Little Broken Things

by Nicole Baart

  “Sure.”

  “I’d like everything to-go. I don’t really want to bump into anyone I know today.”

  “Small-town life, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’ll pop in. You can wait in the car. Just give me directions.”

  The clock in Ethan’s car read 8:07. Nora was sure the people she wanted to talk to would be up by now, but it was Saturday morning. Estes Law Offices would be closed for the day, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t look up Roger Estes’s number in the white pages and knock on his front door. Thankfully Pine Hills was always open. They could start there.

  Ethan picked up a pair of giant cinnamon rolls and two cups of coffee in paper cups from Luverne’s, then followed Nora’s instructions to one of the lesser-known beaches along the south side of Key Lake. Redrock Bay, with its long expanse of sifted sand, was a favorite among locals and vacationers, and there was the Key Lake public beach along the west side that attracted families with younger kids because of the playground equipment, shallow waters, and gradual drop-off. But Pocket Beach was exactly that: a little pocket of land hidden by weeping birches. The beach itself was shaped like a diamond and too stony to make sunbathing an option. They would be alone, Nora felt sure of that.

  She was right. The slip of rocky sand was deserted. A stiff summer wind stirred up chop on the water that spread out blue and foamy from the small headland. There were boulders along the south edge of the secluded beach, and Nora headed there, coffee in one hand as she shielded her eyes from the glare of the morning sun with the other.

  “Key Lake’s best-kept secret,” she told Ethan as she settled cross-legged on one of the wide rocks. “Nobody ever comes here.”

  Nora expected him to at least try to chatter back and pepper her with questions or comment on the unexpected beauty of the alcove in the trees. His personality mandated it. But when Nora turned to face him, she found that Ethan was holding something out for her—and it wasn’t the bag of cinnamon rolls.

  “I found this on the bulletin board at Luverne’s.”

  “What is it?” she asked without reaching for it.

  “Just take it.” Ethan took a step forward, the set of his jaw uncharacteristically grave, and pushed the paper toward her. Nora had no choice but to accept it.

  How could a sheet of white printer paper be ominous? Even terrifying? But as Nora unfolded the page her heart shuddered and stopped, if only for a moment.

  It was a picture of Everlee.

  The photo had been snapped a year or so ago, her head tilted to the side, her eyes wide and reflecting twin points of light. She was smiling, but it was a closemouthed, hesitant smile, as if someone had instructed her to do so and she’d obeyed. Good girl.

  Nora had never seen the picture before.

  And she was so intent on studying the curve of her cheek, the way Everlee’s long blond hair fell past her shoulders and beyond the frame of the photo, that she almost missed the text beneath the portrait.

  Missing Child

  If you have any information, please call the number below.

  LIZ

  BY THE TIME KENT AND MACY wandered over, Liz was nearly done cleaning up the evidence of her party. She woke at dawn, weary and confused but certain that she had been wrong about some things. Okay, a lot of things. Obviously, the hangover that never materialized, but about bigger matters, too. More significant ones.

  The party had been her attempt to ease the symptoms of a disease that Liz was starting to believe she could cure. Why pop a Tylenol if she had access to the antidote? Even if it was a tough pill to swallow. But things had spiraled out of control and she had been left raw and aching, convinced of her own complicity in sins of the past. Sins of omission—ones she once hoped she would never have to atone for.

  Now what? At the very least she had set the ball rolling. Bennet Van Eps knew that she had a granddaughter. A granddaughter who was shrouded in mystery and secreted away like something filthy, obscene. It made Liz sick to her stomach. But, damn it, something would happen. Liz had spent too much time letting other people chart the course of her life to settle for the back seat now.

  “I think I have a God complex,” Liz said when Macy handed her a to-go cup with a stamped Sandpoint sleeve. She sipped it immediately. Still piping hot, just the way she liked it. But she wasn’t comforted. Liz was convinced she didn’t deserve even the littlest of pleasures.

  Kent laughed, oblivious to her mood. “You’re just figuring this out?”

