“But in my dream,” Marie said, “I was the one onstage. And it was my skirt that went up, up, up in flames.” She turned and looked at Dara. “And you were there.”
Dara didn’t say anything, watching the kettle.
“You saw me and you cried out,” Marie continued, her voice urgent and pained as if she were dreaming it now. “You threw Mother’s rabbit blanket over me and smothered the flames.”
That blanket again, Dara thought. The one she’d left moldering in the basement the other day.
“The flames ate the fur,” Marie said, rising and walking toward Dara. “But they never touched me at all.”
“Marie,” Dara said, turning off the stove.
“He set a fire in me—Derek. No, I set it in myself. But I’m burned through now, you see,” Marie said, her voice quivering but strong. “I’m burned through and now it’s over. It’s over.”
She reached out for Dara’s hands and held them in her own, hot as a burner coil. Dara swore she could feel Marie’s blood rushing under her skin.
It was like Marie was awake. Awake for the first time not just in six weeks—the sex haze and humiliations, the impulsivity and retreat—but in months, years maybe.
It was like seeing someone who’s been away so very long, their face changed, the shadows heavy now, but in the eyes a flash of something ancient and pure.
Oh, Marie, she thought. I’ve missed you for the longest time.
* * *
*
She told Marie to go straight to the Ballenger.
“I have to meet with the insurance lady,” she said. “She wants to talk to you, so you can’t be there.”
“No,” Marie said, pulling their father’s sweater over her shoulders, “I’d rather not.”
“We can’t let her in,” Dara said firmly. “We have to get her out.”
They’d had invaders enough.
* * *
*
As they put on coats, gloves, silently, the shush of their shoes, the scatter of bruises on Marie’s neck as she threw a scarf around it, Dara kept thinking of what could happen. All-Risk Randi suspected it wasn’t an accident. The likeliest and most convenient suspect? The wife with the big, fat insurance policy her bosses will have to pay out. But how many steps might it take to find out about Marie? About Charlie? There were things investigators knew how to find out. There were cameras everywhere now, the parking lot, the traffic lights. Phones told them everything. There was no private world anymore. The larger world had turned itself inside out, was seeking to infiltrate every smaller, private one. The home, the family.
Seeking to pass judgment. To prod and probe at a safe remove.
No one wanted to face the truth. That every family was a hothouse, a swamp. Its own atmosphere, its own rules. Its own laws and gods. There would never be any understanding from the outside. There couldn’t be.
“Are you going to tell the police?” Marie asked suddenly. “About Charlie?”
“No,” Dara said. “Not now.”
They both paused. It was one of those moments—they’d had them before, the night their mother struck their father in the head with the cast-iron pan and he dropped to the floor so fast Dara and Marie both burst into tears. For a long moment wondering what to do, like all the times their father had chased their mother around the house or that time he locked her in the garage overnight and Dara and Marie only found out in the wee hours, her screams finally frenzied enough to wake them from their sleep. They didn’t ever call anyone. That was not something any of the four of them ever did. It wasn’t what you did. You kept going.
* * *
*
Driving into the lot, she looked up at the third-floor window, which was dark, its glass smeary.
Randi Jacek was waiting at the front door in a pantsuit and puffy vest, palming a vape pen. “Terrible habit,” she said. “But we all can’t be as healthy as dancers.”
* * *
*
Inside the studio, there was a chill in the air, as if the furnace had broken in the night.
When they stepped inside, Dara had the thought: What if Charlie is here? She couldn’t see him, not now.
But as they moved through the studios, the coolness sinking in their bones, there was no sign of him.
“I’m sorry about all this,” Randi was saying, following Dara to the back office. “I know you have your show coming up.”
“Performances. Sixteen performances,” Dara said, her voice tight. “The detectives said you might be back.”