Illusions I Recall:: Elegy for a Flower Child

By Connie Corcoran

Illusions I Recall: Elegy for a Flower Child, is a mystery though not a whodunit—the reader learns in the first paragraph that a woman has been murdered by her husband. But what about those left behind by the tragedy, struggling to comprehend how their beloved Nora, a middle-aged librarian at the peak of her career, could have fallen to such rageful brutality? How does Suzanne, the last person to spend time with her best friend, release the guilt, that she missed something vital? Especially, how does Nora’s grief-stricken, pre-teen daughter Rachel survive the traumatic loss of both her parents—killed and killer? How do either of the protagonists move on without resolving their burning questions? Going back and forth in time, between the formation of an unlikely friendship in the chaotic nineteen sixties and a young woman’s coming-of-age journey thirty years later, Illusions tracks somewhat parallel, often dangerous, choices fueled by loneliness, shame, and disenchantment. Years after the murder, a collision of events forces Rachel from her self-destructive path and leads her to reunite with Suzanne. Bonded by their love for Nora and a persistent thirst for answers, they uncover secrets she kept from even her closest friend. Readers are saying: "A beautiful, unique book," “I couldn’t put it down!” “It brought up a memory I hadn’t thought of in thirty years—powerful,” “Wonderful experience…took us on quite a journey. Thank you for the thought and attention you gave to the sixties, the different points of view…”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781387468263

Book preview

Illusions I Recall: Elegy for a Flower Child

A Novel

Connie Corcoran

Illusions I Recall: Elegy for a Flower Child

Copyright © 2022 Constance J. Corcoran

[e-mail].

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

This is a work of fiction. Apart from the well-known historical figures and actual people, events and locales that figure in the narrative, all other characters are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Where real-life historical persons appear, the situations, incidents and dialogues concerning those persons are not intended to change the entirely fictional nature of the work.

Cover design by Donald Hukari, Hukari Designs.

Original cover art by Sheila Grant, circa 1969.

To Judy and Jeanette, my sister-friends

For M, in loving memory

How shall I go, my fate to learn—

And oh!  How taught shall I return?

—George Crabbe, The Whistling Boy That Holds the Plough

Her stockings are torn but she is beautiful.

