At least the doe-eyed woman at the desk helped him fill out a missing persons report. She wouldn’t look directly at him when he handed it back over. He knew what that meant. It was a cursory gesture, but the officers might get a moment to look at it over a box of Valentine’s Day conversation hearts. If then.

  He was going to have to look for her himself, and that’s exactly what he was doing.

  “When did you say she left again?” the woman asked.

  Nick tried to stop himself from exploding. He’d already answered the question four times.

  “June,” he told her. “She’s blonde. Big eyes. Here. Look at the picture again.”

  He held his phone up to the window to show her the image of Liza. It was his favorite picture of her, a candid shot of her curled up on the porch swing of the miniscule bed and breakfast where they’d spent their anniversary. Bare feet and a thick sweater, her head tilted back. She was laughing at something he said. Nick couldn’t remember what it was. It didn’t really matter. The laugh was all that he cared about. He could still hear it, still feel it washing over him.

  “And you know she took a train out of here?”

  Nick’s fingers clenched the edge of the counter.

  “No,” he said through gritted teeth. “I don’t know that. I don’t know anything. I’m trying to figure out what happened to her.”

  “Six months is a long time to remember someone passing through here.”

  He pushed away from the counter, nearly knocking over the man standing behind him close enough to hear their conversation, not even trying to hide that it was exactly what he was doing.

  “Thank you for your help.”

  “Merry Christmas,” the woman said after him with as much enthusiasm as she might tell him the vending machine only took cash.

  Nick didn’t stop. His next destination was the bus station. Rows of gleaming Greyhounds waiting outside the sprawling terminal for holiday travelers to stuff themselves inside. The carpeted seats would soon feel damp with sweat, and the interior would smell like people and food and impending snow.

  Liza hated the bus. She’d much rather ride the train with the swaying cars and the endless aisle she could roam along if she felt like it. But it hadn’t stopped her from booking tickets on a trip that left the city in the middle of the night and took four hours longer than driving because it was cheap, and it meant they could sit in the far back under a blanket and celebrate three months of marriage away. Even if it was only one state away. Even if they stayed at a terrible hotel and ate nothing but pizza and delivery Chinese food from the bed for two days before tucking right back under that blanket and going home.

  Liza wouldn’t choose to come here by herself and travel alone in the too-cold air conditioning with the too-naked passengers. But someone else might choose it for her. If they wanted to get away quickly and easily, a bus was an easy way to do it. Technically, every passenger was supposed to present identification with their ticket when getting on. Nick knew enough about bored workers and lack of professional give-a-damn to know that wasn’t how it always worked. He also had the anecdote of presenting a Pizza Inspector ID badge complete with a goofy picture he’d snapped on a kiddie ride at Chuck E. Cheese during his sophomore year of college to prove it. If it was busy enough and the person on duty was bad enough at their job, it wouldn’t be a major challenge to push past with only a cursory wave of a card.

  But her ID wasn’t in the house, either. It was entirely possible this wasn’t a sudden, random event, and they actually bought a ticket in her name.

  He didn’t know what could have happened then. Liza wasn’t delicate. She wasn’t the type of woman to just sit idly by if someone was trying to hurt her. She wouldn’t go down without a fight. That’s what scared him. What happened after the fight?

  Even though he knew it would be futile, he went back by the police department before going home that night. No one at the bus or train station, or the airport, remembered seeing Liza. But they were just people. There wasn’t even a way of guaranteeing they were the ones who were working the day she left. If the police requested surveillance videos from the cameras that lurked in every corner and on every wall in public areas like transportation stations, they might catch a glimpse of her. The suggestion ended up jotted on a torn piece of paper tucked in a flimsy folder with his missing persons report.

  Nick went home and cleaned up. Every shard of glass brought tears down his cheeks.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mary

  I dream of a castle and wake up crying. Before I know what brought on the tears, the rest of the dream disappears like wisps of smoke, and I’m left with nothing but the damp pillowcase and Charles snoring beside me. The sun isn’t even up yet. A chill makes the air feel like thin sheets of ice as I move carefully out from under the blankets and get out of bed. I don’t want to move too quickly and wake him up. Any minute now, the furnace will come to life and knock off some of the cold. I’ll be able to breathe without my lungs aching.

  Charles insists on keeping the temperature of the house close to freezing at night. He says it’s good for our health. There’s a newspaper article on it somewhere in one of the books in the living room. He brought it out at the beginning of the season when I tried to inch the thermostat up just a few little notches.

  The robe closing around me momentarily makes me colder as it holds the frigid air against me, then it starts to warm up. I creep down the hallway and into the kitchen. There should be moonlight here. The huge window above the sink should let beams like liquid mercury flow through and sparkle on the faucet, illuminate the tiles, glow on the pink refrigerator door. But there’s only inky darkness and a faint glimmer of light from a weak electric candle that is perched on the windowsill, welcoming no one. The light from the bulb blocked by the thick wood.

