She only realizes she’s fallen asleep when she wakes to what sounds like a rock hitting the window in the room next to the bathroom—her bedroom window. And then another. Someone must be standing by the garage behind the building, trying to get her or Susan’s attention. Is Susan home? The bathwater’s cold. Another tap.

  Dripping water, she grabs her robe—a gift from Jack, parchment-colored silk with deep burgundy roses—and flips off the bathroom light so whoever is below won’t see her. Another tap, this one harder. Heart beating, she feels her way to the window and twists open the clasp. “Hey! Police are on the way, so you—”

  “Frankie.”

  Jack. She pushes her head against the screen, trying to see him in the dark, and then thinks of her neighbors—the three other units filled with people—and hurries through the apartment, grabbing her car keys so she can hide him. Barefoot, she rushes down the path. A rock pushes into the bottom of her foot, and pain flares.

  He’s standing behind her building by the garage, and his hair is wet. In his arms he’s got a soaked brown paper bag that he holds to his chest. Everything is wet, she realizes. Her feet are muddy.

  She points to her car. “Get in.”

  Even before he gets the door closed, she smells the bourbon on him. The top of a bottle sticks out of the brown bag. Quickly she starts the car, which rumbles to life, and throws the gear into reverse, the clutch grinding. Pulling out of the driveway, she searches the street.

  “Where’s your car?”

  He’s slouched, his head against the window. “Walked.”

  “From where?”

  “You have roommates. I forgot.” He says it accusingly, as if she’s failed him in this regard.

  Roommates. Were they home? Frankie left so quickly, she didn’t check—but no, if anyone were home, they’d have knocked on the bathroom door. She pushes up Jack’s coat sleeve to peer at his watch, and he jerks his hand away.

  “I just want to know the time.”

  He holds up his arm, squinting at it. When he says nothing, she looks over. “After one a.m. Where were you?”

  “A pool hall on Alvarado.”

  “You went to a pool hall? You were supposed to be in Venice. Was it the Lucky Break?” If she has cleanup to do, she needs to know where to start. Eyes closed, he nods. The Lucky Break. A small sign. A door that sticks and a floor that’s stickier. A seedy place that’s usually empty, but now and then finds a way to serve liquor and attracts a rough crowd. “How the hell did you get there?”

  “Driver.”

  It wasn’t O’Shea. O’Shea was driving the decoy to Malibu, since people recognize him. “The same man who was supposed to take you to Venice? I’ll have him fired.”

  “No, you won’t.” He closes his eyes.

  Scenarios scroll through her head: people seeing him in the car in the morning, someone spotting him now or catching her trying to drag a six-foot-three man outside. O’Shea can help her, but not if Jack’s passed out. She needs to keep him awake, so she shakes his shoulder. His eyes fly open, his body tense. “Jack. Come on. It’s me.”

  When he looks at what she’s wearing, she realizes she’s still in her robe.

  “I’ve never even seen you . . .” he says, but his voice trails off.

  She keeps the robe at her apartment. He’s never seen her in it. Logistics scroll through her mind: Louis and O’Shea can’t see her at this time in a robe, with nothing underneath, and there’s the distance to get him home to Pasadena that she needs to factor in, a distance she doesn’t want to drive while dressed like this. If she’s pulled over, it would get back to Nico in a heartbeat. “I can’t take you to your house. The bungalows are closer.”

  A headlight’s beam smooths his face. Eyes closed, his features are relaxed. She looks away, gripping the steering wheel tighter as they hit a bump.

  The bungalows, two white clapboard houses on the last lot of the street, are officially on Glenhollow, a small dead-end road with so much vegetation that parking means scratching up against a hedge or a bush. Bungalow one is close to the sidewalk, private and well kept, and bungalow two is far behind it, all the way back on the lot, existing in the shade of trees and through the clutch of spiderwebs. To get to that second bungalow, one takes the path just to the left of the first bungalow, a long brick walkway that dives deep into the property and all the way to the street behind the lot, Arlington Way, a narrow, tiny road where Frankie once got her car stuck for an hour as she tried to turn around. If you value your paint job, Nico likes to say, don’t park on Glenhollow. But if you value your life and time, don’t even think about Arlington Way, because that was made for horses.

