Homewrecker

22 - 𝓶𝓸𝓶

"Are you sure you know your way around the neighborhood well enough?"

The sound of Miles' claws clicking against the floor tiles in the kitchen nearly drowned out Amy's question as she held out his retractable leash in her hand, the metal hook for his collar clanking against the red plastic handle.

He seemed to recognize it, ears perked and eyes intently watching her movements as he sat in front of her, like he was trying to sit like a good dog but the excitement was enough to make his front paws jitter on the floor and his tail to rapidly thwack against the corner of the island. When Amy still hesitated, he scooted closer to her, enthused and enraptured by the leash in her hand.

It had been a couple of hours since David and I came home from the police station in Shiloh, since the interview with Detective Marsh and Officer Porterfield ended, and I spent the hour drive back to Shelridge slumped against the passenger seat, feeling drained and dissatisfied. It seemed like the questions were endless, even the ones about things I didn't even know—like how Mom's new job was going past good, I guess, or if she was still close with anyone from her side of the family—and I went from thinking I knew my mom better than anyone to realizing I didn't know much about her at all.

I didn't know the names of her childhood friends who might still live in town, or where she got her pills from, or if her addiction was a result of depression or not. I didn't know how or why she started using, or who would've hated her enough to actually strangle her. Even when he asked me when I last her, it seemed to disappoint everyone when I said I left for school and she was just asleep on the futon like normal. The detective hesitated, though, before asking me if it looked like she was breathing.

Like she could've been strangled with me in the trailer with her.

But I knew she hadn't been, I knew she was alive when I left because she was snoring. She smoked, so her snore was always loud and rattled against the walls of the trailer like it did in her lungs when she breathed. I had left for school, and she had been fine. She didn't have to work that day so I didn't know what she had planned between then and picking me up so we could pick out flowers for my garden. But that wasn't what frustrated me the most. It was when Detective Marsh started asking questions about me, how I felt about my mom, what our relationship was like.

It was going pretty alright until he asked me if my mom ever did anything to make me angry. I could feel David staring at me, like he had been for the whole interview like he was looking for answers from me too or just wanted to make sure I didn't say anything to damage his political reputation, and I didn't want to admit the truth in front of him. I didn't want to see that look on his face, one of pity or embarrassment or something, so I shrugged and said no. Not really. I didn't like that she used, but I wasn't angry with her.

I knew enough about addiction to know it's not some sort of logical choice, even if it did feel like a choice, nonetheless. Anger felt like a word that was red hot, blazing and destructive, and that didn't seem to fit my feelings about her addiction. I was disappointed, and maybe felt some lesser version of angry, but not the whole of it.

What did make me angry was the night she drove me to the ATM, made me seethe to point of locking her sobbing outside, but I didn't kill my mom, so it wasn't like it was relevant. But there was still an uncomfortable part of me that squirmed at the thought of lying to someone investigating my mother's murder. And that was so frustrating to me, but I didn't know David to know that about her, or about me.

So, after a couple of hours wandering around the lake-house in an attempt to avoid Natalie—who had spent her afternoon getting highlights in her hair, running her fingers through the professional curls and recounting the experience in detail for me in the living room when I thought about watching a movie—I found Amy with Miles in the kitchen. He had his whole body against the floor, lying down in that way that makes dogs look like someone just knocked me over and they didn't have the will to get up, and I felt like I needed to do something.