  I plug in the strand of lights around the Christmas tree to burn away a little more of the darkness. Turning on the main light might wake up Charles. But this is enough. The little multicolored lights are plenty to see by as I pull the large photo album out from the bottom of the stack of albums beneath the coffee table. It’s the one I’ve looked through the least. Probably because of how thick and overwhelming it is. The others are thinner, with far fewer pages. It’s easier to try to soak in faces and events and places when it comes in smaller doses. This last album is monstrous. Holding it in my lap feels like holding my whole life in my hands.

  That’s essentially what Charles says it is. This is memories of my childhood, our courtship, even our wedding. I remember that surprising me the first time he said it. I’d imagined an entire album dedicated to the wedding and page after page of white organza and stiff tulle. Instead, it’s a collection of pictures arranged over just a few pages. An A-line cotton dress. A cake served from the kitchen table. The images are all discolored and strangely taken, blurred like whoever took them was moving while trying to snap the moments.

  I didn’t pick up the album to look at the wedding. At least, not the backs of Charles and me as we stand in front of some large stone fireplace on a bright blue carpet saying our vows. And not us feeding each other, barely visible under the veil the photographer must have playfully draped over our heads to cocoon us both. I’m looking at the guests.

  None of them are looking at the camera. The colors of the pictures are warped, altered by the film, so the punch they sip looks noxious pink, and everything white might be glowing. They’re all leaned toward each other in conversation or gazing away from the camera as they eat. There is one of Charles dancing with a woman who might be his mother, but her head is on the other side of his, so the only thing I can see is the navy blue dress and dyed matching shoes. I flip through every one of the pictures, and then go back and flip through them again.

  Not a single one has someone looking directly at the camera. Yet everyone is posing. The positions are unnatural. No one’s back is that straight when they are leaning toward someone to speak. No one holds a canape that carefully while eating it. But I can look past that. I can tell myself they were at a wedding and very conscious of being photographed. What I can’t look past is the man standing in the back of several of the pictures.

  His blonde hair hangs close to his eyes. He talks to no one.

  Spreading the album on the table to hold its place on that picture, I go to the sideboard where a stack of new Polaroids sits. They’re the pictures Charles took the night of the Christmas party. I carry them back to the table and sit on the couch, pulling my cold legs under me. My hands shake slightly as I go through the pictures, examining each of them. They are black and white, but far clearer than the wedding pictures. Finally, I find the one that’s been stuck in my mind.

  The cold-eyed blonde man who stood by the bookshelf and stared at me. His eyes are just as piercing in the picture as they were when they caught hold of me from across the room. The washed-out color of the image only makes them more menacing. My stomach turns, but I force myself to look at it again. I set the picture down next to the album to compare the two images. It’s not exact, but the wedding pictures are lower quality. Picking up the party picture again, I flip through the next few pages of the album and do another comparison. More pages and another. More pages and another.

  He’s always there. His dishwater hair. His unnerving eyes. He’s there.

  The wedding.

  My family’s Easter dinner.

  Charles’s father’s retirement party.

  Another Christmas.

  Fourth of July.

  He’s there. The caption never mentions his name, and he’s never in the front of the picture. Always in the back, filling in space, creating a reality with his presence. Gathering up the stack of pictures, I bring them back to where they were. They sit in the exact same spot they were when I picked them up, the right one on top. Charles will notice if they change.

  The furnace turns on as I cross the room again and take my place back on the couch. I don’t need it as much anymore. My face burns, the heat sharp and prickling as it moves along the sides of my neck. Going back to the beginning of the album, I carefully go over each page again. This time, I’m not looking for the man by the bookshelf. I don’t know who he is or what about him makes my blood go cold. All I know is he was in too many pictures, at too many events for me to not have been introduced to him during the party. For someone to be at that many family functions, he should have come up to me and greeted me.

  But I’m putting him aside for now. There’s another face I’m looking for in the pictures. A face that should be there. Maybe it is. Maybe I just don’t remember ever seeing the dynamic golden-haired woman with bright eyes and a wide-mouthed, honest laugh. The way Charles talked about her wasn’t mean in any way, but it also wasn’t particularly warm and loving. It’s possible there is some sort of rift between the two of them, and he didn’t feel like sharing many stories about her in all the times we’ve been through these albums together. She just didn’t seem important. Maybe she’s here.

  But she’s not. My sister. The close-knit sibling I haven’t seen because of her war-wounded husband and their small children. The sister I wrote Christmas cards with and grew up alongside. She isn’t in any of the pictures. My fingertips run over the captions written beneath each of the pictures.

  Mary’s mother and father.

  Celebrating Easter with Mary’s family.

  Mary’s brother, Avery.

  Mary with her father.

  But not a single mention of Vivian.

  I look at the picture of my father and me again. We’re in what looks like a wood-paneled recreation room, sitting on either side of a marred green card table. Each of us is leaned over the table and concentrating intently on a partially finished jigsaw puzzle in front of us. I look to be around twelve years old. I flip to another picture. Several years later, I’ve lost the gangly body of my preteen years and am taller, my head nearly to my father’s shoulder. We’re standing with our backs to the camera as we string a congratulatory banner across the front of the same large stone fireplace where my wedding pictures are set.

