âRelax,â they say. âWeâll let you know when thereâs news.â âWeâll deal with the media.â âWeâve covered your shifts.â âI took care of the bills.â âI had the cleaners put the flannel sheets on the bed.â All your decisions, made for you. Your hand held. Your needs anticipated. Your mail censored, your âThinking of Youâ cards opened before being tucked back into their pastel envelopes.
But no more.
Maris got the laptop from her purse, settled it on her lap, feeling the warmth of the little machine against her thighs. She had chosen this. She had chosen to leave, to act, to change. A shiverâfear, anticipation, rebellionâtraced up her spine as she settled her fingers on the keys. Leaving, that was one thingâgoing to stay with Alana, getting out of the house, all of that was just reacting. But the minute she made this detour to Oakland, sheâd tripped a lever that set something else in motion. Something she hadnât even named yet.
Life was funny that way, how you could mold your path to a truth even before you knew it to be true. If you were brave. If bravery was the word for it. People sabotaged themselves all the time, when they werenât ready to face things. But sometimes they also created circumstances that forced the changes they werenât ready to make deliberately.
The brass fittingsâit was true that Alana had wanted to restore the window handles and hinges from her condo in a historic building in downtown Santa Luisa, the sort of exquisite detail that had become her odd passion. Maris had researched a place that could do the work; she had thought it would be a novel and meaningful gift to mark her moving in with Alana, however temporarily. All of that was true. But Maris had still chosen this errand that took her out of the smooth arc of her getaway, picking up the fittings on the very day of her departure, when she could have waited until another time, or done it in advance. Had she gone directly from Linden Creek to Santa Luisa this morning, she would already be standing in Alanaâs light-filled kitchen, sipping a glass of lemon seltzer. Instead, Maris had come to this neighborhood, this pocked patch of ruin bounded by freeways and abandoned schools and barbed-wire fencing, and while she hadnât broken her own car window or stolen her own belongings, she might as well have.
The thought was oddly thrilling.
As Maris searched Oakland police report robbery , she realized that she had left the package in the diner. But she could no longer imagine giving her sister a set of six brass door cranks and hinges as a gift anyway. Let someone else have them. She scanned the screen, raising an eyebrow at the âhomicide tip lineâ (âtips may be made anonymouslyâ) before clicking âcitizen police reportâ and being rewarded with paragraph after paragraph of text. She read it twice, registering only a few details (âreport theft of dogâ seemed oddly quaint), but her mind was already far ahead.
If she reported the robbery, she would have to give all the detailsâthe true ones, who she really was. Surely the police would know the name. Or was that a naïve assumption? That police here would care at all about things that happened out in the suburbs? Still, it wasnât worth taking a chance. She would never get her things back. Their total valueâwell, it wasnât much, was it? Besides, she had money, a little over twelve thousand dollars in the account she had opened last week, in her name only, the proceeds from the sale of Jeffâs stock that had just vested. She had to make it last until she and Jeff worked out the rest, but for now it was plenty, especially since Alana wasnât going to charge her rent, at least until they made some long-term decisions. Sheâd buy clothes, toiletries. Sheâd figure it out.
She opened a Yelp window and
But no more.
Maris got the laptop from her purse, settled it on her lap, feeling the warmth of the little machine against her thighs. She had chosen this. She had chosen to leave, to act, to change. A shiverâfear, anticipation, rebellionâtraced up her spine as she settled her fingers on the keys. Leaving, that was one thingâgoing to stay with Alana, getting out of the house, all of that was just reacting. But the minute she made this detour to Oakland, sheâd tripped a lever that set something else in motion. Something she hadnât even named yet.
Life was funny that way, how you could mold your path to a truth even before you knew it to be true. If you were brave. If bravery was the word for it. People sabotaged themselves all the time, when they werenât ready to face things. But sometimes they also created circumstances that forced the changes they werenât ready to make deliberately.
The brass fittingsâit was true that Alana had wanted to restore the window handles and hinges from her condo in a historic building in downtown Santa Luisa, the sort of exquisite detail that had become her odd passion. Maris had researched a place that could do the work; she had thought it would be a novel and meaningful gift to mark her moving in with Alana, however temporarily. All of that was true. But Maris had still chosen this errand that took her out of the smooth arc of her getaway, picking up the fittings on the very day of her departure, when she could have waited until another time, or done it in advance. Had she gone directly from Linden Creek to Santa Luisa this morning, she would already be standing in Alanaâs light-filled kitchen, sipping a glass of lemon seltzer. Instead, Maris had come to this neighborhood, this pocked patch of ruin bounded by freeways and abandoned schools and barbed-wire fencing, and while she hadnât broken her own car window or stolen her own belongings, she might as well have.
The thought was oddly thrilling.
As Maris searched Oakland police report robbery , she realized that she had left the package in the diner. But she could no longer imagine giving her sister a set of six brass door cranks and hinges as a gift anyway. Let someone else have them. She scanned the screen, raising an eyebrow at the âhomicide tip lineâ (âtips may be made anonymouslyâ) before clicking âcitizen police reportâ and being rewarded with paragraph after paragraph of text. She read it twice, registering only a few details (âreport theft of dogâ seemed oddly quaint), but her mind was already far ahead.
If she reported the robbery, she would have to give all the detailsâthe true ones, who she really was. Surely the police would know the name. Or was that a naïve assumption? That police here would care at all about things that happened out in the suburbs? Still, it wasnât worth taking a chance. She would never get her things back. Their total valueâwell, it wasnât much, was it? Besides, she had money, a little over twelve thousand dollars in the account she had opened last week, in her name only, the proceeds from the sale of Jeffâs stock that had just vested. She had to make it last until she and Jeff worked out the rest, but for now it was plenty, especially since Alana wasnât going to charge her rent, at least until they made some long-term decisions. Sheâd buy clothes, toiletries. Sheâd figure it out.
She opened a Yelp window and
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