Page 89 of Everything She Feared

Sara was losingher grip.

She’d nearly spilled a plate of lasagna and a bowl of tomato soup on two screeching boys, each about six years old, who were racing around tables, bumping into her.

The boys’ parents sat in a booth, faces in their phones, indifferent. Then one of the two older women in the corner booth, who’d seemed nice, tapped her spoon to her cup, her way of requesting more coffee. Meantime, a man glared at Sara from his seat because the detailed special order he’d made off the menu was taking too long—“No salt must be added in the preparation. Is that clear? No salt.”

But Sara was detached, her mind spinning with thoughts of Katie’s drawing, of Anna falling to her death, the horrifying truth growing into an internal cry.

Someone brought her back by saying her name.

Beth and Polly called her into the alcove near the kitchen door.

“Yes?” Sara answered.

“What’s wrong?” Beth said.

“Nothing.”

“Bull,” Polly said. “You look like the world’s fallen on you. What is it?”

“Is it Katie? Is it your mom?” Beth said. “Talk to us.”

“Lean on us, Sara,” Polly said.

Feeling Polly take her hand amid the din of the dining room, the clatter in the kitchen, Sara welcomed the heartfelt concern in the faces of her friends. Breathing evenly, Sara wanted to embrace them, collapse into their arms before she broke into a thousand pieces from her secret crushing fear. Maybe, just maybe, talking about it with them would help. At the brink of revealing it, her jaw opened slightly to form the words but—

No. No, I can’t risk telling them. I can’t bring myself to say out loud that I think Katie may have killed Anna and that even worse, I—No, I can’t...

“Order up,” Mel said, setting two plates with fish and chips at the pick-up window.

Sara touched Polly’s and Beth’s arms before they got back to work. “You guys are the best,” she said. “Thank you, but I can handle it.”

But Sara couldn’t handle it.

When her shift ended, she called her neighbor, Val Rossi. If there was one person Sara could lean on, it was Val. She’d moved into the neighborhood a few years ago, after her husband’s death. Sara and Katie met Val while she was walking her dog, Bingo. Ever since then they’d been friends. Val struck Sara as a little lonely. She didn’t have kids and took to Katie right away, often telling them: “You girls are like family to me.”

When Sara reached Val on the phone, she asked if she could watch Katie for a few hours as soon as Sara got home from the diner and Katie got home from school.

“Absolutely.”

“I’m sorry to impose, I just need some alone time.”

“No imposition. Happy to help. You’ve had a lot happen in the last little while.”

“Yes, a lot.”

“I’ll come to your house to get her. I’m dropping Bingo off at the groomers for some spa treatment. Katie can come with me.”

“She’ll love that.”

“I’ll take her out for a cheeseburger after, then some shopping before we pick up Bingo.”

“Sounds good.”

“How’s your mom doing?”

“She’s doing okay.”

“I’ve been meaning to get out to Bothell and visit her. Please give her my love, Sara.”

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