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  Bram comes at me with a kiss, warm and juicy, the promise of things to come. He’s in a cheerful mood, the only mood I’ve ever known from him, so that insert in Simone’s journal resounds like a gong in my ear.

  Bram and I help Lena set up the last of the buffet, spreading it over the dining room table, paper plates at the ready. I can’t help but cast a wistful smile at the walls. When we moved in, they were stark white and I insisted on painting them red, something cozy, a nice holiday feel I said at the time. It was a post-Christmas haze that had inspired it, and now that even Valentine’s Day is behind us, the color just feels wrong, offensive even. It’s as if the walls are angry, the entire house were wishing to be rid of us.

  The clock strikes one and Bram, Lena, and I freeze a moment like three lonely children standing in the cafeteria on the first day of school just hoping the cool kids will ask us to sit with them. In reality, we’re wondering if the cool kids will show at all. And sure enough, they do like a flood. The glut of second and third graders run through the house and straight for the bounce house out back as if it were magnetically pulling them into its gravity.

  A handful of mothers linger in the backyard whispering amongst themselves in groups of two and three. The rest of them asked what time the pick up was and took off for child-free pastures. A part of me marvels at the fact they’ve entrusted us with their most prized possessions. If they only knew who they were dealing with, they would have certainly thought twice, or most likely not come at all. But most of the PTA is present and accounted for, lingering among the crepe myrtles out back, so I suppose there is a small comfort in that. Bridget arrived with her nose buried in her oversized phone. The sparkly pink case looks as if it were an accessory for one of Lilly’s Barbies, and yet some small shallow part of me envied the way it caught the light.

  The doorbell rings and in pops Tessa with her down-to-earth sense of style, cut-off jeans as if to usher in the warmer weather and a pink sweatshirt that reads Moss Dolphins, expounding the fact that she’s forever the cheerleader.

  “Hello, Woods family!” She gushes, her eyes swollen with that never-ending glee she seems to propagate, and I can’t help but love her. Tessa’s brand of cheerfulness is a contagion and one I’m happy to contract. We exchange a brief embrace, and she lunges for Bram as well.

  “My God, you have quite the house!” She takes in the red walls with an exaggerated inspection, and my body heats as if I could feel her judging me.

  “It was a post-Christmas thing,” I say stupidly, and Bram shakes his head at me as if to stave me off from going there. He’s already heard this a dozen times. Reiterating my regrets is a nasty habit I’ve yet to rid myself of. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been prone to apologizing for my decisions, for my very existence, and I’m sure all the people my mother bilked money from would appreciate the latter. “I’m not sure I’ll keep it, though—the color. It’s really hideous now that I’ve lived with it for a bit.”

  I hear Lena groan audibly and give me the finger behind Tessa’s back. I know that Lena thinks I’m kissing her ass, and perhaps she’s right, but my nerves are jangled from the body, from that box that landed at my feet this afternoon, and all I want is to fit in for once. Lena leaves the room, and I take a breath.

  “I’ll be repainting it soon. Brown, I’m thinking.”

  “Brown?” Bram muses. “We might have to take it to a committee. Lilly and Jack would probably vote for—”

  “Green with purple polka dots,” I finish for him, and his left brow hikes with amusement. With Bram everything is an inside joke. We take a bit of perverse pleasure in knowing why it’s so important we meld seamlessly into our new world. We overcame our extraordinary odds, fought like hell, and now we are a normal, such a horribly normal and boring family. A dentist and a housewife. We love to sell it as much as we love the illusion.

  “No way!” Tessa protests while fanning her arms over the startling color. “I love the red. It has to stay.” Her theatrics alone are worthy of leaving it be for a lifetime. “Isn’t that right?” She looks past me as Bridget joins us.

  Bridget’s eyes flit to Bram, her tongue does a quick revolution over her lips, a subconscious primal cry for him to impregnate her. I’ve convinced myself that on a fundamental level, women of childbearing years would love to sleep with my husband. Bram must sense this, too, because he steps in close and slips his arm around my waist. He’s been claimed, and he’s not looking to explore his options.

