Saturday, March 24, 2018

MY KNEES ARE damp from kneeling in the garden. I’m bent over, yanking clumps of grass out of the ground like fistfuls of hair, when my cell dings. Leaping up, I head over to the bench, swipe the screen. I was hoping it was Margot, texting me back, but it’s only a notification to pay our wireless bill. My heart sinks and I set the phone back down on the bench, a little harder than I should; I’m irrationally mad at it for not coughing up a reply from Margot.

* * *

—

THIS MORNING, I had texted the group.

Fun times last night, ladies!

But only Tina responded, with the heart emoji.

* * *

—

IT’S SATURDAY AFTERNOON and the sky is heavy with dark clouds, as if on the verge of a shower. It’s windless and muggy out, and I’d love the feel of a quick release of rain. Graham is sitting in an Adirondack chair on the back patio sipping a well-earned whiskey sour after my late night last night, and Jack is dashing through the sprinklers, belly-laughing each time the water sprays him.

* * *

—

I COLLAPSED IN bed after eleven thirty or so last night, and even though I was solidly sober by the time I steered myself home, my head felt leaden this morning when I first sat up in bed.

“Whoa, Annie. Get your gun,” Graham quipped when he saw my shoulder, blackened with a bruise from the kick of the shotgun.

“It fucking hurt.”

He rolled down the strap of my cami, rubbed the area around the bruise in small, light strokes. “But was it fun?”

I nodded. I didn’t tell him about Rusty’s. I wasn’t sure how much I could or should tell, in case he ever crossed paths with Margot or the rest of them. “It was interesting. Sassy women. But I actually shot a skeet! You’d have been so proud.”

“Well done.” He grinned, tracing my lips with his thumb before kissing me.

* * *

—

AFTER A BREAKFAST of spinach and mushroom omelets—one of Graham’s specialties—we piled in the Highlander and headed to the farmers’ market in the town square. I ordered us cappuccinos from the coffee trailer and Jack a donut, and we wove our way through the stalls—smelling handmade soaps and candles, trying free samples of baked goods, inspecting giant ribs of squash and zucchini.

“Wanna try a black bean brownie?” a twentysomething girl asked us, her voice coarse but friendly. “They’re vegan.” Her hair was dark and almost waist length. A trail of charcoal-colored tattoos trickled up her bare navel. She was dressed in denim cutoffs and Doc Martens. “They taste better than they sound,” she coaxed, grinning and offering me one with her outstretched hand.

I popped it in my mouth. Grainy, but strangely delicious. “Mmmmm . . . they are good.”

I handed her a ten and dropped two cellophane-wrapped packs in our cart before we headed toward the plants.

I loaded the cart with twenty basil plants, their skunky smell filling the air when I pinched their leaves, while Graham picked out tomato and pepper plants.

“Pot-tee! Pot-tee!” Jack rocked back and forth on his heels. We are in the midst of potty training, but he only likes to use the toilet at home, so we stashed our goods in the back of the SUV and headed to the house.

* * *

I’M NESTLING THE last basil plant into the warm, springy soil when the first drop of rain thuds on the back of my neck.

We escape into the chill of the house, wipe our muddy feet on the entryway mat. Rain is now lashing at the windows, and Graham steps into the kitchen to fix me a drink and refresh his own. I lean against the kitchen table, slip my cell from my pocket. No new notifications. Of course there aren’t any; I just checked it moments ago before we came inside.

I know I shouldn’t do this, but I can’t stop myself. It’s driving me crazy that I haven’t heard back from her, so I text Margot directly.

Thanks again for having me out! Had such a blast!

I find the gun emoji and quickly tap send before changing my mind.

* * *

—

THE SKY OUTSIDE the window darkens and grumbles, and I clasp the phone in my hand, willing it to chime a reply, but it stays mute.

One Month Later

THE PATH TO the clearing is narrow, the surface pocked with jagged tracks from the four-wheelers.

