Kris cupped a hand over her mouth and the bottom half of the phone, just in case Sadie was standing in the darkness of the hallway, attempting to listen in. “She doesn’t need therapy. She lost her father. What she needs is her mother. And I—”
“I know. I know.” Allison’s words were overly enthusiastic in the hopes of conveying undeniable support.
At the center of the butcher block was an unusually deep cut, either from the direct impact of a knife’s tip or from the heat of multiple humid summers warping its surface. Kris slid the nail of her index finger into the slit, working it in deeper and deeper until one false move would snap her fingernail in half.
“I better go, Allison.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll call in a few days to check in. If you need to call me for any reason …”
“We won’t. I mean, of course we would call you, but … we won’t. Don’t worry about us. You take care of Sadie. And yourself.”
Kris closed her eyes. “Right. I will. Bye, Allison.”
“Bye, Dr. Barlow.”
A soft click, and Allison was gone.
Sadie was all ready for bed, her teeth brushed and face washed. She was dressed in her favorite pj’s, the matching pink-and-gray camouflage outfit that her grandmother had given her—Jonah’s mother—for her last birthday.
She motioned to the mattress, still in need of fresh bedding.
In the bedroom doorway, Kris snapped her fingers, remembering. “Right,” she said. “One second.”
She hurried out into the great room and over to the small pile of things she had brought in from the Jeep. Her own duffel bag was there, packed full of clothes and a couple pairs of shoes, as was a backpack filled with toiletries, a cardboard box marked “Bedroom Stuff” in black Sharpie, and a few pillows. She had planned on bringing in the rest of their stuff this evening, but like everything else, it would have to wait until tomorrow. This was enough to get them through the night.
She pulled open the box top and dug into the soft, cottony contents until she found what she was looking for: Sadie’s sheets, the ones from her bed at home, the blue ones covered in white and gold Wonder Woman symbols. Kris grabbed the sheets, a thick crocheted blanket, two pillowcases, and two pillows, then crossed back to the hallway.
Sadie had not moved. She stood motionless beside the bed as though frozen in time. Kris tossed a pillowcase straight at Sadie’s face, and she whipped up her hands, catching it before it hit her. She smirked as her mother dropped the rest of the bedding onto the floor.
Kris picked up the fitted sheet and shook it open.
“You do the top corners. I’ll do the bottom.”
They had the sheets and the crocheted blanket on the bed in less than a minute. Kris jiggled the pillows into their cases and laid them at the head of the bed, one on top of the other. She folded down the blanket and top sheet and patted the mattress with an open hand.
“Come on. Bedtime.”
For a moment, Sadie did not move. She looked from her mother to the turned-down bed as if she were being asking to walk the plank. Then she crouched down, scooped up the purple frog with the crooked eyes, and crawled hesitantly onto the bed. She slipped under the covers as Kris pulled them up to her chin.
“I’ll be right down the hall. Okay?”
Sadie gave a sharp nod. Her hands gripped the top of the blankets and her eyes darted around the room as if she expected something terrible to come lurching from one of the corners.
For the second time, Kris snapped her fingers as she remembered something. She left the room once again, and when she returned, she held a night-light in the shape of a ceramic angel with golden wings and a flowing white gown. Mounted behind the angel was a four-watt bulb. Kris plugged it into an outlet between the bed and the dresser and flicked the switch. The bulb popped on. The angel glowed faintly.
Kris looked over at Sadie, who was staring over the edge of the bed.
“Better?”
“I want you to sleep in here,” Sadie said. Her weak voice trembled.
“Honey, I—”
“Just for tonight.”
Kris sighed. She pulled her phone from her pocket, and the screen instantly illuminated. Displayed against her wallpaper—a photo of her and a smiling Sadie beside the Continental Divide sign at Independence Pass—was the time: 8:56 p.m.
You still have to clean the master bedroom, that annoying, chiding voice reminded her.
Despite the warmth of the house, Kris shivered. She thought of the half-open door to the master bedroom and what lay beyond it.
It’s just a bed.
It’s her bed, her shadow voice said.
“Please, Mommy?” Sadie was beginning to whine. It was the immature tone she adopted when even she knew she was trying to play her mother.
Kris pushed away the image of the door at the end of the hall. She forced the edges of her lips to curl into a smile.
“Okay,” she told Sadie. “Just for tonight.”
Halfway through brushing her teeth, it hit Kris how truly exhausted she was. She had only had one glass of wine, but her head was suddenly so heavy, it bobbed on her slender neck, and she had to concentrate to keep her eyelids from sliding shut.
She did a quick pass over her bottom teeth and spat a bubbly mixture of toothpaste and saliva into the sink. Cupping a hand under the faucet, she slurped cool water into her mouth. She spat the water out and rinsed the sink before turning the faucet off.
On the floor beside her was her toiletries backpack. Its top was unzipped. It drooped wide open, revealing a cloth makeup bag decorated with blazing suns and packed full of foundation, blush, concealer, mascara, eye shadow, lip gloss, and various other bottles and tubes. Half of these things she would probably never even bother opening. Her beauty regimen would consist of a layer of sunscreen in the morning, a reapplication in the afternoon, and face wash and moisturizer at night.
She stared into the open bag and decided to skip the last step. She was too tired. Like Sadie, she would let their late afternoon dip be her bath, even if it meant going to bed smelling like lake water.
Dipping a hand into the backpack, she rifled through the contents, her fingers passing over nail clippers and lotion bottles and a brush with bristles entwined with long strands of her reddish-brown hair until she felt the slick plastic cylinder of a pill bottle. She took out the bottle, pressed the childproof cap against her palm, and twisted it free. She dug a finger inside and fished out a single yellow pill.
Xanax. 0.5 milligrams. Prescribed to her after the funeral by a concerned uncle of Jonah’s, a family doctor. Kris was reluctant to take the medication. She told herself she wasn’t struggling with anxiety. She was angry. She didn’t need pills; she needed to punch a wall until her knuckles bled and scream until her throat was nothing but a raw curtain of ragged flesh. Still, she had the prescription filled just in case, only taking two or three of the pills in the days after they lowered her husband into the ground.
She held the pill out before her, pinched between her thumb and index finger.
Bottom’s up.
She opened her mouth and tossed it to the back of her tongue, cupping her hand under the sink faucet, and washing it down with a palmful of water. Her body shivered.
She set a mental regimen. She would take one pill every night before bed. And one with breakfast. Two per day. She did not need more than that. They were just to take the edge off. And when they were gone, they were gone. The lake house would be her medication. Bringing it back from the brink of death would be her therapy.