Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

Chapter One
    I drive slowly past a familiar house where strangers now live. Staring up the driveway like a voyeur, I watch a mother and daughter go about the ordinary task of carrying groceries from their car.
    I swore I’d never come onto this street again, wouldn’t be drawn to Mother’s house, and until now I’ve kept away. My belongings were packed long ago by Rosario, our housekeeper, and removed by hired men. I’ve never seen the new wallpaper that covered all evidence of what happened in the kitchen and bathroom.
    My sister Michelle and I let a real estate agent make decisions relating to the sale, and we weren’t present at the closing. But the agent told me when the new owners would move in, and this, finally, pulled me back. I wanted to see who took our places. When we were supplanted by a happy, ordinary family, maybe I’d be able to put the past to rest.
    This family came from California, and the real estate agent said in answer to my blunt question that no, they don’t know someone died in the house. A neighbor or acquaintance will tell them soon enough. Most people can’t wait to share a shocking story.
    I look at my left hand on the steering wheel, run a finger along the scar until it disappears below my blouse cuff. What’s hidden by the sleeve is too ugly to expose to other people’s eyes, but I’ve memorized every rough inch of it.
    I realize I’ve stopped the car in the middle of the narrow street, inviting attention, but I don’t move on. The woman and her daughter, a dark-haired girl of perhaps ten, are at the far end of the long driveway, and they haven’t noticed me. They swing plastic grocery bags from the car’s trunk, disappear around the back of the house with them, return empty-handed. I picture the blue bags accumulating on the smooth white surface of the kitchen counters.
    Something is wrong with the sun-dappled scene before me, something other than the presence of strangers, and it takes a moment for me to realize what it is. The yews along the street, which Mother allowed to grow so high that they shielded the house from view, have been chopped to no more than four feet. She would be horrified by the row of raw stubs.
    My gaze is drawn upward by the arching, blossom-laden branches of a tree in the front yard. When Mother had asked what I wanted for my thirteenth birthday, I’d promptly said a weeping cherry tree. I remember leaning back against Mother, one of her arms hugging me to her, her other hand stroking my hair, while we watched two nurserymen hoist the tree into a freshly dug hole.
    Happy birthday, Rachel. She’d kissed my cheek when the planting was done.
    The tree is losing its spring blossoms now. Gusts of wind tear the petals free and swirl them into the street, and they drift against my windshield like pink snow. My cherry tree is the one thing I regret leaving.
    Mother’s house, where I spent most of my life, is an Elizabethan Tudor of brick, stucco, and timbers, set well back from the street. Although it’s just minutes from the busy George Washington Parkway, and beyond that the Potomac River and Washington, D.C., the neighborhood feels hidden away, with winding curbless streets, and houses tucked among mature trees. Behind our house, the lawn and Mother’s garden slope down to a wooded stream valley where my sister and I used to explore, searching for wildflowers on the banks and frogs in the water of Dead Run.
    I watch the memory reel out: Michelle with a blond braid dangling halfway down her back, me with my auburn hair in the same chin-length bob I have today; Michelle carefully keeping herself clean while I scramble along collecting grime on my hands, my legs, my face. Back at the house Mother would shake her head and murmur, “Rachel, go make yourself presentable,” her voice and manner so patient that I could never feel justified in believing she disapproved of me.
    On the driveway the woman slams the trunk lid and she and the girl carry two last bags inside. Now they’ll put away the groceries in the big pantry off the kitchen.
    It’s time to go. I have a three o’clock appointment at the veterinary clinic. For a living I doctor cats and dogs, and sometimes injured wildlife brought in by people who can’t bear to leave nature to its own devices.
    With one last look at the house—this time I know it will be the last—I drive away. I’m thinking about my sister. In her need to blame an outside force for what happened to our lives, she