Chapter Thirty-One. Cat
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CAT
The Silverado followed me for three right turns until I finally shook it, pulling into the entryway of a private pasture. Then it was forced to pass me by. I never got a good look at the driver.
I parked the car and called Mark. I couldn’t tell him about the truck—he’d only worry.
So I made my voice light, asked for the keys to our old storage unit, said I wanted to grab some of my clothes.
What I really wanted were his old trail cams from when he and Sheriff Ryan shared a deer lease years back.
Back at Sherman Ranch, I crouched in the trees to set one camera pointed at The Hollow, with the wind clawing at my hair, the dark pressing close.
I tucked another into the bushes across the street, so it faced the model home.
The cameras are out-of-date, their footage stored on SD cards instead of the cloud, so I’ll have to check them physically.
But if that Silverado comes back, I’ll catch it. I’ll prove to everyone I’m not going crazy.
Now I can’t stop peeking between the blinds.
Every time I hear a car pass. Or think I do, only to find the street dark and empty.
The temperature has dropped and the wind is howling through the trees, moonlight shimmering on the leaves so they look like silver coins shaking from the sky.
I keep hearing snatches of voices on that wind.
The ice falling in the freezer makes me jump.
The heater clicking on sends irritating goose bumps across my flesh.
There is too much noise. All around me. Inside my head.
I keep pausing the TV, sure I heard something new beneath the dialogue.
I get up to make tea, hoping the warmth will settle me, and that’s when I see them in the pantry: seven bottles of champagne.
Is that going to be too much of a temptation for you? Kennedy Claire had asked today at orientation.
Mark had alluded to the same thing. JCW Heritage Homes offers champagne during every house showing, and a free bottle of the good stuff if you sign a contract. Happy couples sip mimosas on all their billboards.
We don’t have to do that, Mark had said. It’s dumb.
I’ll be fine, I assured him, and when he paused a beat, I added, You can count them, if you like. If he does, he does it discreetly.
It is the quiet I miss. Standing in the open pantry, I close my eyes and press my hands over my ears, suction my palms to them, and listen to my own heartbeat, like when my mother pressed a shell to my ear on a trip to Galveston, and an invisible ocean surged and swayed through my mind.
I pull my phone from my pajama pocket to reread the last text Olivia sent me:
Tomorrow at noon, right?
And my response: I’ll be there.
The little heart Olivia added as confirmation.
I missed so many of her birthdays. I’d send her a card, a generic HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAUGHTER scrolled over a cartoon image of a pink cake.
The word daughter ringing hollow. I was no mother.
I picked out gifts I thought an eight-year-old girl might like without having any idea of her unique interests, her favorite cartoon characters, the kinds of games she liked to play.
Mothers are supposed to know these things.
They are supposed to be finely tuned in to the day by day, moment by moment whims of their children.
At the time, I’d use shame as another excuse to drink and to use, until I couldn’t feel, until I couldn’t remember the guilt.
And when I finally woke up from the haze of it all, it was just me, alone.
It was always about me and what I wanted.
I slam the pantry door shut.
As I make my way up the stairs, I hear the sound of tires slowly moving over gravel-scattered concrete, but I don’t check the window.
Instead, I put my earbuds in, play a relaxing meditation track, and climb into bed.
I turn my body away from the window and pull the covers over my head, so I won’t see headlights stretching across the wall.