Now

Eden slouches in not ten minutes later and dumps her canvas backpack on the kitchen counter. It's covered with pins—rainbows, arrows, Bot Rights, the Coexist logo. Like Bob's yard used to look, but the opposite. She's in Converse sneakers, black overalls, and an oversize blue cardigan.

"Where's the cutie?" she says in a gravelly voice, always surprising coming from someone so petite.

"Napping," I say. "She just went down."

Eden is a gem of nurturing packed into the body of an emo gamer girl. She lives two lots up the road. She's twenty-six and moved in with her aunt and uncle after some kind of career disaster on the West Coast that she doesn't talk about. Now she babysits and smokes weed in the woods behind our house. I have the feeling she doesn't get on too well with the aunt and uncle, who I've only laid eyes on twice—after Thanksgiving when an inflatable Santa went up in their front yard, and in January when it came down.

"There's leftover lentils in the fridge for you," I say, "and pureed sweet potato for Annaleigh. Oh! And the container of ground meat isn't for the baby—it's Captain's."

"Got it," says Eden.

As if alerted by his name, Captain barks. Where is he?

"Hey!" I call out. I've trained him not to bark inside. I find him in the living room, pawing and sniffing the area rug. He barks again and looks at me, then straightens, body rigid, ears cocked forward, looking down.

"What is it? You find a spider?"

I kneel to investigate. Nothing obvious. I run my hand over the worn fibers, then stand, frowning at the rug. A brown low-pile shag that I really should replace. At some point.

"Go to your place," I command. Captain barks once in protest, dancing his front paws over the rug, scratching. "Stop that!" What has gotten into him? "Place!"

With a whine, he obeys, heading to the spot in the kitchen I trained him to go to. I follow. "Good boy."

"Everything okay?" says Eden.

"Yeah, fine. Captain's just going a little nuts."

Okay. Recentering. I've already packed my vast shoulder bag with the battery-run breast pump, empty milk storage bottles, my wallet, and a couple granola bars. I'm trying to think if I need anything else.

"So I hope to be back by dinner?" I say as I pull two bags of breast milk from the freezer and plop them into a bowl of lukewarm water.

"Okay, so around five or six, then?" says Eden.

"I think so." Two hours to the campsite. An hour to look around. Two hours back. I should also probably stop by the diner where Josh was supposed to meet Andy. Maybe someone will remember something. "Six at the latest."

"Well, for real, stay out as late as you want. I have no plans," Eden says, making herself comfortable on the sun-drenched and freshly cleaned family room couch just off the kitchen. "Is everything okay, by the way? I saw the sheriff's cruiser pull up this morning."

I flick my eyes up. Is it just me, or is she looking at me a little too casually, like maybe she already knows what's up but is embarrassed to admit it?

The rural sprawl is like that. It looks like trees and empty space. At first it felt like peace. Now I feel the danger of hidden gazes. Of quiet watchers. When I was surrounded by girls and cameras in the Proposal mansion, at least I knew who was watching.

"Yeah, about the sheriff..." I say, trying to sound like I'm not worried at all. "Well... Josh never came home from hiking? So I reported him missing. Just as a precaution. And this morning it turns out they found Josh's car." It's bizarre to hear how matter-of-fact I sound. Especially in contrast with Eden, who's gone ramrod straight.

"And... Josh?" she says.

"No one knows." My eyes are suddenly hot with unshed tears. I hold still, because it feels like moving even an inch will make them spill.

"Wow." Eden runs her hands through her short black hair. "God. Wow."

"Yeah." I ledge my fingers under my eyes and look up, willing the tears to recede. Now is the time for pragmatism, not another meltdown.

Eden leaves the couch and comes toward me. Touches my arm. "Hey, it'll be alright."

"I know," I lie, crossing my arms because her touch is starting to dissolve me when I've only just recovered my footing. "I just want him to be okay."

"Um, Julia?" She withdraws her hand. "If you need... I don't know. Like, an alibi or anything? I can vouch for you Saturday night."

An unexpected flash of anger stabs my chest. Alibi? Why is everyone so keen to imagine not just that there's been a crime, but that I'm a suspect? And why Saturday night? Josh texted Sunday morning, so clearly he was still alive and well then. The sentiment is nice, I coach myself. Eden is on your side. Not all hidden gazes are hostile.

"Thanks," I finally say. I think it sounds sincere. In any case, the anger is doused. I shoulder my bag. "I'd better get going."

Eden follows me toward the foyer. "I remember seeing Josh leave for his trip."

I force myself to murmur a neutral acknowledgment as I slip on my shoes.

