Dr. Beck at the behavioral health center assured her that she could not release information to anyone, not even if she was still a patient. In Penelope’s mind, this indicated that she had at least a day or two to figure out her next steps.
Tara and Sasha came tumbling in the door after school, windblown and apple cheeked. Penelope hugged Tara fiercely, breathing in her hair, her scent. Trying not to scare her.
“What was your fight about?” she asked, her eyes filled with tears, the worry etched on her face. The kids hadn’t been there when the police showed up.
“What did your father tell you?” Penelope asked her, holding her hands, trying to keep her face neutral.
“Just that you and Daddy had a fight and you left for the night to stay with a friend. Not here,” she added hastily. “I knew that.”
“Was there . . . anyone else at the house when you guys got home?” Penelope asked, swallowing thickly.
“Just Willa. She went to her room for the night. Daddy stayed in the living room watching TV all night.”
“Anyone else?”
“Mom, no. Was there someone else there before?” Tara pulled her head back, studied her mother.
Penelope waved her hand around. “Just a friend of Willa’s. I didn’t know if she left.”
Tara eyed her mother skeptically. “It was just Daddy and Willa. And it was weird and quiet and nobody talked and Willa kept crying.”
Penelope sighed. “Well, it was weird, that was for sure.” She smiled brightly, trying to move on. “Look, none of it concerns you. At all. I would just feel better if you were here. With me tonight.”
She hugged Tara, breathed in her vanilla shower spray, her strawberry shampoo, her bubblegum lip gloss. A mishmash of teenager scents. “Everything is fine, okay? Seriously, don’t worry,” Penelope assured her. Moments later, Tara was bounding upstairs with Sasha, giggling, their fingers flying over their phones, Snapchat, texts, Instagram. Her mother appropriately forgotten. Penelope exhaled slowly. Gratefully.
Brett hadn’t contacted her, but then again, she hadn’t expected him to. He would text the kids; they’d likely tell him they were staying at Zeke’s and Sasha’s. Penelope knew Tara might tell him that she was there too. Which was fine with her. Let him wonder. Worry. Maybe Willa would comfort him.
What about at work? Had Elias taken over all her audit responses? She composed a quick email to Nora and dashed it off. Family emergency, I will be out the remainder of the week.
Penelope hadn’t taken time off like this in years. She had accrued almost twelve weeks of paid time off.
With a few clicks of her thumb, she’d successfully given herself the gift of time. No work. No family. No Brett. No Willa.
Nothing to do but wait for Jack.
CHAPTER FORTY
February 27, 2020
Penelope had been sleeping lightly when the text came in. With nothing left to do but wait, she felt helpless. What would she do if he didn’t write back? She fell asleep contemplating the possibilities.
But in her hand, her phone buzzed at 3:17 a.m.
I’m in Deer Run. Meet me? It’s Jack.
The phone number was an 802 area code—she had no idea where that was based. She pressed the call button, and it rang twice and shunted to voice mail. A text came through.
I can’t talk—long story. I’ll explain when I see you.
She texted back, when and where?
The three dots appeared, then disappeared. The reply came a full ten minutes later.
The house, where else? As soon as you can.
She left a note for Tara on Jaime’s kitchen table: Had to do something, be back soon. Don’t worry! I love you. Her keys were in her purse, and it was a short walk from Jaime’s house to hers. She didn’t even go inside. The sky had just begun to lighten by the time she reached her driveway.
Penelope hesitated for a moment, staring up at her house with the large windows, shut like it was sleeping. She could smell the familiar tang of Brett’s shower soap, even outside. The light floral of Tara’s perfume. A hint of pot roast in the air. It smelled like home.
She almost called it all off. Marched back into her house. She could take back her life, get a divorce—people did it all the time.
