Her lungs shut down; her legs went weak. Someone asked if she was all right as she stumbled toward the doors. But she heard him, inside her head: Come home, Breen Siobhan. It’s time you came home.
She gripped the bar to keep her balance, nearly tripped on the steps. And ran.
She felt people look at her, turn their heads, stare, and wonder. That only made it worse. She hated to draw attention, tried so hard to blend, to just fade.
The bus hiccupped by.
Though her breath whistled in and out, the pressure on her chest eased. She ordered herself to slow down, just slow down and walk like a normal person.
It took her a minute to manage it, and another to orient herself.
She hadn’t had an anxiety attack that severe since the night before her first day in the classroom at Grady Middle. Marco, her best friend since kindergarten, had gotten her through that, and through the one—not quite as bad—before her first parent/teacher conference.
Just a man catching the bus, she told herself. No threat, for God’s sake. And she hadn’t heard him inside her head. Believing you heard other people’s thoughts equaled crazy.
Hadn’t her mother drummed that into her head since . . . always?
And now, because she’d had a moment of crazy, she had a solid half-mile walk. But that was fine, that was all right. It was a pretty spring evening, and she was—naturally—dressed correctly. The light raincoat—there’d been a 30 percent chance of rain—over the spring sweater, the sensible shoes.
She liked to walk. And hey, think of all the extra steps on her Fitbit.
So it messed up her schedule a little, what did it matter?
She was a twenty-six-year-old single female, and had absolutely no plans for a Friday night in May.
And if that wasn’t depressing enough, the anxiety attack worsened her headache.
She unzipped a section of her briefcase, took out a little pouch, and picked two Tylenol out of it. She downed them with water from the bottle in her briefcase.
She’d walk to her mother’s, pick up and sort the mail—as her mother refused to have the post office hold it when she was out of town—shred the junk mail, put bills, correspondence, and so on in the correct trays in her mother’s home office.
Open the windows to air out the duplex, water the plants—house and patio, as it hadn’t rained after all.
Close the windows after one hour, set the alarm, lock the doors. Catch the next bus and go home.
Toss dinner together: Friday night meant a salad topped with a grilled chicken breast, and—yes!—a glass of wine. Grade papers—post grades.
Sometimes she hated technology because school policy demanded she post those grades—then deal with students or parents who objected to same.
She walked, ticking off items on her list while people around her headed toward happy hour or an early dinner, or anywhere more interesting than her own destination.
She didn’t envy them—too much. She’d actually had a boyfriend, had worked dinner dates, theater dates, movie dates into her schedule. Sex, too. She’d thought it had all gone well, smooth and steady.
Until he dumped her.
That was fine, she thought. That was all right. It wasn’t as if they’d been madly in love. But she’d liked him, felt comfortable with him. And she’d thought the sex had been pretty good.
Of course when she’d had to tell her mother Grant wouldn’t escort her to her mother’s forty-sixth birthday party, and why, the stylish, successful Jennifer Wilcox, Philly Brand advertising agency’s media director, had rolled her eyes.
And done the expected “I told you so.”
Hard to argue as, well, she had.
Still, Breen had wanted to lash back.
You got married at nineteen! You had me when you were twenty. And less than a dozen years later you pushed and pushed and pushed him out. Whose fault is it he walked away from me—not just you, but me?
Was it her own? Breen wondered. Wasn’t she the common denominator with a mother who didn’t respect her and a father who hadn’t cared enough to stay in her life?
Even after he’d promised.
Old business, she told herself. Put it away.
She spent too much time in her head, she admitted, and felt relieved to find herself a block away from her mother’s town house.
A pretty, tree-lined neighborhood. A successful neighborhood, one populated by successful people, businesspeople, couples who enjoyed urban living, close access to good bars and restaurants, interesting shops.
All those rosy redbrick buildings, the perfectly painted trim, the sparkling windows. Here people jogged or hit the gym before work, walked along the river, had elegant dinner parties, wine tastings, read important books.
Or so she imagined.
Her best memories bloomed from a tiny house where her bedroom had a slanted ceiling. An old brick fireplace in the living room—not gas or electric, but wood-burning. Where the backyard was as full of adventure as the stories her father told her before bed at night.
Magical stories of magical places.
The arguments had spoiled it—the ones she heard through the walls, the ones she heard inside her head.
Then he’d gone away. At first just for a week or two, and he’d take her to the zoo—she’d been desperate to be a vet back then—or on a picnic on his Saturday visit.
Then he simply hadn’t come back.
More than fifteen years now, and she still hoped he would.
She took the key out of her change purse, a key given to her with a detailed list of instructions three weeks before, when her mother had left for one of her business trips followed by a restorative spa/ meditative retreat.
She’d leave the key, along with a quart of milk and the other groceries on the list, after she picked up the mail the following Wednesday, as her mother returned Thursday morning.
She retrieved the mail from the box, tucked it under her arm before she unlocked the door, stepped into the foyer to deactivate the alarm. Closed the door, put the key back into her change purse.
She went back to the kitchen first, an HGTV contemporary marvel of stainless steel, white cabinets, white subway tile, farm sink, and walls the color of putty.
She dumped her bag, the mail on the central island, hung her raincoat over a backless stool. After setting her timer for an hour, she began opening windows.
Through the kitchen and great room, back to the living area—all open concept with glorious and gorgeous wide-planked flooring. Since the powder room had a window, she opened that, too.
Barely a breeze to stir the air, but the chore was on her list, and Breen followed the rules. Retrieve the mail to take upstairs. In the third bedroom, one her mother had redesigned into her office, she set the mail on the L-shaped counter that served as a workstation.
Café au lait–toned walls here, and chocolate leather for the desk chair. Ruthlessly organized shelves held awards—her mother had garnered quite a few—books, all work-related, and some framed photos, also work-related.
Breen opened the trio of windows behind the workstation and wondered, as she always did, why anyone would put their back to that view. All the trees, the brick buildings, the sky, the world.
Distractions, Jennifer told her when she’d asked. Work is work.
She opened the two side windows as well, the ones flanking a—locked—wooden filing cabinet.
Wide windowsills held thriving green plants in copper pots. She’d water those and the rest after she opened the other windows. Then she’d sort the mail, and wait out the timer. Close all the windows again, lock up, be done.