Paige and Russ in our kitchen last Easter, going quiet the second I walked in from the garden. Both of them suddenly very interested in the deviled eggs.
The way Russ would sometimes look at her across the dinner table, with an expression I could never quite name. Not desire. Something heavier. Something almost sad.
I’d thought it was nothing. I’d thought it was family.
Now, lying in that rental cottage with the ocean roaring outside, every memory seemed to have a shadow behind it.
Does this have anything to do with Russell?
She’d closed her eyes like I’d slapped her.
At one in the morning, I reached into my bag and took out Russell’s phone.
I’d brought it with me. Of course I had. I’d never once looked through it. It had felt like reading his diary, and Russ was the most open person I’d ever known. He’d never needed a passcode with me. I knew it anyway. Our anniversary.
