normal. It was silent and too large around her, as if it had been hollowed out. The wrongness in her yard had its nose pressed against her glass doors, and she felt something small and feral scrabbling in her belly. Every time she thought she’d lose herself in her work, the something would run one spiky tooth along her stomach lining. It was too quiet, as if Daddy had herded everyone together and they had crept out of the house and driven away, leaving Laurel alone with her ghosts.
She set down a finished rosebud and leaned over to press the listen button on the intercom system. She could hear the faint sounds of Billy Elliot, dancing his skinny guts out up in the rec room, but Shelby and Bet weren’t talking. She supposed Mother and Daddy were eating in the dining room, where the intercom system had no receiver. The closest one was around the corner in the entryway. Laurel’s kitchen table could fit a cozy six, but Mother preferred the pecan table in Laurel’s formal dining room. She’d perch at the foot and survey the gorgeous antique china displayed in the built-ins. David’s mother had given that china to them after Shelby came. A belated wedding present, even though—as she’d pointed out several thousand times—five minutes with a justice of the peace was hardly a wedding.
Laurel turned the volume on the intercom all the way up and caught the faint clatter of silver and Daddy buzzing air out his teeth, a sound he made between bites of food that really pleased him. The house ached with a grating silence. Laurel wasn’t the only one bothered by the quiet; her daddy needed voices around him. He turned on a TV or talk radio in every room he walked through.
The intercom system had a radio, and Laurel flipped it on. It was already set to a jazz station. Daddy liked jazz and would be happier with background noise, though if he and Mother were to talk, she wouldn’t hear, and the music couldn’t take the hollow taste out of the air.
She started laying the roses out on the bride’s face, shaping them into lips. When she sewed them on, she’d bunch them tight against one another. For now she wanted to get an idea of the mouth’s shape. She made the smile wide enough to show teeth and tongue. She’d have to fill that space.
There was a tap on the office door. “Laurel?” Mother was back, as if summoned by jazz.
Laurel swiveled in her chair and rolled herself across the tile, close enough to the door to crack it open without rising. “You said normal day. I’m normally trying to do my normal work,” she said. Her voice came out louder then she’d meant it to.
“I only came to see if you want me to bring you a plate. It’s hot chicken salad, and it’s getting stone cold.”
“I can microwave it later.”
“All right,” Mother said, but she’d eased forward, insinuating herself into the door’s rightful space so Laurel couldn’t close it. “Did you call Sissi Clemmens again?”
“I tried her not an hour ago.”
“You have to keep trying. You have to catch her when she’s home. And awake. And . . . taking calls.” She meant when Sissi wasn’t high. It was a narrow window. “I’m not sure Bet Clemmens is a good influence to have around Shelby right now.”
Laurel blinked. Bet Clemmens couldn’t influence the butter from one side of the table to another, much less have an impact on a small force of nature like Shelby. If anything, the influence ran the other way—Bet chose the kind of jeans Shelby liked at American Eagle Outfitters and agreed to try foods that she saw Shelby eating. Until last summer, Bet had never tasted lettuce that wasn’t iceberg.
“Bet Clemmens says strange things sometimes,” Laurel said. “She’s certainly a novelty, but Shelby doesn’t find her glamorous.”
“This is a time when Shelby might be more easily influenced than usual,” Mother said. “She’s been glued to that girl’s side ever since I got here.”
“I’ll try Sissi again,” Laurel said. She could hear impatience in her own voice, and yet her mother stayed.
“We’re still having lunch day after tomorrow. Yes?” Mother said.
Laurel had forgotten. She took Mother out to lunch, just the two of them, once or twice a month. Someplace fancy, and Laurel had already made reservations.
“I guess. Unless I’m taking Bet home. Or unless Shelby wants me.”
“Wonderful,” Mother said. “I’ll come here before. Daddy