him goodbye, he looked at her suspiciously and asked if that was a Jehovah’s Witnesses thing.
“You drive back,” Charlotte said when they were outside. “I’m far too upset.”
Holly was more than happy to do that.
She had left her traveling bag in the front hall. As she slung it over her shoulder and turned to her mother for their usual parting salute—two dry pecks on the cheek—Charlotte flung her arms around the daughter she had denigrated and belittled her whole life (not always unknowingly) and burst into tears.
“Don’t go. Please stay another day. If you can’t stay until Christmas, at least stay through the weekend. I can’t stand to be on my own. Not yet. Maybe after Christmas, but not yet.”
Her mother was clutching her like a drowning woman and Holly had to suppress a panicky urge not just to push her away but to actually fight her off. She endured the hug as long as she could, then wriggled free.
“I have to go, Mom. I have an appointment.”
“A date, you mean?” Charlotte smiled. Not a nice one. There were too many teeth in it. Holly had thought she was done being shocked by her mother, but it seemed that wasn’t the case. “Really? You?”
Remember this could be the last time you see her, Holly thought. If it is, you don’t want to leave with angry words. You can be angry at her again if you live through this.
“It’s something else,” she said. “But let’s have some tea. I have time for that.”
So they had tea and the date-filled cookies Holly had always hated (they tasted dark, somehow), and it was almost eleven before she was finally able to escape her mother’s house, where the scent of the lemongrass candles still lingered. She kissed Charlotte on the cheek as they stood on the stoop. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too.”
Holly got as far as the door of her rental car, was actually touching the handle, when Charlotte called to her. Holly turned, almost expecting her mother to come leaping down the steps, arms spread, fingers hooked into claws, screaming Stay! You must stay! I command it!
But Charlotte was still on the stoop with her arms wrapped around her middle. Shivering. She looked old and unhappy. “I made a mistake about the bathrobe,” she said. “It is my size. I must have read the tag wrong.”
Holly smiled. “That’s good, Mom. I’m glad.”
She backed down the driveway, checked for traffic, and turned toward the turnpike. Ten past eleven. Plenty of time.
That’s what she thought then.
2
Her inability to discover the cause of the holdup only adds to Holly’s anxiety. The local AM and FM stations tell her nothing, including the one that’s supposed to have turnpike traffic info. Her Waze app, usually so reliable, is totally useless. The screen shows a smiling little man digging a hole with a shovel above the message WE’RE CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION BUT WE’LL BE BACK SOON!
Frack.
If she can make it another ten miles, she can get off at Exit 56 and take Highway 73, but right now Highway 73 might as well be on Jupiter. She feels around in her coat pocket, finds the last cough drop, and unwraps it while staring at the rear end of the dumptruck where a bumper sticker reads HOW’S MY DRIVING?
All these people should be at malls, Holly thinks. They should be shopping at malls and downtown small businesses and helping the local economy instead of giving their money to Amazon and UPS and Federal Express. All of you should get off this fracking highway so people with really important business could…
The traffic starts to move. Holly gives a cry of triumph that’s hardly out of her mouth before the dumptruck stops again. On her left, a man is chatting on his phone. On her right, a woman is freshening her lipstick. Her rental car’s digital clock tells her she now cannot expect to arrive at the Frederick Building until four o’clock. Four at the earliest.
That still would leave me two hours, Holly thinks. Please God, please let me be there in time to get ready for him. For it. For the monster.
3
Barbara Robinson puts aside her copy of the college catalogue she has been perusing, turns on her phone, and goes to the WebWatcher app Justin Freilander has put on her phone.
“You know that tracking someone without their permission isn’t exactly kosher, right?” Justin had said. “I’m not sure it’s even, like, totally legal.”
“I just want to make sure my