The hardest thing was that I wouldn’t be able to talk with Gray or my daughters for a whole week. That was a strict requirement of coming here. No outside contact. I’d had to sign a confidentiality clause.
I hated doing it this way.
I hadn’t had time to think about the right or the wrong. I just knew that I had to do something, else drag my family into a bottomless pit.
But I couldn’t tell anyone about what I’d been doing. Not Gray. Not my friends. Especially not my mother.
No one would understand.
5. Gray
I CHECKED UPSTAIRS. SOMETIMES, EVIE AND the kids would be tucked up in our bed on a cold afternoon, watching a kids’ movie on TV.
But they weren’t there, either.
Even the cat, in its usual spot on the armchair, barely bothered to open one eye to give me its customary glare.
The house was cold. Evie normally had the oil heaters running. Both of the girls caught lots of colds in the winter—especially Lilly—and heating the house was the one luxury Evie insisted on.
I swapped back to thinking that Evie must be mad at me again. She rarely took the girls out on a cold night, and we hadn’t gone this long without talking since we’d met. There had to be a reason she wasn’t answering the phone.
She’d been strange lately. So up and down—for months. Some days dancing and singing with the kids. Other days almost refusing to talk. When I’d asked her why, she’d said it wasn’t me, it was just everything. Well, damned if I could fix everything. Throw a couple of things my way and I might be able to patch them up. But I didn’t even know where to start with everything.
I’d started thinking that maybe she was disappointed with her life. That she wanted more than I could give her. Once or twice, I’d caught that same look of disappointment in my eldest daughter’s eyes when I’d explained we couldn’t buy the crazy-expensive toy she wanted. And it’d killed me. Willow was only four, but she was just like a mini-Evie in many ways.
My thoughts burned to ash as I stepped through to the kitchen and saw the handwritten note on the fridge. It wasn’t a grocery list or a dashed-off message or something Willow had scrawled. This was a short letter, signed by Evie.
Before I snatched it from the fridge, I already knew that things were worse than Evie being a bit mad at me.
Gray, I’m sorry, I can’t be here right now. I have to go away for a while, maybe a week or so. Sort myself out. We’re fighting too much. That’s not good for the kids or us. Please just give me the time that I need. Don’t try to find us.
I’ll come back soon.
xx Evie
Her words hit me square in the centre of my chest.
I’m sorry, I can’t be here right now.
She left me?
I have to go away for a while, maybe a week or so . . .
How the hell did she think it was okay to take our kids and just go? No way was I going to be okay with not seeing Lilly and Willow for a week. Or even a day. She could decide to leave, but she didn’t get to decide that she could take the girls away from me.
Why didn’t I know things were getting this bad?
We fought sometimes—sure—but we rarely got to the point of yelling. We always made up. We were always a team.
I didn’t know her, after all.
I squeezed the letter into a small ball.
This wasn’t happening.
I’d find her and talk to her, and this would get fixed.
Taking out my phone, I tried calling her number for the twentieth time, but this time the recorded voice said the number was disconnected.
As I went to toss the letter into the trash, a noise at the front door had me doing a one-eighty.
Had Evie come back already? Had she changed her mind?
Of course. She wouldn’t leave like this. This was just a bad day all around. We’d get past it.
Blowing out a stream of chilled air, I jogged along the hallway.
6. Constance
KNOCKING ON DOORS ALWAYS REMINDED ME of knocking on someone’s skull and then hollering in their ear, Let me in.
People didn’t want you at their front doorstep unless they’d invited you. Homes were a sanctum, a refuge away from the world. It was a wonder everyone didn’t put Never Disturb signs on their doors.
But whoever lived here, I needed to disturb their peace.
I knocked again.
A slow panic squeezed through my veins at the thought of why I was standing on this doorstep. I’d found a note in my missing daughter’s jacket that had this address on it.
I hadn’t heard from Kara in three weeks. I hadn’t even been able to wish her a happy birthday. She was just seventeen. I shouldn’t have allowed her to go on this trip. What had I been thinking? It was my fault. Of course it was my fault. My bright and beautiful daughter, who’d finished high school early and was already in her second year of college, had been too young to leave our home in Mississippi and complete her second year of college here in Australia. But Kara was always so headstrong. Once her mind was made up, that was it.