  So this, pulling in front of the driveway on Glenhollow, is the best option, even though it means that at any point June could look outside and see them. And getting him out of the car is just the beginning. From here, he has to make his way on the path all the way to the second bungalow, dodging spiderwebs while drunk and staying calm as the neighbor’s dog on the other side of the fence makes a ruckus. And why are you together? June would ask if she woke and saw Frankie escorting Jack. What would Frankie say? He needed me. Plain, simple. Somehow, she knows June would respect that. But dressed like this, she can’t take the chance.

  She says his name, and his eyes open. “Why did you even come tonight?” she asks.

  His eyes close again. “You’re who I want to talk to. When I’m mad. Happy.”

  “Well, you can’t talk like this, can you?”

  One eye opens, just enough to glare at her.

  Frankie looks past him, to the path that leads to June’s front door. The porch light is off, the path shaded and dark. “Jack,” she says.

  He opens his eyes but doesn’t move.

  “You need to go. June’s in number one, so go to two, in the far back. You remember where the key is, right? The key’s on top of the doorframe. Jack, I need you to get inside.”

  Just as he opens his door, he leans back again, head against the seat and eyes shut tight as if to block something out. “I’m stuck.”

  She puts her hand on her door handle to get out and help, but he continues.

  “They have me trapped. And they knew where she was. Is. Don’t defend them.” He starts to get out again, trying to stand.

  “I’m not defending anybody.”

  Leaning as far forward as he can, as if needing the momentum, he remembers to close the door and loses his balance, falling forward and barely catching himself against the mailbox.

  Something in her breaks. Patience, understanding. All her sympathy is gone, as sudden as a door slamming shut within her heart. Maybe it’s harsh, but the sight of someone drunk—even if it doesn’t happen often—hardens something within her. She grew up surrounded by the chaos that follows episodes like this, and her life has spiraled one too many times because of other people’s messes. When all she wants is to control her life, it’s someone like this who renders that impossible.

  She doesn’t care if he makes it to the bungalow, or if he finds the key. He can wake up June and sleep on the pathway, tangled in spiderwebs, for all she minds. But then she takes a deep breath. This is her job.

  He turns to wave to her, and as he does, he notices the paper bag on the floor, the bottle of bourbon inside. “Forgot that,” he says, and leans his hand against the doorframe while he strains to reach inside. Frankie, frustrated and disgusted and picturing him falling and bashing his head on the door, hands it to him. Another choice she will regret. Another marker on the path.

  When he walks away, he veers slightly to the right. The back of his tuxedo is wrinkled, his hair unkempt. Bit by bit, her anger diminishes. Ever since her mother died, unexpectedly and fast, Frankie’s found it hard to trust life enough to let someone walk away with anything left unsaid. But what does she need to say?

  I’m sorry.

  I don’t know how to fix this.

  Maybe we can still find a way.

  “Jack,” she says, in a loud whisper. He turns, off-balance, the brown bag with the bottle at his side, and once again she feels a wall inside her fortify, a pillar of self-reliance and control. Because of this, she doesn’t say what she wanted to. “You’ll make it all right?”

  He gives her a salute and, once again, begins his slow shuffle down the path. A moment or two longer, and she hears the dog whose yard starts a bit past June’s bungalow, the loud barking that announces Jack’s at least made it that far. The barking continues, then stops. Just barely, just faintly, she sees part of the path brighten with a spill of light, and knows he’s made it inside the bungalow. Relief.

  Now, she thinks, the night’s over. Finally, they’ve made it.

