“I would like a recommendation for the temple, please.” Amber had been attending church services since their arrival in Lehi. And since the incident, she had been meticulous in her actions. She came early to distribute hymn books and stayed late to blow out the candles once all parishioners had left for the tearooms. She’d signed the volunteer form to join the church cleaning rota: a great way of keeping out of the house. She made a point of speaking to everyone, introducing herself as new to the community and often bringing baked goods. Ivan always accompanied her, smartly dressed, though glowering.

  “Well, I’m glad you’ve come to me, Amber.” When Brett smiled, his eyes grew crow’s feet with five toes on each side.

  “Sorry I didn’t come earlier. Chad said you’d be expecting me.”

  “That’s alright, you’ve had a lot to process, a new marriage, a new town to get used to, so I didn’t expect…And how are you?” He tittered and itched his neck. “Sorry, already asked you that.”

  “I’m…yes, I’m processing it all, settling in, so thank you. I’ve been meaning to visit the lake this weekend.”

  Brett brightened at this and sat up straight. “Oh, you’ve not been? I can’t believe Chad’s not taken you yet!”

  “Well, I’m not much of a fisher.”

  “What a shame, I thought Chad only married to find a fishing partner!” They both laughed, Amber out of politeness. Brett gazed at her. “I don’t know what I expected from Chad’s choice in a wife, you know…” Amber resisted an eyeroll.

  “But I’m not what you were expecting?”

  “Well, no. Chad’s the rugged, salt of the earth type. Most folks around these parts are. You’re more…”

  “Sophisticated?” Though she hated the term, there was a certain satisfaction in claiming it before it was branded onto her skin by another.

  “Not quite. Elegant, maybe. A woman of intellect. Someone told me you wrote a book.”

  Amber crossed her right leg over her left and sat up straight.

  “Yes, I’m a visionary. The book is about my experiences.”

  Brett tilted his head and then opened the drawer to his left, retrieving and fanning out four holy texts onto the table in front of them.

  “Do you know what these are?”

  Amber bristled, and pinched the skin on her thigh before answering. “Yes, I do. The Christian Bible, The Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price.”

  “What’s this book, then? We have all the books we need here, I reckon.” Brett leant back in his chair and smiled, but it was a smile which seemed to get stuck around the edges of his back teeth, like a shark.

  “It’s more a memoir.”

  “Not a holy text?”

  “No.”

  She pursed her lips. They listened to the tick of the clock behind her marking the seconds.

  “Well. As long as you’ve no designs on writing the next covenant, Amber!” He barked a laugh and she managed an indulgent smile.

  “Oh, no. I’m focused only on building up Zion in myself, right where I am. I’ve been brought to this town, to Chad, for that reason. It’s what I aim to instil in my…” she trailed off. Children, she had been about to say.

  He seemed to think deeply on that for a moment before tapping his knee with the slap of his palm. “Well, then. That’s settled. I should be delighted to recommend you for the temple!”

  “Thank you.” She gathered up her bag and made to go as he moved closer to her.

  “I heard you sent Gilly away, you know. That must have been a hard decision for you. One no mother wants to make.” He spread his hands wide. “Well, missing her, it must be a kind of grieving. And if I can help with that pain, I’d like to. However I can. One shouldn’t be going through these kinds of things alone…”

  She forced a smile. “You’re too kind.” There was an awkward silence, in which Brett seemed to wait for her to take him up on his offer. “I’d better go.”

  He paused, as though deciding whether to push the matter, and then nodded, waving at the door. “Yes, yes, of course. Have a blessed day.”

  2ND JUNE 2015

  AMBER

  She hovered outside Ivan’s bedroom and knocked. He hadn’t locked it, but she felt the barrier regardless. “I was thinking of baking, Ivan. Are you hungry?”

  “No.”

  She pushed open the door an inch. “What you up to?” Amber poked her head through the gap. He turned to look at her, with open distrust. She made an effort to return his gaze dead on, between the eyes, grateful that her skittish hands were hidden behind the door frame. “How you doing?”

