Page 36 of Pretty Dead Things

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 genericHAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAUGHTERscrolled over a cartoon image of a pink cake. The worddaughterringing 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’tfeel, 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.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWOEMILY BLAKE

2017

Emily Blake sits on her stepdaughter’s bed. Olivia’s hair is damp from her shower, her head bent as she scribbles her wish on a square of pale pink paper. Emily writes hers too, the way they always do. Every night, they fold the slips into origami stars and drop them into the mason jar on the dresser, a galaxy of paper promises collecting in the glass.

You aren’t supposed to peek. If you do, the wish won’t come true. But she does, and as expected, her heart sinks, because Olivia wrote down exactly what Emily thought she would. That her mother would take her to the zoo this weekend, like she promised she would. Olivia has been writing the same wish every night for two weeks. Emily always peeks at Olivia’s wishes, because she always tries to make them come true. And usually she can. Wishes for cotton candy or a new headband. But Emily is powerless when it comes to this particular wish.

She kisses the crown of Olivia’s head, turns on the star shower night-light, and leaves the door cracked just so. Exactly how Olivia likes. She knows these details, because she’s the one who is here. Every night.

Then Emily pads down the hall, looking forward to pouring her single glass of wine and curling up on the sofa.

But she stops at the end of the hall, because she hears Mark’s voice drift from the kitchen, low and careful, a tone she knows too well. The tone he only uses with Cat.

Emily doesn’t have to hear the words to know what this means. Olivia’s wish won’t come true. Cat will disappoint her. Again and again.

She leans against the wall and she listens. She hates the way Mark softens for Cat. Hates the way he humors her. Hates, if she’s honest, that Cat exists at all.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREEINGRID

Three Days Before the Pageant

I brought the shoebox with the broken heel down from the attic and tucked it into the back seat of my car. The invitation still sits in my purse.

But I push all that from my mind now, because Dad and I are at Oak Hills to visit Mom and to meet with Dr. Patel, who thinks she’ll be able to come home soon. She started her first round of chemo yesterday, and the doctors want to keep her for twenty-four hours to watch how her body handles it. If all goes well, she’ll be discharged tomorrow.

Melanie is walking me through the post-op care, just like she promised. It’s actually her day off, which I discovered when her coworker, Tom, caught the three of us walking together in the hallway toward Mom’s room.

Melanie, are you serious?he said, hand on hip.What are you doing here?

It was only then I realized Melanie wasn’t wearing scrubs, just a plain cotton T-shirt and jeans.

Melanie, I started to admonish,you didn’t have to—

But she stopped me with a hand to my arm, that reassuring smile on her face.It’s fine.

You’re way too nice, I said.

Tom cocked his head and gave her a disapproving look.That’s what I’m always telling her.

We appreciate it, Dad said simply.

Melanie started with the easy stuff—paperwork, diet guidelines, when to call the doctor—all the things she could explain with a clipboard in hand. But once she pulled on a pair of gloves to demonstrate Mom’s drain care, Dad found a reason to duck out. Ostensibly, he’s gone to peruse the gift shop in the lobby, the one with CLIF bars and get well balloons, in search of face wash because Mom mentioned that she was nearly out at home.

In reality, he had understood the subtext: She didn’t want him in the room for this. Mom is the kind of woman who clips her toenails with the bathroom door locked.

When you’ve been married as long as they have, I suppose you really do become one unit. I watched a BBC documentary once about schools of fish. Hundreds, even thousands of individuals swim together as one body, swooping in a mass of shimmering scales, contracting, expanding, changing directions without ever needing words. They understand and are understood, at least in the simplicity of motion.

Joel and I were together for most of my adult life, the last of my twenties, the entirety of my thirties, into my forties. But we never had that kind of unity. We just coexisted in the same space, our minds residing in separate worlds.