The Night Sister

Margot was undeterred.

“Amy also wanted to talk about the possibility of getting a grant to help save the motel! She’d been taking some business classes at the community college and had this idea to reopen the motel with a retro theme. She’d actually written out a really solid business plan.”

“Wow,” Piper said, setting the old newspaper back down. “Ambitious.”

“Yeah,” Margot said. “And this was just last week, Piper. Tell me, does that sound like a woman getting ready to go on a killing spree? To kill her whole family and then herself?”

Piper shook her head uncertainly. Margot went on.

“I mean, I know she had some other stuff going on—her mom, for one.”

“Rose? What happened with her?”

“From what little Amy said, it sounded like some kind of dementia. It’s so awful. Remember how Rose was never really around when we were kids? But then, a few years ago, Rose shows up at the motel and moves back into the house. She isn’t drinking, and seems totally fine. According to Amy, she and Lou really bonded. I saw them around town together all the time—at the market, going for ice cream. Amy and her husband worked a lot, so Rose was with Lou and Levi after school every day. It was like Rose had a second chance—she wasn’t a mother to Amy growing up, but she was grandma of the year.”

Piper nodded, suddenly remembering a recent batch of photos Amy had posted on Facebook—an older woman sitting with the family, opening gifts on Christmas morning; the same woman playing dolls with a little blonde girl who must be Lou. Piper hadn’t recognized Rose—she’d never met her, had only ever known Amy’s mother as the little girl in the photograph standing beside her sister, Sylvie, clutching a chicken. But she could see it now.

Margot continued. “Then Amy says that, all of a sudden, her mom got confused, paranoid, not sure what was real and what wasn’t. They just couldn’t risk it—not with the kids. So they put her in a nursing home about a month ago.”

“Terrible,” Piper said. “Does she know? About Amy and her family?”

Margot let out a breath. “Jason said that a couple of officers went to talk to her early this morning, to tell her what had happened out at the motel. According to them, she didn’t say a word. Acted like they were invisible.”

“That’s so sad.”

“Maybe. But maybe she’s got it easy. She doesn’t have to deal with what’s happening.”

Piper looked up at the photo of the old Slater farm and noticed that there was a figure standing by the barn in the back left corner. She couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, only a shadowy smudge in the shape of a person.

Margot looked up at Piper, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears. “If only we’d tried harder. We should have been there for her. Should have stayed close. I think that maybe, when she came to my office, she was reaching out to me—to both of us.”

“What?”

“She asked about you. Wanted to hear what you were up to. She seemed…I don’t know…kind of nostalgic. Like she missed us.”

Piper shook her head; she could no longer act like none of this was striking a nerve.

“Missed us? She didn’t want anything to do with us after that summer, Margot. She made that clear. She’s the one who cut all ties, and acted like she barely recognized us.”

She remembered passing Amy in the halls at school, how Amy would avoid catching Piper’s eye, making a point to look anywhere but at her. How Amy walked right by Piper on the school bus every morning and afternoon, calling to her new friends at the back of the bus, and ignoring that Piper had saved her a seat.

“But she needed us,” Margot said, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand, “and we weren’t there. Maybe this…this nightmare wouldn’t have happened if we’d tried harder.”

“That’s insane. How can you think that?”