  “Fine.” He pushed up from his bed and went to the window, turning his back on her. The shutters were stiff and she resisted the urge to follow him and help. Then a gust of fresh air entered the space, Ivan inhaling noisily. She slipped into the room. There was a full moon tonight, and it hung over the lump of soil in the back garden.

  “X marks the coyote,” he muttered.

  She gulped. “Are you still thinking about that?”

  He twisted towards her. “Well, what kind of dope buries roadkill?” He’d always had the most piercing blue pupils. She felt pinned to the wall.

  “Are you okay?” she said, finally, knowing it was the wrong question immediately. He rolled his eyes. “You’re missing Gilly.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  She counted to five and squeezed her fists behind her back. “Yes.”

  He came closer. “It was a mistake to send her away, admit it.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, looking down at her feet. She cleared her throat and felt around for the bed, sinking into it with shaky palms. “Tell me about how you’re finding school, then.” He knotted his eyebrows together at her. She just needed…normality. For him to talk at her. About anything. “Well?”

  He sighed heavily. “You know being the new kid at school sucks.”

  “Not always. Why does it?”

  He sat on the floor, cross-legged, pulling at the edge of his socks. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  She bit her lip, remembering how her late husband, used to pick on Ivan. Telling him to stop walking like a retard, pushing his crutch just out of reach…And then he’d laugh like a jackal. Drinking non-stop. Ivan would never have a bad word to say, though. Just wanted to make his dad proud, show him how strong he could be. But when Ivan was asleep, and Jack had finished the bottle for the night, he went around saying Ivan wasn’t his at all, that she must’ve been sleeping around to make a cripple like that.

  Ivan shrugged. “I’m ginger.”

  She bit back a smile. She knew what he really meant—that he couldn’t blend in, the way he was. Gilly always seemed to wear the ‘new girl’ title better whenever they moved from one place to the next—it was her ‘whatever’ personality. She tilted her head, thinking back to her short time at school. Yes, she supposed the girls could always blend in better, if they were pretty and laughed a lot. Ivan was the serious type with a brain which looped with questions, “Why? Why? And why is that?” questions on loop. It wasn’t the sort of curiosity he could reign in.

  “You’re perfect just the way you are.” Moms had to say these things, though they always fell on deaf ears.

  He shook his head with force. “Girls can be ginger, only girls. And don’t get me started on the limp. So yeah, school is…going okay.”

  “It will get better.” She wished she believed her own words.

  “Mmm.” They sat in silence for a while, Amber reluctant to leave the sanctuary of her son’s room. “She’s probably having more fun without me,” he suddenly said.

  She straightened, wide-eyed. A wave of guilt threatened to overwhelm her. “Oh, no. Don’t think that.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever. Can we order take-out?”

  3RD JUNE, 2015

  AMBER

  She felt a muscle pulse in her forehead. Tracing it gently, it felt like the curved body of a worm, surfacing for air.

  She had woken with a splitting headache. It had taken every nerve in her body to wake up at all, and not simply to roll over and play dead. Since Gilly’s death, her face was drained of colour and her lips dragged. She hadn’t left the house, except for obligatory church services. Just facing the garden window made her physically sick. Walking the streets? Out of the question. Everyone would be looking at her. The new wife. What’s she like?

  She could run away, yes. If she had a friend, they would tell her to run, once her limbs had found their muscles; once her lungs opened to full capacity again. But how could she leave Gilly? Her spirit was here, tied to the cracked soil. Here was meant to be Amber’s final settling. She would have love, her children would be out every night with friends—regular friends, from good families—and she’d have respect, an identity. Chad had promised her all that: stability. She’d never wanted adventure, not for years. Just something simple and safe to hold, and know it was hers.

  She gripped the kitchen sink, stabilising herself. Only you can do this for yourself, Amber, she told herself. Ivan needs you to wake up. It’s not all about you. This marriage has to be for him, for his future.

