He wandered to the hall closet, noting the places she’d been.
Here. Here. There.
His mind retraced the shape of her touch, replicating its patterns and shapes; linking observations together. The speed of her hesitation. The force of her breath. He turned her over in his head, facts and details and observations, wrapping his mind around her the way his fingers had done.
Then he turned the vacuum on, permitting the sound to drown him out.
* * *
“YOU’RE ACTUALLY SERIOUS ABOUT THIS?” Marc asked, chuckling a little as he watched her throw a pair of heels into her weekend bag. “I mean, I know you said you were going to, but—”
“I’m packing, aren’t I?” she said. She swiped some hair from her forehead, wondering if she should bring the dress that always made her look good even if it meant her mother would berate her for wearing a funeral color to an anniversary party.
Madeline would be wearing red, probably. Red was Madeline’s color, and coincidentally or not, it was a celebratory one, too. The color red meant good fortune in what little of Chinese culture that Helen Regan （Yang in a past life） had retained, though Regan was fairly certain that element of tradition would have been cast out just as readily if it hadn’t looked so stunning on her eldest daughter. When the Regan girls were children, both had been outfitted ubiquitously in matching red dresses, which eventually became red costumes for dance competitions and then a scarlet lip on Madeline’s prom that became her signature well beyond college. The color, though, had never really belonged to Regan.
Minus the garnet earrings, but those didn’t count.
“So, this guy,” Marc said, interrupting her thoughts, and Regan glanced at him, already irritated. She detested having to read his mind.
“His name is Aldo.”
“Fine, sure.” Marc scraped a hand over the scruff on his cheeks. “What exactly are you doing, Regan?”
“I told you. Packing.” Maybe the purple wrap dress, she thought. Still somber for her mother’s taste, but Regan loved a jewel tone. Plus she’d never been to her mother’s taste before, and she certainly wasn’t going to manage it now.
“I meant what are you doing with him, Regan. Am I not paying you enough attention?”
“You’re paying me plenty of attention.” On second thought, the purple dress was stuffy. The blue silk was more flattering. Though, if her goal was flattery, then the obvious choice was the black, so she was back where she’d started. “I wish you’d pay less attention, actually, seeing as I’m busy.”
“Regan,” Marc sighed, catching her arm as she moved to survey her closet. “Just tell me if this is some sort of … episode.”
She blinked with surprise, turning to look at him. “Excuse me?”
She’d used a tone, and he knew the warning signs. He considered her sudden shifts in mood to be part of the eccentric package, probably lamenting it over drinks in her absence.
Women, she imagined him saying, am I right?
“Don’t be like that,” he said. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just asking.”
Regan bristled; he hadn’t asked Have you taken your pills? but she could hear it, the implication that she had not. “I’m fine,” she said, returning her attention to the process of packing. She was fine, minus Marc’s unwelcome hedging. She was surprisingly fine, actually. She was feeling something akin to excitement, in fact, which was an astounding but highly welcome alternative to the usual existential dread at the thought of facing her family. “Aldo’s, you know. A friend,” she reminded him. “A buffer, really.”
With Aldo there, Regan doubted her parents would press her much about what she was up to. More likely they’d be stiff and formal, unwilling to venture anything beyond Midwestern politeness. Marc, who had a tendency to be fleeting in conversation, was never so reliable; he mingled. He was a mingler. Aldo, on the other hand, would be a fixture at her side.
“You like him,” Marc observed.
“Is that an accusation?” she asked, glancing at him. He didn’t answer.
In approximately the same moment, Regan suddenly remembered a dress she hadn’t worn in years, turning to her closet to find it. She’d lost some weight in recent months but she figured it would still fit well enough. She’d been thinner in her criminal days; sleep had been something of a rarity at the time, and her tendency to focus on a given task meant she’d skipped a fair amount of meals.