"I think it was around...six?" she adds. "And I smoked some weed in the woods." She's talking faster now, like she's trying to shoot it all out before I get away. "You can kind of see into your house from back there, you know? Especially at night when you have the lights on. I definitely saw you moving around the kitchen or whatever, and then a guy stopped by."

"Yeah. My friend Andy." I open the front door, step outside. The birds are singing and I can already feel that blush of warmth that's coming in on the heels of the fresh, sharp spring morning.

"He was here for, what, under an hour?" Eden follows me across the scraggly yard, to where my car is parked in front of the house on a strip of gravel. I've tried to make the yard nice, but like everything else in Indiana, it's fought me every inch.

"Maybe?" I make a regretful expression as I unlock the car. "Honestly, I had way too much wine. By the time Andy was over, I was so drunk." I hesitate as feelings of guilt threaten to crowd me. "Sorry, that's probably TMI. And don't worry. Pump and dump." The last thing I need is someone questioning my parenting.

"It's all good," says Eden.

But despite all the wine I never should have drunk, suddenly I remember what I said to Andy, a flare amid the haze.

We keep fighting about you.The kind of confession I never would have made sober. Not even to Andy.

Like that single memory has flipped on a light and I can finally look around the room, I'm now remembering how motionless Andy went. Didn't he? Yes...like someone caught.

Yeah, Josh thinks you're in love with me or something, I blabbed on. He gets really angry sometimes.

Julia, what are you saying?

Maybe you can just talk to Josh about it. Man-to-man, you know? He doesn't believe me, that there's nothing between us. But maybe he'll believe you.

Andy pulled out his phone to text Josh. He looked sincerely concerned...and I excused myself to the bathroom. Damn it...the fog is descending again. I have a nauseating impression of... Chicken McNuggets? At some point Andy drove away, and I must have collapsed into bed with Netflix on, since that's what I woke up to.

Damn it, the light is off, like my brain decided I was done, but I grope through the shadow memories anyway, because there's something else—a feeling—fleeing even as I catch at its heels...

Relief. Deep, tangible relief. A sense that something big was finally being taken care of. A burden lifted...

That makes sense. I was probably thinking that Andy was going to work things out with Josh. Josh would come back from his trip clearheaded, feeling sorry for his unfounded accusations, and that particular thorn in our marriage would finally be gone.

Poor drunk Past Julia, thinking relief was just around the corner when things were about to get so much worse.

"...and I even remember noticing when your bedroom light turned off..."

It takes me a second to register that Eden's still talking. Ugh. I'm literally climbing into my car, and she's not slowing down.

"And I was up even later, playing video games. And your car isn't exactly quiet. So I would have noticed if you'd left. Which...you didn't."

Okay, this is way more detail than I will ever remember about Saturday night.

I have one foot still outside the car. I stretch forward and put a hand on my babysitter's arm to stop her. Sweet Eden, who is clearly so very concerned about me.

"Thank you, Eden," I say in the same gentle voice I use with Josh when he's getting worked up. "I don't need an alibi, but I appreciate the thoughtfulness. Really."

She nods quickly, like she's embarrassed by her torrent of words. Backs away a step, then two. "Yeah. Sure. Thanks."

I pause. "Actually, speaking of Saturday...did you hear a scream? Around two in the morning?" I'm such a light sleeper these days—it's a nursing-mother thing. Even though alcohol was involved, it's bothering me that a scream in the neighborhood didn't wake me.

"Oh, uh..." Are the spots of pink in her cheeks brightening? "Now that you mention it, yes. But I think it was, um, an animal?"

"Maybe a fox?" I suggest. At least she's not bringing up ghosts from a century ago.

"Did you hear it?"

"No. One of the neighbors mentioned it to the sheriff, I guess."

She looks relieved. "Well, it wasn't me that told him. But if he asks me, I'd say a fox for sure."

"That's what I thought, too." I slam the door and lower the window. "Text me if you have any questions about Annaleigh. She'll probably be asleep for another twenty minutes."

"Got it, boss." Eden makes a cute salute, then heads back to the house as I pull into the road. The sunlight gleams on the windshield like a flickering curtain, obscuring as much as it illuminates. As soon as I'm out of sight of the house, I slam on the gas.

The motion feels good, like I've broken free from Mitchell, but as the engine roars over the miles, I know the feeling is just an illusion.

They say cornered animals are the most dangerous, but I'm not an animal. I'm a Synth. No claws, no fangs, no bite. And when you can't defend yourself, there's only one way to elude a predator.

Don't get cornered in the first place.