4. Jessica

After the call from Detective Patel, Jessica canceled her afternoon appointment (citing food poisoning, and offering the client a free Garage Storage Intervention session valued at $599—a little excessive, perhaps, but warranted under the circumstances) and drove directly home. By the time she got there, her sisters were already waiting in her living room.

Jessica hadn't told them to come; they just showed up. It wasn't a surprise, they always gathered at Jessica's house—perhaps because it was the most centrally located, but also because it was the nicest. Both Norah and Alicia lived happily in student-like accommodations, whereas Jessica lived in a beautifully renovated Edwardian home with three bedrooms, ceiling roses, two original fireplaces, and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a sparkling aqua-tiled pool that she never swam in and, frankly, found it difficult even to look at. (Jessica hated pools. Every so often she considered filling it in.)

"Who do you think it is?" Alicia asked.

Norah frowned. "Who do I think who is?"

"The body, you goose."

"Oh. Right. Don't know."

Jessica looked at her sisters, who were flopped across various pieces of her furniture. Jessica had no idea how they could flop under the circumstances. Jessica never flopped. Jessica stood. Usually while tidying or cleaning or filing paperwork. Doing. Even when she was home alone, she sat upright, her feet on the floor or maybe tucked neatly underneath her. A few years back, Norah told Jessica that she always needed a nap after spending time with her because her energy was so exhausting. Evidently it was true, because a few weeks ago Norah had actually taken a nap midvisit, which frankly was a little rich as the purpose of the visit was for Jessica to do Norah's taxes (though, admittedly, Jessica preferred to work alone).

"Jess?" Alicia said, sitting up. Her hair was pulled up in a bun and her face was ringed with staticky ginger curls. "Who do you think it is?"

"How should I know?" Jessica snapped. "Wild Meadows is an old farmhouse. These bones might have been buried there for a hundred years for all we know. It could be anyone!"

"Okay," Alicia said, hands up like she was soothing a skittish horse. "Calm down."

Jessica laughed. Calm down? She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt calm. Panic was her constant state of being, as familiar to her as breathing. She imagined that even as a newborn she'd awoken each day with her heart in her throat, asking, What will today be like? Will I forget something, or say the wrong thing? How can I make everyone happy? What if I can't?

Despite her inner panic, a glance in the mirror above the mantel told her she looked utterly unflustered. Her muted makeup was flawless, her black hair was glossy and smooth, there wasn't a hint of color in her cheeks. Her white shift dress looked as fresh as when she'd put it on that morning. Of course it did. Alicia once joked that Jessica's linen shirts were too afraid to wrinkle. Quite right, Jessica had thought. They wouldn't dare.

As Jessica dragged in a breath she was reminded of an episode of the Mel Robbins podcast that she'd listened to recently. It was about how to deal with panic. Apparently panic felt quite a lot like excitement, and if you told yourself you were excited you could trick your feelings. She decided to try it now.

I'm excited that bones were found buried under Wild Meadows. Woo-hoo.

Great. Now she was a psychopath.

"The detective wants us to go to Port Agatha," Norah was saying. "Tomorrow."

Her tone was neutral, almost indifferent, but there were little giveaways that she was unsettled. The repetitive bounce of her right leg. The thumbnail she'd chewed down to the quick.

"Tomorrow?" Jessica exclaimed. "We can't just drop everything and go to Port Agatha."

"It's a police investigation, Jess," Alicia said. "I don't think we have a lot of choice. Besides, it's Saturday tomorrow."

"Of course we have a choice!" Jessica felt heat creeping up her neck. "We're not under arrest. We don't have to go there just because they asked us to."

Alicia, as usual, remained calm. "I'm just saying we might want to consider it. After all, we haven't done anything wrong. And if we refuse to go, how will it look?"

Jessica felt dangerously close to tears. This wasn't how she'd planned to spend the evening. She hated changing her plans; hated surprises and calls out of the blue, even when it was good news. And there was nothing good about this. This was her worst nightmare.

