Chapter Fifteen
FIFTEEN
The light slices between the curtains from high in the sky, bright and unforgiving. It casts long, slanted beams across the comforter, illuminating the dust motes suspended in the still air. My body hums with heaviness.
They said fatigue would be a side effect of the concussion, but sleeping in this late feels like another chunk of me has been chipped off. A subtle unraveling. Another way I’m no longer myself.
I stay in bed for a moment, not because it’s warm or comforting, but because the alternative, getting up, requires purpose.
And I have none. Without work, and Rachel, anchoring me to daily routines, I am left floating.
The silence of the room is oppressive. This lethargy reminds me of what happened to my dad after he retired.
He drifted like a ghost in his own house, unshaven and bleary-eyed, until my parents moved to Florida, where he joined the condo board.
It was only then that he regained some sense of identity.
As I head down the stairs, I hear the faint clink of dishes. Miguel.
“You’re still here,” I say as I enter the kitchen. The floor is cool beneath my bare feet, a little gritty. It needs a good mopping, but even the thought of it exhausts me. I cinch my robe belt tight, trying to gather myself into something solid.
“Yeah, not going until noon,” he says. His voice is annoyingly upbeat. “Staying late at the office so I can go straight to the airport.”
“The airport?”
“Yeah. Rachel’s coming back tonight. Did you forget?”
“No. Of course not.” But I had forgotten. What is happening to me? “I just got confused.” I move toward the coffee machine like a sleepwalker. My thoughts feel wrapped in gauze.
“I’m glad you slept in,” he says gently. “But remember you don’t want to rest too much.”
“Please, Miguel. I just need coffee.”
“Sit down—I’ll get it. You excited?” He grabs a mug and fills it. “She’ll be too late for dinner, but we could take her out for sushi tomorrow.”
He looks up and winks. It’s a long-running family joke how much I hate sushi. Always have. Raw fish triggers my gag reflex. But it’s Rachel’s favorite, and she loves to rib me about it, laughing at my chicken teriyaki like a six-year-old order. “Sounds delish,” I say.
“Breakfast first.” He hands me my coffee. “How about cantaloupe and raisin toast?”
“You’re spoiling me.” I force a light tone, leaning back as he puts a bowl of cut melon in front of me. The cantaloupe smells sweet and overripe, and the toast is still warm, studded with raisins, the butter already melting into the bread. “I might get used to this.”
His smile dims, just slightly. “Have you remembered anything else about Saturday night?”
I shake my head. “No. But I’ve been thinking about it. A lot. I think, and hear me out, I really do think that someone slipped something in my drink.”
I wait. Watch him. Measure the pause.
“Go on,” he says carefully.
“I didn’t have enough to drink to black out. And I didn’t take an Ambien, no matter what you think.” I meet his eyes. “If my drink was spiked, it explains why I passed out walking home.”
His eyes widen. “You think Jo and Daniel slipped you a Mickey?”
“It’s not funny.” My voice hardens. “It is possible that my drink was spiked. And it could have been anyone.”
He exhales. “I hear you. And I’m not saying that didn’t happen, but…”
I drop my fork. The clang is louder than it should be. “But what?”
“Bonnie on the corner said she saw you walking the dog that night. After the party. She said you looked fine.”
“What?” My voice rises. Bonnie is our neighborhood chatterbox.
More than once I’ve resorted to leaving my groceries in the car just to run inside and avoid conversation.
In her late sixties, married, with no children but a cat she is always calling after, she is in terrific shape and spends most of her time either gardening in her front yard or speed-walking with other women in the neighborhood. “How do you know that?”
“She brought it up. Said she saw you home the other day, and she asked me if you were sick. I told her you fell and hit your head and were taking some time off work.”
“You told her that?”
“What’s the big deal? It’s not a secret, is it?”
“Just—what exactly did she say?”
“That she saw you walking the dog Saturday night. Said you looked unsteady in your heels. ‘Those shoes are not for walking,’” he says, mimicking Bonnie with a grin that falls flat.
I don’t laugh. “So, Bonnie saw me. With the dog. In my dress. In heels.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Well maybe … maybe Kugel found his way home after I fell.”
“Caren. C’mon. How would he get inside? And did Kugel take your phone when he let himself in?” He chuckles. Like it’s funny. Like it’s all one big silly misunderstanding.
“I wish you would take this seriously.”
