Page 18 of Middle of the Night

“Right about what?”

Joyce spins around to see Alice Van de Veer has joined the group. The last person she wants to see right now. From the tight-lipped smile Alice gives her, Joyce wonders how much she knows. Not just about what Alice’s husband, Fritz, has been up to, but Joyce’s role in all of it. She doubts Fritz outright told Alice anything, but wives have ways of finding things out. Even things they shouldn’t know.

“Alice is a good woman,” Fritz once said as they rode in his car. “The less she knows, the better.”

“Being there for your kids,” Trish says offhandedly, clearly assuming Alice wouldn’t understand. She and Fritz are the only household on Hemlock Circle without kids, which makes them unofficial outsiders, even though they were the first to move here.

“Of course,” Alice murmurs.

Changing the topic, Trish Wallace leans in close and says, “I don’t know if I should even mention this. It’s probably nothing. But someone’s been roaming the neighborhood.”

She goes on to tell them that some man—a stranger—was spottedwalking between Hemlock Circle and Willow Court the previous afternoon. She heard it from Sally Seitz, who’s lived on Willow for as long as Trish has been on Hemlock.

“He came from the woods?” Mary Ellen says.

Trish nods. “Apparently. Sally heard he emerged from the woods behind Willow before walking over here, to Hemlock. She also said he was wearing camouflage. If that’s not suspicious, I don’t know what is.”

Or it could all be nothing, Joyce thinks. It’s not illegal to walk in the forest surrounding the cul-de-sac. All of it is preserved woodlands, purchased by the county with grants from the state in the late eighties, when New Jersey realized it was going to run out of undeveloped land if something wasn’t done about it. Hence the thick wall of trees behind her house. A whole mile of forest until the access road, and then another mile after that until the Hawthorne Institute.

“Maybe it was a hunter that got turned around,” she suggests.

“Hunting’s not allowed in these woods,” Trish says.

“A hiker then.”

Joyce assumes people hike there all the time. One of them stumbling into a backyard is unusual, yes, but nothing to get worked up over.

“Do you think he was casing our houses?” Alice says.

“We need a good neighborhood watch program,” Deepika chimes in. “I’ve been saying that for years now.”

“Just keep your eyes open, ladies,” Trish says with finality. “This world gets crazier every day.”

The Gaggle disbands after that, with the women retreating to their various homes. Standing alone on the asphalt of Hemlock Circle proper, Joyce stares at the house she shares with her husband and son. It looks so big from the street. A much larger house than she ever thought she’d live in. Built by the same developer at the same time, all the homes on Hemlock Circle look slightly similar, with brick fronts and dormer windows on the second floor and two-car garages.

The North Jersey neighborhood she grew up in was filled with tall, narrow homes crowded close together like books on a shelf. She always assumed she’d settle down in a place similar to that. Instead, she’s here, in what’s technically the suburbs but feels more remote than that. Like the cul-de-sac is an island unto itself. Not for the first time, Joyce wonders if she’s worthy of a place like Hemlock Circle. If she deserves to be here. Right now, she feels like she doesn’t.

She knows the other ladies of the Gaggle would say otherwise. That being a homemaker is just as vital as any other job.You’re the damn glue that keeps the household together,she imagines Trish Wallace saying.

That may be true. But Joyce wants more than that. Why does she have to just be the glue? Can’t she also help build the house?

Right as she’s about to go inside, Joyce hears her name being uttered from the yard next door. It’s Mary Ellen Barringer, standing at the end of the privacy hedge, looking as hushed and serious as always. Joyce tries to pretend she doesn’t hear her and keeps marching through the front yard. She’s not in the mood for Mary Ellen. It’s not that she doesn’t like her neighbor. She does—in small doses. But now that Ethan and Billy Barringer have become inseparable, those doses are getting bigger and bigger.

Mary Ellen says her name again, louder this time, and Joyce has no choice but to stop in the middle of the lawn, plaster on a smile, and pivot.

“Hey, Mary Ellen,” she says.

“Do you still think it’s a good idea to have Billy stay over tonight?” her neighbor says, as usual getting right to the point.

“I don’t see why not. Ethan loves the weekly campout.”

“You don’t think it’s dangerous? With that man walking around?”

Joyce studies Mary Ellen, wondering at first if she’s making a joke about how ridiculous everyone else in the Gaggle acted about thestranger allegedly roaming the neighborhood. From their reaction, you’d think Trish Wallace had told them Bigfoot was in their midst.

“Oh, that,” Joyce says. “It’s silly, right?”

“It’s not silly,” Mary Ellen says, making it clear she isn’t joking. Of course she isn’t. In Joyce’s experience, Mary Ellen Barringer is deadly serious about everything. “Someone is out there. Planning God knows what. We should all be worried until he’s caught.”

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