  “Red? Really?” Bridget’s fingers tap over her lips as she beats her fingernails against her teeth. “They say red is a color that insecure people use to disguise the fact they have no power.” Her lips twitch just shy of a smile as she flits those dark, soulless eyes my way. “But you bought it that way, right? I mean, you didn’t deliberately choose the color.”

  The doorbell rings, and I make a move for it without hesitating. For a brief moment, I’m wishing it were Bridget I had discovered with her neck the size of a thimble. The police still haven’t released any information on the body as they so coldly referred to the poor girl I had the misfortune to discover.

  I swing the door open to find a pert Amazonian blonde, skintight jeans, crop top, just-ate-the-canary grin on her face, Astrid. Tucked in her arm is an enormous chicken, a majestic beast whose plumage actually stuns with its long onyx-colored feathers. Its beady eyes and frenetic head jabs, letting me know it doesn’t want to be here anymore than I do at the moment. I spot Astrid’s kids running around through the back gate, most likely not wanting any association with the lunatic before me.

  “You’ve brought a guest,” I say in my brightest voice, widening the door to let her know undeniably that poultry is allowed. I’m the cool mom who lets this shit fly. Can’t wait to see Dawson’s reaction. I’m sure he’ll be spitting out feathers for a week.

  No sooner does Astrid strut her tiny frame into the foyer than Tessa bounds over and embraces both the bird and the bitch. “You’ve brought Rocky!” She does a little dance, cooing and oohing at the frightened beast, and it gives an alarmed flapping of the wings.

  “Oh, hush you.” Astrid tightens her grip over the poor thing as she looks to Bram. Something cinches in me when she does it. Don’t think it’s gone unnoticed that each time we’re together she pretends I’m a part of the furniture and treats my husband like a single father. “I hope you don’t mind the early wake-up call. I’m trying to get rid of the rooster, honest I am, but I can’t seem to place him in a decent home. I’ve got a flock of fourteen right now and more baby chicks on the way. My animals are my family. The kids know I love my feathered friends best.” She belts out an awkward guffaw.

  Bram and I exchange a sharp look. So she’s the culprit with the damn birds who love to rouse us as soon as the sun hits the horizon. We gift a knowing nod to one another, always on the same page.

  See? I want to say to those around us all too eager to drop their panties for my husband. We are a united front. Our bond is unbreakable.

  “We don’t mind a bit.” Bram does an odd little hop backwards. He has never been a good liar. “I think I’d better ring the bell and get those kids eating before the food goes cold. You ladies, too. Chop, chop,” he chides before disappearing, and both Bridget and Astrid give a schoolgirl giggle.

  “So, Ree.” Astrid leans in with her elf-like features zooming in a little too close for my liking, her pecking friend, jutting its own head out toward me as if pleading for assistance. “Rumor has it, you touched the corpse. You tried to revive her yourself. That’s quite heroic. Was it someone you knew?”

  I inch back a bit. “No. Actually, I don’t know who she was. But I can assure you I never tried to revive her. I felt the floor. I thought it was paint, but it wasn’t. It was—”

  Astrid pushes me to the side in a violent fit as she takes a step toward the dining room. “What the hell?” Her eyes are agog at the streams of miniature hands all snapping up food off the buffet table at once. The bounce house sits defl
ated out back, slouching over itself like a tired old man. I’m guessing unplugging it was Bram’s sneaky way to get the kids to take a break and eat. I spot him outside, cornered by a petite redhead, her hand petting his arm every other second as if comforting him.

  “Don’t worry. We have enough food to feed an army,” I insist. “In fact, if you want to get started yourselves, I can have the Chinese chicken salad brought to the living room. Lena!” I give a shout to my sister but am met with silence on that front. Lena’s sequestered herself in the kitchen, and it doesn’t look as if she’s coming out.

  “Holy shit.” Astrid staggers into the dining room as if I’ve chopped up a body and fed it to the miniature masses.

  Tessa’s eyes grow wild as she inspects the scene. “Crap.” She stomps on over, and both Bridget and I follow like a couple of lost puppies.

