Selena let her mother take her into her arms and hold on tight.
“Mom, is it okay if we stay here for a while?” she asked, though she already knew the answer. But could you find yourself when you were sleeping in your mother’s guest room? At least it wasn’t her old room from childhood; her father still lived in that house. She rarely visited.
“This is your home,” her mother said. “Wherever I am, that’s where you belong.”
You were always a mother, she guessed. No matter how old your children were. Her mom ushered her to the living room. Selena heard Paulo’s baritone, then the boys’ laughter.
“Are you hungry?” Cora asked. That was always the first rule of mothering: make sure no one’s hungry.
“Starving,” she admitted.
“I have some soup.” Cora patted Selena’s arm. “I’ll heat it up. Just sit here, try to rest.”
Will’s phone rang and he went into the other room to take the call. She tried not to listen. But she tensed just listening to the sound of his voice, even though she couldn’t understand the words. She knew that voice, quiet but dark. When he came back, his face was grim.
She let the moment expand with her breath. The last moment, she thought for no reason. The last moment where things could still turn out okay.
“Police have found the body of a young woman,” he said. “About five miles from the house. Joggers found the body off trail, back in the state park.”
The trails Graham ran, regularly, when he used to run.
Selena’s mother gasped, and Selena felt the world tip, sank into the couch.
“Is it—Geneva?”
Will looked behind him for the boys, she guessed, then lowered his voice a bit.
“The body is so disfigured that it will take some time to identify.”
Cora released a helpless, frightened noise. It was soft, but Paulo must have heard because he emerged from the kitchen.
Selena dipped her face into her hands and started to cry—for Geneva, for herself, for her boys, and for the dark road ahead of them—which just got darker.
TWENTY-NINE
Pearl
Pop had been busy. Gone a lot, leaving Pearl to set up house. She presumed he’d found another lonely woman. This time, Pearl had her mission, separate from his. But she wasn’t making much progress. After all, she wondered, how could it work? Wouldn’t her father, if she found him, want to know where she’d been all these years? Would he want to know what had happened to Stella?