Page 43 of The Homemaker

“Bruised ego? Is that why you haven’t played again?” she asks, tossing the red bag right into the hole.

“Maybe.” I take my turn and miss the board.

Alice gets ready to pitch her next bag.

“But mostly it’s because I’ve tried to forget that time in my life,” I say two seconds before she tosses it and misses the entire board by at least three feet.

And I know, right now, without a doubt—she remembers me.

She sips her drink, trying to look unaffected, but her other hand balls into a fist, and she cracks several knuckles.

There’s not enough alcohol on the premises to numb the pain in my chest. I thought it hurt when she didn’t recognize me. But this … it’s fucking torture.

She clears her throat after I chuck my next bag. “So you sold your vacation rental?”

“Yeah. My dad worked so hard to recover from a heart attack only to have an aneurysm take his life in a blink. He’d helped me convert the building into two separate living spaces, and we used to turn wood in the garage together.” I shrugged after she tossed her next bag and made it on the board again, but not in the hole. “The place held too many memories of my dad and … someone else. I needed a fresh start.”

Alice doesn’t say a word or look at me as we toss our last two bags.

“Do you still turn wood?” she asks as we collect our bags.

“No.”

She brushes her auburn hair out of her face when thebreeze tangles it. “But you’re marrying an artist. Does she encourage you to do it again?”

I shake my head, eyeing the hole only to throw the bag way past the board. “She doesn’t know I ever did it.”

“What?” She squints at me, mouth agape. “Why not?”

“Like I said. A fresh start.” I’m not sure anything feels fresh about my new life since Alice is here.

“Does a fresh start mean your past doesn’t exist?” she asks.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

Alice shifts her attention from me to the board. “I’m asking you. What I think doesn’t matter.”

“But what if it does?”

She returns a nervous laugh before sipping her drink. After she swallows, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “It shouldn’t. I’m just the homemaker. A virtual stranger.”

I take a step closer, and she seems to hold her breath as I reach for her face to brush a few hairs away from it, but then I stop and return my hand to my side. It hurts to look at her like a stranger. My mind might know how to play tricks, but my heart is incapable of such games. “You’re the most familiar stranger I’ve ever met. And eventually, I’m going to figure out why you feel so familiar.”

It’s reminiscent of when my mom used to catch me or my sister in a lie, and she’d give us every opportunity to confess before calling us out.

Alice presses her lips together, and I can’t tell in the dim light, but it looks like she has tears in her eyes.

“Well, I should get back to?—”

“Your fiancée,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” I murmur, dropping my head and staringat her bare feet as she curls her toes into the grass. For a breath, I close my eyes and go back eight years.

“Murphy, do you walk barefoot in the grass? You should. This is the softest spot, right here by the fence.”

“Alice, that’s where Palmer pees the most.”

“Yuck! Why didn’t you tell me before now?”