Chapter Eighteen Piper
Chapter Eighteen
Piper
“Come inside and have some pizza. If there’s any left.” Kiersten opened her front door and beckoned Piper and Rosamund inside.
Piper entered Kiersten’s house, relieved to find it even messier than her own. Balled-up socks and Nerf bullets littered the floor. LEGOs covered the dining room table, and unzipped backpacks seemed to vomit worksheets across the tiny mudroom, where the washer and dryer also lived.
She followed her neighbor into the kitchen and family room on the backside of the house. The roar of eight kids laughing, talking, and shouting drifted into the kitchen from the screened-in porch and the backyard.
Guinevere and Matthew played cornhole while Caitlin hovered nearby, not part of the action but near it.
Piper’s middle daughter, Olivia, and Kiersten’s son, Luke, were engaged in a lively discussion about whether or not Jedi could fly, and her youngest, Bella, jumped on the trampoline with Kiersten’s two youngest sons, James and Johnny, where all three screamed with laughter.
Her heart clenched at the sight of her daughter rising and dropping in the air, hair flying behind her in a smooth blond sheet.
The girls desperately wanted a trampoline, but she’d done the research.
They were unquestionably dangerous. She’d seen the statistics, even though her husband claimed that modern trampolines were much safer than the ones they’d had when they were kids.
She forced herself to turn off the part of her mind that remained constantly attuned to danger.
Just listen.
The corners of her mouth lifted in a nostalgic smile. It sounded like the neighborhood where she grew up in Michigan. Kids in someone’s backyard, completely unsupervised, screaming with joy.
“Help yourself.” Kiersten carried a pizza box into the kitchen, then scattered napkins and paper plates across the table.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “I have Gatorade, milk, and water. These are your only options.”
“I’ll have a lovely glass of water,” Rosamund said. Piper requested the same. Kiersten rummaged in her pantry and also found a package of Oreos. For dessert.
Piper examined the layout of Kiersten’s kitchen and family room.
“You have a Jefferson,” she told Kiersten as she pulled a chair up to the battered kitchen table. “We have the Franklin.”
“I have a Jefferson too,” Rosamund said.
“What’s a Jefferson?” Kiersten asked through a mouthful of pizza.
“A lot of these homes in the Washington, DC, suburbs were built in the baby boom after World War II,” Piper said.
“Because we’re near Mount Vernon, the developer named the models after the founding fathers.
I think you guys have a bigger foyer than I do, and a den.
Someone built an addition onto ours back in the ’80s—otherwise ours would be smaller than yours. ”
“How do you know all this?” Kiersten asked.
“Lillian Landry, the lady next door. She’s been here for like sixty years.” Piper grabbed a napkin. “She used to give tours at Mount Vernon. She’s sort of an amateur historian. And we have a former mayor at the end of the cul-de-sac too. Richard Davis. Nice old guy, knows all the local history.”
“I met him yesterday,” Kiersten said as she reached for the purse she’d set on the kitchen counter. “And speaking of local history. I found something interesting hidden in a box in my basement.”
She pulled out a small book encased in black leather.
“A diary?” Piper asked.
Kiersten nodded. “From 1965. A woman named Dottie who lived right here on Beaverbrook Lane. I found three of them, hidden inside an old set of encyclopedias. Plus a wad of cash.”
Rosamund’s eyes lit up. “I love old books.”
“This one is definitely interesting.” Kiersten pressed the button on the side and opened it. “She was pregnant and a newlywed. Here’s where I left off.”
She handed it to Rosamund, who started to read aloud.