Page 24 of All These Beautiful Strangers

I never found out what Auden was supposed to steal. He never showed.

Six

Grace Calloway

August 4, 2007

7:52 p.m.

The phone rang. I stubbed my toe on my nightstand trying to reach it before the second ring. I didn’t want it to wake the girls. I had a fleeting thought as I answered it—What if it’s him? But Claire’s voice greeted me instead.

“I saw Alistair’s car whipping down Main as I was coming out of the grocery store,” she said. “He was headed toward the freeway. Everything okay?”

Claire knew our routine well—Alistair drove in on Friday evening and left late Sunday night. It was only Saturday, and after this week’s events, she was quick to check up on me.

“Everything’s fine,” I lied. “He had to leave early. He has a golf thing with a client early tomorrow.”

The first lie I’d told when this whole thing started—weeks and weeks ago now—had stuck to the back of my tongue. But now I found that the more lies I told, the easier they came out. Sometimes they slid out without my meaning them to, without my even knowing. I wondered sometimes if I fooled even myself.

“Giving up a family day to go swing a stick around with another guy ignoring his family? How nice,” Claire said dryly.

Her dislike for Alistair bordered on hostile. I didn’t respond.

“It’s supposed to storm later,” Claire said, changing the subject. “Want some company? I could come over. I’ve got a bottle of Pinot in the fridge.”

“I told the girls we’d have a game night,” I said. “Thought I’d get in some quality mother-daughter time while Alistair’s away.”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” Claire said, obviously disappointed.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said.

In truth, I’d put the girls to bed early. Being on the boat all day had drained them. They’d fallen asleep on the living room sofa watching television, and I’d carried them, one by one, upstairs to their room on the second floor.

I glanced out the window toward the lake. Claire was right—it looked like it would storm. There were clouds billowing overhead. The sky looked heavy.

It had become my routine this summer to take a nightly solo swim out on the lake. I did laps out to the raft and back, my preferred form of exercise. But I hadn’t swum in days due to the injury to my shoulder.

Now I longed to slip into the water, to feel my muscles lengthen and pull with each stroke, to close my eyes and hold my breath, if only to experience the respite of breaking the surface and gasping for air.

I passed the suitcases open on my bed and went to my dresser to get my swimsuit. I had time for one last swim.

Seven

Charlie Calloway

2017

The drive from Knollwood in New Hampshire to the Fairchilds’ house in Hillsborough, Connecticut, was supposed to take four and a half hours, but I did it in three and a half, zipping along those New England freeways in my Mercedes. The party started at seven, but I had two stops to make first: one at the train station to pick up my sister, Seraphina, who was coming in from her boarding school in Pennsylvania, and the other at the supermarket so I didn’t show up empty-handed.

Hillsborough was a small, blue-collar town in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Its main industry was an old lumber mill my grandfather had worked at before he retired. My father had built a house there on Langely Lake for my mother two years after they were married. Most of the houses in Hillsborough were graying, vinyl-sided boxes with gravel driveways and slouching carports, but the house my father built wasn’t anything like that. It sat on the edge of town, right on the lake, with a paved driveway that wound its way from the road through a long green yard, ducking in and out of the shade of towering elms. Near the house was a stone fence, bordered by five-foot hedges. But still, you could see the house from a great distance, towering into the sky, three stories tall, with large arched windows gaping at you.

When I was a child, I spent my summers in that house. My mother, Seraphina, and I would walk around barefoot in thin cotton dresses and large straw hats. We’d sleep late and have picnics on the lawn. In the afternoons, we’d swim out to the raft and lie spread-eagle on it, letting the sun lick us dry. In the evenings, we’d camp out in a tent and tell ghost stories, the canvas top of the tent so thin we could see the stars. On the weekends, my father would come up from the city. We’d run out to meet him when we heard his car turn down the drive and he’d pick us up and swing us around until we laughed with dizziness. He’d grill swordfish for us on the back porch and read poetry to my mother. I could still see her in my mind—her feet propped up on a chair, her eyes closed but her head tilted in the direction of my father’s voice as he read to her and I chased Seraphina, squealing, through the sprinklers.

At the train station, while I waited on the platform for the six thirty train from Reading, my phone rang. It was my sister.

“Don’t be mad,” she said by way of greeting.

“Did you miss your train?” I asked.