  Astrid yanks a peanut butter and jelly sandwich right out of some poor boy’s mouth and screams at the children to get back outside.

  “Are you trying to kill us?” she riots while nailing me in the face with the unfinished sandwich. “Bridget, get out there and take that shit away from them. Hose down their hands. Nobody touches anything. I want everyone the hell off the property in five.” Her eyes meet with mine, furious and dangerous. “You do not feed a group of children peanut butter under any fucking circumstance. Do you hear me? One sniff of that shit can send anyone even remotely allergic straight to the ER. I am damned glad I brought my EpiPen.”

  Tessa steps in. “Okay, calm down. We’ve got the kids taken care of. Brian across the street is a pediatrician.” She looks to me and nods, as clearly that bit of info was for me. “I’ll have him give everyone the once-over. And I’m sorry, Ree. She’s right. We’ve got a hell of a lot of allergies this year, and we’ll be lucky if we don’t end up with another corpse on our hands today. My God, it would be a child.” She looks to the ceiling. “You don’t want that. You do not want to know how it feels to have a child’s corpse haunting you.”

  “No, of course not.” My heart throbs in my throat, and my veins pulse with heated adrenaline. I’ve sweated right through my clothes, and the air feels steely against my skin. I’m ripe with embarrassment that poor Lena has to witness the event, even if she is cowering in the corner, snickering away, saving all of her best lines for later, and I’m sure I will hear them. But Tessa is wrong. I know exactly how it feels to have a child’s corpse haunting you. In fact, I know what it feels like to have two.

  Astrid spots the bucket full of chicken legs spiking out of their cylinder-shaped home as if taunting her, and she seizes, causing her ridiculous bird to let out an ear-splitting squawk. She lets out an arduous cry herself before sneering at me and stalking out to the back.

  “I’d better help get the kids to safety.” Tessa helps her usher the children single file through the rear gate swiftly as if the backyard were suddenly on fire.

  I head out, only to meet with Bram, his arms folded tightly, his pale green eyes penetrating me with a mixture of disappointment and heartbreak. The veins in his neck bulge, a silent rage just the way Simone had pegged him, and I quickly sweep his poor dead wife out of my mind. We are trying too hard. I shake my head at him, and he shrugs back.

  We plug in the bounce house and join the kids. Lilly and Jack laugh and scream. They don’t even notice the other kids are missing. Lena comes in and sits in the corner, enjoying the ride we afford her. Bram holds my hand, pulls me in, and steals a kiss. He whispers I love you straight into my ear, and it almost feels as if it’s going to be all right.

  That night I scan my emails before bedtime. Twelve new messages. Almost all of them far kinder than expected. Sorry things turned out that way! I’m sure that will never happen again. I hope the kids will be at Willy’s party next week—we’re having an insect zoo! Ricky and Ann had a good time anyway!

  Tessa sent one that read Don’t tell anyone, but I still buy peanut butter. Next time you’re in my neck of the woods, pop over and we’ll share a sandwich in secret.

  I can’t help but give a dull smile.

  One from Bridget: You have snack on Tuesday in Lilly’s classroom. Don’t be an asshole.

  Nothing from Astrid. She’s as red as my wall, I’m sure. I’ve never seen so much rage in a person, not since my mother. I’m sure she’s through with me.

  And just as I’m about to abandon my phone for the night, another email pops up as if to contest the theory.

  [email protected]: Woven jacquard drapes in the bedroom are considered a crime in some places. The red bedspread looks about as tired as you. I did wonder, though. What is in your closet?

  The world stops spinning a moment as Simone and that box that contains her private journals race through my mind. I bolt off the bed and head into my closet, leaving the dim light from the bathroom to illuminate my sweaters still heaped over the cardboard. I peer in to find the contents untouched and cover them back up again. Someone had the audacity to invite themselves upstairs, to judge my curtains, my bedding, my closet, and its contents. They were making a point.

  I’m starting to think our move to Percy was a mistake. I’m starting to think that no matter where Bram and I go, we will never escape the past, never escape the bodies, finding fresh ones along the way.