—Adrienne Rich, Women 1968

The Incident

Suzanne

The white canopy snapped in the wind; flower arrangements cast their sickly-sweet perfume deep into the audience, where I sat, bolted to my metal folding chair by guilt. A man in black prompted from the stage, Who else has a memory they’d like to share? Muffled coughs and sniffs punctured the expectant silence. In the aisle, a microphone’s silver head pointed at me, accusing: Well, last person to see her alive, what do you have to say for yourself? My best friend, murdered by her husband, and I never saw it coming—what memories could I trust without her, my star witness, to corroborate? I couldn’t believe I’d lost her—or imagine the ways I’d one day find her again.

~~~~~

Six Weeks Earlier

The last Sunday of 1996, I peered through my kitchen window into Portland gloom—not even a cloud to break the monotony, my personal outlook for the week ahead as dull as the sky. The library would be open, but the back room, where I worked, lifeless, most staff finishing the holidays with their families. As I turned to watch flames lick the tea kettle on my stove, I pondered taking vacation days to spend time in my own art studio. The telephone rang, disrupting my funk. I lifted the receiver from the wall.

Suzanne! You should come down. The marvelous lilt of Nora’s voice on the line evoked a fresh sensation, delicate as snowflakes melting in my throat.

Hello to you, too. I laughed at her abruptness.

I’m dying to show you the house. She amped up her sales-pitch. Besides, I’m all alone. Carl’s working in Reno and my folks flew in from Vermont to take Rachel to Disneyland. Everyone’s gone ‘til after New Year’s.

You mean, husband and daughter away, the mice can play?

Absolutely!

The tea kettle began to whistle. I clamped the receiver to my ear with one shoulder, turned off the stove burner and poured boiling water into a mug. The curlicue phone cord trailed me around the kitchen as I retrieved honey and a spoon. My mind started conjuring past images.

Do you remember when we almost got trapped at Big Sur? Freak mudslide. The road collapsed behind us.

"Where did that come from?" She snorted.

God knows.

The near-miss had inspired my first artistic success—a landscape I’d painted for class after our road trip: cotton ball clouds, gumdrop trees, a melting chocolate-sundae mountain. Primitive surrealism at best, but the grade had tipped my major to Art from Psychology. Near-misses had become a trademark of our friendship.

Focus, said Nora, returning me to the present. Come see me, puh-le-e-ese. It’ll be a blast, like old times.

I felt my melancholy shift, envisioning her sparkling green eyes, the martini shaker she probably held up, as if to cinch the deal. Old times, they’d been crazy.

You’re serious? It’s a ten-hour drive, I waffled, pretend-resisting the magnetic pull of her will for no reason other than to assert my own.

Straight shot from Portland, she said. We’re less than a mile from the interstate, first exit past Levee Road.

"Now, there’s a familiar landmark," I said. Nostalgic scenes flashed: bicycle tires kicking up dust on a sunny autumn day, foggy winter nights in parked cars, the red spark on a twisty joint passing hand-to-hand across the front seat of my VW Bug. A few miles east of Nora’s new address, the Davis stretch of the Putah Creek levee was jammed with milestones.

Nora and I hadn’t seen each other in ages, her busy with career, family and the new house; I, swamped in my own deadlines. As friends who knew more about each other than anyone, our bond withstood time and distance. Of course, I started packing as soon as I hung up.

Twenty-four hours later, I parked my new Honda del Sol in Nora’s driveway. She ran out of the house and yanked open the car door.

Ooh what luxury, she said, smoothing her hand across the caramel leather upholstery. Me with my sensible mom-Buick. She rolled her eyes toward the closed garage door, and grabbed my neck in a hug. So glad you’re here!

The dark curtain of Nora’s hair dropped across my face. Her cheek pressed cool against mine, car-heater warm. I swung my legs from behind the steering wheel and stood, one hand pressing a tight hip, then bent to embrace my hostess. Looking over her head, my mental pencil ticked off details of the house I’d heard so much about: paned picture window, clapboard façade, triple dormers peeking from the recessed roof, and a river rock chimney, its matching planters bordering the front portico. Through years of dreary rentals, Nora had dreamed of her own home. She never gave up on dreams.

It’s lovely, I said, duly impressed.

We’re as close to the town limits as we could get.

This tree-lined cul-de-sac with its oversized lots did preserve a rural feel. Once, the town was little more than a bar and a gas station on our way from Davis via Lake Berryessa to the Mendocino coast. When the bypass came through, interstate junctions afforded easy commutes in all directions. Acres of orchards and tomato fields had yielded to concrete housing pads.

