I screamed, though still no one heard me. I lurched forward, trying to stop what was going to happen, but my hands hit glass. I banged on it, kicked it. Thomas Armstrong got out of his car and closed the door behind him, smiling at Lily.
“Let me help,” he said.
I screamed and screamed, banging on the glass.
Lily turned toward him, her hands still in the pockets of her coat. She took a step on the roadside gravel in her black pumps. I could hear everything—the slam of his car door, the gravel under their feet, the drone of a far-off car on the two-lane highway that crossed several hundred feet away. I could see Lily’s hair lift from her neck in the damp wind, could see the thick mascara on her lashes and the dusting of light blue eyeshadow. She had pinkish gloss on her lips and blush on her cheekbones. Above her smile, her eyes were dark and cold as she took another step toward Armstrong, who was walking forward. Then she took her gloved hand out of her pocket.
There were tears running down my face now. I banged my fists on the glass over and over, shouting “No,” but I knew it would make no difference. It was October 15, 1977, and what was going to happen was going to happen. It was already done.
I was still screaming when the gun went off twice. Still screaming and banging on the glass when Lily stepped over the body and dropped a note on it. Still screaming as she slammed the hood of her car, got in, and drove away.
I leaned against the glass, my throat ragged. I was crying; I couldn’t say why. Thomas Armstrong had been dead for forty years, and this was some kind of sick movie, a replay so Lily could torture me. I had to get out of here. I didn’t want to be in this place, in this time.
I took a step back, and I was standing in Beth’s old bedroom, my hands on the glass of the window that looked out over the yard. My skin was cold and clammy, and my face was wet. I blinked my burning eyes and lifted my hands off the glass.
“What was that for?” I shouted into the silence. “Why did you show me that? I already know the ending.”
Behind me, footsteps came down the hall from the master bedroom, nearly at a run. A figure flashed past the doorway, and I glimpsed blond hair, much like Lily’s. Except that wasn’t Lily.
I stepped out the door as the footsteps rushed down the stairs. “No,” a voice said in soft panic. “I’m sorry, Lily. I’m so sorry.”
“Mariana?” I called.
I hurried down the stairs, following her. I didn’t care that she’d been dead for decades, that I was chasing a ghost. Her voice sounded terrified, almost ragged with pain. I caught sight of her in the front hallway, which was ice-cold. I descended the last step with my breath pluming from my mouth.
Mariana Greer—it was definitely Mariana, the woman I recognized from her wedding photograph—was standing at the front door. She was in a silk negligee under a white bathrobe, her feet bare. Her hair was tied back with a headscarf, the kind women used to wear to bed to preserve their hairstyles, with her blond hair spilling out the back. In that moment, even though she had died in 1975, she was as real as I was. I could see the tears tracking down her face as she fumbled clumsily at the door.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Where did you go, baby? Please don’t leave. I’m so sorry.”
What had happened? An argument? Had Lily left? Why was no one trying to stop Mariana from leaving in her nightgown in the state she was in?
“Don’t go,” I said, but she had figured out the lock now, and she was turning the knob. I lunged forward, thinking to hold the door closed, but nothing I did mattered. Mariana Greer opened the door and ran outside, heading for her car, trying to find her daughter. Heading for the accident that would kill her.
I ran out the front door after her, but Mariana was gone. The cold, wet air hit me in the face. The sky was bleak and gray, as if someone had bleached it; the clouds were inky black. What time was it? What day was it? How long had I been in the house?