He balances the box against his hip with one hand and holds out a sprig of plastic mistletoe with the other. “You brought it when you came to visit me in Manhattan the Christmas after we met. Remember?”
She remembers. She used a thumbtack to hang it in his bedroom doorway while he was at work, and it later fell onto their heads while they were kissing. That night, they shared a bottle of champagne to celebrate the end of her semester. When they went their separate ways the next morning to spend the holidays with their respective families—-he and his mother were flying to Texas to visit his sister that year—-Jake predicted they’d never spend another Christmas apart.
He was right.
And we never will, she vows fiercely. “Where did you find that old thing?”
“On the floor. It must have fallen out of one of the boxes we kept from back before we had the kids. I really need to clean this place out one of these days. There’s stuff just thrown everywhere.”
“That’s way down on your honey--do list. Come on, let’s go downstairs and I’ll make pancakes.”
“It’s way past breakfast, sleeping beauty.”
“Then we’ll have them for lunch,” she says, wishing he hadn’t called her that.
Right now, she doesn’t want to think about the Sleeping Beauty murders: dead schoolgirls eerily turning up tucked into beds all over town—-girls no one had ever seen before, whose identities were never known.
“Hey, why aren’t you dressed?” Jake looks her up and down. “Aren’t you cold?”
“Freezing. I just got out of bed, and I didn’t know where you were.”
“That’s what you get when you sleep for almost fifteen hours straight,” he says lightly, setting down the box, unzipping his sweatshirt, and handing it to her.
“You don’t have to—-”
“It’s okay, I worked up a sweat up here.” He picks up the box again and heads down the steep flight of steps.
She wraps the sweatshirt around herself. It’s soft and warm and it smells like fabric softener and like him. She shoves the mistletoe into the pocket, puts up the hood, and bunches the fabric in both hands, pressing it to her nose so that she can breathe the comforting familiar scent as she follows him down, limping along on her splintered toe. When they reach the second floor, she turns off the light, closes the attic door, and locks it.
“Wait—-we still need the rest of the decorations.”
“Mick can grab them later. Go ahead downstairs. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Agreeable, and looking forward to pancakes, he whistles as he continues on down to the first floor.
Chiming steeple bells in a nearby church are getting on Casey’s nerves.
“Dammit. Dammit! Shut up!”
The bells continue to peal, reverberating the reminder that it’s a Sunday.
Casey has always hated Sundays.
No—-that isn’t true.
There was a time, back in childhood, when life was good and Sundays were especially idyllic. Sleeping late, eating home--cooked dinners with everyone at the table, watching sports on television—-unless it was nice enough outside to throw a ball or Frisbee around with the neighborhood kids . . .
Ah, the good old days.
More recent Sundays may not have entailed cozy family time, but there’s something to be said for a day of rest, even if it’s occasionally a lonely one.
Then came that terrible Sunday last year.
Sunday, bloody Sunday . . .
The U2 song drifts into Casey’s head, drowning out the church bells.
“They’re my favorite band. I’ve seen them in concert a few times,” Rowan once said, many years ago. “I’d love to go again . . .”
It sounded like an invitation.
She was such a flirt. Damn her.
Now the lyrics march through Casey’s brain, lyrics about wanting to close your eyes and make it go away . . .
But you can’t do that. You can’t escape.
Casey reaches for the first scrapbook, always kept close at hand.
On the first page is a yellowed newspaper clipping announcing Vanessa De Forrest’s birth; on the last is her obituary. Displayed on the pages in between are painstakingly preserved mementos.