The developers left you a souvenir. I nodded at a corner of the front yard, where branches of leathery green leaves sagged under the weight of oranges.

Fresh juice every day. Her smile gleamed. Plus, this. Nora threw her arms wide in imitation of the Valley Oak spreading its bare limbs above her lawn. She spun in a circle. She could never talk without using her whole body. And the hills are right there. One hand flew toward the interior slope of the coastal range.

I recognized my nature-loving pal’s ready escape. As a borderline introvert, she often needed to flee civilization to recharge. Funny how we each countered our usual tendencies in the other’s company. Back in college Nora had transformed from nerdy wallflower to queen of the dance floor, while I’d swapped my stand-up comic persona to become a serious student.

Once inside, Nora led me through her dream home, pointing out rustic-modern touches that reminded her of the foothills where she’d spent her childhood.

We had knotty pine walls just like these, she said, running a hand over paneling in the Great Room. I salvaged that old railroad lantern from a flea market. She indicated the deep red globe encased in its rusty frame, perched on the fireplace mantel.

As my boot heels resonated across the hardwood floor, the scent of forest drifted from a Christmas tree that stretched toward the exposed rafters. Passing through an archway, we entered a cozy alcove where the dropped acoustic ceiling and two walls of bookshelves encased Nora’s personal sanctuary.

Is that your grandmother’s rug? With one toe, I traced the oval braids that once graced our shared floors.

You remember!

How could I forget your family heirlooms? At first, I’d scoffed at her sentimental attachment to the big Irish clan who’d populated her childhood, but over time that unabashed nostalgia became one of Nora’s defining charms.

Beyond the alcove, she led me into her homey kitchen with butcher block countertops, an old-brick wall and stainless-steel appliances. Above the sink, a row of African violets bloomed in the greenhouse window.

Ah, you’ve learned not to over water, I said, air-fingering the purple blossoms.

The smile creases deepened in Nora’s cheeks. She opened another door.

Here’s where Carl lives, when he’s home, she said, wryly. All business and hobbies.

I knew her husband’s work took him away frequently, fundraising for some New Age denomination of Christian Evangelicals. We stood just inside an office whose furnishings seemed spartan compared to the other rooms: a futon, Army surplus desk and captain’s chair—bare white walls, their sole adornment a bleeding-heart-of-Jesus poster framed in cheap plastic. One free-standing bookcase held coin collecting albums, investment manuals and Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. The steel desk with its pristine blotter neatly underlay a Dell computer, a green-shaded banker’s lamp and a Post-its tabbed Bible. No family photos or charming tchotchkes like those adorning Nora’s alcove.

Her taste in men was but one of Nora’s mysteries to me, not like I actually knew Carl, other than a handful of times I’d visited Nora in her home. Years ago, her infatuated phone calls had described his sad origins: drug-addicted birth mother shuffling him in and out of fosters, until finally she allowed the Hancocks to adopt. I’d often worried Nora fell in love with the story more than the man, but never having married myself, who was I to judge? To my jaundiced mind, nuptial failure seemed more likely than success. I enjoyed the company of men, but I preferred to keep it special. Constancy would surely render any affair mundane. Perhaps losing my father when I was young had taught me not to rely on a man, though I’d seen other fatherless girls go the opposite extreme.

How’s his territory working out? I asked, to be gracious.

Nevada’s quite lucrative, said Nora, closing the office door. I’ve warned him not to overdo the slots.

He gambles? I was about to ask, but she was already heading to the stairs.

In the first room off the balcony, Nora stowed my bag at the foot of the guest bed. Between my room and the master suite, she lingered in Rachel’s tween scene bedroom, its forsaken Barbie house buried in graphic tee-shirts and pop culture magazines. Overhead, a poster announced, The Spice Girls.

Joan Baez wouldn’t be caught dead in those gaudy clothes, I groaned.

You mean, where have all the flower children gone? Nora guffawed. Good thing you don’t have kids.

No shit, Sherlock, I said. No regrets either. At the peak of our natural trend, we’d been thrilled to go bra-less, thrown away the girdles and garter belts—everything constricting, including the rules for nice girls. Even quit shaving our legs for a time. Nowadays, I knew, shaving meant waxing—all the way up. Ugh, the things modern mothers would have to teach their daughters—and model themselves.

