Sweet Water(5)

Where are the Loudens?

This place was all decorated for Christmas just a few months ago.

I was here with him—Joshua. But Martin doesn’t know that, and I certainly can’t tell him now. Martin must’ve bought it, but I don’t remember a FOR SALE sign in the yard. Joshua didn’t mention they’d be moving, and surely he would’ve told me. What happened to them? I have a sickening feeling that they’ve vanished along with the red-bowed wreaths, never to reappear next season.

My dress feels tighter from my burning bladder, and I rub my abdomen, thinking of Joshua and all the pain he’s caused.

Tears crowd the corners of my eyes. The Ellsworths aren’t emotional people, and I need to maintain my poise. “Is it ours?” I take the keys, and they’re heavy in my hands. Laughter fills my ears, but I can’t properly feel the joy.

“It is now.” Martin’s smile is wide and devilish, and out of all the things he’s done, I already know he’ll never be able to top this.

“Was it even for sale?” The photographer’s oversize camera flashes again, capturing my agony, and there is a gentle cooing sound coming from the porch, because Martin’s family must certainly think these are tears of joy, but they’re not, because this place was never supposed to be mine. It belongs to the first boy I ever loved.

Martin winks. “Of course it wasn’t. But everything’s for sale for the right price.” He wipes a tear from my face. “Go to the restroom before you soil the lawn, dear.”

I look down and realize I’m holding my belly, my bladder groaning with dissatisfaction, just like the first time I walked through these doors. I walk past him, stunned, and try to smile at my guests as I open my front door. I know just where the first-floor bathroom is located. I memorized every detail of this house years ago.



I hide in the bathroom, taking in the familiar wallpaper, the navy-and-pink-flowered pattern with the metallic stripes—striking, not gaudy, like something I imagined I might find at a quaint bed-and-breakfast in upstate New York or a ski chalet in Vermont.

The white porcelain pedestal sink greets me as I wash my hands, the subtle smell of rose oil lifting to my nose as if it’s naturally embedded in the coffee-colored woodwork. The bath rugs have been swapped out from mauve to beige, which I prefer, but everything else in the room is the same as I remember it. It’s like taking a piece of my childhood and slapping it in my face. Joshua and I talked about living here together someday, and even though Martin bought it fair and square, nothing about it feels right.

Although most of what Joshua said to me here was in hushed whispers.

“Sarah, why don’t we go on the back porch? It’s quieter there.”

We snuck around a lot on this big estate, searching for alcoves where no one would hear our labored breaths or see our teenage bodies pressed together. We met up only at night. In the day, it was almost as if he’d never existed, or the sins we’d committed. And now that he’s gone for real, no trace of him or his family, it’s playing a wretched game on my mind . . . Were you ever real?

I can’t catch my breath.

It’s not just Joshua I think about in Stonehenge’s presence. If I close my eyes, I can almost hear my father’s voice, deep and gravelly, echoing in my head from the first time we were here.

He had many tall tales about the owners of the houses just like these, the executives who liked to block their fine abodes with leafy veils and climbing green vines, situating their homes down in the private cuts of the hillsides, proud of their wealth but not proud enough to share it with the rest of us. “It’s like the old houses back right into their paintings and disappear!”

“Like a secret,” I replied in a whisper.

“That’s right! They keep the best kind.”

Sometimes he’d even pretend to know what the homeowners were doing inside: watering their rare African orchids, balancing their checkbooks with king-size registers, combing their curly mustaches with special brushes.

Dad’s a hoot.

The afternoon we saw the inside of Stonehenge for the first time, Dad and I were cruising through Sewickley Heights on our normal Sunday drive. All our years scouting Sewickley real estate, and we’d never seen an open-house sign before. In some ways, I thought Dad was searching for the perfect house in these parts for Mom, even though she wasn’t here anymore. We both looked for ways to hold on to her. I still remember how Dad’s eyes had lit up at the Realtor arrow and the way my belly flopped when he asked the question, “Want to check out one of these bad boys from the inside?”

My skin tingles with the memory, the way I bounced up and down in the cab of his truck like a ten-year-old girl who’d just been told she was going to Disney World for the very first time.

We couldn’t afford Disney, but this was the next best thing.

“Do you think they’ll believe us?” I asked nervously, my ponytail bouncing along with me. I’d never lied before, and I was absolutely terrified to pretend we were legitimately looking to buy one of these houses when I knew we couldn’t afford it.

“People will believe whatever you tell them, Sarah Bear. We’re not hurting anyone; we’re just looking at a house, for Pete’s sake. Come on—let’s have some fun!”

Dad’s truck was already winding up the hill, following the arrows of the open-house signs before I could give my final vote.