  But as she pulls away, she thinks of her mother again, and how every person’s existence is so fragile, like a thin pane of glass against the storm of life. What ends someone could be a shattering or could be a slow, destructive crack, but too often it comes out of nowhere. And for a second she pauses, eyes on the mirror, the place against the curb where they just were, where she didn’t say goodbye.

  Chapter 12

  A Wordless Code for I Love You

  Sunday, October 5, 1930

  Death happens on normal days. It’s but one of death’s many injustices that it is, in fact, so unremarkable. The morning you die, Frankie’s always thought, or the morning that someone you love dies, should start differently. But the same sun rises, the sky looks like a sky, and the truth is that the end makes no announcement. The day Frankie’s mother died, Fiona woke up and got dressed and then went to work, and that was it. There was more to it, of course, but when the police lifted Fiona and spread her out on the ground and Frankie crawled alongside her, her head on her mother’s still chest, it was Fiona’s feet Frankie couldn’t look away from, one foot without its shoe. There was the faint outline of her mother’s toes through her socks. Her socks. Navy blue, a tear in the small toe, a bit of toenail showing through. Her mother had put on socks. Of course she had. Such a normal, heartbreaking thing to do, to put on socks only to die.

  That day, there was a breeze. Nothing remarkable, nothing unusual. A few red maple leaves clung to branches, and now and then a gust picked up, and the rest swirled and skittered on the sidewalk, piling up in corners. The sky was blue but not incredibly so. The clouds full, but none in shapes worth noticing. A normal day.

  Three times a week, they took the subway through the Joralemon Street Tunnel into Brooklyn. There, Fiona worked in a white mansion with a towering two-story portico and twenty-five-foot fluted columns that were better suited to ancient Greece than Prospect Park. The Hawthorne House. Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne tended to spend time at their house in Connecticut but wanted their Brooklyn house spotless all the same, and since their eighteen-year-old daughter, Catherine, would be at home, they “required” Fiona’s presence just to pick up the candy wrappers Catherine left on the counter or tables or sometimes on the long green chesterfield sofa where she liked to read.

  That Sunday, Fiona wasn’t feeling well. She was tired and moved slowly but made it to a restaurant four blocks from their apartment, where she pleaded with the owner to use his phone for a long-distance call she’d pay back. She called the Hawthornes in Connecticut, knowing that if she simply didn’t show up, Catherine would tell on her. Catherine did that kind of thing—ran her finger along the tops of cabinets to check for dust, noted how long it took Fiona to clean each room. Though Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne weren’t in Brooklyn, weren’t even in the same state, in fact, they still insisted she work, and since it was not the time to lose a job, Fiona agreed to go in, rubbing her left shoulder as if the decision itself had caused a pain.

  At the Hawthorne House, Frankie was cleaning the bathroom when she heard a noise. Something slammed against a kitchen cupboard. Often, she would think of this moment, how she rinsed the sponge in the sink, how she swiped again at the toothpaste by the faucet. Still, it stuns her that she cleaned a sink as her mother lay dying.

  Back in the kitchen, she scanned the room, looking for her mother to ask what next. But no one was there. It was when she was turning to leave that she saw her mother’s foot, and then her body, slumped against the floor and the lower cupboard.

  Frankie’s scream drew the Hawthornes’ daughter. The telephone was in the parlor, and Frankie yelled at her to tell the operator they needed help. Catherine disappeared, and Frankie held her mother’s hand, pleading with her. Though it was faint, Frankie felt it, three taps in the center of her palm—the wordless code for I love you.

  When Catherine returned, she said there was a fire in Flatbush, and it was only after she repeated it a third time that Frankie realized that what she was really saying was that there was no one to help them.

  Then Frankie saw the burgundy Cadillac that the Hawthornes’ driver used when they were in town. The keys hung by the door to the butler’s pantry. “Get the keys.”

  Catherine studied a spot on the wall. “I’m not supposed to drive it.”

  Frankie looped her arms under her mother, pulling. “I will, then.”

  Still, Catherine stayed put.

  “Help me. Now.” There was fury in Frankie’s voice.

