The Valley and the Flood by Rebecca Mahoney (10 best books of all time TXT) 📗

Mom takes me off speakerphone. She lets out an exaggerated sigh, and I laugh. And then, for a second, we’re quiet.

My hand’s still quivering. It has been since the long, hot walk back to Lethe Ridge. Toward the end of Morningside Drive, someone had leaned out of his car. What gives you the right? he’d yelled at me.

It’s a fair question.

I should make some excuse to hang up. If it gets much later, I might not get Mayor Williams on the phone.

But then Mom asks, “How’s Flora?”

Flora. As if my nerves needed more adrenaline to process. “She went to bed early,” I say quickly. The question wasn’t Can I talk to Flora? but it would have been.

“Mm.” A pause. “And how are you?”

I glance around at the sharp angles and long shadows of the model house. “Fine.”

“Rosie.” Even from the other end of the phone, I know her mouth is sort of twisted off to the side. “I know you want to be there for the Summers. And I’m so proud of you that you made this trip. But this is going to be hard for you. Anniversaries always are.”

“I don’t need Flora to comfort me, Mom,” I say, through the sudden tightness in my throat.

“You might need someone to,” she says. “And Flora loves you very much, but I don’t think she can right now.”

I can’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t give me away. This balancing act is hard enough already: before I called the house, I spent about ten minutes reassuring Flora via text that I’m fine, I’m not mad, I just can’t call right now. I’m sorry, Gaby. I was always a little horrified at how easily you could lie to your mother.

“Did you tell Sammy I won’t be there on Thursday?” I ask.

“He already knows,” she says.

“He’s been talking about counting down with me, to the new year.” I twist the hem of my shirt around my fingers. If all goes well, I’ll be out of Lotus Valley tomorrow. But as for where I go after that . . . “I just thought—”

“He’s seven years old! He’ll be in bed by nine thirty.” She’s laughing, but the unease still comes through. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing.” Obviously not nothing. I take a breath. “This is hard for you, too, Mom.”

“What is?”

Me. But I’m not going to go there. “This trip. I know you weren’t sure about it.”

She sighs. “Rosie, this has to be about what’s going to help you. And if this trip is what helps, I promise I won’t worry.”

For a second, even with all this distance between us, she feels so close it’s excruciating. I could tell her right now why I left, what happened in that kitchen. She could tell me that it was okay, that it wasn’t as bad as it felt in that moment. She would tell me that even if she didn’t mean it.

My phone has been a necessary evil this past year. But at least I don’t have to look her in the eye right now. “Yeah,” I say. “It’s helping.”

“Okay.” Her smile is audible. “Then consider me not worried.”

I smile back. The muscles in my jaw feel tight, and the stiffness bleeds down to my shoulders. I stretch my head to the side. “I’ll be home in a few days, and we can—”

It’s only then, tilting my head to the side, that I see her there. Just a few feet away, in the mouth of the darkened kitchen. Gaby.

We lock eyes. At least I think we do, at first. But she’s looking past me, at something that doesn’t exist in this time. She curls in on herself, cupping a hand over her mouth, and whispers into her cell phone. Her favorite maxi dress flutters in a breeze I don’t feel.

That day before the funeral, I tore Gaby’s closet apart looking for that dress. It was her favorite, I said. She called it her mystical beach goddess dress, I said. I said all this in front of Flora as we looked for a dress to bury her in. But it wasn’t in her closet anymore. She was wearing it that night. She was wearing it.

Rose? Are you there?

Behind her, there’s a voice, low and indistinct. She glances over her shoulder. And then she’s gone.

“I’m actually gonna go,” I say. “I’m a little tired.”

“It’s only eight.” I can hear her chewing on her lip. “Everything okay?”

“I’m fine.” My fingers feel numb around the phone. Even my toes are tingling. “Long day. Can I text you tomorrow?”

“Of course you can. Just . . .” She falters. “You can leave anytime you want. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course,” I echo. The words sound far away from me. “Good night, Mom.”

My hand drops away from my ear before she finishes saying it back. And I end the call.

Silence falls like a slab of concrete.

Gently, I lower my dangling foot to the carpet, pushing myself off the couch without looking away from the spot where the living room meets the kitchen. The light ends at the point where the ceiling slopes. I can’t see anything past it.

“Gaby.” I swallow, wetting my throat. “Gaby?”

Somewhere in the darkened kitchen, someone beats a rhythm. Tap, tap, tap.

The living room crumbles at the edges. The kitchen tugs like some gravitational anomaly, pulling me into its center. My toes curl into the carpet just shy of the entryway.

I slide my hand around the corner and hit the lights.

The knob of the kitchen sink has been nudged a little to the left, just enough to let the droplets find a rhythm. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.

My exhale comes out as a laugh as I step into the kitchen. “If you have to result to half-assed haunted house tricks, I think you might be running out of—”

But then I cross the entryway and get an unobstructed view of the room. Sitting by the sink, just barely balanced on the countertop, is a small paring knife.

The handle wobbles a little, as if someone only just let