This is more like it, I said, studying compact disc and record album inserts strung across one wall painted to match the turquoise shag rug. The celebrity-studded clothesline included Janis Joplin and Aretha along with contemporary pop stars I didn’t recognize. I can see she’s raided your collection.

I expose her to the best. But, you know, I’m the parent. Old! 

We stared at each other in disbelief. How had it come to this?

The Central Valley’s dense Tule fog descended, and so we stayed in, rotating from the breakfast bar to the hot tub, to Nora’s marvelous reading nook. After dinner, I absorbed the hush as we ducked through the archway into her intimate space. Nora dialed down the rheostat to soften the lights and we sank into the pair of over-stuffed armchairs, goblets of wine in hand. The Ramsey Lewis Trio played In Crowd on the stereo, the jazzy-pop soundtrack from our first apartment.

I didn’t know a thing about music, back then, Nora grimaced.

I used to cry to Johnny Mathis, I chuckled. You cried over everything.

Nora pushed both hands through her hair, lifting its thick blanket off her neck. Lamplight caught the red highlights, and exposed white threads I hadn’t seen before. She plucked a dried lavender frond from the Mason jar beside her, tickling her nose with the flower. Her stubby fingertips popped buds and flicked herbal scent into the air.

I inhaled, stretching my legs on the ottoman, and rolled Malbec around my mouth, letting the plum-flavored wine coat my tongue. Beyond my feet, I could see the white lights twinkling on the Christmas tree in the darkened Great Room. My gaze shifted to Nora’s bookshelves, where a leaded-bronze statuette reigned, a barefoot woman sitting on top of the world, messy hair and wrinkled jeans—quintessential Nora. The inscription on the base read, Woman of the Year, with the embossed State seal. Felicitaciones, I’d raised my glass in appropriately accented toast when Nora had first shown me her award.

I’m sorry I couldn’t make the banquet, I said now. Deadlines from my job had precluded my attendance, and anyway Nora had been swamped that night, with an entourage of family, colleagues and dignitaries.

The Governor presented my award himself. He was charming. She glowed deservedly over her lauded accomplishment, a modern mobile library reaching out to migrant farmworkers in the fields. I’d read about the program in professional journals all year: native Spanish-speaking story tellers, bilingual books given free to build home libraries, onboard computers with experimental satellite connections to the Internet. Of particular interest was an impressive list of corporate sponsors and community partners she’d won to finance the project, after a year of speaking engagements that maxed out her tolerance for social interaction. I’d been honored to play a part, working freelance from my own studio to design the mural for the outside of the bus.

The children recognize the bus from acres away. They come running before we even stop, she said. They crowd under the awning, grab juice boxes and water bottles from the tub, wipe their hands and faces with the chilled cloths. Such a hard life, even with all UFW’s progress.

You’ve made quite the impact, I said, knowing she’d become interested in the migrant cause during Bobby Kennedy’s campaign, when he appeared with Cesar Chavez to support the United Farm Workers. A lifetime ago!

Nora had come by her career purposefully, gone for the Master’s Degree in Library Science to channel her passion for books to a greater good. That I ended up working in parallel institutions was merely coincidence, the first job opening to employ my freshly minted MFA and leave plenty of creative energy to pursue my own art. I became a member of what’s known as support staff, the differently skilled crew propping up the work of the librarians, a title reserved for degreed professionals such as herself. I liked to chide my uber-democratic friend on her vocation’s caste system. Nevertheless, our complementary employment maintained a common frame of reference and occasionally allowed us to attend the same conferences, where we’d share a hotel room, dance with strangers in bars, and flirt with vendor reps to score the best hospitality suites. One night we’d slurped Grey Goose and oysters before a giant ice swan; the stereotyping public had no idea how librarians liked to let down their hair.

Tonight, Nora wound up her latest success story by describing a delegation who came all the way from Florida to see her bus in action.

Afterward, they hosted my team at this exclusive Napa restaurant. A new bottle of wine with each course, she winced. Eleven at night by the entrée. I don’t think I was making sense past the artfully arranged cluster of watercress and pear blossoms.

I can see you groping the bread basket for ballast, I chortled.

You know me. She puffed out her cheeks, chipmunk style, and wiggled her eyebrows.

It was marvelous to see her relaxed with the mid-life pounds her carb affinity had earned.

