Chapter 2 - The Contents of the Bag
It took ten minutes to quiet the smoke detector and clear the kitchen. Rachel worked in a mechanical silence, her movements precise and detached. She threw the blackened, smoking skillet into the sink, turning the faucet on until the hot iron hissed and spat steam into the air. She opened the window above the sink, letting the cool April breeze sweep away the smell of burnt butter and cheese, but the smell of vanilla and dried blood seemed to linger, trapped in the fibers of the curtains, in the grain of the wood, in the very back of her throat.
She had moved Lily to the living room couch, wrapping her in the old, faded blue cotton blanket with the yellow moons and stars—the one Rachel’s grandmother had knit before she passed. She turned on the television, selecting a cartoon about a group of colorful dogs who saved their town with friendship and teamwork. Usually, Lily would bounce on the cushions, singing along to the high-pitched theme song.
Today, she sat perfectly still.
Her small hand was raised to her head, her fingers moving in a repetitive, compulsive pattern. She would touch the smooth, shaved skin at the back, then slide her fingers over the jagged spikes on the side, her face blank and distant. She looked like a survivor of a shipwreck checking her limbs to see what was left.
Rachel walked back into the entryway. Her sister, Emma, had arrived.
Emma was twenty-eight, a kindergarten teacher with a soft heart and a tendency to cry during commercials. She had run from her car, her purse slipping off her shoulder and hitting the porch floor with a dull thud. She took one look at Lily through the screen door, and her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes turning wide and glossy with instant, furious tears.
"Rachel..." Emma whispered, her voice cracking. "Oh my god. What did she... who did this?"
"Stay with her," Rachel said. Her voice was flat, devoid of any rising or falling notes. "Don't let her look in the mirror. Don't talk about her hair. Just... keep her here."
"Rachel, where are you going?" Emma reached out, her fingers catching the sleeve of Rachel’s denim jacket. "Look at your face. You're white as a sheet. You shouldn't be driving."
"I have to go to Vanessa’s," Rachel said.
"I’m coming with you."
"No," Rachel said, her voice dropping into a register that made Emma let go of her sleeve immediately. "You're staying here with my daughter. Keep her safe. That’s all I need from you."
Rachel grabbed her keys from the hook by the door. On the floor next to the umbrella stand was Lily’s small, overnight canvas tote—the one with the silver sequins that spelled out her name. Sitting on top of the bag was a clear, ziplock plastic bag.
Rachel reached down and picked it up.
The weight of it was nothing, but it felt like a lead weight in her hand.
Inside the plastic bag was Lily’s princess braid.
It was twelve inches of thick, dark brown hair, perfectly woven, the strands glossy and clean. At the very end, it was still secured with the purple glitter elastic Rachel had tied around it that morning at seven o'clock. The cut at the top of the braid was straight and clean, made with a single, powerful stroke of a pair of professional shears.
Rachel stared at the braid through the clear plastic. She remembered the morning—only eight hours ago—when she had sat on the edge of the tub, her knees touching Lily’s back, combing through the damp hair. Lily had been talking about her friend Maya’s birthday party, her voice a continuous, joyful stream of six-year-old gossip. Rachel had braided the hair, tucking the strands over and under, smoothing down the flyaways with a tiny bit of coconut oil.
"There," Rachel had said, kissing the top of Lily's head. "The princess rope is ready."
"Thanks, Mommy!" Lily had squealed, spinning around to hug her neck before grabbing her overnight bag and running to the car.
Now, the princess rope was a severed trophy in a plastic bag.
Rachel did not put the bag in her purse. She carried it in her hand, her fingers curling around the plastic, feeling the soft, heavy mass of her daughter’s hair through the synthetic barrier. She walked out of the house, the screen door clicking shut behind her with a dry, hollow sound.
The afternoon sun was bright, shining off the hood of her gray SUV. On the sidewalk, the chalk drawings Lily had made the day before were still visible—a giant blue sun, a pink house with three chimneys, and a stick-figure family with wild, curly hair.
Rachel got into the driver’s seat. She set the plastic bag carefully on the passenger seat, positioning it so it wouldn't slide when she turned the corners. She started the engine, her hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned the color of bone.
She did not turn on the radio. She did not open the windows.
As she backed out of the driveway, she looked in the rearview mirror at her own face. Her skin was pale, her dark hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, her green eyes wide and unblinking. She looked like a stranger—someone who had lived a quiet, ordinary life until twenty minutes ago, and had now decided that the quiet, ordinary life was a luxury she could no longer afford.
She drove toward Winslow Ridge.
The neighborhood was twenty-two minutes away, a development of oversized, identical houses built on land that had once been a beautiful oak forest. Now, it was a grid of perfect, concrete streets lined with young, fragile trees held up by stakes and wires. The houses were all painted in variations of "grizzly gray" and "alabaster white," with black shutters and neat, square lawns that looked like they had been spray-painted green.
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It was a neighborhood designed for photographs. It was a neighborhood where nothing ugly was allowed to exist on the surface.
And it was the home of Vanessa Foster, the creator of Golden Morning Mama.
