The Perfect Stranger (Social Media #2)(26)

“Yes, but you write a diary for yourself. Not for perfect strangers to read.”

“Well, then, maybe they do it to help other people cope. Or maybe because they’re shy, and they can hide behind anonymity online, or because they’re lonely and socially isolated . . . who knows?”

Undaunted by her cousin’s disdain, Landry began to follow the cancer blogs daily, along with the usual barrage of comments from other readers.

Like a would-be pledge wistfully eavesdropping on a chatty cluster of sorority sisters, she noted not just the easygoing banter among the regulars on Meredith’s blog, but also their genuine compassion for each other. Nearly all were fellow breast cancer patients or survivors, and many were bloggers themselves. Landry clicked their links and began to follow their posts as well, on blogs that had clever titles like Yes, Ma’am(ogram) or Making the Breast of It.

Finally, she worked up her nerve to post a comment somewhere—was it on one of Meredith’s entries? Or Whoa Nellie’s?

She no longer remembers the details, only that she was welcomed so warmly that her shyness evaporated—kind of like the first time she stepped over the threshold of her college sorority house.

Barbie June didn’t understand that reference either. She knew her cousin would never understand why she was initially drawn to the online community, or why she was still there. Barbie June has asked, time and again, why she “still bothers” with her cancer blog now that she’s “cured.”

“Don’t you want to put the whole nasty thing behind you and move on?”

Landry sighs. How do you answer a question like that?

“I think she’s in denial,” she confided in her friend Everly. “She’s afraid that if it happened to me, and to our grandmother, then it could happen to her, too, and she doesn’t want to face—”

“Oh, please, she’s just jealous,” Everly cut in, “same as she always was back in high school whenever you got invited to a party without her. She wants to be front and center in your life, just like the old days. I’ve always thought it’s a wonder she doesn’t resent me—or resent Rob, even, for taking you away from her.”

“Don’t be silly,” was Landry’s response, though Everly had a point.

Barbie June’s possessiveness had occasionally reared its head during their formative years whenever Landry spent time with other friends, or when she had a boyfriend and her cousin didn’t. But by the time Rob came along, Barbie June was already engaged.

Now, she and her husband live in a waterfront home less than a mile away with their two children, a son and daughter born in reverse order of Addison and Tucker but almost exactly the same ages. The new generation of cousins isn’t nearly as close as their mothers and grandmothers had been, and their husbands aren’t particularly fond of each other, but despite traveling in different social circles with disparate lifestyles, Landry and Barbie June have maintained a connection over the years.

If she picks up the phone to talk to her cousin tonight, there will be no concealing the fact that something’s wrong. And if she were to tell Barbie June what happened to Meredith, she’s certain she wouldn’t be met with much sympathy.

The phone goes silent, and after a long pause, it beeps to indicate a new voice mail message.

Moments later the home phone begins to ring.

Barbie June again. If her cousin doesn’t get an answer on one number, she always tries the other—and sometimes she’ll even call Rob’s phone, trying to reach her.

Landry ignores the ringing, letting it, too, go into voice mail.

Guilt settles over her as she tries to go back to her book. What if the call was about a family emergency rather than the usual chit-chatty check-in?

Worried, she reaches for her cell phone to listen to the message.

“Hello there, darlin’. That was a divine picture of you and Rob and the Sandersons in the paper on Sunday, and I’ve been meanin’ to call you ever since I saw it. I know it’s Rob’s golf night so I figured you might be lonely. But—you’re not pickin’ up. Where the heck are you without your phone? I’ll try you at home. Buh-bye.”

Ah, the usual chit-chatty check-in—laced with a slight hint of accusation.

Landry deletes the message.

Beck leans back, rubbing her eyes.

She’s just spent hours sitting at the kitchen table on her laptop, alternately reading every entry and subsequent comment on her mother’s blog and still trying to figure out the password to her e-mail.

She’s tried every combination of her parents’ initials, plus her own and her brothers’, along with various symbols and phone numbers and birthdates in chronological and reverse order . . .

Nothing has worked.

She’s been keeping track, at least, on a yellow legal pad, so that she won’t waste her time on duplicate guesses. Now she flips the pages, scanning the list of everything she’s tried, feeling as though she’s missing the obvious.

Hearing a floorboard creak in the next room, she looks up. It’s either her father or Keith. Her brothers again drove back home for the night, promising to come back first thing in the morning.

After they left, Keith said he was going to bed and disappeared up the stairs, ever-present phone in hand. Since there’s only a twin bed in her old bedroom, he’s sleeping across the hall, in one of the bunk beds that once belonged to her brothers.