  Bram and those veins bulging along the sides of his neck come back to me. My husband lost in his silent rage. It seems inescapable at this point.

  My heart drums into my ears all night long.

  I don’t catch a wink of sleep.

  Bram

  They say you remember the first time you lay eyes on the love of your life forever—deep down, there is an intrinsic connection that indelibly etches the moment into your psyche.

  I stroke my wife’s honey-blond hair while she sleeps beside me and marvel at how soft it is, how soft she is, how perfect in every single way. The early morning light baptizes her with its luminescent fire and her body glows like a flame. I remember the first time I laid eyes on my wife. I was seated in a bar where I had all but taken up residency. The Boar’s Tavern was a seedy kind of a bar where you could lose your sanity and your soul if you wanted, and I was indeed on the verge of losing the latter. I had already lost the former. It was one of those nights that I was busy with the task of taking inventory on whether or not I needed to hang around on this planet for another day, and Ree walked in, smiled my way as if we had a date, and just like that, something switched on inside of me and I knew. I knew that Ree was the one. Her toothy smile was so brilliant it almost knocked me right out of my seat. That’s what I have etched in the recesses of my mind. She gave me a brand new reason to live right at that moment.

  “What’s your name?” she asked after landing on the stool next to me. She cited she was waiting for a friend, but that friend never did show. I remember thinking this woman is so bold. First of all, to set foot in this dive with that face and that body, and second of all, to crack the ice without any pretense. But I came with pretense, guns blazing.

  My mind wandered for a moment. It was close to Halloween, and the place was laden with cheap cardboard cutouts of witches and ghosts, but it was the cartoon vampire with his spiked fangs that caught my eye.

  “Bram.” And right then, I spoke my first lie to the woman who would be my wife. It’s important to note that the very first word out of my mouth to Ree was in fact a lie. Straight to the deceit—no chaser. And just as I was about to ask for her name, reciprocate her boldness right back into her lap, I opted for something far bolder. “My name is actually Peter.” My own smile dissipated. There was nothing funny or even fun about being Peter anymore. Peter was about to step off a bridge. Peter was a downer just about every way you sliced him, and a majority of the nation had enjoyed doing that for the better half of a year.

  “Peter?” Her brows hiked a notch, and I couldn’t help but note that it only magnified her beauty. She had a clean, open face, clear amber eyes that mesmerized me right off the bat. A face you might see on the cover of a health magazin
e for women. Her lips were slicked with a blush of color, but everything about her screamed natural beauty. It made me think of Simone, her thick layers of creamy foundation, the caked-on powder that sank into the creases. Grocery store bleached hair. Everything about Simone was hard, unyielding, and my stomach knotted up for having the thought. You shouldn’t think bad things about dead people. You should especially never think bad things about your wife who was brutally murdered less than nine months ago. It is a bad, bad thing to harbor hatred in your heart for the mother of your two dead children. They say a tragedy like that has the power to tear apart a marriage, but the floor to ours had rotted out long before that.

  “My name is Aubree.” She held out a small pale hand, and I glanced to it as if I didn’t understand the mechanics of what she was asking. “You can call me Ree.”

  “You must be a reporter.” I gave a quick shake. I will admit, there was a twinge of relief to have solved this puzzle, and to think for a moment I believed she had wandered in here, this fabulous woman, and things might have actually started looking up for me once again. “No offense, but I proverbially gave at the office.” In reality, I gave up my office. My thriving dental practice hit the shitter once word circulated that I had taken a hammer to my wife’s face. Of course, I did no such thing, but the jury of public opinion didn’t see it that way, and what they chose to believe quickly became my reality. No, not many patients visited the office after Isla and Henry had drowned. There was a dark cloud that hovered over my once blooming medical practice—even I could see it, feel it touch it, taste it. But after Simone was killed so very brutally, not even a mouse dared traipse across my office floors. A majority of my staff quit, citing every excuse under the sun, and the last few stragglers I had I ended up placing in my competitors’ offices. There were still a small handful of people who believed me, who would testify under a grand jury if I asked them to on my behalf.