  My father looks exactly the same. Dark hair. Dark mustache. Thick hair on his arms. In the next, he looks the same. Over the course of the years that passed during those pictures, he didn’t change. Not a single gray hair. No difference in the style. Going back to the pictures of Christmas with my family, I stare at one that stands out to me. My mother and father standing on either side of a Christmas tree. Closing my eyes, I try to remember that moment. Nothing appears. I focus on just my father. With so many pictures of us, we were obviously close when I was young. There should be an imprint of him deep inside me. The smell of his aftershave or the way his mustache felt when he hugged me.

  Still nothing.

  I turn my focus instead to my mother and try to imagine her hugging me. She should smell like fresh baked bread and flowers. But I don’t know. I can’t feel her arms around me. I can’t imagine standing beside her in the kitchen, learning to cook so one day I would be ready for my own husband and children.

  Opening my eyes, I look at the picture of the Christmas tree again, then I stand and walk over to the mantle. The silver frame feels cool and heavy in my hand. Turning it over, I carefully move aside the little black pieces of metal that hold the cardboard piece in place. It releases the matte that holds the photo and then the photo into my hand. I bring it with me to the table and set it upside down as I carefully peel away the adhesive sheet over the album page. The picture of my parents is sticky and difficult to pop away from the yellowed paper, but I manage to wriggle it free from the cardstock corners that hold it.

  My hand shakes as I flip the picture over and set it beside the one of Charles and me. I stare down at them for a few seconds before slowly turning them over again so I can see both images. The tree is identical. Not just a Christmas tree. Not even just a Christmas tree with ornaments and strung with tinsel. A tree with scrawny branches and exactly placed strands of tinsel, with ornaments on the same boughs and the same whittled wood star on top. A tree with a shadow at its base that doesn’t match with where I’m standing and that I never noticed because of the matte in the silver frame.

  Turning the pictures back over relieves me of looking at them, but it brings me face to face again with the numbers stamped into the backs. A sequence that indicates when the film was manufactured. It’s the same. Which means the two pictures, one taken when I was just a child and one when I had just gotten married, were taken on the same batch of film.

  Slowly I turn the pictures over one more time. My fingertips run over the pictures, and I feel like tiny fragments of broken glass fall into place in my mind. It’s incomplete, only bits of words and fractured flashes. The images of my wedding with their highly saturated coloring must have been sent away for processing. Such a special occasion warranted the extra time it took to take the pictures and then send them to be developed. But the two Christmas pictures are different. Their shape is different. The feel of the material between my fingers is different. These were taken by an instant camera like the one Charles carried around during the Christmas party and used to produce the stack of black and white images sitting on the sideboard.

  The fragments in my mind are pulling together. It’s labored and wavering, unsure of itself as much as I am unsure of it. My fingertips continue to run along the image, touching each ornament, tracing the strands of tinsel. They pause over one of the faces, and a rush of vibrant, intense reality fills my mind. I can see my father smiling at me. I can feel that smile all the way into my heart and remember it from when I was just a little girl. My father is joyously sharing his collection, the one frivolity he won’t give up no matter how much my mother narrows her eyes at him or gives big, meaningful sighs.

  My red-headed, smooth-faced hobby photographer of a father who has just told me about his prized possession as a teenager… the first color instant camera invented in 1963.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Mary

  A sound in the back of the house brings my stomach up into my throat. Charles is awake and shifting around in the bedroom. Moving as fast as I can with shaking hands, I put the picture of us next to the tree back in the frame and set it on the mantle, then rush back to the couch. The picture of the people he’s been calling my parents for six months is back in place, and the adhesive sheet just smoothed over it when Charles shuffles into the living room.

  My husband.

  Thinking the words is like droplets of acid on my tongue.

  He hasn’t dressed yet. I haven’t checked the time, but now that I’m paying attention, I notice the room has lightened some. It’s after sunrise, but still early enough for Charles to be comfortable moving around the house in his black slippers and pajamas. I’m sitting on the couch with the album in my lap, turning the pages and letting my eyes slide over each of the pictures. He doesn’t know I’m barely even processing the images or that I’m carefully watching him out of the corner of my eye. My body tenses as he walks across the room to the mantle and reaches up for the silver frame. He shifts it slightly, adjusting its angle just barely, but enough to make the muscles in his face less tense when he turns to me.

  “You’re up early,” he says.

  “I’m just looking at the albums,” I tell him.

  My brain is churning, my stomach feeling like it’s being turned inside out. But I have to stay calm. I keep the honey dripping from my voice and the innocence in my eyes. Until I understand what’s happening, he can’t know what I remember.

  Charles sits down beside me and leans close enough to press our arms to each other. I’m thankful for the thick layers of fabric that prevent our skin from touching.

  “You woke up before the sun to come look at photo albums?” he asks with a soft laugh.

  The chaos in my mind unravels as a sense of calm comes over me. I have only one option. Twist him around my finger.