Her breath plumed out, and she eulogized: “This is it, my dude. The final resting place. You were a good turtle and never hurt anyone. Rest easy in the knowledge that you were the perfect pet. It’s not your fault you had a sucky owner.”
Murphy let guilt pour over her, like frigid water. She let herself feel it, deep down in her pores. She felt it for a full minute—breathing in, breathing out.
Then, it was time.
“Don’t mess it up, Murph,” she whispered, and with all her strength, she swung the plastic coffin back, then released it in a powerful arc, hurling Siegfried A. Roy into the sea.
Maybe he would wash up on the shore; Murphy wasn’t clear, exactly, on how the physics worked. And sure, she knew Siegfried was a freshwater pet, not a sea turtle. In this moment, though, she felt she was doing him justice, returning him to the water, a place he belonged. For once, in his death, she was doing something right, and the weight of his shell and decaying body, wrapped in a candy cane napkin, was no longer suffocating her.
Murphy’s feet were cold and her bare hands colder as she surveyed Siegfried’s watery grave.
She wondered what time it was. If it was past midnight.
A Christmas burial. What a nice and terrible thing.
“I’m sorry I didn’t see you,” she whispered. “I’m sorry you were invisible, and I forgot.”
There was nothing else to say.
The world was quiet and dark, and Murphy’s thoughts were loud—so loud, she felt her head might explode. Her legs felt too weak to stand. She sat right there on the sand, legs crisscrossed, breathing in deep, the cold stinging her lungs. Shutting her eyes, she laid back in the sand and listened to the drudging crash of waves.
She pressed her fingers into the sand, one at a time:
One, two, three.
Four, five, six.
Seven, eight, nine …
FOUR DAYS BEFORE
CAYENNE CASTLE
It was December twenty-first, and the days of Cayenne Castle had been forgotten.
The town of Emmet was swathed in gloom, mist spitting down on the spruces and cracked concrete, and the Sullivan sisters sat around a fake Christmas tree. Mom had made instant hot cocoa for everyone, and she wore a Santa-red toboggan upon her head. The TV was on, volume low, playing Frosty the Snowman, and discarded wrapping paper lay on the ground.
They’d had another early gift exchange—though not one the sisters had planned. Mom had been the one to insist they celebrate early, since she wouldn’t be here on Christmas Day. She didn’t know what today’s date had once meant to Murphy, Claire, and Eileen. She didn’t know they were sitting in the ruins of a razed castle.
Her smile faltered when, from the couch, she said, “You can go through your stockings, if you want.”
Eileen’s arms were crossed. She studied the present in her lap—a biography of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, with colored pictures. Mom wasn’t aware, clearly, that Eileen hated the Pre-Raphaelites. That was no surprise, though. When would Eileen and her mother have had the time to chat about art?
And Eileen knew what was waiting in her stocking: hand sanitizer, hard candies, tiny tissue packets. She was missing her morning shift at Safeway for this.
Eileen studied Mom, whose eyes were darting from daughter to daughter. Her face was filled with weary hopefulness, asking them to tell her they were okay with this, that an early Christmas was as good as a real one.
She was making an effort, with the cocoa she’d heated and the tinsel she’d put on the tree. It just wasn’t enough—hadn’t been for a while. Mom was a shell of a person these days, eyes watery, posture stooped. She claimed she needed this trip, the chance to relax. And hell, maybe that was true.
Eileen didn’t care what Leslie Sullivan did with her life. That wasn’t her being petulant, either; she simply didn’t care about anything, save when she could get to Safeway, talk to Asher, and get a bottle of Jack Daniel’s for tonight.
Murphy took down her stocking and poured out its contents, which included two boxes of Hot Tamales. Murphy couldn’t stand cinnamon, but she’d never told Mom that. Mom hadn’t asked.
All she said was, “Thank you.”
“Of course, sweetie.” Mom smiled warmly, and for a moment, Murphy’s heart leaped. Mom was looking at her. Did she see? Could it be like old times, when Murphy would sing an original song, and Mom would applaud? Would hear, and more than hear, listen?