Her back hurt less if she walked very slowly. She wore a tank top and stretch pants, her hair in a ponytail. Because she was Gertie, she also had on hoop earrings, a long chain necklace to distinguish her cleavage, and silver eye shadow. She walked around the back of her house so the cop parked out front wouldn’t see.
Her lawn was small and caked with littered things: a Wiffle ball, a deflated basketball, some boxing gloves. The Slip ’N Slide had ruined anything resembling grass. What remained was a top layer of sand oil. She walked past all this, and cut her way through the naked privets that divided the plots.
Into the Schroeders’ property. The grass here had a green hue. Despite the drought, they hadn’t shut off their underground sprinklers. There was more oil back here, too. It pooled. Her eyes followed to the thickest center, where some birds were trapped. It was like a bath they couldn’t escape. What startled her wasn’t the sight, but the realization that these were the first birds she’d seen in weeks.
Gertie came to the back of the Schroeders’ huge Tudor. The kind little girls dream about, if they’re taught to have those kinds of dreams. The windows were all open. Everyone’s windows were open. The heat.
Slowly, she tried to twist the back doorknob. It didn’t turn. Locked. She lifted the straw WELCOME mat. Underneath was a copper-colored key.
She pushed it into the lock. It wouldn’t turn. Not a fit. Not a fit?
A few strides to the side, surrounded by hedges, gutter stairs led down. She walked them, slow and unsteady. The steps were caked in years-old grime. She got to the bottom. The cellar door.
The key fit. She turned it, ever so softly. A click!
She opened the basement door to the Schroeders’ house.
Inside, the soft floor had cracked. Shining bitumen pushed through. It webbed and then pooled in the middle of the room and when Gertie stood over it, she could see her own reflection. It came back distorted, her face a bluish tint, her eyes reddish black. A couple of mice squeaked, trapped in its morass. Her shoes got filthy and she couldn’t help but make tracks as she walked into the next room.
She’d never been down here. Hadn’t known this basement was finished. There was a dry bar, unused. She looked behind. Instead of bottles, a stack of bricks. Bright red.
She snapped a photo with her phone.
She opened a closet door. Empty red wine bottles were stacked. Maybe fifty. Maybe one hundred. It was hard to count. The dark walls inside seemed to glimmer. She flashed her phone light and saw that this glimmer was the gossamer wings of small fruit flies, trapped in oil on the walls and floor and even the ceiling. She covered her mouth with her shirt, afraid the stench might contaminate the baby.
She opened the next closet. Here was the same. Bottles. Empty but not properly washed, so they smelled fermented and sweet. Glimmering with trapped flies. Rhea must have been hiding them here ever since the sinkhole. The garbage men couldn’t get through. She must not have wanted to use the community bin by the 7-Eleven, worried neighbors might discover how many bottles she went through every week. Gertie’d known that Rhea could knock them back. But she’d never guessed it was this bad.
Where was Fritz in all of this? Did he see what was happening in his home? Did he care?
To keep from tracking oil, she took off her shoes and tucked them behind the landing, then started up the stairs. Opened up. This door led to the open kitchen, which stretched along marble counters and nooks and stainless steel appliances, all the way to the dining room in the front of the house.
It smelled clean in here. Like bleach. And vaguely, like something burnt.
Her heart beat fast at the wide-openness of this first floor. Here, there was no place to hide. She could get in trouble if she got caught. Jail. With Arlo gone, the kids could wind up in foster care.
Her heart was pounding. Guppy kicked, too.
She walked slow. Through the open room. Past the Schroeder family Christmas photos neatly magnetized to the refrigerator, marking every year for the last twenty-plus. Red sweaters, blue sweaters, green sweaters—they always matched. Past the strangely blackened sink. Past the oak dining table that was Rhea’s prize. There were plates scattered across it and stuck-on crumbs. What looked like spilled milk that hadn’t been sponged, too. It had ruined the wood.
Gertie walked out and through the hall. She could see the front yard from here. Her own small house with chipped paint and random, rusted toys strewn all over. It was dumpy. They hadn’t taken care. She’d never seen it from this vantage before and it left her so embarrassed she stopped looking.
She started up the stairs. Creaking, creaking. She could hear sounds coming from the bedrooms. Ella and FJ. Where were they? Would they catch her?
Creak, creak, creak.