  “Don’t be mean.” Macy smacked his bottom good-naturedly.

  “I’m serious.” Liz took another sip of her toffee latte and fixed Kent with a grave look.

  “Me too.”

  Macy swung at him again, but he twisted away from her and grabbed a full garbage bag in each hand. “I think I’ll leave you ladies to it,” he said. “Looks like Liz has this thing in the bag.”

  Kent laughed at his own bad pun all the way around the side of the house and until he was out of earshot. Liz had no doubt that he would continue to cackle over his quick-wittedness for the rest of the day. How exasperating. For once, she didn’t envy Macy and her whole, hale husband.

  No, Liz poked at that idea, worrying it like a loose tooth. She had never envied Macy and her living, breathing spouse. Not even in the immediate aftermath of losing Jack Sr. Being alone wasn’t so bad; she rather liked the independence. In fact, saying goodbye to her husband had been a relief.

  But what a terrible thing to think! Liz would have gasped, but there was hot coffee in her mouth and she ended up swallowing it too fast. It burned all the way down and she coughed and sputtered, her eyes watering.

  “You okay?” Macy thumped her friend on the back, then took her by the elbow and led her to the low brick wall that flanked one edge of the patio. “Sit down, I don’t think you’re quite yourself.”

  “I’m a monster,” Liz managed when she had caught her breath. Her throat stung and she had to dab at the wetness that had gathered in the corners of her eyes.

  “That’s ridiculous! You’re perfectly lovely, Liz. In every way.”

  “You have to say that. You’re my best friend.”

  “I am?”

  “Of course you are. See? How could you not know you’re my best friend?”

  “Well, it’s just—”

  “Clearly I’m a terrible person.” Liz didn’t realize she was flinging the cup around until a little splatter of camel-colored coffee exploded on Macy’s white blouse like an act of violence. “Now look at what I’ve done!”

  Macy ignored the stain, wresting the cup from Liz’s grip and placing it carefully on the ground behind her. “What in the world has gotten into you?” she asked, taking Liz by the arms. “Pull yourself together!”

  But Liz found she didn’t much want to pull herself together. She felt off, to be sure, but it wasn’t as bad as she imagined it would be. It was actually rather freeing. A bit intoxicating. She felt the need to confess, to unburden herself of some of the many ways in which she tried to play God. The ways she had covered up and pretended and downright lied. “I watch people through Jack’s old telescope,” she blurted.

  “Is that what you’re upset about?” Macy pursed her lips, making her laugh lines deepen. “That’s hardly a secret. Everyone knows what Jack really bought it for. And your windows aren’t as opaque as you think they are.”

  Well, that wasn’t nearly as satisfying as Liz had hoped it would be. She tried again. “One of the reasons I threw the party last night was because I hoped that Quinn and Bennet would reconnect. I thought that maybe …” She couldn’t finish. Apparently she had already exceeded the limits of her newfound boldness.

  But Macy wasn’t fazed by this either. She pulled Liz’s hands into her lap and patted them soothingly. “Bennet is a good boy and it broke your heart when Quinn left him. Those kids don’t stop to think about how much we come to love their circle of friends. Bennet was like a son to you. For years.”

&
nbsp; Liz blinked. “He was.”

  “I know he was, honey. And then he was just gone. It was practically like a death in the family.”

  “It was.” Liz’s eyes filled with tears and she didn’t even bother to whisk them away. They hovered, heavy and indulgent against her lower lashes. Thank goodness her mascara was smudge proof and waterproof.

  “And then Quinn took off to California and came home with a new husband …” Macy tsked, shaking her head. “A stranger.”

  “Walker was a stranger!”

  “How were you supposed to feel?”

  “Betrayed,” Liz confided. “I thought of all my kids Quinn would stay in Key Lake and marry someone local and get regular manicures with me at Halo.”

  “I know.” Macy nodded. “But he’s very handsome, isn’t he?” She tipped her head and looked away, a thoughtful expression settling over her features.

