Of course, I was completely speculating. Unkindly so. And who was I to judge? People probably thought I was on the verge of a mental breakdown myself. I may very well have been.
And then I remembered what I had seen Isabel doing with Naomi in the park, their adorable little “conversation,” and suddenly I didn’t think there was any chance she had taken her own life.
“Does anyone know where she lives?” Kira asked. “We could . . . I don’t know, just walk by. See what’s going on? And I mean, I guess tomorrow, we should bring food or something? Or is that just when someone dies?” She pursed her lips with uncertainty.
“I know where she lives,” Selena said. “We had a playdate once, a couple of weeks ago. Eighty-Eighth between Columbus and the park, I think.” She scrolled hurriedly through her phone. “Yeah. Forty-three West Eighty-Eighth Street.” She signaled for the check and cleared her throat, glancing anxiously down at Miles, who was still sleeping peacefully. “But I can’t go. I really need to get home. Will you guys let me know if you find out anything else?”
We nodded solemnly, settled up—and hugged goodbye, which we’d never done.
Chapter Five
Friday, October 2
We’d been having drinks just a few blocks away from Isabel’s apartment, so Kira and I were there in a matter of minutes, though there was a slight delay when Kira had to transfer Caleb from his stroller to her carrier when he woke up screaming. “Take your pacifier, please,” she shushed him, pleading. “I promise you’ll be eating soon.” Mercifully, and shockingly, Clara was still sleeping.
There were a few police cars outside Isabel’s apartment, which, as it turned out, wasn’t an apartment at all, but a gorgeous, recently renovated town house. Unlike Selena, I had never been there. To be honest, I wondered how and when she’d had Selena over. It seemed a little random—or maybe I was just hurt that I hadn’t been invited. Then again, she’d known Selena a bit longer; Selena had told us she’d met Isabel in the park across from her building’s entrance, and that’s when Isabel had invited her to join the moms’ group. This was a few weeks before Isabel reached out to me on Facebook. Kira had been connected to Isabel through Vanessa, who she’d met at Mommy+Baby Barre. I wasn’t sure how Vanessa and Isabel had met.
“Do you think this whole building is theirs?” Kira asked quietly.
It seemed like it was, because there were no unit numbers listed at the door. A couple of police officers were at the top of the stairs talking to a man I assumed was Isabel’s husband. He’s hot, I immediately thought, which was a terrible thing to think in the moment, but he was. Tall, brown hair flecked slightly at the sides with gray, muscular chest discernible through his tight, blue collared shirt.
In the small courtyard below the stairs, the grandma that Vanessa had mentioned was sitting at a table with her head in her hands. She glanced up occasionally, looking toward Isabel’s husband and the police officers he was speaking to. Her face was stoic, but her shoulders were hunched with stress. A baby monitor emitted static on the stone table in front of her; Naomi must have been napping inside.
The town house stood out among its neighbors as it was white brick, rather than brown. It was stunning. The windows were enormous, sparkling clean, and trimmed with clean, dark steel. I didn’t have much of an eye for design—and as the wife of an architect, I didn’t need to, fortunately—but every aspect of this town house made passersby aware of its beauty, its brightness, its modernness. I was sure that I’d never admired a door before until this one, with its midnight-blue hue and long, slender silver handle. Now that I had seen where she lived, I was relieved that Isabel had never been to my unkempt, charmless one bedroom.
“Is that . . . Isabel’s husband?” Kira asked, looking up toward him, her voice a bit unsteady.
“I assume so,” I whispered back.
“Let’s keep walking. I don’t want to stop.” She was speaking very quickly. “I feel really weird about being here. It’s like we’re spying. I mean, we really don’t even know her that well. We don’t belong here.” She was right, but the urgency in her voice caught me off guard.
As we walked past, we had to maneuver our strollers around some police tape. At first, it looked like it was just blocking off a patch of uneven sidewalk. But the square of sidewalk wasn’t only uneven in texture: it was also discolored, spattered liberally with rust-colored stains.