Until I Find You - Rea Frey Page 0,34

is cawing, achy, awful.

I reach into the crib and pick him up, but he cries harder. I sit in the rocking chair and run my fingers over his face—cupping the shape of his chin, his chapped lips, his smooth ears, his hair. I search for the notch in his collarbone where he got stuck during labor and find only a smooth blade of bone. He cries so hard, he starts gagging, and I shush him until I am breathless.

An unfamiliar scent invades my nostrils, and I stop rocking.

There’s a baby in this room: a baby who feels like Jackson, who looks like Jackson, who could probably pass for Jackson if someone wasn’t paying close enough attention.

But I am.

I yank a terrorized breath, but it does little to calm my nerves. My mind sparks, terrified. There’s only one thing I know: this baby is not Jackson.

This child is not my son.

14

CRYSTAL

On the way home from a client’s house, Crystal texts Bec to check in. She’s been worried about her all day and didn’t even have time to process what happened before she was back at work with a client.

As the streets drift by one after the next, she waves at neighbors. Though she’s been living here for months, she’s not really stopped to appreciate her new life or the friendly people in it. Between the grief group, therapy, motherhood, and work, she has little time for relationships. Her grip on the wheel softens. Except for Bec. She’s beyond thankful for their friendship and how good she is with Savi.

She puts on her blinker and waits to turn left. So many people have told her she should get back out there and date. But there’s no such thing as “casual” dating when you have a kid. Rebecca is the only one who really gets that. They’ve both joked about joining Bumble, and one drunken night, Crystal made a fake account and described all the guys so Rebecca could tell her which way to swipe. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so hard. Neither of them were ready for that next step, and Crystal couldn’t imagine a time when she would be. Not because Paul was dead … but just because she is too exhausted to put herself back out there in any real way. It is all just too much work.

At home, she kills the engine and eyes the exterior of her house, sometimes still floored that this palatial home is all hers. Though this house wasn’t her style when they bought it, she’s managed to marry its traditional bones with her more modern aesthetic. Inside, the house is quiet. She checks her phone, but Pam didn’t say anything about going out tonight.

She drops her bags and glances at the living room out of the corner of her eye. “What in the world?” The room has been cleared. No boxes.

Something in her gut tumbles and drops. Did Pam do this? She would never move Paul’s boxes without permission. But what about her recent concerns with some of Paul’s missing belongings? She walks through the kitchen and opens the garage door. Nothing there either.

Suddenly, in the absence of Paul’s boxes, her fingers itch to open each one and hold her husband’s possessions. His old blazers. His tennis rackets and trophies from high school. His military medals. His notebooks full of goofy drawings. Keeping them tethers her to who she was then—a clueless wife, a distracted mother—but the sudden thought of not being able to say good-bye robs the breath from her lungs. She needs to see the faded Sharpie. She needs to open those boxes now.

She circles around toward the kitchen and pulls open the blackout shades from the glass doors that lead to the pool. “Oh my God!” Reams of smoke drift horizontally across the backyard. They curl over the privacy fence and evaporate into a stream of gray. Crystal fumbles with the glass doors and steps outside to assess the fire.

Where is Savi? And where the hell is Pam? Though they’ve built fires before, they’ve always been contained to the fire pit. As she nears the scene, she realizes the source of the fire. It’s not piles of leaves or sticks that are burning: it’s her husband’s boxes. All of them. She watches the last letters of his name disintegrate and burn, just like her memories.

Crystal stands, dumbfounded, as the fire roars. She ransacks her brain for signs of pyromania. Sure, Savi likes playing with hot candle wax or