Until I Find You - Rea Frey Page 0,9

already been forty-five minutes. She hustles back to the car, blasts the air-conditioning, and drives to Rebecca’s house, which is a lovely—if not quaint—midcentury two-story home. She parks, gathers her supplies, and makes mental additions to her design plans to bring in a landscaper and slap on a fresh coat of paint to the shutters. She’ll throw it in for free.

On the way in, she still can’t shake the conversation in group today. The emotional wound she pulled from the bunch was betrayal. She’d almost choked on the word: betrayal.

She knows a little something about that. Luckily, no one else does.

She’s determined to keep it that way.

5

CRYSTAL

“Knock, knock.” Crystal eases open the door. “Bec? It’s me.”

“Come in.” Bec appears around the corner in her bathrobe, hair in a messy bun. She’s already changed out of her “real” clothes and replaced them with pajamas, even though it’s midday. “More coffee?” She raises an oversized white mug that says I BLEED COFFEE.

“You know me so well.” Crystal shuts the door and wipes her shoes on the mat. She absorbs the open foyer that spills into the rest of the house, making mental calculations of their design plans. The finished product forms in her mind—a beautiful, midcentury-modern masterpiece with muted colors and spectacular art—and she walks to the outdated kitchen.

“Did you go home?” Bec turns. Her olive skin radiates around tired, unfocused eyes. Her smile cracks her face wide open, and Crystal marvels at it—this superpower her friend will never again glimpse.

“I didn’t, actually. Just went for a nice, long walk.” She crosses to the coffeepot and pours herself a cup. “Jackson asleep?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Bec slips onto a bar stool. “When he stops napping an hour after he’s awake, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“Is he sleeping through the night already?” Crystal leans against the counter.

“Mostly.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever even heard him cry.”

Bec laughs. “Oh, he cries. Trust me.”

“I’ve never heard him.” True, she hasn’t been around Jackson a lot, but if he’s with Rebecca, he’s always asleep in his stroller or snug against her chest. She probably hasn’t even seen his face more than one or two times.

Crystal sweeps her hair over one shoulder. This morning, Savi brushed her mother’s hair and told her how much she looked like Elsa from Frozen. After she was done, Crystal had offered to brush her daughter’s hair, which was always tangled and tossed in a scruffy ponytail. As usual, they argued about it until Savi threw the brush on the floor and stormed off.

Bec moves her head to the side until it gives an audible pop. She rolls her shoulders a few times, her muscles knotted from playing cello. Savi does the exact same thing after practicing. Bec gently pats her thighs, her pale pink pajama bottoms nearly swallowing her. “Okay, plans. What do we have?”

Crystal almost thinks about picking up their earlier conversation and diving a little deeper. There are so many things she wants to know: Is Bec used to sleeping on her own yet? Does she still find herself doing Chris’s laundry or calling for him in the next room when she needs to ask a question? Does she pick up her phone to text him? Because Crystal does.

Instead of losing herself to that steady downhill battle of depressing questions and answers, she unrolls her designs across the kitchen counter. She takes her time explaining every detail and runs Bec’s fingers over different samples she pulls from her bag. She lets her choose cabinet finishes, knobs and handles, and the appropriate type of quartz.

“I love it all.” Bec taps blunt, unpainted nails on the blueprints. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to change this kitchen?”

Crystal assesses the brown cabinets, the scuffed countertops, the gummy tile under her shoes. “I’m guessing a while?”

“Almost thirty years. I remember going to friends’ houses as a child and wanting kitchens like theirs. This one is just…”

“It’s the bones that matter. It’s got good bones.”

Bec nods, slips off the stool, and expertly crosses to the refrigerator. Her fingers travel over the bottles on cold shelves and bump over organized Tupperware until she finds a smooth white bottle. She lifts the creamer in an invisible question.

“No thanks, I’m good.” Crystal rolls up the plans and rummages in her bag. “Do you mind if I just retake a few measurements?”

“Knock yourself out.”

“I’ll try and be quiet so I don’t wake Jackson.”

“Oh, he’s fine. Noise machine.”

Crystal walks through the dining room off the kitchen and into the formal