“We used to pretend that was a mermaid’s house,” Kris said softly.
“Who?”
“Me, when I was little.”
“No. Mommy. You said, ‘we.’”
Kris cocked and lowered her head, as if she were attempting to reel back her words. “I guess … I guess I meant …”
What had she meant? She was always alone when her parents brought her to the lake house. There were other kids in town—swimming at the beach, having a cone at the ice cream shop, playing at the park, or eating pulled-pork sandwiches at the Pig Stand—but Kris had never been in Pacington long enough to become friends with them. The lake house was family time.
And yet she could not shake the feeling that there had been someone playing alongside her. Two voices, intertwined.
For a split second, a memory streaked through her mind like a shooting star: she was a little girl, peering down into the surface of the lake as small waves tore at her reflection.
“Mommy?” Sadie was looking up at her, concerned.
Kris pinched her eyes shut, trying to force open a door that refused to budge. Finally, she sighed. “I don’t know, honey. I think I just misspoke. That’s all.”
There was no response. Only the soft lapping of water on the shore and the tossing of nearby branches.
Kris opened her eyes.
Sadie was leaning over the edge of the lake, staring down at her reflection. The wind picked up and sent a shiver across the water’s surface. Sadie’s reflection rippled until everything that made her “her” was obscured—the bright green eyes that sparkled with creativity and wonder, the curly red hair that framed her delicate, freckled skin.
Kris looked into the water, and a faceless girl stared back.
Across the street from the north end of Jefferson Park was the Pig Stand. There was no indoor seating at this establishment, so it was only open from the first of April to the first of November. But during those times, the Pig Stand became the nucleus of activity for those not out on the lake or swimming just off the man-made beach on Jefferson Park’s southern tip. By the time it opened at noon, the savory aroma of smoked meat beckoned those in the park and the edge of downtown like an invisible finger to the small square shack where the owner, Ricky Redfern, waited at the open window with a smile, his sandyblond hair pulled back into a ponytail, ready to take orders.
Kris remembered the line to the Pig Stand could stretch past the six wooden picnic tables on the front porch, all the way out to the curb. So it was a bit of a surprise when she pulled the Jeep into a parallel spot directly in front of the Stand and saw only a small cluster of people on the porch. Within five minutes, Kris and Sadie were stepping up to the window marked “Place Yer Order Here” and telling an eternally cheerful Ricky Redfern, his ponytail now gray and threadbare, what they would like for lunch: a hamburger with ketchup for Sadie, the house special pulled-pork sandwich for Kris, and a basket of curly fries to share. Another ten minutes, and they were seated at a picnic table at the edge of the deck and looking across Center Street at Jefferson Park while they ate their food.
One taste of the sweet, smoky sandwich dripping in barbecue sauce with a sharp vinegary bite, and Kris was struck by a ravenous hunger. She hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before. Even then, after their long drive from Colorado and a day spent cleaning, she hadn’t been particularly hungry. Her taste buds exploded like the tops of poppies in bright summer sunshine.
She was down to her last bite when she noticed Sadie picking halfheartedly at the basket of fries. There were two nibbles taken out of the edge of her hamburger; otherwise it had gone untouched.
Kris wiped her sauce-smeared lips with a much-too-thin paper napkin and asked, “Not hungry?”
Sadie shrugged, her eyes on the mound of curlicue fries piled high atop a square of greasy waxed paper in a metal basket.
Back to this, Kris thought. The shrug. Always the shrug ever since …
The incident, Timid Kris proposed in her squeaky, annoyingly helpful voice.
Shadow Kris chuckled, the sound echoing from the depths. Incident? Is that really what you’re calling it now? Do I need to remind you about his teeth? They were above his lips. His teeth were above his lips.
Kris clenched her jaw and tried to force the door closed on that voice. Yet it would not be silenced.
He shouldn’t have even been in that car. He should have been home. In bed. With you.
From nearby came a playful mixture of laughter and feigned terror.
Kris glanced to the park across the street.
A little boy, no older than five or six, was racing wildly in a lopsided figure eight while his father, a stout, balding man in his mid-thirties, gave chase. Just as the father would reach the boy, he would fall back so that his swipes barely brushed the child’s back. Each time, the boy gave a giddy scream and cut sharply to the side, around the top loop of the figure eight, and the pattern began again. Seated nearby on a red-and-black checkered blanket, under the shade of a drooping cottonwood tree, was a woman with short brown hair and contentment in her eyes. Kris assumed this was the boy’s mother. Above her, the branches swayed in the breeze, white tufts of cotton pulled free to drift lazily away into the sunny summer afternoon.
Just as the little boy shrieked, Kris looked back to Sadie and noticed a nearly imperceptible flinch. It was subtle, but it was there. There was no confusing it for anything else. It was a painful reaction to the sound of the little boy’s joy as he pretended to fear the advance of his loving father.
Kris set down the last bite of her sandwich, then picked up a Wet-Nap package from atop a stack of paper napkins and tore it open. She wiped the sticky barbecue sauce from her fingers and under her nails, then balled it up and tossed the moistened towelette onto the table. “If you’re done, we can go.”
Sadie nodded and set her hamburger down on the brown paper in which it had been wrapped. Kris watched as her daughter mimicked her previous routine, tearing open her own Wet-Nap and thoroughly scrubbing every little finger from nail to knuckle, even though she had barely touched her food. When she was finished, she squeezed the towelette into a ball, just as her mother had done.
As they carried their trash toward the large trash can at the edge of the porch, Ricky Redfern thrust a hand out of the open window and shook it wildly in an exaggerated wave. “Y’all come back!” he called out. His smile was so big, Kris swore she could see his back molars.
She waved back politely and quickly dumped their trays into a metal trash barrel. She hoped Ricky hadn’t seen Sadie’s uneaten burger. If he did, he showed no sign of it. Ricky rested both hands on the inside counter and leaned forward to grin out the window at the Pig Stand’s nonexistent patrons.
She waited for the click of Sadie’s seat belt, and then Kris put her hand on the gearshift, about to slide it into Drive, when she happened to glance over at the right-side mirror.
A man was walking up beside the Jeep. His large frame was tightly bound in a tan County Sheriff’s uniform. Above his right breast pocket was a brass name tag engraved with black letters: “Deputy B. Montgomery.” Behind him, parked parallel to the curb just like Kris, was his cruiser, a white Dodge Charger with a gold stripe down the side and the word “Sheriff” floating in black block letters over this.
Kris’s grip tightened on the oversized plastic knob on top of the gearshift.