Even with the moon—which was half-full that evening—hanging in the clear sky, the trail would’ve been dark as soot, nearly impossible to see a foot in front of you.

I wonder if she was lured to the clearing that night, with the promise of something fun, something salacious. Or did she go against her will, fighting with adrenaline slinging through her veins?

And if she was lured, did she scream when she knew what was going to happen to her? But even if she did, the damp forest would’ve swallowed the sound whole, muffling her cries.

17

Present

Monday, March 26, 2018

WE SPENT ALL of yesterday, Sunday, in the house, trapped indoors by the gushing rain. By noon, my hands were fraught with worry from endlessly checking my cell to see if Margot had responded (she hadn’t), so I went into the mudroom and dragged down Jack’s art bins.

Crafting with Jack always soothes me. Probably because as a child, it’s the activity I most craved to do with Nikki but it was the kind of request she generally swatted away, preferring instead to lounge in her bedroom with a suitor, her too-loud laugh bouncing down the hall, her face only poking out of her room when she’d ask me to fetch her another peach wine cooler.

We worked on projects throughout the afternoon—gluing bits of pastel-colored construction paper onto poster board, cutting shapes out of felt with Jack’s tiny plastic scissors, finger painting a mural to display in the hallway—and for a few hours, my mind drifted away from Margot and eased into the comfortable absorption of working side by side with Jack: his fingers sticky with glue and latching onto mine when he wanted help with something, his warm head slumping on my chest toward the end of our projects when he was ready for a nap.

Graham busied himself at the kitchen table, drafting plans for a new bid, and as dusk approached, I clicked on the gas stove and set a kettle of water to boil for our evening tea. As we sipped mugs of brisk Earl Grey, lightly creamed with milk, Graham resumed his sketching, and Jack, fresh up from his nap, abandoned me for the television and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.

My thoughts returned to Margot. Was she mad at me for some reason? Should I have stayed at the bar later? I swiped the screen of my cell, unlocked it. Checked Facebook. No updates or posts from her at all. I reread my text to her, inwardly scolding myself for not being wittier, punchier. And newly wired by the caffeine from the tea, I stepped out back as the rain continued to throb against the metal roof of the covered patio, and paced.

For some reason, a poem from college English lit came flooding back. Tennyson’s “Mariana,” about a woman waiting for her lover who never arrives. As I paced the pavers, it played over and over in my mind as if on a loop:

Upon her bed, across her brow.

She only said, “The night is dreary,

He cometh not,” she said;

She said “I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!”

18

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

IT’S MORNING. GRAHAM has just taken Jack to school and I’m parked at the kitchen table, uploading photos of the garden to Instagram, hashtagging them: #amgardening #gardenlife #sloweddownlife #herbsforthesoul.

The rain broke in the middle of the night, and the morning sun twinkles in giant puddles on our back lawn.

Sipping my second latte, I’m trying to throw my concentration into something productive. Something other than incessant thoughts of Margot: my Instagram feed, my blog. I even circle the pages of a seed catalog, marking selections for the next row of vegetables I’ll plant in the garden.

I get a flurry of likes on my Insta posts, some new followers and a few comments, and a smile steals across my face. I down the rest of the latte, stand up and stretch, and head outside to snap a few pics of the water-soaked backyard. The air is warm and close, the birds are belting out a frenzied song, and rainwater spurts and trickles from the gutters.

I step back inside, and despite my efforts to distract myself, Margot slides back into my brain. Not now, I say out loud, grabbing the keys and banging out the door.

* * *

—

I HAVE TO find something to do outside of the house today or else I’ll go mad, so I head downtown to Gerald’s, a quaint corner market, to stock up on wine and nibbles.

I’m drifting down the aisles, tossing items in my basket for a meat and cheese platter for tonight’s dinner—I’m not in the mood to cook—when I hear the chime of the door and see Jill walk in with a tall young man who must be her son.

He’s over six feet and hobbles on crutches as he and Jill approach me.