Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

candlestick and ginger jar had its place, and if Rosario shifted something when she cleaned, Mother soon moved it back where it belonged. She did this unobtrusively and without comment, maintaining the order she desired while she avoided hurting Rosie’s feelings.
    I’d long ago stopped wondering why Mother cared so much about the appearance of the house when hardly anyone except the three of us and the housekeeper ever saw it. 
    Mother arrived home ten minutes before Kevin was due, yet she managed to change and be at the front door, cool and unrushed, to greet him. She’d traded her navy business suit for an emerald silk sheath that accentuated her willowy figure and brought out the high color of her complexion. I was sorry she hadn’t taken the time to loosen her hair. It was a glorious auburn, darker than mine, and gleamed when it spread over her shoulders, but for work she twisted it in a knot at the nape of her neck and it was still that way now.
    “It’s wonderful to have you back,” she told Kevin, pressing his hand in both of hers.
    Her smile was warm, her voice welcoming, but when she turned to close the door behind him I thought I caught a flicker of something in her eyes—what? dislike? displeasure? It was gone almost before I had time to register it.
    Kevin, brought up to be a gentleman, gave Mother his full attention for a moment of pleasantries. I was next. “Rachel! Look at you!” he said. He threw his arms around me in a bear hug and lifted me off my feet, making me laugh. “You look fantastic!”
    “I wore a dress just for you,” I said, and grinned past his shoulder at Michelle.
    She rolled her eyes but gave in and grinned back.
    Having done his duty to Mother and me, Kevin focused on the real object of his interest. He caught Michelle’s hand and they stood smiling wordlessly at each other. A good-looking couple, the delicate blond and the tall muscular young man with wavy brown hair.
    I glanced at Mother. Her face was expressionless as she watched them.
    All through the pre-dinner chat, then the meal itself, Michelle was absorbed in Kevin and I was absorbed in the study of our mother. After a lifetime of observing every nuance of Mother’s behavior, I still couldn’t figure out what she was thinking half the time. I knew something was wrong now, I knew I was the only one picking up the vibrations, but I couldn’t pin it down.
    Mother asked after Kevin’s parents, who now lived in Chicago. She showed a flattering interest in his new position as an associate in a D.C. law firm. He asked Mother about her work, and she replied that yes, she still specialized in treating people with phobias. Kevin followed wherever Mother took the conversation, but his eyes kept straying to Michelle. Mother’s gaze also slipped toward her again and again, lingering for a second each time, assessing.
    Seated next to Michelle on the living room sofa after dinner, Kevin grinned and said, “Just look at the three of us, all grown up. A veterinarian, a soon-to-be doctor of psychology, and a lawyer. I could swear it was only yesterday I was picking up Michelle for the senior prom.”
    He smiled at her. She beamed.
    “Hey,” he said, “have you still got those pictures Rachel took on prom night?”
    “Sure we do,” Michelle said, already rising, walking to a chest in a corner. She pulled open a door and slid out a thick blue album. “We’ll probably be embarrassed to look at them now.”
    She dropped the album into Kevin’s hands and sat close as he leafed through it.
    Mother’s mouth tightened faintly, a shadow seemed to pass over her eyes. I remembered prom night. Mother told them to be home at the ridiculously early hour of midnight. Midnight came and went. Mother paced, fretted, and snapped at me when I said I was sure they were fine, just caught up in the fun. At a quarter to one they burst through the front door, Kevin babbling his apologies, Michelle in tears because they’d witnessed an accident in which a classmate was hurt. Mother enclosed Michelle in her embrace and said a curt good night to Kevin. She was cool to him after that, as if she blamed him for the anxiety she’d suffered while he and Michelle were giving statements to the police at the accident scene.
    When they found the prom photos, Kevin hooted with laughter. “Oh, man,” he said, “look at me, all puffed up in my rented tux. I really thought I was something. King of the penguins.”
    “God, my hair,” Michelle