Then she remembered the photos, Willa, the knife in the bag, her housemates missing or in jail or dead. She’d been changed in the past few weeks. By Willa’s return, Brett’s affair, the discovery of all the Spires and where they ended up in life. She couldn’t go back to her old life, not as the same person, anyway. There was a reconciliation to be had, and part of it was with Willa, but the other part was with Jack. They were, perhaps, connected.
“Where will you go?” His voice cut through the quiet morning, and Penelope jumped. Brett stepped out of the shadow of the house, into the faint light from the front porch.
“I have to take care of something,” Penelope offered vaguely, knowing it wasn’t a real answer.
“Penelope, what are you doing?” He didn’t mean right now; he meant in general. With her life, with their marriage. She didn’t have the time or the inclination for this particular conversation.
“What am I doing? Have you forgotten who had an affair?” Her voice was sharper than she’d intended.
“Oh, really? Where’d you sleep last night?”
“You mean after I was released from the hospital, where you had me held for observation?”
She could hardly see him in the dim light of predawn, his outline limned in a gold glow from the front porch. He ran a hand over his hair—she recognized the gesture, as familiar to her as anything. Her eyes adjusted, and she could see him clearly. Brett, in running shorts and a sweatshirt.
“Have you been waiting for me?” He was always up early, running, hitting the gym. He wasn’t sitting at the window waiting for her—he was going about his day, and she’d happened to be there. Even for him, four a.m. seemed unusually early.
“I thought if you came back, you might try to sneak in early morning or late at night,” Brett said. “I couldn’t sleep either way, so I was keeping an eye out.”
“You’re right that we have to talk, but . . . I can’t do it now. I just have to take care of something.” Penelope knew she was repeating herself. She knew that Brett, and probably Willa, thought she was having some kind of break with reality. A mental break. A psychotic break. It didn’t matter—at least half of what she knew about Willa was provable. She couldn’t tell Brett where she was going, could she?
Still, she hesitated. Even when things between them had been less than perfect, she’d relied on Brett as a sounding board. She’d ask him, over wine, What do you think about painting the hallway green? What if we consolidated our credit cards? I’m thinking maybe Spain this year for vacation. Guess what Elias did today. Even when their relationship felt fragmented, she’d navigated the pieces and found the place where they joined. She’d been angry, sure. Resentful. But she’d always trusted him.
And now, she couldn’t. He’d tried to commit her, for God’s sake.
“I know what you think of me,” Penelope said, her voice loud, echoing against the black morning. “And you’re wrong. I’ll fix this, because I believe that what I’ve let into our lives is my fault. At least some of it. But I can’t see a path forward, for us. Not now, anyway.”
“Pen.” Brett’s voice was halting, disbelieving. She could see it in his posture: he wasn’t surprised by her strength or even taken aback by her statement. He was irritated.
“I don’t know the woman living in our house anymore,” Penelope said. “I used to know her, but she’s a stranger to me now. I don’t know what she wants with us, but I can tell you that it’s probably not as innocent as she’s pretending it is. Do you know almost all our old roommates are dead or bankrupt or missing? Then she shows up here, I find a weapon, creepy old photos of our entire life together, she’s missing from her real family and lying about it, you end up in the hospital, she brings your lover to dinner, she’s t
rying to make me look absolutely crazy, and you commit me to a behavioral health center. If she came here to ruin us, she succeeded. If not . . . then, well, it’s been a helluva bad streak of luck. And you know, if you were halfway intelligent, you’d find somewhere else to stay until I figure out what the hell is going on. Call Gen.” The last part was probably unnecessary, but Penelope was past caring.
She unlocked her car door and climbed into the driver’s seat, then backed out and rolled down the window. With the interior light flicked on, she could see her husband clearly. The deep lines in his cheeks etched seemingly overnight, his pallor almost green after her little speech.