  Chad was at work, Ivan at school and the silence of the house was oppressive. When the doorbell chimed, it was almost a relief. Then a second later, her eyes jolted to the garden, the newly-laid grass seeds, peppered with potted rose plants, disguising freshly-placed soil. Her stomach rolled.

  “Just a minute!” she called out and whisked the kitchen shutters closed. Peering through the front door’s peephole, her heart sank further. Melanie. She unlocked the door.

  “Hi there, Amber.” Melanie was maybe 148cm high, but with a piercing blue stare. She held a Tupperware of questionable cleanliness, outthrust. “I made us some cookies. Not on a diet, right?” Melanie seemed to analyse Amber’s stomach.

  “No. No diet. Thank you.” Slowly, Amber attempted to ease the door gap, closing the space between them, but Melanie’s long finger pressed against the glass and resisted against her.

  “May I come in?” Melanie smiled in such a way as to shame her. Amber smiled tightly, knowing it wasn’t a question. Amber removed her foot from the door and gestured behind her. Though, of course, Melanie knew the way around Chad’s house. In some ways that helped. Melanie wheedled her way into the kitchen, peering into each open door as she passed, commenting on the things that had changed since the last time she had invaded. She stopped short of the glasses’ cupboard, nodding at Amber to acknowledge that she could take it from here as host.

  She reached for the hair tie on her wrist and swept her hair back into a low bun, and followed. Small talk. Drinks. These things were normal. She could manage them. She led them into the kitchen.

  “Are you just passing on the way into town?”

  “Oh, no, come to see you, haven’t I?”

  “Drinks, then?”

  Melanie was peering at the fridge. There, they had stuck a picture of herself, Ivan and Gilly at a theme park. Gilly was holding an ice cream, just started. Ivan’s was half-finished.

  “I keep meaning to take that down,” she mumbled.

  Melanie swivelled her head around, one finger remaining placed on the photograph. “Why? It’s a lovely picture.”

  “Erm, Gilly put it up. But my smile is…weird in that one. Anyway,” she placed her palms on her jeans, and their clammy heat seeped through. “Drink?”

  “No. Thank you.” Melanie took a seat at the island. So she meant to stay. Amber gritted her teeth and sat opposite. “Were you busy today?” Melanie’s eyes traced the plates piled in the sink. Normally, the insinuation would have brought blood to her face, but everything felt dull about her senses today.

  “No, not busy.”

  “Well, that’s great. I would never mean to intrude,” Melanie leaned a hand across the table. “But I realised we haven’t had any chance to chat, you and me, since you moved in. And if you don’t mind me saying, marital life seems a bit rocky for you…That argument with Chad a few weeks back? Not heard that much screaming and crying since the last time I was in the maternity ward.” She chuckled and Amber gave a ghost of a laugh back.

  “We were sorry to wake you.” She got up for a glass of water, needing to do something with her hands.

  “Well…it’s true that I like my sleep, but it’s not really that. The reason for me coming.” Melanie cracked open the Tupperware and took a bite of a large cookie, passing Amber a coaster across the worktop. “Chad made this himself,” she explained, a cookie crumb stuck in between her teeth. “Wood stains easily.”

  Amber withheld an eye roll. “Go on.”

  “I wanted to check if you’re okay. Marriages can be tricky things. Sometimes you need the support of the church community to see you through, you know?”

  “Yes,” she said immediately, and then bit her lip. Too fast, too eager. She barked a laugh. “Gilly…It’s been a hard time.” She bunched her hands into fists under the island, imagining herself evaporating out of the top of her skeleton, like water vapour, and pooling herself across the ceiling. From up there, her voice would be irrelevant. It could flow, it could formulate whatever words it wanted. It could have a life of its own. “Just the other night, she sneaked out of the house to some party.”

  Melanie clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Trying to escape conversion therapy with Brett, I’ll bet? Well. I’ll tell you—Poppy, Brett’s first case, she was reluctant to go as well. Ultimately, they just don’t know what’s good for them, do they?”