New Year’s Eve, we sipped champagne in front of the TV, watching Rose Parade floats receive their final touches. The next morning Nora’s French roast coffee steamed our eyeglasses, as the floral masterpieces crawled down Orange Grove Boulevard, portraying the theme, Life’s Shining Moments. Later, we toasted Nora’s recent shining moments, drinking martinis in the hot tub, sucking red pimento strips from over-sized olives. Our talk roamed from books and music to sex, as it often had in college. With typical brazen intimacy, Nora announced Carl had gotten a penis implant, after a bout with prostate cancer.

Honeymoon cystitis at my age, she exploded with laughter, over-sharing as always. Good thing he travels a lot.

No marriage-code privacy came between us. I remembered her long-ago complaints that Carl wasn’t really into sex. The disappointment had been another of my negative assumptions about marriage.

Those slot machines, though. She sighed.

Is there a problem? I didn’t know much about religion, but gambling must be a sin, and this was the second time she’d mentioned it.

One more money fetish—coin collecting, fundraising, she shrugged. Everybody has their thing.

I suppose. She didn’t seem overly concerned so I was happy to drop the subject of Nora’s husband.

A sudden chill announced the descending fog, which sent us scurrying from the hot tub for warm towels.

Back in the reading nook that night, we settled in for more reverie, before my long drive home in the morning. Another of Nora’s vinyl LPs played on the stereo—applause, laughter and ambient chatter embellished the music, recorded live back in ‘65. I closed my eyes and imagined smoke from a dozen cigarettes curling into the air, the standard club atmosphere in those days. I still missed the head rush of a first inhale, the bitter taste and noxious fumes. These days, I took my breaks from work on the smokers’ patio, to indulge vicariously in the scorned habit which once had been a requisite of sophistication.

Don’t you miss smoking? I asked, peering beneath my drooped lids.

Binge smoker only, remember? She shook her head. Parties, bars and finals. Pregnancy cured all desire.

I swirled my wine and examined the framed black-and-white photo on the table between our chairs—round-cheeked Rachel smiling snub nose-to-snub nose with her mother. Their profiles differed only in size. Twelve years ago, the birth announcement had arrived in my mailbox with Nora’s love and anxiety scribbled across the back: She’s perfect, just waiting for me to screw her up. There followed years of gut-wrenching notes and phone calls, as Nora read one expert after another, confusing herself with contradictory parenting advice and child development theories. Clearly, Rachel had survived her mother’s self-described failures: to breastfeed, to establish bedtime routine, to detect shyness before a preschool teacher pointed it out. Now, Nora was fretting over the looming April birthday.

She’s going to be a teenager!

Motherhood was yet another calling that escaped me—responsibility for a young human had never appealed. I’d once braved the care and feeding of a shelter dog, and when it died, I thought I’d never stop reaching to stroke the phantom muff, missing the weight against my feet at night. Judging by Nora’s experience, I was right to assume that attending to a child consumed far too much heart-space.

I continued surveying the alcove, Nora’s well-organized bookshelves (ever the librarian) with author-alphabetized favorites—from Atwood and Godwin to Oates and Piercy. Over the years, her letters often read like book reviews, revealing more about her own angst than any novelist’s literary prowess. Ratings went up with how hard a book made her cry.

Another set of shelves held an eclectic mix, each row its own special interest: California Gold Rush history and hiking trails, the poetry of Angelou and Rilke, and, just below eye-level, some tell-tale textbook editions—Nietzsche, Carl Jung, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare—Nora’s college transcripts in dog-eared relief. At the end of that shelf a bulky paperback lay on its side, the creased-spine of Ulysses propping up a faded Polaroid. I recognized the snapshot of Nora standing on a mountain top, hands fisted inside the pockets of her white ski jacket, cheeks sunburned, eyes squinting as she beamed at the photographer.

Do you ever think about Jack? I asked, tilting my wine goblet toward the invisible man who’d been holding that camera thirty years ago, atop Mt. Whitney. 

Always. Nora’s voice dropped a register and left the room. If not for Jack, I’d never have met the love of my life. 

I pictured her husband’s sterile office.

You’re lucky you found Carl, I said, more charitably than I felt.

