Open House(8)

She’d shaken her head quickly and muttered a soft no because she wanted to stay on the meds, but now she wasn’t so sure.

The front door opened, and Priya felt herself relax just a bit. She stood up straighter and swiped beneath her eyes to clear any rogue makeup stains. The thunk of Elliot kicking off his shoes was enough to make her exhale fully. Her son was back. Maybe everything could be okay.

“Elliot,” she called, his name like candy in her mouth.

“Mama!” he called back, a word he only used when they were alone. In front of his father and his friends he said Mom.

“I’m in the kitchen,” Priya said, and Elliot loped into the room with a smile tugging at his lips.

“I’m starving,” he announced.

“Shocker,” Priya said, smiling back. Elliot was reed thin just like her, but his appetite was endless. Priya held her breath and waited, suspended inside the moment when Elliot would either come close for a hug or keep a cool distance. She wanted to reach forward and pull him to her like she’d done when he was little, but he was ten now, and she respected his big-kid body. She didn’t want to be the kind of mother who overtly needed his physical affection; she wanted to let him guide the terms of their relationship, which seemed to change every year, while staying the same in all the ways that mattered. He loved her, and it was all she needed.

Elliot stepped toward her as though he might hug her, but when he stopped short, the inches between them felt like a physical presence, like something Priya could wrap her hands around and squeeze the life out of. “So,” she asked quickly, turning to open the fridge. She found the kefir smoothie she’d made earlier and passed it to him. She never directly asked Elliot about school, or how his day was, because that made him clam up. He was unlike his father, who loved talking about his day and seemed affronted when Priya didn’t ask about it. In fact, Brad seemed to enjoy his life twice: once while living it, and then again when telling someone else all about it. But for Elliot, Priya kept her words to a minimum so he’d have room to talk.

“Thanks,” Elliot said, taking a slug of the smoothie. His eyes were bright brown orbs rimmed with a black circle that made them look like a cat’s eyes. His gorgeous, haphazard curls were courtesy of Brad. “Robby’s helping me fix my science project,” he said, an edge in his voice. Robby was a year older than Elliot, and he and his mother, Alex, were their only real friends on the street. The other neighbors mostly kept to themselves.

“Oh?” Priya asked, sensing he wanted to say more.

“Yeah,” Elliot said. “Because it was a flunk this week in school.”

“A flunk?” she asked. Her hands busied themselves by spinning her hair into a topknot.

“Yeah, you know, a flunk. It means like a failure.”

“Hmmm,” Priya said, nodding carefully. She always marveled at the way she could maintain eye contact with Elliot for so much longer than she could with anyone else. “How come?” she finally asked.

“Because the paper clip fell off the roof of the thing if I didn’t hold the magnet exactly right. You’d think Dad being a doctor would mean I could at least have a science project that didn’t suck,” he said. He blinked at her like he was waiting for her to tell him to be respectful of his father or not say suck, but she really only did that kind of parenting in front of Brad. Elliot was a genuinely kind soul, and Priya had a feeling he was going to stay that way as long as no one got in the way, including her. And anyway, he was right: Brad had hurried through that science project with him, acting like it was a chore. Priya was never less in love with Brad than when he was a mediocre father. There had been a very low point in their marriage when she’d considered leaving him, but she knew if she did her son would change irrevocably. It was a few years ago, when Elliot was seven and sensitive as ever, and as she watched his heart unfurling to the world she knew better than to do something that would close it. Of course, Priya understood why women and men left each other, and there were things Brad could have done that would have made her leave, too. But not that silly checkout girl at the gym, the one with brown curly hair and curves in the places Priya felt sunken.

Priya’s phone buzzed inside her pocket. Elliot was still standing there, drinking the smoothie. If she’d thought the text was from anyone other than Josie, she would have ignored it, but she didn’t have many friends, and the ones she did have weren’t the kind to text memes all day. She retrieved her phone from the pocket of her jeans, her chest tightening as she read Josie’s words.

How about tomorrow morning at 11? I’m showing an open house at 35 Carrington Road. Come a few minutes before then, before anyone arrives, so we can talk in private? I’ll be quick.

Priya started typing before she could think better of it. She vaguely thought of the nor’easter they were predicting, but she lived so close to Carrington Road—it would be fine.

I’ll be there, she wrote, and pressed send.





FIVE

Haley

Haley’s sneakers squeaked against the linoleum as she crossed the precinct’s lobby, her fingers tap-tap-tapping. A compact man sat at a desk in front of a computer, and he didn’t look up as she approached, which struck her as decidedly un-policeman-like. Weren’t they supposed to be paying attention to every detail?

Haley cleared her throat. “Help you?” the man finally asked, looking up. His eyes crinkled at the corners in a way that made Haley like him.