Jamie. I rolled the name around in my mouth, already leaving Jessica behind. I could be Jamie. I could make up a whole new person.
I looked at the new ID again. Jamie Caldwell. I glanced at Dani, who was staring at a photo of a boy on the kitchen wall. He looked like he was in his twenties, big like Patrick with the same green eyes but black hair. He was wearing boxing shorts and gloves, posed with his fists close to his face, his eyes serious.
Patrick followed the direction of our eyes. “That was Stephen, my son.”
I could tell by the look on Patrick’s face that he didn’t want us to ask what had happened to him. Dani stared down at her ID, her face flushed like she felt bad for being caught staring. I glanced at Karen, flipping eggs at the stove. She’d mangled one and was trying to put it back together, scraping at its edges carefully, cursing under her breath.
*
Over the next couple of weeks Patrick showed us how to clean the gym and work the front desk. He didn’t have a lot of work for three girls so we also had to get other jobs. Once we put some money together we’d be paying rent, but he’d said he’d give us a deal.
Dani and Courtney found jobs waitressing right away and worked most nights, but I wasn’t having any luck and would sit awake in the apartment for hours. I wasn’t used to being alone so much—every creak and noise in the building made me jump. I’d think about Dad, how we used to wait up for him when we were kids, the sound of his boots on the stairs that last night. Then I’d think about heaven and hell, wondering where I would end up now that I’d killed him, wondering if my mom would be ashamed of me.
I didn’t go to bed until one of my sisters was home.
At the gym I helped Patrick organize his office and made sure people were up-to-date on memberships.
“Be nice to get this all on the computer,” he said.
“No problem. I took a class in school.” I was relieved I’d have something more to occupy my time—and my mind.
Karen showed Courtney how to teach some of the aerobics classes and she caught on fast. I liked watching her do the complicated steps, bouncing up and down to the music, her blond hair in a ponytail. She’d dyed it platinum. Dani and I had gone the other way, darker, more of a chocolate brown. I liked how it made my eyes greener. It suited Dani too. She was still playing with her new short cut, trying different things, spiking it up or making it all messy. It made her seem older. I wanted to cut mine too but Karen said I had nice hair. She trimmed it one night for me, gave me bangs and showed me how to blow-dry it smooth and straight so it grazed my collarbone. She said the bangs made me look mysterious. I wasn’t sure about that, but I liked that I looked different.
I looked like Jamie.
We practiced our new names every day, calling them out to each other, saying them over and over as we went to bed. I’d stare at Courtney, saying, Crystal, Crystal, Crystal, again and again in my mind, but she was still Courtney to me and I had to think about her new name every time I spoke, hesitating when we were around people. It was hard with Dani too, but her new name suited her short haircut, the way she walked around the gym in workout clothes Patrick had found for us, her hair slicked back with sweat, her tanned arms all sinews, the muscles bunching and flexing as she practiced her jabs and uppercuts for hours.
I slipped my new name on in the morning like it was a new outfit. I practiced walking different, holding myself different, my shoulders up, my eyes challenging. Jamie. I made myself answer the phone with a confident voice, “Phoenix Boxing. How can we help you?” With each file I transferred onto the computer, each box that I removed, I felt more in control, more like maybe things would be okay, maybe we could build ourselves new lives. But I was still afraid—of Brian and Gavin, of the police finding us, afraid everything would fall apart.
Courtney and I shared a bedroom again—Dani was across the hall. I woke up yelling some nights, other times Courtney or Dani woke me up yelling out. Sometimes I just heard one of them crying. I wasn’t always sure which one, but it didn’t matter—we shared the same pain, the same nightmares.
Sometimes I just walked around the apartment checking the locks, padding through the hall, sitting in the armchair for hours, watching the door.
We didn’t talk about Dad or what had happened in Cash Creek. We didn’t talk about the ranch, our old house, Ingrid and Walter and Corey. They were all gone.
Patrick and Karen never asked about the dark circles under our eyes in the morning—we often had breakfast with them at their house, which was walking distance from the gym. Karen would talk to Courtney about some music she wanted to create a routine around, and Patrick would tell Dani he wanted to teach her a new combination, and they’d pile my plate with more food, Karen laughing.