by M. R. Carey
Beebee Brophy seemed wary of her too at first. When she came to take the kids’ statements about the night of Marc’s disappearance, she kept a formal distance. Liz was as warm as she could be, and the ice had started to melt a little by the time Beebee left. There was more work to be done, but this was a newer friendship with fewer rules and expectations. A fresh start wasn’t such a big ask.
Well, depending how the investigation came out. It was still ongoing, despite the fact that Molly remembered absolutely nothing from the night of Marc’s death. Not the blood, not the midnight ride, not any of it. Sometimes, Liz knew, the things that happen when you’re nodding off or when you’ve only just awakened take on the texture of your dreams and fade just as quickly. She was glad of it in this case, for Molly’s sake as much as her own, but she didn’t kid herself that she was in the clear. Beebee was still doggedly looking for a body.
In the spring, Liz wrote to Jamie Langdon to invite her to dinner. I know it might feel weird, she wrote, but I thought maybe we could give it a try. The kids miss you, and they’d love to see you again. Or if you prefer, you could take them out somewhere for the day. Let me know.
Jamie went for option B that first time and every subsequent time. Liz understood, and didn’t begrudge. There were too many things standing in the way of their being friends. Too many truths that couldn’t be told and debts that couldn’t be paid back.
Debts were a common theme in her life right around then. Her other self had maxed out every credit card she had, then got some new ones and maxed them out too. Selling the Rogue helped some, but not enough. Liz had to sell some pieces of jewelry her mom had left her, shunt the remaining debt into a new credit plan and switch to a fifty-hour week for the foreseeable future. She just barely held on to the duplex.
And then there was the nightmare. For three months it visited her every night. Sometimes it came just once; other times it was a hideous punctuation that woke her sweating and sobbing every couple of hours. The details never varied. She was outside her body, without weight or mass, drifting helplessly while terrible things happened (she knew) elsewhere.
She beat her fears in the end by surrendering to them. Before trying to sleep, she would slip quietly into the children’s rooms and sit by their beds for a little while, watching their chests rise and fall as they breathed. If Molly’s bronchiectasis made her snore, as it often did, Liz savored the sound like sweet music.
They were alive, and they were together again. Nothing could possibly matter more than that.
Sometimes late in the evening, after Molly had been put to bed, she and Zac would sit together in the family room and talk about the other Liz, who Zac called “that thing” rather than Beth. In a weird way it was consoling to share those memories, terrible though they were. Unspoken, they felt too much like hallucinations. Signs of madness. By retelling the story, they reassured each other that they were sane.
Zac was angry with himself that he hadn’t seen Beth for what she was. He seemed to feel that he had failed his real mom by not spotting the fake. He told Liz too, shame-faced and halting, about his other failure, when Fran had tried to warn him and he had jeered at her in the school library, humiliating her in front of their classmates. He said he would never stop blaming himself for that betrayal.
“You thought you were taking my side,” Liz said, stroking his arm. “And she forgave you, didn’t she?”
“I don’t know that she did,” Zac said glumly. “She just did the right thing because she’s amazing.”
“Tell her that,” Liz suggested. “Tell her so she knows you mean it. You can’t stop being friends after all you’ve been through together.”
That was a lie, of course. Liz knew better than anyone how easy it was to lose something precious, either because you didn’t fight hard enough to keep it or because you didn’t realize it was precious until after it was gone.
But given the storm that had just passed over them, she kind of felt like they were on a roll.
Acknowledgements
The only reason I know Pittsburgh at all, and had the effrontery to set a novel there, is because of the boundless generosity of Johanna Drickman and her family over the past forty years. They’ve been the kindest of hosts on many occasions, and I feel very privileged to have them as my friends. I’d also like to thank them for being sounding boards for the story as it developed. Thanks, too, to my patient, meticulous and insightful editors, who among other things helped me to shape Beth’s arc and to eliminate rogue Britishisms when they occurred. Thanks to Meg, my ever-supportive and supernaturally brilliant agent, for always being there to nudge me back onto the rails when I’m wobbling (I wobble more than somewhat). And thanks to Lin, Lou, Davey, Ben and Cam, who had to listen to me ranting on about the work in progress, and sometimes listen to it or read it, and offer helpful opinions instead of braining me with a tea-tray. Greater love hath nobody, in my opinion.
BY M. R. CAREY
The Girl With All the Gifts
Fellside
The Boy on the Bridge
Someone Like Me
FELIX CASTOR NOVELS
(WRITING AS MIKE CAREY)
The Devil You Know
Vicious Cycle
Dead Men’s Boots
Thicker Than Water
The Naming of the Beasts
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