6. Imogen
IMOGEN
With the unpredictable recent storms, there’s no reason to ride out on the water during our final days in Blair. Not like I have the time or desire to anyway. Plus, the sooner I post the boats to Facebook Marketplace, the less likely I am to drastically slash prices in a panic.
Wearing a wool coat and sweatpants, I jog down the steps to our private dock, wood creaking beneath me the whole way down. The wind picks up, sending the boats rocking against the waves, murky blue water splashing angrily around them.
I start with the pontoon—the one from the boat party photo in my bedroom. Pushing away the memories that these boats hold, I snap the photos one after the other, getting different angles. Next, Mom’s pedal boat.
It’s just a boat, I force myself to believe. Take the picture. Move forward.
The images aren’t anything fancy, and the overcast lighting isn’t helping. But I do the best with what I’ve got.
They’re just boats.
The next gust of wind nearly sends me toppling into the lake. I imagine the water is frigid—summer didn’t bring enough sun to warm it or make swimming any fun. I lean down and poke a finger beneath the surface. It’s bitter.
Mom must have been so cold.
“Oh my god,” I huff, frustrated at my racing thoughts.
I reach into the pedal boat and yank the drain plug to release pooled rainwater in the bottom, taking deep breaths as it all glug glugs out.
Snap. Snap. Next.
The kayak.
I stare at it blankly. And the next thing I know, tears are streaming down my face.
How did this thing even get back here? It almost seems cruel to return it to this dock, as if we want anything to do with it. Its tail end is rippling like a flag, waves ribboned below it. Despite its journey in the storm, it’s in perfect condition, except for the pooled rainwater in the bottom.
I drop to my knees, shove my phone back into my pocket, and reach for the damned thing.
As I grab hold, the tears keep flowing. I sniff hard and flip the forest-green kayak over to get the water out, as it doesn’t have a drain plug like the pedal boat.
But doing so feels like I’m reenacting Mom’s death.
I collapse on the dock next to the kayak, cross-legged, my face in my hands. The wind turns my streaming tears to ice, making my cheeks feel like they’re on fire.
“I miss you so much, Mom,” I mutter, my voice breaking. The words feel too small for the ocean of ache inside me. “I wish I could have saved you.” My whisper is carried out, but I send it upward anyway, desperate for her to hear me—if she’s anywhere at all.
For a while, I sit with my sorrow, the lake vacant and still, thinking of her, of what happened.
I wipe my suddenly running nose. I collapse in the fetal position right here on the dock.
Overtaken by loneliness, I let myself weep against the gently swaying wooden planks, pretending it’s her soothing me.
I feel tiny amid the cavernous lake, insignificant among its grand being.
I find myself conflicted between its beauty and its beastliness.
I cry knowing it took her. I gape at its wonder.
I hate it here. But it’s home. Alongside its darkness, it evokes her presence.
Her warmth, her affection, her tenderness.
Warmth and affection and tenderness she can never show me again.
A madness grows in me. Gloom overtakes me. I meet the darkness at its door. I almost wish I could die, too.
I shake the thoughts away and practice breath work.
I let nature relax me—the sloshing waves, the tweet of a blackbird, the distant hopping of a rabbit onshore.
I cry until nothing but silent peace is left.
Then I lift my head and sit up. I admire the setting sun, remembering how it used to glow on my mother. And I breathe deeply.
When I’ve calmed and wiped the wetness from my face, I pull my phone out and snap a few photos of the kayak.
My head hurts.
Even the idea of selling this thing is grim, and there’s something I just realized: Will anyone on the lake want it, knowing that it was used by a woman in her final moments?
Our name is clearly scrawled in black on the bottom.
And as I know too well by now, word spreads fast around here.
Everyone who sees my post will know exactly what boat this is, won’t they?
Do I have to mention that someone technically died in it, like you have to do with houses in some states?
It’s not a character flaw of the vessel itself, but of the storm it was taken out in.
Surely that’s not the fault of the boat.
I scoff at the ridiculousness of such questions and finish up the photos. The end of the weekend can’t come soon enough.
I tip the kayak on its front so it doesn’t continue to collect water as it rains, and I leave it on the dock’s edge.
Sorry, pedal boat. You’re shit out of luck.
I’ll have to drain it again before the sale—if I can even get rid of them.
As I stand and whip around to head back up the stairs and inside, my eyes flick to the ground floor of the Holloways’ home. Their house sits back a bit from their dock like ours does. Someone is standing in one of the large windows on the lakefront side. A male. Facing me.
I instinctively wipe any remnants of tears off my face, embarrassed they may have seen me crying in my own company. I didn’t care enough to consider I had an audience during my breakdown, but the aftermath feels different.
Just as I meet the person’s gaze, they turn around and walk out of view.
From what I could see, they appeared on the younger side. It probably wasn’t Emmett Holloway. Was it his son, Rory? I feel like I would have recognized him. But whoever stood in the window peering down at me looked like a stranger.
The sun sinks behind the trees, creating a wall of shadows where mountains should be.
My bedroom glows vibrant orange as I sit at my desk and open my laptop.
I upload the boat images one by one, pulling them into a Facebook post. After checking prices, I decide to list them for lower than comparable used boats, as ours are nearly vintage by now.
But not in a collectible way. They’re dated.
With only a few days before we leave here for good, I note on each post that I need them gone by Sunday—three days from now.
It’s an estimation, but we’re hoping to have Mom’s place fully packed come Monday.
