by Nicole Baart
“I’m making brunch,” I told her. “All you have to do is make yourself presentable. Omelets will be on the table in twenty minutes.”
It was hard to maintain any sort of routine when my family assumed our home had a revolving door. Romantic nights in front of our potbellied, wood-burning stove were often interrupted by my mother, since her waitressing hours were unpredictable at best and she felt the need to burden us with her presence when she wanted to unwind after a long shift or avoid one of the guys she was sick of stringing along. And Kat seemed to think that married or not, I was still her baby sister and blood trumped wedding vows.
When I was a kid, I half expected her to crawl into my bed at some point every night, it was such a given. I even left a night-light plugged in to the outlet on the opposite wall of my bed just so that Kat could find her way in the dark with minimal drama. I don’t think she came because she was scared or upset, it was more of a comfort thing. A way of reaching out in the darkness and resting her fingers against a touchstone, a constant. Me.
Natalie would never have stood for that sort of nonsense, and even though my older sisters shared a room, Kat didn’t go to her for solace. They would have had more in common. They could have whispered about their high school crushes and commiserated about the fact that their classmates tried to use them to score alcohol. It was common knowledge that Char was often too lit to realize what came in and out of our house in the form of cheap bottles from the liquor store.
But instead of creating inroads with Natalie, Kat crept across the hallway and opened the door to my room. She always paused for a moment in the narrow crack, her hair fanned out behind her and glowing with light from the streetlamp just outside our living room window. Then she’d slip in quickly and ease the door shut, tiptoeing two steps to the edge of my bed before breathing my name into the stillness.
“Dani? You awake?”
Even if I was, I wouldn’t answer. And whether she suspected I was faking or not, she always lifted the edge of the sheet and climbed beneath, curling herself against my body as if she was a very little girl and I her mother.
Kat never tried to talk to me, and she always snuck away before Natalie’s alarm was set to go off in the morning. I don’t know how she did it, if she lay awake in the darkness and watched the moon keep time as it arced across the sky in the frame of my open window, or if she just had an internal alarm clock that alerted her when Natalie was at risk of discovering her nighttime ritual. But I left room for Kat every night, tucking myself tight against the wall so that there would be room for my leggy sister in my twin bed.
By the time I married Etsell, Kat had other bedfellows to keep her warm at night. However, she must have found them lacking. When Ell and I bought the little house on the edge of town, she started showing up again. I probably should have discouraged her, but I was a new bride and my husband was still tolerant of every caprice. It was charming to him how deeply I loved my messy and often hard-to-love family. So we left the front door unlocked, and draped my grandmother’s afghan over the arm of the couch as a sign of our permission if not our outright invitation.
Most mornings after she slept over, Kat accepted one filled-to-the-brim mug of coffee, and then dragged herself back to the double-wide that she still shared with our mother. But we had an implicit understanding that Sundays were different. On Sunday mornings she washed off her makeup and the cloying scent of cheap perfume and joined us for a makeshift family brunch around the table in our kitchen.
On the morning Kat crossed the line, I was making her favorite: cheese omelets with bacon so crisp it was nearly burnt. After years of scrambling eggs for my sisters, I had perfected the art of making fat, fluffy omelets with just the right amount of sharp cheddar melting out of the sides. Ell was partial to sausage and mozzarella, but we both knew that when Kat showed up I would default to preparing whatever she preferred. He didn’t complain.
“Kat’s in the shower,” I told him as I shredded cheddar with just a hint of contrition. There was a round of fresh mozzarella in the meat drawer that would have made delectable omelets.
He peeked at me over the top of the Sunday paper and I could see the corner of his eyes crinkle with amusement.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
He smirked. “You’re such a mother.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Good things. It means all sorts of good things. You’re a wonderful woman, Danica Greene.”
I flipped him the bird. He laughed out loud.
When Kat finally emerged from the shower, pink-cheeked and toweling her long, dark hair, it was finally obvious that she had had too much to drink the night before. Her eyes were glassy and her grin was lopsided; it matched the off-center loop of the belt on her loosely tied robe. She looked like a woman who was clinging to her composure, drawing it around her like a garment that didn’t quite fit.
My eyes raked over her, assessing the damage. Then I put down my spatula and tugged the fabric of my pink robe tight around my sister. I cinched the waist snug. “If you’re not hungry, I can bring you home.” Her car was in our driveway, but I didn’t want her driving it. My stomach clenched with worry at the thought that she had driven it only hours before.
“I’m starving,” Kat said. She dropped the towel that she had been using to dry her hair on the counter, and pulled out a chair next to Etsell. “Smells amazing in here.”
I tried to catch Ell’s eye but he was too busy attempting to refold the newspaper. “Dani’s a great cook,” he said mechanically. He loved Kat, but he didn’t like her after she’d been drinking. He went all stiff-necked and quiet, as if her intoxication was an affront to his sensibilities. Which didn’t make sense at all. Though his father had been an alcoholic, Etsell wasn’t a teetotaler.