"I just… I just don't think I can go back there."

A long moment of silence passed, broken only by the jangle of Phil's keys in the door. From where she stood, Jessica heard him toss his keys, miss the bowl, and then chase after them as they skittered across the marble floor of the foyer.

"Hey, Phil," Alicia and Norah said in unison when he appeared in the living room a moment later in his Victoria Golf Club polo shirt. Phil had worked as a greenskeeper at the club for the past ten years, and he'd likely continue to do it for the next twenty. Jessica found herself irritated by this lack of ambition, even as she envied his contentment. And if there was one thing Phil radiated, it was contentment.

"Hey." He grinned. "I thought that was your car parked across the entire driveway, Norah."

He said it cheerfully, and Norah confirmed that it was indeed her car, equally cheerfully. She did not suggest moving it, nor did Phil ask her to. He is so chill, everyone always said. His mates called him "Chill Phil."

Now, for example, he looked so happy to see them all. And it was actual happiness, rather than the forced, polite kind. Jessica often tried to mimic his joyful demeanor, ever since a marriage counseling session a few years ago when he'd commented, "You just never seem happy to see me. I'd love it if you looked at me how you look at your sisters. If you cared about me the same way."

She felt awful when he said that. Particularly as she usually was happy to see him. She enjoyed his lanky, lingering presence in the house, his thoughtful commentary about whatever he'd listened to on the radio on the way home. She enjoyed caring for him—cooking his favorite meals, booking golf or surfing weekends, only buying one hundred percent cotton sheets, because any other kind made him itch. But the relationship could never compete with what she had with her sisters. Nothing could. They might not have been related by blood, but their time together in foster care had made them closer than biology ever could.

"It's a sister thing," Jessica had once said, glancing at their female therapist for solidarity. "No one loves their husband as much as their sisters, am I right?"

The therapist clearly didn't have any sisters, because she'd stabbed Jessica in the back. "I wouldn't say ‘no one'—but it's interesting that you would think so."

They'd discontinued therapy shortly after that because Jessica was too busy helping Alicia move house and dealing with Norah's anger-management problems to attend appointments.

"There's lasagna in the oven," Jessica said to Phil. "You go ahead—I'm not eating."

"You didn't need to cook for me," he said.

They went through this dance every time: Phil pretending he knew how to cook, Jessica pretending she wouldn't have an anxiety attack if Phil started messing about in her kitchen. Their kitchen.

"I'm happy to do it," Jessica said. "But, Phil, would you mind giving us a minute? We're dealing with some family stuff."

"Cool," he said, and wandered toward the kitchen without another word. Chill Phil.

"Thank you!" she called after him, smiling extra hard.

"We need to go to Port Agatha," Alicia said when he was gone, her tone more decisive now. "If we leave in the morning, we'll be there by lunchtime and you can be home by tomorrow night. It's only a day. We can do this."

"We'll be together," Norah added.

Jessica stared at her sisters. They'd gone mad.

"If we go to Port Agatha they're going to pore over every detail of our childhood and analyze every moment we remember from Wild Meadows!" Jessica cried. "Have you forgotten what happened last time we did that?"

"They didn't believe us," Alicia admitted.

"They thought we were batshit crazy," Norah added.

"Exactly. So you'll forgive me if I don't want to go running back there after one vague phone call."

Jessica sat in an attempt to present an air of finality. As far as she was concerned, the matter was settled. There was no need to go to Port Agatha. The discovery of the bones was tragic, but nothing to do with them. They couldn't shed any light on them, even if they wanted to.

"But what if we weren't crazy?" Alicia said quietly.

Norah and Alicia were no longer flopped. They sat upright, spines straight, their eyes wide like the vulnerable little girls they'd once been.

"Alicia," Jessica warned, but it was too late. Pandora's box was open. Maybe it had been open from the moment the detective called.

"If we weren't crazy," Norah was saying, almost to herself, "it explains why human bones were found under Wild Meadows."

This was exactly what Jessica was afraid of.