  Amber circled the top of her glass with her finger and made a noise of what she hoped sounded like approval.

  Melanie leant in, her crow’s feet deepening. “For what it’s worth? You’ve done a good job sending her to Lady Manor’s. Gilly isn’t your fault, you know.” Amber felt a lump form in her throat. Was she going to be sick? “You were a single mother before you met Chad. Bringing up two kids without that backbone? Tough life.”

  She coughed to clear her throat. “Yeah, it’s been a few years since my first husband passed.”

  “A shame.”

  “Yes, it was a loss for the children.” But she had put too much emphasis on the second part of the sentence. She swiped the back of her neck, suddenly hot under the unblinking gaze of Melanie. Melanie gave a low hum and they sat there in awkward silence, honouring a man she wished she had never laid eyes upon.

  “And with Gilly going off the track…you wanted to punish her yourself?” Melanie tapped her hand lightly, bringing her out of the trance.

  “Sometimes with parenting, you need a firm hand.”

  “Sure, sure…” Melanie leant back in her seat, brow furrowed. “What I don’t understand is, why not wait?”

  “Wait for what?”

  “Well for conversion therapy, of course. I know myself the school will be the making of her but look, what I mean is, why send Gilly to a boarding school before you’d even tried Brett’s treatment?”

  “You should ask Chad,” she said into her glass, taking a heavy glug of water and swallowing the wrong way, causing a fit of coughing. “It was his idea.”

  Melanie was frowning, chewing on her lip. “But here’s the thing. Amber, I went to that school. Lady Manor’s.”

  She didn’t compute the significance of this. “That’s great. Maybe that’s how Chad knew of it.”

  “Maybe…But it’s summer. Entrance exams happen in autumn. And, as far as I know, no one is allowed in until they’ve done one.”

  Melanie shifted from one leg to the other. Amber got the sense that this confrontation was uncomfortable for her—calling out the facts that didn’t feel quite right. A questioning of her own friend.

  “It’s strange, right?” She knew she should be gripped by fear—if Melanie saw through the lies so early, surely everyone else would too? But, instead, she felt a sense of relief.

  “So how did you do it?” Melanie asked brightly. “Delighted for you, really. She’ll have a great time.”

  She stood and the world span. “We…showed her school reports, and…” She gripped the table. The lie settled upon her shoulders, heavy.

  “Don’t go fainting on me!” Melanie was there, hands on her lower back.

  “I won’t.”

  “You’re skinny as a rake, you know. Look. Let me cook for you. I know where everything is—” and she went to rummage through the cupboards.

  “No—stop!” A voice came out shrill and Amber realised it was her own. “Look, you should go.”

  “Go?” Melanie’s face crumpled. “I thought…You said you weren’t busy.”

  “I don’t feel well.” She pushed away from the countertop, hands on hips. It was too much. She needed space. There was nothing left in her to entertain this woman.

  “Right.” Melanie brushed down her jeans and straightened her spine. “But then we can hang out another time?” Amber shuffled her feet, pretending the question had been a statement. “And remember. You’re not just in a marriage of two. We’re all here behind you. You just call.”

  She smiled dutifully as she led Melanie to the door.

  4TH JUNE, 2015

  CHAD

  He rolled himself out of bed as the clock flashed. He slammed the top of the alarm before it erupted, but Amber still groaned as he got out of bed. It was time to get himself together. Half an hour later, there were eggs on toast and bacon rashers with Ivan’s name on them.

  Food was a peace offering. The only kind Chad knew. And when the world got a bit too much, you could stop the feelings with padding: another serving, another handful of food. Ivan had started to feel Gilly’s absence with anger. He’d tried interrogating them, but that had gotten him nowhere. Now, it seemed he was trying a different weapon: he had become mute. Amber was trying to bring them back into a semblance of normality, but Chad’s attempts at conversation were always met with a deep suspicion.

 

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