Not Carl. Rachel. Before I could register the distinction, ask how motherhood trumped an adult relationship, or what Jack had to do with it, she’d relapsed into motherly lament. Oh God, she’s growing up too fast! I can’t believe she’ll be thirteen in just four months! A tear escaped one eye. I was such a late-bloomer. Dazed and confused. It’s a wonder I didn’t get myself killed.

We were all a bit mad back then. I blinked at our youthful indiscretions. Just waking up. I can’t believe how much was going on that I missed. All week our talk had looped this way—backward in time, then forward, and back again.

Which reminds me. She wriggled her eyebrows. I found something when we were moving. She leveraged out of her chair and walked to the desk in the corner.

That’s strange, she said, rummaging through file folders and papers. It was right here.

What are you looking for?

Remember the portfolio you gave me when I left for grad school?

My mind flashed back to the long-ago scene outside a Greyhound bus, Nora’s hopeful face peering at me through a grimy window.

"Let me guess, you wrote an exposé: Sex Lives of Library School Students?"

Just some old letters I never got around to mailing. Proof I actually wrote you. She had not been a reliable correspondent, seldom answering my missives, which were not all that frequent. She frowned at the misplaced portfolio. Maybe I left it upstairs. I’ll look when we go up.

Nora’s body settled back into her chair like a pillow, our legs stretched side-by-side on the ottoman, my size elevens dwarfing her child-like feet. Willow and hourglass someone had once called us, accurately summing up physiques as opposite as our personalities—I, the detached artist who observed life from atop my androgynous frame and long neck, and she the diminutive bookworm with a well-defined waistline, looping her Velcro empathy to many a lost cause or sad story. An unlikely friendship perhaps, but cemented in our shared experience.

Finally, my last drop of energy vanished with the wine.

I should turn in, I yawned.

We returned our goblets to the kitchen and Nora followed me up the stairs, switching off lights as she came. Exchanging drowsy smiles, we hugged at the door to the guest room. 

Sleep as late as you want. I’ll have the coffee on, she said, ever the morning person.

I watched her walk away, hips straining the seams of her Levi’s, hair swinging down her back. Nora hand-kissed the wall of her daughter’s room in passing. She paused at the end of the hall, turned and waved, then disappeared inside the master suite, closing the door. The mirage of her smile lingered.

As I nested under the quilt on the guest bed, drifting toward sleep, I marveled to think we’d survived that minefield of sixties’ revolutions, scarred but wiser. Now, here we were at the cruising altitude of midlife, celebrating the summit of our turbulent climbs, rid of the fasten-seatbelts feeling, free to move about our comfortable lives in the calm above the clouds. My lips curved in contentment.

_____

Something had pried open my eyes. In the dark, neon figures seared my retinas: 4:42 on the digital clock. Frantic pounding from below rattled the windows.

Nora, make it stop, I moaned and rammed the pillow over my ears.

The noise continued and I heaved my body out of bed, dragging to the bedroom door on Jell-O legs. From the balcony, I could see blue and white lights whirling in the picture window panes, deflecting rainbows in the thick, grey mist.

Bang, bang, bang. The noise grew more urgent, clearly coming from the front door.

Nora! I called, alarmed and turning toward the master suite. My voice echoed into the silent house.

Stumbling to my bed, I grabbed my glasses from the nightstand, flung an afghan around my sleep-shirt and slid my feet into leather mules, preparing to support my friend in what sounded like an emergency.

Sheriff’s Department! Open the door, boomed up the stairs.

My steps sped up.

Nora? Nora! I called, descending the stairs, one hand gripping the cedar log banister. The motion light sensor tripped in the foyer, a soft glow illuminating the front door.

County Sheriff! Open up! insisted the voice and the heavy fist.

I fumbled at the deadbolt, clung to the door as it swung inward, then backed away. Fog poured in like cold smoke. A uniformed figure pointed his flashlight in my face, casting my shadow up the stairwell. A man in a plain brown coat and damp pant cuffs followed the officer into the foyer and waved a badge at me. More uniforms crowded in behind him.

Detective …something, he said. Mrs. Hancock?

I shook my head.

Is she here? Who are you? Let me see some identification.

What-the-hell? My sleep-drugged mind was spinning. Something must have happened to Carl—or Rachel, God forbid.

Lights glared as an officer flipped the bank of switches inside the door. I rummaged through my purse on the coat tree, eyes flashlight-spotted, fingers clumsy, groping for my wallet.

Glancing upward, expecting to see Nora emerge from her room, I extended my driver’s license to the detective. His jaw was pepper-stubbled, and condensation steamed his black-framed lenses. Cold fingers grazed my thumb as he took my license. He continued firing questions, barely pausing for me to respond. 

