Page 38

Natalie

Natalie’s mother shoots out of the house so fast she practically leaves contrails behind.

Her father stands there in the living room—his arms full of the linens that were thrust at him—looking a little lost.

Natalie doesn’t mind. She can ask more questions this way. She perches on the back of the sofa. “Do you need to unpack?”

“Nothing to unpack,” he says. “I guess that makes it easier. But I could use a shower.”

“Okay. Then we’ll have lunch,” Natalie says. “I’ll see if there’s anything good in the refrigerator.”

“All right.”

She buzzes around the kitchen while she waits for him, opening and closing the refrigerator, puzzling over what to make. She’s aiming for competence, but not like she’s trying too hard.

He joins her ten minutes later, hitching his hip against the counter. “What’s your go-to?”

“Honestly, I’m not feeling it.” The contents of the refrigerator aren’t promising. “Looks like it might be a grilled-cheese day. I’d say salads, but we’re out of lettuce. We could go out?”

Slowly, he shakes his head. “I can’t do that. I’m supposed to stay on the property if I’m not at work.”

She tries and fails to keep the shock off her face. “Wait. Do you have one of those... ?” She points at her ankle. She’s only seen those things on television.

His expression turns grim. “I will. Tomorrow, I think. I don’t know the rules yet, but I don’t wanna break them while I’m waiting to hear.”

“Okay. Fair. That’s gonna be a drag.”

“You’re telling me.” He rubs his forehead. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to find an apartment to rent when I can’t go look at them. Your mother is a saint for letting me stay here.”

“Grilled cheese it is then.” She pulls the cheese slices out of the drawer and gives the refrigerator a last look.

“Got a can of garbanzo beans somewhere?” he asks, looking over her shoulder. “I could make a chopped salad with that cucumber and that pepper and some feta cheese. To go with your sandwich.”

“Uh, sure?” She goes over to the pantry, finds a can, and hands it to him.

He pulls the cucumber out of the refrigerator, correctly guesses the locations of both the peeler and a cutting board, and sets himself up on the far side of the counter. “Can’t get enough vegetables. That’s the worst thing about prison food. Nothing fresh. Nothing goes crunch.”

Natalie absorbs this grim detail like a champ. Or she tries to. “What was it like?” she blurts a minute later. “Um, I mean, in jail?”

He’s quiet, and she wonders if he isn’t going to answer. “It’s mostly just very humiliating. You’re like a head of livestock, going where they want you to, when they want you to. Lots of picky rules. And no privacy.”

Kind of like living with Mom.

“And then you adjust to it, and that’s almost more unsettling. Like you forget how to think for yourself, and you have to fight off the impulse to just wait to be told what to do.”

Her heart sags. “Sounds grim.”

“It is pretty grim. It doesn’t help that I was always surrounded by people who are even more hopeless than me. Like they never had a chance to be anything but a problem.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. To cope, I had to work on having a really rich interior life. I listened to a lot of talk radio. Then I tried my hand at drawing a graphic novel.”

“Really? What about?”

“It’s not finished,” he cautions. “It’s science fiction. About a cyborg who doesn’t know he’s a cyborg, until a glitch clues him in. It’s a book about being in prison, honestly. But you’re supposed to write about what you know.”

He peels the cucumber in several quick strokes and then reaches for a knife in the block and begins to chop. “Before I go to work, I’ll order some groceries. Do you know what store delivers?”

“Hannaford,” she says. “Maybe Whole Foods, too?”

“All right.”

Natalie sets up the griddle and starts in on two grilled-cheeses. She’s careful not to burn them, because that would be so embarrassing.

A few minutes later they’re sitting down to a better lunch than Natalie would ever have made on her own. “This is nice,” she says uselessly.

He cocks his head to the side and smiles at her. “Happy to have lunch with you while I can. I’ll only be here a few days. And I’m going to be working a lot and staying out of your mother’s way. She seems really stressed.”

“Oh, she is. That guy was bad news even before he died on her.”

He frowns. “Bad news how?”

“Do you want to hear my theory of how he got killed?”

The corners of his mouth twitch. “It sounds like you want to tell it to me.”

