up without saying anything. He was probably out of range. Then she tried Crystal’s number, praying with every cell of her body that her friend would pick up, laugh and explain that she’d been swept away and ended up at a roadside motel with her ex-husband.
No such luck.
With a sigh, Lily tiptoed upstairs to check on her friend’s children. Crystal’s house was cluttered but beautiful, vintage furniture giving it a special air of permanence. It felt strangely intimate, almost invasive, to watch Crystal’s children sleep.
Cameron lay facedown and spread-eagled, the covers in a tangle around his gangly limbs. Dim light through the window washed over the clutter of his room—schoolbooks, laundry, golf paraphernalia. There was a peculiar smell of gym shoes and grass in here, and the trash can overflowed with empty food wrappers. Crystal said he ate like a tapeworm host.
Lily backed out of the room and closed the door, then went to check on the girls. Charlie slept amid a litter of stuffed animals. The glow of a SpongeBob night-light gave the toys a glassy-eyed, strangely sinister look, though Charlie seemed content enough.
Across the room, Ashley had thrown off all her covers. She stirred and snuffled as Lily bent over the side of the crib and pulled a blanket up over her. As she tucked it around Ashley, Lily felt a peculiar warm contentment, stirred by the simple act of checking on the sleeping baby. The girls were so little, totally dependent. For someone not cut out to have kids, Lily was occasionally a victim of biological impulse, attacked by untimely tugs of a yearning she didn’t know how to assuage.
A peculiar weight pressed down on her. She was going to kill Crystal for being such a flake and disappearing like this.
She tiptoed out of the baby’s room and went downstairs to put the kettle on. She caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror and grimaced. Her hair was frizzed, her cheek imprinted with the texture of the sofa’s upholstery. How charming.
She ducked into the bathroom to rinse her mouth, splash water on her face and drag a comb through her hair. Then she pressed her hands down flat on the countertop and tried to make them stop trembling.
It didn’t work. Nothing worked. Only seeing Crystal walk through the door, blowing kisses and waving excuses around like a lace handkerchief, would help now.
Worry felt like a live, loathsome thing, twisting and writhing in Lily’s gut. This, she thought, feeling nauseous and light-headed, this was what loving someone did to you. The moment you started to care about someone, they made you frantic with worry. As soon as you let yourself love someone, you were doomed.
She rinsed her face again and glanced into the mirror. This was how she would look forty years from now, her face scored by lines of concern, eyes troubled and haunted by factors beyond her control. Old and afraid—that was how she looked.
Crystal liked to tease her about her habit of avoiding matters of the heart. “You’re like someone who’s afraid of water,” she once said.
“I am afraid of water,” Lily had reminded her.
“And it’s totally irrational.”
“No, giving yourself heart and soul to someone else and expecting to be taken care of, now, that’s irrational. Why would I do that?”
Crystal had offered a smile that, after the end of her marriage, had been wistful and sad with hard-earned wisdom. “Because that’s when life finally makes sense.”
My life makes perfect sense right now, Lily thought as she left the bathroom. Or rather, it had until last night, when she’d rushed over here to a missing-persons situation.
She put the phone handset into the charger and went to fix a cup of herbal tea.
Ginseng this morning, to sharpen her mind. The coffee smelled almost unbearably delicious, but she didn’t go near the glossy blue sack of imported Lavazza. When you were already insane with worry, she thought, why would you consume something that irritates your nerves?
She paced the kitchen, waiting for the water to boil. Crystal called her kitchen Mission Control, but it usually looked like Mission Out-of-Control. Letters, bills and junk mail littered the built-in desk. The fridge was plastered with schoolwork old and new, recipes and diet tips, expired grocery coupons and school forms and permission slips, most of them out of date.
Lily put away the clean dishes. In the process, she came across a mug that still bore a smudge of lipstick in Crystal’s favorite shade. She moved to wash it off,