“I make eggs,” I said, serving them each a thick wedge of omelet. “I make really good eggs and not much else.”
“Oh, that’s not true.” Kat slurred her words only slightly. “You make the best spinach-artichoke dip I’ve ever had. And no one can touch your cookies.”
“They’re Toll House.”
“Still.”
I sat down across from her and watched as she took three bites in quick succession. I half expected her to get nauseous, to excuse herself from the table, but she chased her mouthful of eggs with a big swig of coffee and reached for more.
Kat reminded me so much of our mother it was unsettling. They had the same eyes, the same fine arch of delicate brows that gave them a perpetually curious expression. I had wondered before if that’s why men found them so tempting—because when they fixed you with that coquettish, wide-eyed look, it was hard not to imagine that those eyes burned just for you. Kat had the ability to unnerve me with a glance.
But the similarities didn’t end with their eyes. Char kept a photograph of herself in high school on the dresser in her bedroom, and I had watched my sister grow into the spitting image of the black-and-white portrait. They were both slender and tall with features that were just a little larger than life: big eyes, full lips, broad shoulders. Beautiful. Beautiful and dangerous.
“So good,” she murmured, licking a strand of cheese from her fork. “All it needs is some orange juice. Do you have any orange juice?”
I pushed myself back from the table, but before I could rise, Etsell put his hand on my wrist. “I’ve got it, honey. Stay put.” He gave me a conspiratorial squeeze and I felt myself settle.
Etsell grabbed three glasses from the cupboard beside the sink, then lifted a gallon of orange juice from the refrigerator with his pinky through the handle. He kicked the door closed and made his way back to the table.
I didn’t realize that Kat had been watching him until I heard an appreciative sigh escape her lips. It was a muted puff of sound, an exhalation that could have meant a hundred different things. But I knew my sister.
As Etsell passed her, Kat reached out and cupped a hand against the seat of his jeans, giving him a little pinch w
ith far too much relish.
Despite a shocked bounce in his step, Ell ignored her. And I tried for a second to convince myself that it was innocent, that sisters did that sort of thing all the time to their brothers-in-law. But fury billowed up in me despite my best efforts to contain it. My anger was smoky and dark, menacing. “What the hell was that?” I sputtered.
Kat’s eyes shot to mine and there was guilt written deep within them. It was a raw, uncharacteristic emotion for her, but she blinked and the moment passed. “He’s delicious, don’t you think? You are one lucky woman, little sis.”
Her nonchalance confused me, and I looked to Etsell for confirmation that I was overreacting. My husband wouldn’t meet my gaze, a sure sign that he was just as uncomfortable as I was.
“I don’t know what you were thinking, Kat,” I fumed, “but that is not okay. Keep your hands off of my husband.”
“No harm done.” Kat was availing herself of all her charms now. Her lips curled with a mixture of condescension and intrigue, an expression that made me feel indignant and small all at once. Like this was just one big joke and I was too slow to get it. “I never had a father,” she purred. “I don’t know how to act around men.”
“Bullshit.” Etsell didn’t usually put himself between me and my sisters, but his muttered curse gave me courage.
“I didn’t have a father either, and I would know enough to keep my hands off my sister’s man.”
“I don’t have a man.”
“That’s not the point.”
Kat sighed and forked another bite of her omelet. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing. Ell’s a hunk. I’m sure he gets hit on all the time.”
“You were hitting on my husband?”
“You’re such a drama queen.”
If Kat hadn’t been impaired, I seriously think I would have leaned across the table and slapped her. As it was, it took the span of a breath or two for her to realize that she had gone too far. She swallowed carefully, laid her fork down, and stood up.
“I’d better run. I’m meeting a friend at—”
“Go.”
It took Kat only a couple of minutes to throw on her dirty clothes from the night before. We could hear her banging around in the bathroom, then footsteps across the floorboards in the hall followed by the slam of the front door. I forgot my reservations about her driving until it was too late—she squealed out of the driveway and down the street before I could even think of stopping her.
When we couldn’t hear her car anymore, Ell walked around the table and draped himself over my shoulders. He kissed my temple and sighed. “What was that all about?”
“My sister is crazy.”
“I don’t think she knew what she was doing.”
“Don’t try to defend her.”
“I’m not defending her,” Etsell said.
I twisted in my seat and grabbed my husband’s arms. “Has she ever done anything like that to you before?”
The startled look on Etsell’s face said it all. “No, of course not.”
“Is it true what she said?” I pressed. “Do you get hit on all the time?”
“Well”—he smirked—“not all the time.”
“I’m being serious.”
Etsell crouched in front of me and took my face in his hands. Holding my gaze, he said, “If I do, I don’t notice it. You’re everything, Danica. You always have been. You always will be.”
It was what I wanted to hear so I leaned into him and let him wrap his arms around me.
But the morning stayed with me for a long time, and it must have bothered Kat, too, because our couch was bereft of her midnight company for weeks. When she did finally show up one night it was months later and she left without breakfast or even a cup of coffee. She never apologized, but I didn’t expect her to.