“Oh . . . and, Brett?” Penelope said, and smiled sweetly. “Go fuck yourself.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
February 27, 2020
By the time Penelope reached Deer Run, it was dawn. The narrow main street with the handful of stoplights looked exactly the same as it had twenty years before. Some of the shops had changed—the storefronts were different, more modern and updated—but everything about the town felt frozen in time. The same look—streetlights encircled with potted flowers, cobblestone alleyways strung with lights. Everything a little funky, a little artsy, dripping with old hippies who made new money.
The whole drive, she’d tried to sort through her thoughts, feelings, theories and still kept finding herself in circles. Was the letter she’d received in the summer—from Jack—somehow related to Willa’s appearance in her life? When she did the math, she realized the letter would have been mailed around the time Willa disappeared from her old life in Deer Run. What did that mean? Maybe nothing. Still, she was drawn back to Deer Run, drawn back to Jack like a homing pigeon, and the possibility that he could give her information somehow. Had he been contacted by Willa in the past six months? Had he kept in touch with the others? Did he know what happened to Bree? Flynn?
Penelope passed the police station and circled the block, considering her options, before finally pulling into a parking spot out front. The parking lot was empty save for two vehicles, one marked, one not. Inside the police station, she told the woman working the window that she wanted to file a police report. She was led to a conference room and joined a few moments later by a large, sleepy-eyed officer carrying a Styrofoam cup of coffee.
“I have a tip on a missing person. I think she’s staying at my house. Her name is Willa Blaine Hudson.” Penelope felt the anxiety bubble in her chest, a push to get out of there as quickly as possible. The officer opened a small laptop and typed with two index fingers. She related the story: Willa came to stay with her two weeks prior, and she discovered in that time that she was officially a missing person.
“Are you holding her hostage?” the officer asked her, blinking seriously.
“Of course not,” Penelope said, shaking her head, confused.
“So she’s there of her own volition?”
“Yes. As far as I know. She showed up one day and asked to stay, and I said yes.”
The officer typed it all out and then sighed, his belly pushing against the edge of the conference table. “There’s no crime here.”
“I’m sorry?” Penelope asked, not understanding. “I don’t think there is a crime, but she’s technically a missing person. I thought you might want to know that she’s at my house in Wexford, New Jersey.”
“I’ll file your statement, but ma’am, she’s staying there on her own. That’s perfectly legal. I mean, it’s a terrible thing to do to a husband and child but—” He heaved his shoulders up and released them, his rumbled voice paternal, but condescending. “People do terrible, but legal, things all the time.”
“Okay, well, can you just go make sure she’s still there? And at least tell her to go home to her husband?” Penelope was starting to feel ridiculous. And impatient.
The officer promised to relay the report to the detective in charge of Willa Blaine Hudson’s case. Penelope paused. “She’s not well, I don’t think. She’s stolen jewelry from me in the past two weeks, as well as turned my life upside down.”
“Ma’am, stealing jewelry is illegal. I can include that in the report, and we can bring her in for questioning.”
“Well, she returned it all,” Penelope said haltingly. Nothing Willa had done had been strictly illegal. “Look, I don’t think she’s broken any laws, but she’s a missing person and I don’t think she’s mentally well. Now, I have to go.” She stood, and the officer nodded. He printed the report from his laptop and pushed it across the table with one finger for her to sign.
Moments later, Penelope was back in her car, heading back down Main Street toward the center of Deer Run. The whole detour had taken a mere twenty minutes. With any luck, the police would show up and question Willa this morning.
The used bookstore no longer existed, and in its place was a fitness center. Across the street, the café where Jack used to write had been replaced by a smoothie bar. As Penelope stared at it, trying to make sense of all the changes, the OPEN sign flickered on.
Her phone vibrated with an incoming text. Are you in town? Come to the house. I’m here now.
Now? She didn’t feel prepared. The house? Oh, God no. The last place she ever wanted to go.
Can’t you just come to the smoothie bar? It’s the old café. I’ll buy you a drink, for old time’s sake.
The answer was swift and sure. The house, Pip. It’s the only way.
