The Lost Girl of Astor Street(49)

I’m alone at church. Just me and the saints depicted in the stained glass.

As I make my way up the center aisle, the heels of my shoes silent on the thick red carpet, I see that the casket lid has been opened after all.

I quicken my steps, even as I ask myself if I really do want to see what’s under that lid. But the temptation to see Lydia, to capture one last glimpse to carry with me through life, is too great to resist.

Only the corpse doesn’t have Lydia’s long red hair. Rather, it’s a bobbed, honey color. And the cream linen dress . . . the same one I wore on the night she was taken.

When I peer at the face, I see why. It’s not Lydia in the casket—it’s me.

I scream and stumble down the carpeted steps. The church is full now. Father, my brothers, Walter, Emma Crane, Mariano, and even Alana Kirkwood of The Kansas City Star, all dressed in somber black. The look in their eyes is clear. You. It was supposed to be you.

I burst through the sanctuary doors, into the foyer, and find Lydia. She hovers in the air like an angel, radiant and beautiful in all white. Her red hair spills all around her, same as when we were girls, free to run and laugh.

“It was supposed to be me.” The words feel like a long overdue confession.

Lydia nods and smiles, as if it’s oh-so-good that I’ve come to this realization. “And you can’t outrun death, my dear.”




You can’t outrun death, my dear. The words reverberate in my ears as I blink awake in my bedroom. The light streaming through my window is bright yellow, distinctly midmorning. My muscles ache, and I ease my knees away from my chest, my arms from my sides. It’s as though my body tried to shrink, to disappear, as I slept.

When my feet bump Sidekick, he stands, stretches, and shakes, before leaping from the bed. Then he looks back to me, tail wagging and tongue hanging out.

“I won’t begrudge you your happiness.” I ease myself into a sitting position. “You’re quite tolerant of my depression.”

He paws at my bedroom door until it opens, and the clicking of his nails against the floor fades as he makes his way downstairs.

I look at my pillow, still dented and inviting. You need to get out of bed, Piper.

I put my feet on the floor. You have to do this day. Now, get up.

The clock reads 10:02. So many hours between now and getting to close my curtains again. I can still smell breakfast. Sausage and biscuits. Father must be going into work late.

You need to eat breakfast, I coax myself, and then you can come back to bed if you still want to.

My mother was wrong. I can’t trust myself—I have to lie just to get out of bed.

In the bathroom mirror, a thin, chalky oval stares back at me. Set against the paleness of my face, my dark brown eyes seem almost black. My hair has begun to grow out of the fashionable bob that once seemed so vital to my happiness, and it hangs at an awkward length. In the dream, Lydia had told me I couldn’t outrun death, and the ghost of a girl I see in my bathroom mirror makes me think she’s right. That I haven’t.

I unhook my kimono from the back of my bathroom door and slip my arms into the silky sleeves. In the two weeks since Lydia’s funeral, rare is the night that I don’t dream of her. Sometimes I’m standing on the sidewalk of Astor Street, watching her get yanked violently into a car. I try to scream, but I can’t. In other dreams, I’m there when the life-snatching seizure begins. There’s a gag in her mouth, and I’m trying to pull it out, but it’s never-ending. Like a circus trick.

The funeral dream, in comparison, isn’t so bad. At least I get to see her alive and smiling.

The floorboards are warm beneath my bare feet as I make my way downstairs. The conversation of Nick and my father—baseball, like it matters—reaches my ears before I see the two of them seated at the dining room table. Father is dressed for the day in shirt sleeves and trousers. Nick is still in his buffalo-check pajamas, picking at his breakfast. Even from the hall, I can see why he’s eating so late. His face is pale and puffy, a sure sign that, yet again, he came home in the wee hours of the morning.

When they notice me, the conversation halts.

Father smiles. “Good morning, Piper.”

“Good morning.” I glance at Nick. His eyes are their new normal shade of red, from drink and lack of sleep. He doesn’t speak to me.

Joyce comes through the door with a breakfast plate in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. “Sidekick is so good to let me know when you’re up and about.” She smiles warmly and sets my plate on the table, across from Nick and Father.

“Thank you, Joyce.”

With Walter returning to California the day of Lydia’s funeral, and Father and Nick usually gone to the office, I’m accustomed to taking my breakfast alone or in the kitchen. It’s strange to feel so awkward with one’s own family.

Father sips at his coffee. “How did you sleep, dear?”

“The same.”

They exchange a look that seems to be about me, and I pretend not to notice.

“Nick was just telling me about his plans to go to the lake with some friends. I think it’d be good for you to join him.”

I involuntarily snort. Sure, relaxing on the shores of the lake. That will make everything better.

I reach for the jar of peach preserves. “I don’t feel up to it today.”