“Well, it’s weird, right? He dies in front of that house, and they took all his stuff from his car. Like a robbery. But they also took his notebooks. He was a journalist. I think he was working on a story about the mansion. He was adopted from there, I think. It used to be a home for unwed women.”

“I knew that,” he says. “My mother worked there when I was little.”

“She... What? Seriously?” Natalie puts down her sandwich.

“Yeah, that’s what she told me once.”

“Doing what job?”

“Could have been anything. She worked a lot of jobs when I was young. Hotel maid. Waitress.” He shrugs. “This will sound weird to you, because you and your mom are close. But my mother was kind of a mystery to me. Things were okay when I was little—back when my dad was still paying child support. But then our lives got hard, and she just kind of gave up. Did drugs. Stayed out all night.”

“Oh.” He had an unhappy childhood , her mother had said.

He shrugs again. “Not everyone is built to be a survivor. And she didn’t have help. Her parents kicked her out when she got pregnant with me. I used to be mad at her. But then I had some bad luck myself, and now I understand her a little better.”

Natalie nods. But her mind is churning on something else. “Can I show you something?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. She bolts from the table and runs upstairs, where her backpack was abandoned the minute school got out last week and not touched since. She digs out the saint medallion. Runs back downstairs.

“Here,” she says a minute later, dropping it into his hand. “Remember this?”

“Wow. Yeah.” He turns it over in his palm. “This was hers. You’ve had it all this time?”

“Uh-huh.” She doesn’t mention that she used to wear it almost every day. “Do you know where she got it?”

He looks up at her with gray eyes that are so much like her own. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. Why do you need to know?”

“Because he had one, too. The dead guy. They found it in his car.”

“That’s really odd, Natty,” he says quietly. “What does your mother think?”

“She thinks he was after the name of his birth mother before he died. That he was trying to write a story about the Wincotts, and he basically used Mom to learn stuff.”

He puts down his fork. “That’s a dick move.”

“Well, yeah.” She grabs her sandwich again, because gossip is hungry work. “She found the last name of Tim’s birth mother. And she tried googling her, but she doesn’t seem to exist.”

“Hmm.” He watches her chew with a soft expression. “Maybe she was a cyborg who didn’t know she was a cyborg.”

Natalie laughs suddenly and almost coughs with her mouth full. Smooth . “When do I get to see this graphic novel?”

“Probably never,” he says, picking up a sandwich half. “But if I ever finish it, you can have the first copy.”

***

After lunch, they do the dishes together. Then her father disappears into his room to make some calls. “I have to figure out the housing situation,” he says.

It’s tempting to sit on the sofa and wait for him to reappear. Like a lonely puppy. But Natalie goes upstairs instead.

She flops down on her bed and opens her phone to find messages from Tessa.

Tessa: Well????? Is it weird? Is it cool?

It’s both, but for once she doesn’t feel like dissecting it. And she’s supposed to be looking for a summer job. Her mother will ask if she applied anywhere.

She opens her laptop and halfheartedly googles a few touristy shops on the waterfront. Her mother says that’s her best shot—stores that need seasonal help.

After a few minutes, she finds herself googling Saint Raymond instead. The results are mostly from Catholic websites.

L. Peoples , she tries next. Nothing.

Laura Peoples. Lisa Peoples. Lucy Peoples . It turns out that Peoples is a terrible search term, and pretty unusual for a name.

Did you mean Peebles? asks Google.

So that’s what she tries next: L Peebles Portland Maine .

The screen lights up with possibilities. She clicks the link for Facebook, because this woman is old. Sixty at least.

Facebook gives her several L. Peebles results. Lily? Lisa? They’re both too young.

She almost scrolls past Laura, because her avatar is a picture of a sunset, which isn’t helpful. But she clicks on the link, just in case, and scrolls through her feed. It consists mostly of uplifting memes. Be kind . Everyone is fighting a battle that you can’t see . I only drink wine on days ending in Y . And so on.

She’s about to give up when she finds an interesting photo. Someone’s tagged Laura in a group shot of four women outside a stone church. They’re working at what looks like a bake sale. And holy shit. One of the women is familiar.

Natalie doesn’t know her, but she knows exactly where she’s seen her before.