She wrapped her arms around herself. “I couldn’t stop the guilt that ate at me whenever I think about that day, which is several times a day. I couldn’t help thinking that it could have been Finn who had been found dead. Or both of them. How could we have gone on if something had happened to our little boy?”
Serena made a sound of sympathy behind her, but she didn’t turn around. She stared out into the dark, listening to the pounding of the rain and the whoosh of the wind. “Brody was the one who said we needed to move. He saw how it was eating me up, and Finn was having nightmares every night, afraid to go to bed once it got dark out. He wouldn’t walk past the beach, and he wouldn’t let either of us out of his sight. He was supposed to go to preschool this year, but he refused.”
A prickly feeling started at the base of Annie’s neck, much like when she’d found Lili’s collar in her car at the humane society. She whipped her head around to find Serena staring at her, sympathy shining in her eyes.
“Why wouldn’t he go to preschool?” Serena asked.
Annie hesitated for a moment until that prickly feeling passed. “He screamed and had the worst temper tantrum the first day of school, and the psychologist said not to force him. We could do stuff with him at home.”
“He’s a smart little boy.”
“He is.” Annie nodded. “He misses his friends from New York, but Kalani was able to help us get Finn into her daughter Leila’s preschool here. We’re visiting the school later this week, and Finn is supposed to start there next week. He didn’t want to at first, but his therapist was able to make him see that it’s a good thing. I think he’s finally ready.”
“He’s going to school?” Serena put a hand on her heart, her face a puddle of sentimentality.
“Yes. He said he wants to. I think being here, having my father and Sam and Cam, and meeting Leila and her siblings, has helped him start putting the past behind him. He still has nightmares.” Annie stopped and thought about the one he’d had recently. “But they’re less and further apart. And he no longer has the daily reminder of where Lindsay died confronting him every day.”
“That’s good. Do you think he misses the house?”
“I do.” She nodded. “He talks about it, and about his room, where we’d painted two opposing walls blue, so it’s as if you’d walked into an underground seascape. He mentions the backyard, saying Marley would have loved it.” Annie hunched her shoulders. They really needed to find a house of their own soon. “We all loved that house so much.”
“I know what you mean.” Serena’s voice was so soft that, at first, Annie could barely hear her over the storm.
She walked back to the couch and sat next to Serena.
“We found our dream house too,” the younger woman said. “I told you. It was the house we were going to start our family in, to grow our family. Losing it was so hard for us.” Serena looked away from Annie, her fingers working together. “I think everything would have been okay if Danny and I hadn’t lost that house. I think that’s when he started changing. I’d just lost my job, right as we were getting approved for a mortgage. And without our combined incomes, the banks turned us down. Twice.” Her mouth twisted. “I had money from my father, but it was in a trust that I wouldn’t get until I was thirty. Our mortgage fell through and we lost the house we were going to start our family in.”
“Oh.” Something about what Serena was saying sounded familiar. But what? And what a doomed life the woman had led so far. Annie thought her life had gone off the rails; Serena’s was like a head-on collision with a Mack truck.
Serena squeezed her hands together. “That house meant everything to both of us. From the first moment we saw it, we fell in love. Hard. It was perfect, exactly what we needed to grow our family. But then we lost it.” She worried her lip with her teeth, lost in thought.
“You’ve had such a rough time.” Annie could commiserate, and she wanted to reach out to Serena, even as a feeling of unease poured through her veins. She was still worried about not remembering things, worried about the storm, and worried about her mental health. But Serena’s life sounded so much worse than her own. “How long ago was this?”
Serena told her the year, and Annie’s stomach clenched. “That’s the year Brody and I were house hunting too.” She tipped her head to the side, trying to tamp down that feeling that was now creeping through her body. A laugh escaped. “You know, it’s just so weird how similar our lives are.”
Serena gave Annie a long, cool look that made her think she shouldn’t have laughed. “I believe there’s such a thing as parallel lives,” Serena said. “And you and I are living it. I believe it’s possible to have two people living similar lives and they don’t know it. And one of them would be a mess, and the other one would be living the better life. That other me is poised, a great mother and wife, and has a great career and knows who she is and what she wants to do in life.”
Annie’s jaw dropped open and she stared at Serena. She couldn’t move. Something was about to happen. She could feel it. Her entire body was tingling.
The words spilled out of Serena, tumbling over each other. “That other me doesn’t screw up like this current me. Everyone loves her and wants to be around her, and no one tells her she is depressed and needs to go to therapy. That other me has a son she loves dearly and would do anything for and who loves her just as much. She has a loving husband who would die for her and never leave her, even if she killed someone. He would stick by her and cover for her, so that she never goes to jail. He would go to jail in her place, that’s how much she is cherished by him. I dream of that life. I see it, and I think that’s who I’m supposed to be.”
Silence settled over them, so that the only sounds came from the storm and the meteorologist saying, “。 . . torrential rainfall . . . deep tropical moisture . . . very serious warning . . . never drive a vehicle through flooded roadways . . . we don’t typically get this . . . stay inside . . . Kauai definitely getting pounded.” Annie heard the words, but fascination at what Serena was saying held her motionless. What was Serena talking about? The other me? Killing someone? What?
Serena let out a rumble of laughter, breaking the tension. “Did you like that? I’m trying to write a book. A thriller. My creative writing teacher in high school said I had the best imagination. That was a passage from the book I’m writing.”
Annie was speechless. Her brain hadn’t caught up with what was going on, and when it finally did, she gave a weak chuckle.
“But I do think there’s something to the parallel-lives theory, don’t you?” Serena kept talking, as if Annie weren’t frozen in front of her. “Maybe that’s why we’re so familiar with each other?”
Was that it? Was it possible to have parallel lives with someone without knowing it, so that everything in a seeming stranger’s life was as familiar as her own?
“I’ve never had a friend who understands me like you do.” Serena’s face was open and cheerful again. “All our friends sided with Danny after Johnny died.”