She couldn’t imagine how Hannah Abrams would react to a counter full of foil-wrapped baking dishes. She remembered Hannah that afternoon in the grocery store parking lot, so perfectly put together, so aloof, and how that aloofness had turned cold when Verity came out of the store. It was impossible to picture her breaking down in grief, or comforting Cassie, or standing beside her husband while the funeral director told them about different styles of coffins.
“I wonder how Cassie’s doing,” she said. “I mean—that was a stupid thing to say. This must be awful for her. Maybe—oh, god, I wonder how Ethan’s doing. We should have called him yesterday. I should have called, right? Is that the right thing to do?”
Grandma let go of Sorrow’s hand to pick up her notebook. We can ask Jody if the family needs anything.
“Right. Yeah.” Sorrow had never spoken to Ethan’s mother, but Grandma was right. This was the kind of thing mothers were supposed to deal with. “Okay, so that’s—oh, shoot. I think I’m scheduled to work today.”
For a moment the prospect was an appealing one, however shaky she was feeling. To escape a repeat of yesterday’s long, heavy silence, to break through the imaginary wall around the orchard and remind herself she wasn’t eight years old and stuck here dreading the sound of a police car on the driveway. The store could be a refuge, if only for an afternoon, with Kavita’s endless chatter and tourists wandering in to ask questions about tents and bears and blisters.
But it wouldn’t only be Kavita, and it wouldn’t only be tourists. At some point the bell over the door would jangle, and it would be Mrs. Roche or somebody like her, locals Sorrow knew by sight if not by name, and even if she weathered the unsubtle staring she would hear the whispers: Isn’t that the girl who found . . . ? Oh, yes, she’s the one. She’s the Lovegood girl. Everybody in town would be talking about Julie, and that it had been Sorrow who found her. An Abrams tragedy on Lovegood land. That was too juicy too resist.
“I guess I can call them and see what they say,” Sorrow said.
Grandma didn’t offer an opinion either way. She patted Sorrow’s hand one more time and stood to go back to her dough. Sorrow stared at her shoulders, willing her to shrug, to nod, to do something to indicate whether Sorrow was doing the right thing. For the first time since she had come back to Vermont—perhaps the first time in her life—she felt a spike of genuine anger at her grandmother’s silence.
But Grandma only kept kneading.
Sorrow sighed. “I’ll call them,” she said.
It was Helen Ghosh who answered, and she told Sorrow at once she didn’t need to come in.
“I can if you really need me to,” Sorrow offered. She couldn’t decide if she was relieved or dismayed. “And tomorrow is fine.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Helen said. “We’ll be fine. We’ll just make Kavita work extra.” There was a muffled “Hey!” in the background, and Helen said, “Speak of the devil; she wants to talk to you. Take care of yourself, Sorrow. Let us know if you need anything.”
A rustle as the phone changed hands, and Kavita said, “You should consider yourself forewarned that if you take Mom up on her offer, it will be food, and food will probably be a pot of masoor dal big enough to drown in.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing,” Sorrow said, “but we’re fine. Nothing happened to us. It’s just, you know.”
“It’s fucked up, is what it is,” Kavita said. “I can’t believe she did that. I mean, everybody knew she had problems, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see she had an eating disorder of some kind, but . . . I thought her family was the kind that would get her into therapy if she needed it.”
Sorrow thought about what Sheriff Reyes had said about Julie being troubled for a very long time. There was an ache in her throat, a knot of choked-back tears; she rubbed at her chest right below the hollow of her neck. “Maybe they did. Maybe it wasn’t enough.”
“Yeah. Have you talked to Ethan?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Me neither. He’s been doing the one-word text answer thing. Mahesh is going over there later.” A brief pause, then Kavita said, her voice serious, “But, really, are you okay? That has to be—I mean. It is so fucked up.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Sorrow said.
A lie, such a lie, but she couldn’t give voice to the quivery feeling in her chest, the way her mind turned in every unwary moment to her walk through the silvery cold moonlight, the glow of firelight below, and Julie’s hair falling over her face in a sleek curtain. She squeezed her eyes shut and she held her breath, terrified for a moment that Kavita was going to ask her, what was it like, what did you see—all the things Sorrow couldn’t bear to talk about again.
But Kavita didn’t ask, only told Sorrow she’d see her later and said good-bye.
Sorrow turned to Grandma. “Is Verity already outside? What’s she working on?”
Grandma wrinkled her brow.
“You don’t know?”
A shake of her head, and Grandma glanced upward.
“Or you mean—she hasn’t come down yet? But it’s—”
Sorrow looked at the clock on the range. Almost ten. Hours past the time Verity normally woke. “What do you mean? Did she come down or not?”
Grandma only shook her head again, and her expression was uncertain. Sorrow stood up—her chair scraped loudly on the floor—and she ran for the stairs.
Verity’s door was closed. Sorrow should have noticed. Verity’s door was always open when Sorrow emerged in the morning because Verity was always awake first, but today it was closed. She had walked right by. She hadn’t seen. She reached for the knob. Her heart was pounding and her breath was short and she felt the same wild, irrational fear she had felt the other night, when she’d woken in the cold and known something was wrong. She didn’t even know where it was coming from, this anxious fear of what lay beyond that door. She was probably overreacting. Verity had been up late last night. She could have slept in. She was allowed to do that.
Sorrow let go of the knob and knocked softly. “Verity? Are you awake?”
The stairs creaked behind her: Grandma was following.
“We just want to see if you’re up,” Sorrow said.
Still no answer. Sorrow looked at her grandmother for help, but Grandma looked as lost as she felt.
She turned the knob. It would be dark beyond the door. A darkness deep and growing, shadows reaching from every corner of the room, and the air would be stuffy, close, sickly. She didn’t want to open the door. She didn’t want to see what was on the other side. A shape in the bed, unmoving.
She pushed the door open. “Hey, we’re wondering where you—”
The window and curtain were open, filling the room with soft light and fresh air. Verity was sitting on the edge of her bed. Her hair hung in messy strands around her face. She was wearing her cotton sleep shirt over a pair of jeans, as though she had started to get dressed but had run out of energy before she could finish.
“Hey,” Sorrow said, and she stopped.