The Night Before - Wendy Walker Page 0,13

stayed together until the end of junior high when Joe’s family moved closer to town. Rosie hadn’t seen this picture for years, since their mother had left for California. Laura must have had it copied and scanned. But when? And why? Laura hated everything about her past here.

They’d been collecting frog eggs that day, large masses of gray jelly with tiny black dots. They used to put them in buckets of water and wait for the tadpoles to hatch, which only happened once over the years. They’d been too young to know that the eggs needed to be fertilized after they were laid. It hadn’t mattered. The excitement had been in the hunt and the waiting and, of course, the friendship that surrounded the adventure.

Rosie wore candy-striped shorts and a pink shirt with frills around the collar. Laura was in her tomboy attire by then—dirty jeans, torn T-shirt. Their skin was tan, their hair streaked blond from the sun. Rosie was smiling, a big wide smile right at the camera. Laura’s face was not empty, exactly, but searching, her eyes not focused on the camera, but instead on the person behind it, holding it. Her eyes were on their father, her image out of focus because she was not the subject of the lens or the man behind it. Rosie was. Not Laura, though her eyes pleaded to have the camera turned her way, to focus on her. Good Lord, how this knowledge struck hard, as though it were the first time she’d found it.

She leaned forward and studied her sister.

How far back did it go?

The angry child, fits of rage, uncontrollable. Rosie tried to remember. It was forever. Their whole lives. Laura had bloodied her fists even back when she still wore pink, pounding them into a wall, breaking through the plaster. Rosie closed her eyes to see it clearly. Blood dripping on a snow-white arm. Tears streaking a freckled face. She couldn’t have been more than six.

Had anyone else bothered to see her? The grown-ups in the neighborhood had their own lives. Couples sipping cocktails on someone’s patio. Wives sipping coffee in the kitchens. Men drinking beer, their lawn mowers idling side by side on a Sunday afternoon.

A wave of guilt made her close her eyes.

Their mother told Mrs. Wallace that day in the kitchen that Laura had been hard to love, the little girl with fists for hands. With rage inside her. But maybe they had created the rage—all of them. She knew this now, having her own child. How easy it was to damage them with nothing more than words. Or indifference.

None of that mattered now. Time only moved in one direction.

Rosie started to click on the icons.

* * *

Two hours later, she heard the floorboards creaking. First came the slow, heavy steps of her husband. Then the quick shuffles of her son.

She heard her name being called.

First by Joe. “Rosie?”

Then by Mason. “Mama?”

Morning was here, though she tried to deny it. Even as the dark sky began to turn gray and then orange. Even as the clock ticked relentlessly on the table beside the bed. Minutes, then hours had passed with no headlights coming down the driveway.

“Rosie?” Joe was outside the door, knocking softly.

“I’m here,” she answered.

The door creaked open. Joe stood in the hallway, holding Mason. As usual, he was bare down to his diaper. Mason hated clothing.

“Whatcha doin’?” Joe asked.

Rosie looked at him with wide, manic eyes. She could feel her expression and she could see its reflection on Joe’s.

“She didn’t come home.”

Joe nodded. He let their squirming child down and he ran to Laura’s bed and climbed on top of the covers. She had a fluffy down comforter and Mason liked the way it felt against his skin.

“Okay,” Joe said calmly. “You been in here since before? When you woke me up?”

Rosie didn’t answer. She looked at her son, then back at her husband. Suddenly she felt as crazy as the person he was seeing.

“Hospital?” Joe asked.

“Four times.”

“Her phone…”

“Every fifteen minutes. Goes right to voicemail. Why won’t she answer?”

“Because it’s dead. Look,” he said, pointing to an outlet near the floor. “She left her charger—again. She does it all the time.”

Rosie nodded. “I tried to find this guy on that website, but there are so many of them! And they use screen names … and I can’t get into her account unless I have the password, but I can’t change the password without access to her email.… I’ve tried everything—her birthday, initials