Chapter 86
Susan
Thursday
It’s warm and bright outside, the kind of July evening you’d have on tap if you could, but none of it lifts my spirits as I push the pram down Leesa’s driveway.
I stop at the gate, thinking. My gut is telling me I’d feel better with company on my return trip to our house.
But with Leesa at the Oakpark party, I’m not sure who else to ask.
My friends are great, but none of them live so near that I can text at nine on a Thursday night to ask them to keep me company going to my own house…
then Felipe pops into my head. Sweet, funny Felipe, who is easier to talk to than anyone else right now.
Could I ask him? Would it be weird? I’m past caring about weird.
I scroll to his number and hit call, but it rings out. I text instead of leaving a voicemail:
Staying with my sister Leesa for a bit but have to head home to pick up some things. If you’re around, company would be great!
I start walking, pushing the pram along the footpath.
On the green, a group of kids kick a ball, their shrieks reminding me of my own childhood summers.
A dog barks somewhere ahead and a car engine revs somewhere behind.
I check my phone. No blue ticks, no reply from Felipe.
That leaves Greta. And I don’t know how I feel about her right now, which is giving me a pain in my heart.
She definitely lied to me on Monday night when she said Jon wasn’t in her house.
And for as long as I’ve known her—my whole life—she’s never lied to me.
I mean, sure, she’s told me I look good when I don’t look good, and she’s told me I wasn’t that drunk when I really was that drunk.
But an outright lie? Then again, it’s Greta.
There must be a good reason. Also, I’m out of options.
So I message to ask if she’ll come with me to pick up stuff from the house, and she says to call in to her when I get to Oakpark.
· · ·
As I walk toward her house, the sound of the summer party wafts through the evening air.
Chatter and peals of laughter and Pharrell Williams’s “Happy” on the speakers.
The Oakpark partygoers are down on the green, too far away to see me, but I turn my face away anyway.
It’ll be a long time before I can hold my head up at any social gathering in our neighborhood.
When Greta answers her door, she looks the same as she always does—dressed in leggings and an oversized hoodie, hair in a pony-tail and a no-nonsense expression on her face.
She’s just made a cup of decaf tea and she makes one for me too.
For the first time in forever, I feel lost for words.
I don’t want to tell her I might have left Jon or that he’s been taken in for questioning.
My “someone put Bella out in the garden” story is sounding increasingly batshit.
And I can’t bring myself to ask her why she lied about Jon on Monday night.
So we talk about my upcoming birthday and she asks me if I’m free on the twentieth because she’s booked a sister-dinner in our favorite restaurant in Dún Laoghaire.
She tells me I should dress up, and a funny look crosses her face, like she’s trying not to smile.
And suddenly a piece of the jigsaw slips into place.
I dismissed it so quickly earlier, but oh my god, it is a surprise party.
I let out a silent breath. This doesn’t change the fact that Jon has been sleeping with Savannah Holmes, but it does explain why Greta and he have been conspiring.
My sister is not lying to me for any terrifying reasons, she’s just being her usual slightly prickly but secretly lovely self.
Buoyed by this realization, I feel lighter. Not because of a surprise birthday celebration (certainly not one organized by my husband) but because my sister, one of the three most important people in my world, is still the person I thought she was.
· · ·
I’m still feeling lighter when we walk up my driveway.
Jon’s car isn’t here—maybe he drove himself to the station, which is at odds with Juliette’s dramatic “picked up by police” text.
This makes me feel better again—it can’t be that serious if he drove himself.
We let ourselves in the front door. There’s no way to know how long Jon will be in the garda station; I guess he could arrive back any minute.
I leave Greta holding Bella in the kitchen and dash up to our bedroom to grab what I need.
But before I do anything else, I check my night-stand drawer for the bracelet.
Did Savannah want to be caught, I wonder now?
Or did she simply lose the bracelet when she was here?
And how did she die? And does her death have anything to do with Jon or with me?
This brings me back to Greta. Would she really go into Jon’s office to talk about a surprise party, something they could easily discuss over text?
Or was it something more urgent, something she didn’t want to discuss by phone?
My earlier elation feels false and flat now.
Maybe I need to bite the bullet and ask Greta outright.
As the first fireworks go off outside, I pocket the bracelet and go downstairs.
And what I find stops me cold.