Cruel Summer | ✓

chapter nine

Right at the most tender point of sleep — the seam, soft as the dent in a baby's skull, at which one dream joins another — is when I'm ripped from unconsciousness by an almighty clatter overhead. I lurch up in bed, heart pounding, and hold my breath until the noise strikes again.

Thunder. And rain. Torrential rain smashing down on the skylight.

At least it's not an intruder. Someone coming to kill me in my sleep, or a drunken hotel guest trying to get into my room with the wrong key. Except ... I'm not in my hotel. I'm back in Lou's spare room. Back between Lou's sheets. Jules, the designated driver, took Kate and Talia back to town with her but she didn't take me because ... because ... the night is hazy. I drank too much. Too many of my extra strong vodka sodas. Probably more like a triple shot in each. Way stronger than whatever Mike made me the other night. I remember lying down on the sofa halfway through a game of tipsy charades, when I was struggling to hold up my own head, and I remember hearing voices and the jangle of keys when the others left. When Jules said she was going to wake me up to take me back to my hotel and Lou told her not to. Told her to let me stay, that she wasn't comfortable sending me away to be on my own, that she would get me to bed.

And she did. She must have. I have only the vaguest memory of getting here. My arm around Lou's shoulders. Her hands on my ankles, taking my shoes off for me. There's a glass of water on the nightstand that I didn't pour for myself. A box of Tylenol too.

I don't feel hungover. My head isn't pounding. It's a bit foggy, but I feel good. That's when I realize it's only three o'clock and I've only been in bed for a couple of hours, not yet long enough for the drunken buzz to turn into an aching mess — I'm still tipsy. And I need to pee. I forget about the ensuite with its working toilet and I stumble to the main bathroom in the dark, getting myself in a muddle trying to get out of the playsuit I'm still wearing, and it's a good thing I'm on the toilet when the thunder claps again because I would've actually wet myself otherwise.

I hate storms. Any kind of inclement weather. Heavy rainfall. Thunder, lightning. Hail, sleet, snow. And it means I can't get back to sleep. I'm too hyped up, too on edge. Rather than figure out how to get back in the playsuit, I sneak back to the spare room with it around my waist and take a sweater and pants from the dresser and while I'm in there, I glug the water. Pop a couple Tylenol. It can't hurt to pre-empt a hangover.

As tidy as Lou keeps this place, there are pieces of her everywhere I look. Long orange strands of her hair in the brush in the bathroom. A pair of her glasses on the side of the bath. Her smile mirroring her daughter's in a photo on the wall. I pad downstairs barefoot, one hand on the banister until I reach the bottom and end up in the dining room. Lou's lipstick is on a forgotten glass at the dining table. I know it's hers from the shade. A slightly glossy nude pink, the barest hint of a shade darker than her natural lips. A stack of silver bracelets next to her placemat, where she took them off when they kept catching on her plate. Her books fill the shelves, some worn with use and some brand new. She likes romance and literary fiction, it seems. A couple of non-fiction books, too. A handful of mysteries. A lot of books with the kinds of covers that always crop up on the lists of award winners and nominees.

When I see another photo of Lou and Issy together, I wonder about Issy's dad. He clearly isn't in the picture now — in any of the pictures that fill this house — but based on the evidence, I'm not sure he ever was. He doesn't feature in any of the memories up on the walls or on the shelves; I spot several of Issy's milestones captured in a frame and she is either alone or with her mom. First day of kindergarten. First day of first grade. First day of every grade. Graduations: fifth grade, eighth grade, twelfth. At a geyser in Yellowstone; at the top of the Space Needle in Seattle; in San Francisco with the Golden Gate Bridge behind them. My mind whirs, churning up possibilities: he was a one night stand. He left Lou when she was pregnant. Maybe he was involved but things ended badly, she cut him out of her life and her photographs.