Why are you here? Where is the owner of the house? What kind of car do you drive? 

I suppressed a nervous laugh, stuttering half-responses.

…friends. She must be…sleeping. My eyes fluttered back and forth from the balcony to the detective. I watched him match data from the license to me: hair brown, eyes hazel, height six-one, weight one-forty-five. Date of birth placed me at fifty.

This address current? He scribbled something on his clipboard, then lifted his eyes to stare into mine. Where is the owner of the house? It felt like accusation.

Nora! I called, stumbling up the stairs, pushed by boots at my heels. We stopped in the open doorway of the master suite. A spot of lamplight bounced off the enamel handset on the nightstand. Nora’s nightgown spread like a black stain across the white duvet on an empty bed.

My scalp prickled as if I’d forgotten something.

The next hours blurred with fractured images. Questions rained from the detective’s mouth.

Did you hear Mrs. Hancock go out? Where is her husband? When did you last see him?

I could barely work my lips to respond, following officers with guns as they searched the house. Guns? In the kitchen, an uncorked wine bottle stood where we had left it with our goblets, on the counter. Two plates with forks and wilted leaves of lettuce sat in the sink, attesting to the facts of my memory. In the doorway to the garage, I noted moving boxes, Rachel’s bicycle, Carl’s black workout bench with its shining steel rod and pile of iron weight disks. The clean concrete floor.

Her car is gone, I gasped.

Back in the Great Room, the Christmas tree gave off its unsuitably festive scent. I sank to the sofa, feeling obscenely underdressed for the occasion—shivering and perspiring, clutching the afghan to my throat. The detective stood over me, pummeling more questions into my temples.

Did the phone ring? What time did you last see Mrs. Hancock? Why are you here? As if I didn’t belong.

Nora’s face flickered in my mind—peaceful, probably the happiest I’d seen her. Only a few hours ago, we’d turned in high on wine, friendship and memories.

Has something happened to Nora? I whispered, dreading the response.

Mrs. Petersen, is it? The detective was again examining my driver’s license.

Miss, I corrected, robotically.

Finally, came answers I didn’t want.

We believe a victim found on the levee road is Mrs. Hancock.

With an irrational urge to grab a mop and clean the mess, I noticed streaks on the hardwood floor, tracked by officers’ muddy boots.

What? My uncomprehending eyes rose to the detective’s. She’s been in an accident?

Not an accident. Homicide, his badge had read. Homicide.

I held up my hands, palms out, to ward off the words falling from the mustached upper lip.

No-no-no. It’s a mistake. She was just here. I jammed my hands between my knees and rocked back and forth. Pain spread from the bridge of my nose across my eyebrows, in a continuous, stabbing band. Bile gorged in my throat.

Any idea why she was out there? The flat voice continued as if his question weren’t absurd.

She’d never. She wouldn’t drive in this fog. My head wouldn’t stop shaking no. I could smell my armpits.

Looks like she was meeting someone. You didn’t hear her go out?

She’d have told me… I stammered, my brain seeking alternatives. She was kidnapped.

There’s no sign of struggle, here, said Homicide, reading my mind.

A knot formed in the back of my neck. Okay, Nora, I wished I could laugh. You can stop the live Clue game now. It isn’t funny anymore.

The picture window lit up as sun burned holes through the air outside. The oak tree in the front yard threw branchy shadows across the Great Room, splattering dark graffiti shapes onto the river rock firewall. The uniforms began to recede from the house, taking my fingerprints with them, leaving behind white, powdery smudges all over Nora’s immaculate home. 

Can I get dressed? I asked, my tongue thick.

The detective cocked his head at someone over my shoulder. A female officer stepped forward to escort me up the stairs. I riveted my mind to the details of her appearance: khaki slacks and shirt molded to muscular thighs and broad shoulders, and what I guessed was a Kevlar vest flattening her chest, hair brushed tight off her forehead into a black bun, dark freckles dotting her brown cheeks. As she followed me, I could hear her utility belt clink with Mace, cuffs, a baton. My legs spasmed on the stairs.

In the guest bathroom, I splashed water on my face and spat mouth wash into the sink, gagging, trying not to vomit. I yanked my zebra-stripe tunic from the door hook and twisted it over my head and arms. The knit leggings tangled around my feet. I threw them on the floor and sank to the toilet seat, face in hands, my mind a muddle of questions: How can Nora be dead? What was she doing on the levee? Why didn’t she tell me she was going out?