  Liz could almost see the wheels spinning in Macy’s head, and it suddenly made her feel defensive. Almost possessive. She felt her emotions spin on a dime. “Very handsome,” Liz confirmed, sniffing away her tears. “He’s an artist, you know.”

  Where had that come from? Jack didn’t like artists. He said they were freeloaders and hacks; that a five-year-old with finger paints could do a better job than most of the famous prints that hung in the Art Institute of Chicago. They had gone at her insistence during a long-ago family vacation and stayed for less than an hour. His sneer had come as she had studied one of Van Gogh’s bedroom paintings. Blue walls, red bedspread, hat hung askance on a hook. The windows were cracked open and the sun was shining. For one sparkling moment Liz could imagine herself sweeping the shawl that hung near the door over her shoulders and stepping out into a world all green and gold. It seemed both a fairy tale and a distinct possibility. She could live in that painting.

  “Let’s go,” Jack Sr. had said. And though they had barely scraped the surface of the treasure that was the Institute, they went.

  “I love art,” Liz said, more to herself than to Macy. “I love it.”

  “Good for you,” Macy said, still stroking Liz’s hands like a lap dog.

  Liz pulled away and sat up straighter. Jack Sanford had not been a good man. True, he was steady and levelheaded and hardworking. He had made a way for himself in a world that favored the lucky, the people who were born with privilege and a place at the table. Jack Sr. had none of those things. But he took a small farmer’s inheritance and made something of it, built a legacy for his wife and kids and fought for it every day of his life. If he argued the validity of a bootstraps philosophy, it was only because he pulled himself up by them. A success story.

  But for all his vim and vigor (piss and vinegar, as Liz’s father always said), Jack had not been a man who recognized beauty. Who loved deeply. Who gave extravagantly. When Liz thought of him, she thought of his big hand swallowing hers. Pinching. She thought of his arms around that teenager, the look in his eyes. Most of all, her heart seized at the memory of his confession, so many years ago, and the way that it wasn’t a confession at all: it was a proclamation that things would remain exactly as they had always been. Period.

  And she had let it be so.

  “I have to go,” Liz said, standing up. She was being abrupt, obtuse, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. “Thank you for your help.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” Macy followed her lead, but she rose slowly, confused.

  “Yes, you did.” Liz turned to go but thought better of it at the last moment and spun to envelop Macy in a hug. A real hug, not the halfhearted, light-fingered, skimming caress that they had perfected over the years. That so-called embrace was anemic and ineffectual. Liz squeezed Macy until she felt the air go out of her lungs. And then she backed away as tears filled her eyes. “Go for a walk with me later today?”

  Macy’s eyebrows seemed permanently knit together. “But it’s Saturday.”

  “So what?” Liz choked.

  “Where are you going?” Macy called as Liz strode away.

  “I have to talk to Quinn.”

  “You might want to call her first. Or text?”

  “Not this time.”

  “Oh! Liz!”

  She turned at the French doors to see Macy still framed in the shadow of the pergola, the trumpet vines arching over her in a chorus of green and orange. Her friend was digging in the back pocket of her white Bermuda shorts, reaching for something that she had tucked there. It was a piece of paper, folded several times over until it was a fat little rectangle.

  “Here,” Macy said, walking toward Liz and waving it in front of her. “I almost forgot. Kent and I found this stapled to the light pole in front of your house.”

  “What is it?”

  “A flyer.”

  Liz took the paper and unfolded it quickly. There was no sense of foreboding, no premonition that alerted her to the fact that everything was about to change. The truth was, Liz was as buoyant with a fierce, defiant hope as she had ever been—and spreading out that innocuous sheet was little more than an indulgence. She didn’t want to be bothered by minutiae right now, but because she loved Macy she decided to acquiesce. What could it possibly be? A page of coupons? A notice for an upcoming concert? An advertisement for a local boy who hoped to procure some summer lawn-mowing jobs?

  It was a picture.

  A little girl with long blond hair and eyes the color of sandstone and moss. Of Key Lake before a storm. Of the buds on Liz’s hydrangea bush on the day before they unfurled in full bloom.

  Liz knew those eyes.

