He looked me over, as if assessing my balance. All our lives together, with a few exceptions, I’d been sturdy, right there, upbeat rather than given to agitation or angst, even in the valley of the shadow, I was sturdy, not liable to capsize. All that seemed to leak out of me, all at once, as if my hardy emotions were hemorrhaging, leaving me husked, shivering in the heat.

“Mom!” Stefan yelled, pounding his way down the stairs. “Don’t we use heat anymore? It’s like forty degrees in here and I’m dying.”

I’m dying.

After Jep left, I went upstairs and lay with my head back to staunch the tears which kept coming, wetting my hair, wetting the pillow. The ceiling was a pristine pale peach cove, but I could see bloodstains all over it.

Jep was right. Maybe I needed some medicine.

“Mom! Are you okay?” Stefan was standing in the doorway of my room.

“Sure, sure,” I said. “You know, in truth? I don’t feel so good. I’m going to...to take a nap, okay?”

“Do you want some tea, Mom?”

“No, no...”

“I’ll bring you a glass of water anyhow.”

“Oh, okay, thanks, sweetie.”

He was so sweet. It was on my lips to tell him right then. What if I could baptize him innocent? What the hell was wrong with Pete Sunday? How long could this take?

With Molly at his heels, Stefan pounded back down to the kitchen. For perhaps only the third or fourth time in my life, I decided to pretend to be asleep. I just couldn’t trust myself not to spill everything about Esme. I heard Stefan quietly set the water down on the leather mat I kept on my nightstand, smelled the scene of his lavender aftershave...nausea boiled up my throat again. I must have fallen asleep.

Thea, she called. Thea? Where are you?

I had thought I didn’t remember her voice. But I did.

The wrought-iron fence, the heart-shaped headstone.

Beautiful Dreamer...

I woke up, stumbled to the bathroom and rinsed my face. Whatever changed in the coming days, the fact of Belinda’s death would endure. I could not imagine ever being free of the dark bloom that shadowed everything else, chilled everything else, every graceful moment, every clear-eyed glance, laced every laugh with a suspect syrup.

Damn it.

What was going on with Esme? What was going on with Pete Sunday? I promised myself I would call him first thing tomorrow.