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“Beyond the roses is an empty rectangle of soil,” Oliver continues. “Nothing’s planted there yet.”
My fist closes harder around the bead.
I remember Heather on top of me. The baton across my throat. Jamie on his knees, begging her to stop while I tipped my chin back and let her press harder.
“What does that have to do with the jacket?” I ask.
Oliver’s answer comes without any softness. “She dresses them before she buries them.”
I can still see the white jacket laid across the bed while Heather worked the top button of my shirt loose.
“She put the doll back on the shelf,” I say.
My palm begins to hurt. I open it and find the translucent purple bead sitting in the center, surrounded by a red dent from its edge.
Nineteen nights taught me that pain from her means I did something right. I’d forgotten the nights before them. She put a baton against my throat, and I offered her more room like a fucking fool. If Jamie hadn’t dropped beside her, she could have kept pressing until there was nobody left inside the body she called hers.
“The rat knew,” I say.
“Jamie knew.” Oliver shifts again, then goes quiet before adding, “That’s why he begged.”
I roll the purple bead beneath my thumb. Cheap plastic. Barely large enough to cover the nail on my smallest finger. It nearly got Jamie blamed for failing her, and the bracelet it belongs to nearly put me beneath an empty patch of dirt.
“He wanted me gone,” I say. I saw his face when Heather hit me. Jamie looked like somebody had finally served him the meal he ordered.
“I suspect he did the same arithmetic I did in that garden.”
Jamie didn’t save me because he gives a shit whether I breathe. He saved the set because he lives in it.
I put the bead on the nightstand. A moment later, I pick it up again. Leaving it where Heather might see it tomorrow would be stupid and swallowing it would solve several problems at once. I close my fist around it and lie down.
The red mushroom light throws the wardrobe’s shadow across the floor. I keep seeing the white jacket whenever I close my eyes, so I leave them open until morning.
Heather unlocks my door without mentioning the inspection she skipped. “Breakfast,” she says. “Jamie is fixing what you broke.”
I get up and follow her.
The bracelet board is on the kitchen table. Jamie sits in front of it with the recovered beads arranged in rows and a fresh length of elastic stretched beneath his fingers. His hair is loose this morning.
Heather stands at the counter with my knife, cutting strawberries into quarters. She doesn’t offer it to me when I enter. She points toward the stack of plates instead. “Set the table.”
I take the plates from beside her and carry them over. Jamie keeps his eyes on the bracelet board while I put one in front of Oliver, one in front of Heather’s chair and one at my place. When I lower the last beside Jamie, I open my fist.
The purple bead drops beside his fork without enough weight to make a sound.
Jamie’s fingers stop on the elastic. He looks up at me like he’d rather have Heather put the ruler across his hand than owe me anything.
Heather turns on the faucet behind us. Jamie closes his fingers over the bead and draws it into his pile before she looks back.
I move to my chair.
Oliver watches both of us. His attention drops to Jamie’s hand, then returns to his coffee. He says nothing.
Heather brings the strawberries to the table and sets them in the center. “Finish it.”
Jamie threads the recovered beads onto the new elastic. Orange, pink and yellow slide into place, followed by the translucent purple bead he pretends was on the table all along. He adds both shades of green and continues until the pattern closes in on itself.
When Jamie finishes, he holds it out to Heather. She takes the bracelet and turns it between her fingers, checking every color and every place where one bead touches the next.