In a way, and after I stopped hating her a little, I was grateful. Kat hadn’t meant to do it, but she woke me up to the truth about my husband. My marriage.
There are no guarantees.
5
Resurrection Bay
The flags that flanked the long circular driveway leading to the entrance of the Alyeska Resort hung limp in the early-morning calm. Though a bronze brazier with a perennial flame coaxed warmth into the cool air, Danica still stifled a shiver. It was late spring, but there was snow in the shadows between the trees. Not much, and it was really more like slush, gray from traffic and age. But it was perfect for packing into dirty snowballs if Danica felt so inclined. She did not.
It was a breathtaking morning, bright and brisk, uncharacteristically clear, according to the valet who kept her company while she waited outside for Hazel to emerge. He had dark eyes and skin that glowed the color of brushed suede, and his smile was too friendly to be entirely innocent.
“Got plans for the day?” he asked, warming his hands over the fire.
“We’re going to Seward,” Dani said after a pause. She lifted her eyes to the ring of mountains that hemmed in the resort, hoping he’d pick up her disinterested vibe and leave her alone.
He didn’t. “We?”
Danica sighed inwardly, wondering how to explain her relationship with Hazel. “My friend and me,” she managed.
“Day trip?”
“No, we’ll be there for a while.”
“Such a short stay? The forecast is fantastic. You could take the aerial tram to Seven Glaciers. Or you could walk the Nordic trails. Moose Meadows is great, even this time of year.”
Danica nodded.
“I didn’t convince you, did I?”
“We’re going to Seward,” she said again.
It sounded significant to her. A declaration of intent. Weighted with possibility like heavy stones hung from the corners of a flagging hope she hardly dared to raise. Seward held mysteries, but she believed every mystery could be solved if only the right questions were asked. If only.
Hazel finally lumbered out the sliding doors fifteen minutes past their agreed-upon meeting time. She had aged overnight, and dark circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes. Danica considered the disheveled woman before her and knew she looked no better. She decided the valet must be pretty hard up if he had stooped to flirting with her.
Blair had stolen their sleep last night with one unnerving phone call. She and Hazel didn’t speak much after his late-night interruption, and though Dani assumed that the news couldn’t have hit Hazel as hard as it pummeled her, in the telling light of a bright morning it was obvious that Etsell’s surrogate mom was starting to bow beneath the weight of it all. For a brief moment, Danica felt a stray wisp of sisterhood bind her to Hazel. She clutched at it, but then the older woman barreled past her without bothering to even say hello. The feeling passed.
Dani stepped off the curb behind Hazel and followed her across the parking lot to their rental car. Hazel clicked off the locks and popped the trunk, and the two women lifted in their carry-on suitcases without saying a word. It wasn’t until they were buckled in and on the road that Hazel broke her self-imposed silence.
“Have you had breakfast?”
“No.”
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Me either.”
Hazel retraced their path from the night before, blurring through the tiny town of Girdwood in minutes. There was a Tesoro gas station on the corner of the Alyeska and Seward highways and a small strip mall that boasted a pleasant-looking bakery. Dani caught a glimpse of the racks of muffins and fat, glossy doughnuts, but instead of enticing her, they turned her stomach. Coffee, she thought for a fleeting moment. I could go for some caffeine. But Hazel aimed the car toward Seward without a backward glance.
They followed the water for several miles before the road angled inland and the mountains loomed almost celestial in their height and splendor. There were clouds now, but they were high-breasted confections, preening whirls of white that decorated the rugged peaks like dollops of whipped cream. Dani couldn’t help but admire the obvious beauty of the r
ange that surrounded her, but beneath the grandeur there was something undeniably sinister. Each pinnacle was seductive, a Siren luring in unsuspecting hunters and hikers, pilots. The hills were beautiful and deadly.
Nearly an hour passed before Danica worked up the courage to ripple the stillness between her and Hazel. She could have made small talk, but she jumped right into the deep end and asked the question that had been burning her lips since the moment she hung up with Blair the night before. “Did he ever mention Sam?”
Danica knew she sounded desperate. Hazel would have told her if Etsell had talked about Sam Linden. Wouldn’t she? But she couldn’t help hoping, believing, that if she phrased it just so, Hazel would remember something. Anything. A detail, a conversation, a feeling she couldn’t quite pin down.
Not only had Blair’s phone call robbed Danica of sleep and denied her even a moment of peace, it also refined her fears—it distilled everything down to one consuming ache. More than a week had passed since her husband went missing, and though she still longed to find him hale and whole, what Dani really hungered for as their rental car sped down a winding mountain highway was the truth. So she asked. And asked again.
“No,” Hazel said.
“What about Samantha?”
“Nope.”
“Sami, then.”
“Etsell never mentioned a Samantha or a Sam or a Sami. The first time I ever heard her name was when you told me about her last night.”
“What about another woman? Maybe he changed her name—”
“Danica, stop.” Hazel slammed her hand against the steering wheel. “You have got to let this go. I don’t know anything about Samantha Linden, I swear to you. Why would I lie?”