“You look like shit,” Kristen said, handing Saffy a glass of chardonnay. Kristen had just renovated her kitchen, and everything was gleaming bright. Jake nodded hello as he stirred a pot of red sauce, a pile of LEGOs abandoned at his feet. “Bad day at work?”
The story spooled out in skeleton. The Lawson case, the superintendent, the condescension of his threat. She did not mention the diversity initiative—Kristen wouldn’t understand. Kristen listened attentively, manicured nails tapping along the counter as the boys zoomed in and out. They were five and eight years old now, raucous as they elbowed past Saffy to chase the dog under the table, a purebred miniature poodle.
“I don’t know,” Saffy said. “Sometimes I wonder if this job even makes a difference. Or if I’m going to spend the rest of my life drowning in bureaucratic bullshit.”
“This is about more than detective work,” Kristen said. “What have you always said? The system needs changing from the inside. Well, you’re here now. You’re inside.”
As Kristen clucked her consolations, a sense of tragedy loomed above, like a cloud threatening to burst. This happened sometimes, when Saffy looked at Kristen’s life. When she retreated upstairs to read the boys a bedtime story, their hair wet from the bath as they snuggled up against her in their racecar pajamas. She did not want what Kristen had. She could not imagine having children—she’d never felt the tug Kristen described, that primal need for a baby. But there was something to be said for this brightness. This sweetness. The heft of Jake’s hand as he tousled the boys’ hair, the scent of cooked basil wafting through the air. As Saffy tried to ingest Kristen’s words, the feeling swarmed, dire, devastating. She wondered if it might kill her. Laurie’s words came back, too cruel in that immaculate kitchen. What do you want?
*
And then there was Lila. A shadow in the glow of Kristen’s glory. Lila never would have joined them, here in Kristen’s kitchen. She would have inhabited her own crystalline world, a few miles down the road, or maybe a few towns over. Never far from home. Her own snacks in the cabinet, her own overflowing trash cans, her own windows streaked with greasy fingerprints. Saffy could see her clearly, a silhouette on a well-worn couch, the television muted as she unbuttoned her shirt. The baby would have latched, suckling. The hot release of milk. Her house would have murmured, ordinary, as a garbage truck idled gently on the street. A regular Tuesday. Lila would have been a woman by now, leaning down to inhale the milky sweet of her baby’s scalp—a mother, no longer a girl at all. Grown, transformed, spectacularly new.
*
Four days before the trial, Kensington cornered her in the parking lot. It had been two weeks since Saffy discovered the Blue House, and though her team had been working tirelessly, the Lawson case had not budged. Two of the troopers had been caught dealing weed behind the Bullseye tavern, and Saffy had been forced to fire them. It was a long summer evening, the kind Saffy might have once spent drinking beers out by the river in a crowd of camping chairs, fishing poles dunked into the water, smoke swirling from fat, lazy joints.
“Captain,” Kensington said, a grumbling voice from behind.
One of Kensington’s strengths as an investigator: his ability to blend in anywhere. Saffy was consistently astonished by Kensington’s mediocrity, how his performance did not matter as long as he flashed that smile, clapped the superintendent on the back like a fraternity brother.
“Do you have a second?” he asked.
“Sure.” Saffy set her coffee cup on the roof of her car, crossed her arms, and waited.
“I—I wanted to say I’m . . .”
“Spit it out, Lieutenant.”
“I’m sorry.”
Saffy studied him, square-jawed and hollow in the sunset parking lot. It was audacious, and so like him, to throw her to the wolves then demand her forgiveness for it.
“I didn’t mean to put you in this position. The investigation, I made a big mistake. It was lazy, and I’m sorry.”
“Thanks for that,” Saffy said.
“How about a beer?” he said, sheepish. “It’s been a while. Lion’s Head shouldn’t be too crowded yet.”
“Just go home, Kensington,” Saffy said, filling with a frustration she could not name. With Kensington, with this job, this town—with the beauty of the pink sky, deteriorating over the parking lot, a saturated fuchsia she was too jaded to enjoy.
It was only later, as the sugary dusk lulled her home, that Saffy recognized the scene. Kensington, that practiced penitence. Ansel Packer framed in her bedroom door at Miss Gemma’s. I’m sorry, Saff. Please, forgive me?