  Catherine, not used to being yelled at, picked up Fiona’s feet. One of Fiona’s shoes came loose, and her leg hit the ground, hard. The shoe was still in Catherine’s hand as she started to cry.

  By pulling and prodding and lifting and dragging, Frankie got her mother into the back seat and crawled into the front but then didn’t know what to do. She’d never even started a car, much less driven one. Catherine, meanwhile, was frozen by a boxwood hedge. How long were they there? Arguing on a perfectly normal Sunday, clouds drifting in the sky. Minutes? An hour? Time came loose, the last seconds with her mother gone, tumbled away, because at some point Fiona’s face went still, peacefully still, and Frankie missed it. An entire life of smiles and dreams and barefoot dances on dirty floors, all the years of struggling to support a child who had no one and turning away from tables still hungry so that the child could eat, of nights being scared and mornings being happy, and slim, slender moments full of hope despite everything, all to die in the back seat of a car, alone.

  When Frankie understood, her skin went tingly and she couldn’t breathe properly, but it was the shaking in her legs that alarmed her. Because they were trembling, almost violently, on their own. Shock, someone later told her.

  When facts began to settle and solidify, when Frankie no longer felt as if her body were tingling like a foot that’s gone to sleep, it came out that Catherine was allowed to drive but the clutch made her anxious. That, and her parents—the same people who’d insisted that Fiona come into work when she wasn’t feeling well, to clean a house they weren’t even at—preferred her not to. Preferred. The word, to Frankie, was rife with luxury and privilege. To have a life where you could prefer to not do something . . . It was as foreign to her as a distant sea.

  In the long nights that followed her mother’s death, Frankie realized that reliance, on anyone or anything, was no longer an option. So she learned how to drive, and returned to that white columned house and relocated the Hawthornes’ Cadillac to a nearby pond. Dark water rose against the shining chrome grille, then spilled over the bloodred paint. Frankie faced the empty sky and wished she’d known on that Sunday that it was futile, so she could’ve crawled into the back seat and taken her mother’s hand to do as Fiona had: three taps in the center of her palm. That’s all she wanted. One last chance to say I love you.

  Chapter 13

  The Lie Is Smooth

  Thursday, March 2, 1933

  Now, on this day at the start of March, Frankie is buttoning her shirt when the phone rings. The radio is on in the living room, and she hears the announcer proclaim President Hoover’s failure to stabilize the banks, and California and thirty-six other states’ efforts to take matters into their own hands by declaring a bank holiday.

  A bank holiday. Which means the banks are shutting down. Her heart races as she realizes her mistake. There wasn’t much in her savings account, but with so much on her plate, she forgot to take out what she could.

  “Folks,” the announcer says, “we’re talking no deposits, no withdrawals, nothing. For how long? Who can say?”

  The ringing continues, and Frankie glances toward her jewelry box on the dresser. Under the lining, she’s stashed eight dollars, enough to pay for food and gas for a while. But for how long? Again, the phone rings, and Frankie calls out Virginia’s name, since she’s closest.

  The radio drones on. “Roosevelt’s coming in in two days and is going to have his hands full. Will he take this solution nationwide? What will he do? Hopefully more than the Chief, I’ll say that.”

  The phone rings again. Finally, Frankie runs down the hall to answer.

  “Frankie? Something’s happened.”

  She drives fast, painfully aware of a minute’s importance. Over and over again, her mind returns to the day her mother died. Seconds more with her mother—what she would do for even seconds more.

  On Glenhollow, she swerves to the curb, tires bumping. The car door slams behind her, shattering the silence. Carob pods crack under her feet, bricks wet from rain. Camellias grow by June’s bungalow, dark-green leaves and bloodred blooms. She keeps going. The neighbors’ stone wall is on her left, and beyond that a tree-filled lot, undeveloped. They built a beautiful wall around their property, and then the Crash happened and they never built the house.

  Nico. As soon as she knows what she’s up against, she’ll call Nico.