The only way what?
Penelope sat in her car gulping down large breaths, her mind racing. She was going to see Jack—her Jack—after twenty years. She looked like utter hell, but it couldn’t be helped. She did have the wherewithal to dig through her purse for some ChapStick and apply it with a quick glance in the rearview mirror.
And yet, still, in the back of her mind always was Grace. What they did to her. What she did to them. The tragedy that followed in their wake—and the very secret that Penelope had spent her whole life keeping locked away. What would become of it all now? She didn’t know. With her marriage in shambles, her job probably in jeopardy, she didn’t have anything left to lose.
Except for the one person she’d never had to begin with.
No, Jack was right. To go forward, she had to go back. All the way to the Church House.
She turned around and headed back down Main Street the way she’d come in, before taking the second right. At the end of the gravel road, she could see the burnt remains of the church. It had never been repaired. She slammed her foot on the brake, her hands trembling on the steering wheel. Her heart skittered to a halt, then started again, and she felt her breath come in a short burst, the air in the car suddenly too thick to breathe.
She pressed on the gas, easing into the driveway, and forced herself to breathe slowly, her heart to stop hammering.
The right side of the church looked collapsed—the area where the fire had started, from the fireplace in the great room. And in the back, behind all the char and the fallen stones, the piles of detritus, loomed a yellow bulldozer. Jack’s letter wasn’t lying. Someone was going to tear this place down. And soon. She bit back the taste of bile.
Above the whole wreckage the spire remained—whole and intact. A looming reminder of how far they’d all tried to come—only to come back to the beginning.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Then: A Birthday Party
“It’s Grace’s birthday!” Willa announced, clapping her hands and going up on her tiptoes like a cheerleader about to toe-touch.
“How old are you?” Bree asked her, and she laughed.
“I’m twenty-five. An old lady! Call me a cougar.”
They were sitting around the island eating breakfast. Penelope sipped her tea and listened to them all chatter around her.
“We should have a birthday party,” Flynn said. He’d been loosening up, drinking more, wearing fewer button-down shirts. Maybe Flynn saw the writing on the wall when it came to Jack and decided not to brood over it anymore.
Penelope should have followed in
his footsteps, she knew. She felt so tied up and sick with heartbreak and couldn’t seem to shake any of it. She knew she walked around half-dazed, looking pale and furious. It wasn’t healthy.
“Oooooh, a party!” Willa’s eyes went bright, like a party would be any different than what they did every night. Pre-Grace, it was always drinks and games, Jack and Flynn would sometimes smoke weed, Bree and Flynn would have some dense philosophical discussion, Jack would strum his guitar, sometimes Willa would sing and eventually pass out on the sofa. Penelope was often a spectator in the whole affair—drinking just enough to loosen her joints, before going downstairs to bed, happy and sleepy and full.
Post-Grace, it seemed to be following a similar pattern, except as the evening wound down, Jack and Grace inched closer until she was sitting on his lap, softly kissing his neck, his hands running up and down her back like there was no one else in the room. Willa still sang softly, Bree and Flynn would debate politics (God, would they ever stop talking about the election), and Penelope would go to bed as soon as they gave up on the board game.
She was embarrassed to admit how frequently she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, hands low on her belly, trying not to seethe. This was her family. Their little cocoon away from the world. Their place to belong. And now, the anger raced around her veins; she could feel it pulsing under her skin. She’d been so close—what happened?
Her fantasy of staying in the Church House forever with Jack had been trampled. It was also humiliating how much time she’d spent imagining it—their quiet life. Jack would sell his book and use the proceeds to purchase the church from Parker. Make an office out of Bree’s bedroom. A nursery out of Penelope’s. She could work at the bookstore; Jack could write every day. He would be the stay-at-home dad when Pip (he’d still call her that, even when they were old and gray) had to walk in to work. Maybe—just maybe—if he sold enough books, they could buy the bookstore.
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