“Thanks. I mean, I did, too, of course. It all ended so weird.” The words sounded hollow, probably because she didn’t mean it. Alicia pulled her mug closer to her to warm her fingers on it. The truth was that she’d rarely thought of Theresa after she’d left their lives. There’d been a lot going on. If not for the Internet, she doubted they would ever have reconnected.
“It was not an easy time,” Theresa said. “But my dad and Galina splitting up couldn’t possibly compare to what you and your family had to deal with. I can’t really even imagine it.”
Alicia didn’t want to imagine it, either. Years later, and the memories of that time were still strong enough to turn her stomach. Some of that must’ve shown on her face, because Theresa’s expression twisted.
“I’m sorry. If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”
Alicia had spent her life not talking about it. She’d not talked about it so much there didn’t seem anything to say about it. She stood. “I should get going. I have a bunch of things I need to do at the shop, including running some numbers so I can get a better handle on this offer.”
“Sounds good. If you need something else from me, just let me know. I mean about anything,” Theresa added.
“Will you be going back to the house?”
The other woman shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. But Ilya . . .”
Alicia frowned. “Yeah? What about him?”
“I’m a little worried about him. That’s all.” Theresa coughed uncomfortably. “We had kind of an argument a few nights ago. If you see him, could you tell him that I’d like to talk to him?”
“I can give you his phone number—”
Theresa shook her head quickly. “I have it. He’s not answering my texts or calls.”
Alicia sighed. “Yeah. He can be like that.”
“I know. I just . . .” Theresa cleared her throat again. “If you could tell him I said I was sorry. That’s all. I’d appreciate it.”
“Sure.” Alicia nodded and stood to give Theresa a hug. It wasn’t the other woman’s fault she and Ilya hadn’t made Go Deep into what it might’ve been. It wasn’t Theresa’s problem that they were tied to each other and that place by what had happened to Jennilynn. And it wasn’t her fault Alicia had made the choices she had. “It was good to see you. I’ll be in touch.”
“It’s a good offer,” Theresa said. “I know it might not seem like it, but I promise you I’ve worked with them to make it as fair as possible.”
Alicia knew better than to think that any big real estate company was going to put anyone’s interests before its own, but she smiled anyway. “I’m sure. Thanks. I’ll talk to Ilya about it. I can’t make any promises . . .”
“Of course not,” Theresa said. “But think about it. Okay?”
“Sure. Okay.” Alicia nodded and watched the other woman leave the coffee shop.
It wasn’t about money. It had never been. It was about the quarry.
Then
Alicia didn’t tell her parents she still went out to the quarry. She wasn’t sure they’d forbid her to go, not that they could, really. She was almost twenty years old. Yeah, she still lived in their house, ate their food, didn’t pay rent, but if they didn’t expect her to be home by any sort of curfew, she didn’t think they’d tell her they didn’t want her wandering around in her childhood stomping grounds, either. When they asked her where she’d been, she told them work. Out with friends. Shopping. She lied to her parents not because she didn’t want them to worry, but because she was more afraid they wouldn’t. That there wouldn’t be any comments about how morbid it was for her to go to the old equipment shed, where she sat as though the beat-up, old wooden shack with the light streaming through the cracks in the roof and walls was some kind of church. When she sat there, prayer was the furthest thing from her mind.
Jennilynn had died three years ago.
Alicia never brought flowers, but there was almost always a bouquet there. Sometimes more than one, in various stages of rottenness. In the summer, the stink inside the shed was enough to turn her stomach, but in the crisp autumn air, there was nothing but the lingering hint of cigarette smoke and the faint perfume of flowers only recently dead.
They used to keep candles here, and matches, thinking it made them big shots to have access to fire. She was surprised they never burned the shed to the ground, filled as it was with various bits of old papers and junked office furniture, with dried leaves that blew in through the cracks and never blew out. She looked around now to see if there was a candle to burn, but no kids seemed to hang out in there anymore, not even the few who lived in the new houses being built all along Quarry Street. She couldn’t blame them. If there was a haunted place in Quarrytown, this shed would’ve been it.
Jennilynn’s body had been discovered in the water. She hadn’t drowned. She’d stripped out of her clothes in the shed and left them there, then tried to go swimming, but had fallen off the rocks and broken her neck. When they were looking for her, the shed was the place where they’d finally found a clue about where to find her. It brought Alicia a sort of peace to sit there, in the silence unbroken but for the occasional cry of the crows outside or the scamper of squirrels in the leaves. She liked to sit with her eyes closed. Thinking.
Once, her sister had said she didn’t know what she wanted to be when she grew up. She didn’t have to decide now, not ever. Sometimes, though, Alicia tried to think about what Jennilynn might have done with her life. It was easier than trying to figure out what she should do with her own.
The crunch of feet in the leaves outside turned her head. From something much bigger than a squirrel. Not a dog . . . or a deer. It was the distinct sound of human feet pushing through the branches, and Alicia drew into herself. She put herself in shadows to keep hidden from some random glimpse from a stranger’s eyes through the old shed’s cracks, because surely whoever it was would keep on hiking by.
When the door, hanging by one hinge, creaked open, her heart pounded so fast and hard that for a moment she saw the red-and-gray throb of a faint coming on in the corners of her vision. She had no weapon but the jagged, broken leg of a wooden chair she found in a corner. She gripped it, white-knuckled, not sure what she meant to do with it, only that she would do whatever she had to.
The man in the doorway wore a slouchy knit cap over rumpled dark hair. An unbuttoned red-and-black flannel shirt over a mismatched green T and a pair of faded jeans with holes in the knees and ragged hems hanging over battered work boots. She was ready to hit him with the broken chair leg but held back at the last second when she recognized him.
“Ilya,” she said on a gasp of relief as she lowered the leg. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” He looked at the impromptu weapon, then at her face. Beyond her to the scattered remains of all the flowers. “I didn’t know you came here.”