Chapter 5 - The Sack in the Garage
By the time June drove me home, I had stopped checking the rearview mirror every few seconds. I hadn’t stopped listening for the car behind us.
Edgar’s driveway was empty. June parked at the curb instead of pulling in, and we watched the house for a full minute through the windshield.
“Still want to go inside?” she asked.
“I want to know what Kristina left in the garage.”
June gave me a steady look. “Then we look together.”
The garage smelled of cold concrete, old leaves, and the faint oiliness of tools that hadn’t been used in a while. I kept my phone in my hand. June stayed close as I moved past the lawn mower and a row of flowerpots, careful not to touch anything I couldn’t explain.
Kristina’s old pruning supplies were tucked against the far wall. Her gardening gloves sat on the workbench beside them, the fingertips dark with damp soil.
I stopped.
June followed my gaze. “Those hers?”
“They look like the ones she wore.”
Neither of us reached for them. The dampness made the sight of them feel less like clutter and more like a sentence someone had left unfinished.
June lifted a small cardboard box from the floor, then set it aside without opening it. Behind the pruning supplies, something pale caught my eye—a strip of cloth snagged on the edge of a plastic bin.
I crouched. The piece was torn and frayed, its fibers bunched where it had ripped away from the rest. The cloth was the same dull color as the sack Kristina had carried into my bedroom.
My mouth went dry.
June held out a clean tissue. I used it to lift the scrap without brushing it against my clothes. The gesture was so ordinary—something she might have offered me after I cut a finger on a kitchen knife—that it nearly broke the tension in my chest.
“Could be from anything,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
The words came out too fast. I wanted this to be the piece that made every doubt disappear. Instead, it was a torn scrap behind old tools and a pair of dirty gloves. Enough to make my skin crawl. Not enough to make the world simple.
I took pictures from several angles, then wrapped the cloth in the tissue and slipped it into a clean grocery bag June had in her purse.
“If she sees us—” June began.
A car door slammed outside.
We both froze.
Through the narrow garage window, I saw Kristina crossing the driveway with her purse tucked under one arm. She glanced toward the street, then toward the garage. Her face held its usual composed sweetness, but the sight of us made it tighten.
June stepped in front of me—not enough to block me, just enough to make sure I knew she was there.
Kristina stopped at the garage entrance. Her gaze moved from June to the bag in my hand.
“What are you doing in my things?”
“I could ask you the same thing about my bedroom,” I said.
Her lips parted. For a flicker of a second, the pleasant mask slipped. Then she looked toward the neighboring houses and raised her voice.
“Nora, you can’t keep doing this.”
June’s shoulder stiffened beside mine.
“Doing what?” I asked.
“Turning every ordinary mistake into a crisis. You were upset, you were tired, and now you’re rummaging through the garage looking for something to blame on me.”
“I saw you put the snake in my bed.”
A curtain shifted in the nearest house. Kristina noticed. Her expression softened, almost pitying.
“Listen to yourself,” she said. “You’ve been under a lot of strain. Everyone knows how difficult things have been for you.”
The words landed where she meant them to: in the old, tender place I’d spent years trying to hide from her. My hands began to shake, but I didn’t look away.
“Don’t use my grief to make people doubt what I saw.”
June’s hand brushed my elbow. Not a warning to stop. A reminder that I wasn’t standing there alone.
Kristina shook her head for the neighbors’ benefit. “I’m worried about her. She’s not thinking clearly.”
“You don’t get to decide that,” June said.
Kristina’s gaze sharpened. “This is a family matter.”
“No,” I said. “It’s my home.”
The quiet that followed felt bigger than the driveway. Somewhere down the block, a dog barked. Kristina looked at me as if she was searching for the frightened, apologetic woman she’d trained herself to expect.
Then she found no answer and turned away.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. June guided me toward the sidewalk, her hand firm at my elbow.
A dark car was parked across the street. I recognized Edgar’s before I saw him clearly.
June noticed my face. She glanced at the car, then started steering me toward hers.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
“I’m not leaving you with him.”
May you like
Edgar opened his door and stepped onto the pavement. He didn’t look at the cloth in my hand or the gloves visible through the garage window. His attention went straight to June.
“You’re making her worse,” he said—as if I couldn’t speak for myself.
