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Rina and Steve filled to-go mugs with coffee and walked out to the car. Outside, there was a strange glow to everything, as though the sun was shining through a greenish film. Rina pressed on the gas and shot them out of her neighborhood toward the glinting Pacific. Driving by the water had always stabilized her. It reminded her of just how small she was, that she was just a single member of a planet upon which eight billion people lived. That meant she could handle anything.
Steve and Rina talked intermittently on the drive up to Penny’s place. Rina’s head was too full of fears for normal conversation. Steve flicked through radio stations, landing on classic rock songs by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Gong. Rina pulsed her head in time to the music, trying to pump herself up.
“This is so unique,” Rina said suddenly when they were just five minutes from Penny’s place. “I mean, how many private investigators get to solve their oldest, coldest case?”
Steve squeezed her arm gently. “How many sisters get to reunite after thirty years?” He smiled. “But I’ve told you about the Sheridan sisters, haven’t I? How they all left Martha’s Vineyard, one after another, and didn’t return for twenty-five years?”
“They act like they never spent a day apart.”
But Rina couldn’t help but point out the differences. Penny had actually “disappeared.” She’d “gone missing.” The Sheridans had looked one another in the eye and said, “I never want to see you again.” There was more finality in that. There were more sleep-filled nights.
Penny’s house on the coast was a mini-mansion, approximately ten times bigger than Rina’s little place in Santa Monica. Rina’s mouth was dry as she shut the engine off and gazed up at it to view it’s glass walls and white pillars, and it’s sharp angles. It spoke of modernity and fat bank accounts. The lawn that stretched around it was lush and as bright green as astroturf.
A long time ago, Penny and Rina had joked about people who cared so much about their lawns. It had seemed like the most mundane thing in the world.
“I’ll wait in the car,” Steve said. “Unless you want me to come with you? Then I’m there.”
Rina felt rigid like her arms and legs were made of bark. “I’d better go alone. But thanks.” She kissed Steve and stepped out from the car. Her heart pounded as she headed up the walkway. She felt as though she was walking toward her doom.
If Penny didn’t answer, what would she do? Would she see it as a sign and give up?
Rina reached the front door and took a deep breath. She was struck with another memory: she and Penny maybe forty years ago, playing hide-and-seek. Penny had been in the cupboard where they kept the cleaning supplies. Rina had known all the time where she was, but she played along for a while, pretending to look in corners and behind window curtains. When she finally reached the cupboard, she knocked on it, just like this. And Penny had squealed with laughter on the other side.
Rina rang the doorbell. The sound echoed through the glass house and spread out across the lawn. Rina glanced back at Steve, who gave her a firm nod. Whatever happened here, he would remain beside her. They had a future.
The door clicked open slowly. Rina turned back to find a middle-aged woman with long, highlighted hair, the blonde shimmering in the California sun. The face was layered with makeup, and the nose was different, smaller. A nose job, maybe. Penny’s eyes were as wide as a Disney Princess’s.
Normally, when Rina found who she was looking for, relief rushed over her arms and legs, and her lungs filled with air. But this time, it felt as though she’d been punched.
“Rina,” Penny whispered.
Rina blinked at her little sister. She remembered herself, only days ago, touching the mural on the high school, aching to know where she was. She felt like a fool.
“Can I come in?” Rina asked.
Penny stepped aside and beckoned for Rina to enter. They were quiet as they walked down a long hallway, its walls glass, toward a back kitchen with Mexican tile. Penny asked Rina if she wanted a cup of coffee, but Rina refused it. Such normality didn’t seem correct.
Finally, they sat in chairs by a turquoise swimming pool in the shape of a teardrop. California sunlight draped over their feet and ankles, but they were otherwise in shadow.
Rina burned with questions. None of them seemed right to start with. But it didn’t matter, anyway, because soon, Penny spoke first. “I’ve imagined this moment for decades.”
Rina was quiet. Maybe her silence would force Penny to say everything.
Penny leaned forward and touched her temples. Her blonde hair cured loosely down her back. Rina compared it to her own brown bob. She’d wanted it because it was the easiest thing to brush through in the morning. She’d wanted ease.
“Oh, Rina. Rina, Rina. I was so young,” Penny said to the swimming pool. “Fifteen years old. And so brash. So confident. Sometimes, I think, if I could have bottled my personality back then, I could have made a lot of money.”
Rina spoke then. “It seems like you do all right for yourself.”
Penny’s laughter was musical. Rina hated how much she loved to hear it.
“That’s my husband,” Penny said. “Joshua. I do odd jobs here and there, but he’s the breadwinner. Always has been.”
“Where does he think your family is?”
Penny rolled her head back, and the tendons in her neck cracked and popped. “I met Joshua when I was twenty-five. And I told him, well, I told him my parents were dead. To me, they were.”
Rina’s heartbeat intensified. “And your sister? Did you say your sister was dead, too?”