“I do. I take your injury very seriously. In fact, I took the liberty of calling about the support group this morning. They meet on Fridays, at one.”
“Without asking me?”
“Don’t be mad. Just give it a try—”
“I’m not crazy.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy, mi carino.” His voice drops. “But you’re scared. And I get that. Rachel’s coming home tonight—we don’t want to scare her too.”
“I wasn’t going to scare Rachel.” It irks me that she is always his first priority, and I hate that I feel a little jealous of my own daughter.
“Good.”
“But hear me out. It does make a kind of sense—what if someone wanted me unconscious so they could get into the house? To steal the bracelet?”
He opens his mouth to speak, but I hold up a hand.
“Let me finish,” I say. “The bracelet was stolen before, from Holly. What if whoever took it, what if they saw it on the Facebook page and panicked? Thought it might be traced?”
Even as I say it, my theory collapses under its own weight. Although it somehow made sense in my head, my logic is falling apart as soon as I put my thoughts into words.
“Can I speak now?” he asks, a hint of a smile on his lips.
“Go ahead,” I mutter, bracing for his disbelief.
Instead, he leaves the room. The sound of his footsteps retreating across the floor is muffled by the rug. When he returns, he’s holding a ziplock bag. Inside is the bracelet.
“Found it in the box with the CDs and DVDs.”
My breath catches. “What on earth?”
“I don’t know.” He holds it up to the light, as if it might reveal something. “You must’ve put it there by accident.”
I take it out of the bag and run my fingers along the cool metal. The little heart is unmistakable. “There’s no way I’d put it in with the CDs.” But even as I say it, doubt creeps in. The edges of my memory feel slick and unreliable.
“It’s not a big deal. People misplace things, especially if they’ve had a glass or two of wine.”
I frown.
He sighs. “The empty bottle, Caren.”
I feel my face redden. Heat crawls up my neck. “I told you. I didn’t open that bottle of wine. I don’t drink like that anymore. Have you even noticed?”
“I have noticed. And I’m proud of you. I just thought … maybe you were sad. About Rachel leaving. You’re allowed the occasional drink.”
“I know that.” My voice falters. “We’re just going in circles now.”
“Well, this is good news. The bracelet’s back. I’ll return it to that woman.”
“Holly,” I say, forcing a smile. It doesn’t feel like good news at all.
“At least we won’t have to drag Rachel into this. That’s a relief.”
“I think we should still talk to her.”
“Why?” His voice sharpens. “We have the bracelet. We can return it to that woman. The drama is over.”
“Don’t you want to know how she got it?”
“Not really. Kids do dumb stuff. You said this woman wasn’t interested in going to the police. That she just wanted her bracelet back—”
“Right.”
“So I’ll return it. End of story.”
Half an hour later, Miguel leaves for work with the bangle tucked into his backpack.
I watch him turn the car onto the street where Holly lives and disappear out of sight.
I imagine him walking up to her front door and presenting her stolen bracelet, the one she thought that she might never see again.
It’s a good day for Holly. And it should be a good day for me.
The bracelet was not missing at all. Just misplaced the whole time.
It will feel like closure for her. But it doesn’t for me.
After I get dressed, I call Yumi.
“You okay?” she asks.
“I had a weird thing happen. That turned out to be … nothing.”
“But you still think it is something?”
“Exactly.” I tell her about the email from Holly, how I couldn’t find the bracelet last night, and how Miguel discovered it in another box.
“The whole thing freaked me out because Rachel is the one who donated the bracelet. Well, she thought she was donating it to Goodwill, but I found it at the bottom of a bag and took it for the yard sale. I mean, how did she get that bracelet?” I pause for breath.
“I’m thinking of going to talk to this Holly woman myself and get more details. ”
“Huh,” Yumi finally says.
“What does ‘huh’ mean?”
As I wait for Yumi to respond, my eyes travel to a framed photo of Zach and Rachel on the dresser.
Two skinny bodies, dripping wet, grinning from ear to ear.
She was nine, he was twelve. It was one of the few years they both swam for our local pool’s swim team.
I dreaded those early-morning practices at the time.
What I wouldn’t give now to have just one more morning with them both.
“It’s probably nothing.”
My skin prickles. “Yumi. Tell me.”
“I have a theory. But it’s just a theory.”
“Spit it out.”
“You’d better come over. This is an in-person conversation.”