  She felt her heart flutter and fail, the oxygen leaching from the tips of her fingers and the furthest edges of her toes so that she was faint and unstable.

  What now? she thought. But the only thing that she could do in the moment was sink to the ground in front of her French doors, her back pressed painfully against the cool glass.

  QUINN

  “WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?” Quinn reached across the counter and drizzled syrup all over Lucy’s blueberry pancake.

  “Pink. No, green.”

  “Tough choice. You can have more than one. I do.” Quinn couldn’t believe that they were talking, really talking, but her quiet joy had a shadow side. Walker was outside with the fire chief, answering questions about the shack and the fire. Answering questions about their very lives. Do you own this land? Who is your insurance provider? Where were you last night? As if he was a suspect. A criminal.

  It had burned to the ground. A pile of smoldering ash was all that remained of the little building where Quinn had once posed for senior pictures. The peeling paint and rustic boards had made a perfect backdrop for her white lace dress, the long flow of her strawberry-colored hair. Quinn would never look at that picture the same way.

  “Would you like me to cut up your pancake for you?” Quinn asked, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand. On the child before her.

  “In strips,” Lucy said. “I can do the little cuts.”

  “Of course.”

  “What’s your favorite color?” Lucy had no idea what had happened outside the walls of her bedroom only hours before. It was hard for Quinn to reconcile the girl’s innocence, the tender way she was starting to unfurl, with the violence they had experienced last night.

  It wasn’t an accident.

  Walker told her the truth in the wee hours of the morning after Quinn woke and crawled from the bed she had shared with Lucy.

  Quinn had nodded, resigned. She knew there was no way the old building could spontaneously ignite.

  “They found evidence of accelerants,” Walker said. “And there were multiple points of origin.”

  “Now what?” Quinn didn’t know if her question was rhetorical or if she actually hoped for an answer.

  “They’re investigating.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It could take weeks.” Walker reached out and tried to pull Quinn close. She resisted at first, but he folded her into his embrace. Her hands went around
him reluctantly. Not because she didn’t want his comfort, but because she didn’t believe she deserved it. Wasn’t she the one who had gotten them into this mess? Who insisted that they keep Lucy a secret? The sudden appearance of her niece in their lives, the phone call, the fire … surely they were all connected. And this was all her fault.

  “Bennet promised me they would leave you alone for a while. And there’s been no mention of Lucy,” Walker said. “At least, not yet.”

  A scrap of grace in this whole frightening mess. “For how long?”

  “Awhile.” It was the best he could give her.

  “Do they really think … ?” She couldn’t finish her thought.

  “We’re not suspects, Quinn. Just witnesses. They have to ask questions, they have to find out what, if anything, we know.”

  “Okay.”

  Walker kissed the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her smoky hair. “Everything is going to be just fine,” he said. Quinn wished she could believe him.

  A little huff of disbelief pulled her from her reverie. “Don’t you have a favorite color?” Lucy asked, incredulous, impervious to Quinn’s growing anxiety. Walker had been gone for over an hour.

  “Colors,” Quinn corrected, forcing herself to focus on the child before her. “I have more than one, remember? Blue and turquoise.”

  “That’s kind of the same thing.”

  “I don’t think so.” Quinn finished slicing the final strip and pushed the plate toward Lucy. “Orange juice?”

  The girl nodded, a big bite already stuffed into her mouth.

  Quinn grabbed the carafe of orange juice from the refrigerator and poured a glass half full. “Turquoise is a bright blue-green, like water in the Caribbean Sea or a peacock’s feathers or the sky at sunset after a thunderstorm. Have you ever seen a turquoise stone?”

  Lucy shook her head and took a sip of her orange juice.

  “Here.” Quinn slipped a finger beneath the silver chain that hung around her neck. After they whispered together in the kitchen as dawn spilled light across the horizon, Walker had led her to the bathroom. He slid the dress off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor, then turned on the shower and made her stand beneath the cool spray. When she stepped out, he was gone. But her clothes were laid out for her. She had added the necklace as an afterthought.