When I’d managed to finish dressing and emerged from the bathroom, the female officer led me back downstairs.

Someone needs to call Carl, I said, my voice slurred with unshed tears.

The detective saw me eyeing the kitchen wall phone, whose tethered answer machine sat unblinking on the breakfast bar. I barely heard his words: "Mr. Hancock …notified. … official identification." And then: "…unique markings. We’re certain it’s Mrs. Hancock."

Markings, I thought, numb, as I gazed into Nora’s cabinets at a shelf of stoneware mugs. I took out one for me and one for the detective. The female officer had disappeared. With trembling fingers, I measured coffee grounds, filled a carafe of water for the drip machine.

You mean the scars?

I looked out the window above the sink, past the African violets. Mist rose from the dormant lawn. I pictured Nora in the hot tub:  the one-piece bathing suit she’d worn, lime-green, up to her neck, scalded flesh rippling down her throat, still livid after a decades-old accident, a caterpillar shape on her right shoulder, imprinted by shards of glass years further back—more near-misses from my friend’s risk-prone youth. This was the unique canvas I knew as Nora’s skin, delicate as fine silk, more accessible than dental records. And there were extensive dental records—all those silver fillings and gold crowns she’d needed in college, flashing in the hot tub steam when she’d laughed about Carl’s post-surgery sex drive. There’s nothing Nora doesn’t tell me, I thought, and blanched at the paradox: what hadn’t she told me?

Have you remembered anything else? The detective pulled the knot of a mustard yellow tie away from his Adam’s apple and studied a calendar next to the wall phone, the inked family schedule a helpful trail for anyone to follow.

Oh God, Rachel is coming home today! I blurted, realizing how much the pain was about to spread. And Nora’s parents. My knees buckled, fingers gripping the counter as delayed tears spilled down my cheeks.

Mr. Hancock was able to reach the father, Mr. McLean, before their flight boarded.

I shouldn’t be here, I said, wiping my face with a paper towel. They’ll need privacy.

I want to go back over everything again, then you can be on your way, said the detective, clicking his pen. Each maddening tick made me flinch.

I poured a mug of coffee for each of us and skirted the breakfast bar, sinking to a stool. Gripping my mug with both hands, I recounted the gist of my stay for the umpteenth time. 

I drove to Nora’s Monday. We didn’t go anywhere, because of the fog. She asked about my art. I asked about Rachel’s school, Carl’s work. We talked about old times, I said, dully. All the reckless brushes with catastrophe were far behind us, distilled by time into comic anecdotes. 

Any concerns Mrs. Hancock might have voiced? Any hint of trouble?

The detective must have thought repeating the same questions over and over would produce different answers. Insane, I thought. This whole thing is insane.

I’m her best friend, I’d know if something was wrong. To myself, I sounded like a liar. I don’t know what could have made her go out in the fog, I said. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, pulsed in my eardrums, my throat sore with repetition and grief. It made us both feel like trying to see without our glasses on.

Most likely someone called, said Homicide, watching me closely. Someone she knew well.

Someone she knew? I blinked. Who would want to hurt Nora?

This level of violence is most always personal, he said.

And that’s when he described a level of violence I would never unhear—rage that was not satisfied by inflicting death. I felt like it happened to me: the gunshot that shattered her face, the knife thrusts that slashed her torso, the wheels that crushed her rib cage in a final, insulting, Fuck you, bitch!

I puked—wine-colored vomit that was bound to stain Nora’s beautiful floor.

The female officer reappeared from behind me bearing a roll of paper towels, as if she’d been waiting for this moment.

Once my gagging hysteria subsided, Homicide apparently decided there was no new information to shock out of me.

You’re free to go. If you think of anything, give me a call. He handed me his card.

Millions of little things raced through my mind, cascading fragments of memory, all of them vivid, none of them helpful. Nora McLean Hancock was my friend, a girl who’d preferred beginnings—the first day of school, the first pages of a book, first dates before reality chipped the veneer. She was a woman who’d anticipated with equal enthusiasm the first crunch of a spoon through the caramelized crust on a crème brulée, and the first bend in a strange road. But the second day of this new year hadn’t yet dawned when Nora’s story ended while I slept.

Why?

Why this?

Why now?

~~~~~

Rachel

Flight 913 from LAX touched down, right on time, TH 01:02:97, 3:35 PM according to Rachel’s new digital watch, a cool Christmas