The thought of folding an entire house neatly into boxes in that amount of time makes my bones ache.
But the less I linger here, the sooner I can return to life in Seattle and process what my future looks like after this terrible shift.
My stomach releases an audible growl as I check the clock to see that I, once again, didn’t eat all day. Food has been the last thing on my mind since Mom’s death, but Amelia should be home soon with takeout boxes full of colorful sushi rolls.
She called after school, explaining she’d be home near sunset.
So, in the next thirty minutes, give or take.
To distract myself from hunger, I refocus on the computer and press Post on the last of the three boat listings, setting the radius out to Seattle.
My best bet for selling them is probably right here on this lake, since anyone docking in the larger bays on the ocean is going to steer clear of small boats.
Worst case, I’ll leave them at the dock.
Include them with the house when we sell.
I’m about to close my laptop when I hear something.
An indiscernible sound. I’m suddenly conscious of how alone I am in this house, aware that my mind has been lost in the technicalities of used boat postings.
I look at my bedroom door, cracked open, and stare hard into the lit hallway.
I hear and see nothing. Yet that unnerving sensation remains.
I looked this up once, as I’ve felt it many times before.
I read that if you often feel like someone is watching you, it could stem from insecurity or general fear.
Like the pure nature of being perceived gives you feelings of unrest. But I never felt like that’s what I was experiencing.
So I looked deeper into the connections of humans and primates, hunted and eaten through time.
It’s like we have innate alarm bells, always running, always processing, sending us cues to indicate we may be prey to dangerous species in our midst. Like a gut feeling.
It’s a built-in survival tool that can sometimes set false signals off in our brains when there isn’t really anything wrong.
I could have sworn something hit my eardrum. But with each passing second, it becomes harder to know if I even heard something. I must be paranoid. Overemotional.
Realizing I haven’t taken a full breath since I thought I heard something, I take a deep one and move my computer’s cursor over to the Sleep button. As I do, I hear another noise. This time, it’s considerably more obvious, and much more terrifying.
“Lakefront door open.”
The female robot voice echoes throughout the house. The speaker/panel is located on the wall by the front door, but since my bedroom is open and this is a single-level home, I heard it faintly.
Robot Woman has a recognizable voice and cadence. It chimes every time we enter or exit one of the doors of the house. But if I’m the only one here, what set it off?
Even more concerning, the “lakefront door” is on the wall opposite the front door, leading out to the wraparound deck that overlooks the lake.
It’s the door closest to where I am now.
Meaning if a person set it off, they’re down the hallway from where I am in this exact moment.
Just outside the office around the corner.
I want to lunge for my bedroom door, slam it closed, and lock it. But I don’t. I go back to holding my breath in utter stillness.
Of course, I wonder if it’s Amelia. But my brain speedily reminds me that she shouldn’t be home yet. I can’t imagine she’s had enough time to get to Blair, sushi in hand, since we last spoke.
The warm glow of the sunset has mostly faded into a purple hue of twilight. She said she’d be back after dark—which is approaching.
Then it must be her, I rationalize.
But other than the proof of the changing light, I haven’t noted any other noises in the mere seconds since Robot Woman chirped. Surely if Amelia had gotten home, she’d shout for me, or I’d hear jingling keys and the rustling of a bag filled with rice and fish and vegetables.
Why would she use the back door to enter the house?
It’s simple. She wouldn’t.
I pray I’m wrong. I beg I’m wrong. To confirm, I silently lift my smartphone off my desk and open the Find My app. It refreshes immediately.
Amelia, Bellevue, WA · Now, 11 miles
She’s still on the highway. My face is hot, pulse thumping like a heartbeat as I go through every possible scenario in my head, still unable to move toward the hall.
Did I forget to shut the door all the way when I came in? And the wind pulled it open?
Is Mom’s security system glitching?
Both are reasonable prospects. It’s gusty outside. And I don’t know the quality of the security brand.
Mom didn’t have security cameras installed—not that I’d know how to access them if she did—because she didn’t feel unsafe in this house.
Being by the water, the door sensor system came in handy, notifying her if the lakeside wind had swept the doors open.
It would also help ensure the doors were secured for our dog, who had passed since she installed the system.
Eventually, I assume she got used to having it: the Robot Woman to keep her company when she had no one else.
I continue to listen for a noise, hearing only the sharp ringing of nothingness.
The silence is piercing; I can’t even hear the screens battering against the windows from the wind anymore. All is still.
I stand up, ready to make a move. But a queasiness rises at the thought of walking out there and being seen by someone through the big windows. I muster what could hardly be considered courage and sneak around the corner to see… the empty living room.
No noise, no movement, nobody.
Somehow this almost seems scarier than the alternative. Curse of the not-knowing.
I slowly make my way across the room, skeleton jumping out of my skin at the sight of my own reflection in the glass door leading to the balcony, mirroring against the outside’s darkness.
Worse, the door is open an inch.
That wasn’t all in my head.
I yank on the handle and pull the door into its frame, imagining that as soon as I do, a hand will appear on the other side to stop me.
But it doesn’t happen.
I flip the lock as fast as I can before scrambling to the other doors in the house to ensure they are all locked as well. As I do, a wave of dread falls on me.
What if I’m locking someone in with me?
I call Amelia. She picks up on the second ring.
“Hey, are you coming home soon?” I ask, knowing full well she is on her way.
“I’ll be getting off the highway soon,” she says. “I’m probably, like, fifteen minutes away.”
“Could you hurry?” I press. “I don’t think I’m alone.”