The Shuddering

splinter that had been lodged there since high school. She’d nearly bailed on the entire outing when Ryan had broken the news, but had stopped just shy of telling him to forget it. The place was on the market, ready to sell to the highest bidder, furniture and all. And to pile one heartache on top of another, Ryan had just sold half his company to a guy out in Switzerland. It was a huge step forward for Powder 360, but her brother would be spending six months out of the year traveling Europe, living in an adorable Swiss bungalow at the foot of the Matterhorn and calling her on Skype. She was sick over it, not sure how she’d be able to handle lifewithout her twin brother at her elbow, always there when she needed him—sometimes there when she didn’t. This was their last chance to visit their childhood haunt: Ryan’s favorite place in all the world. She refused to screw it up, no matter how hard her heart thudded in her chest at the mere thought of seeing Sawyer with another girl.
    Veering right, she pushed the door open into the master bedroom—her favorite room in the house despite its history. There had been many a fight within those walls during family getaways that had been intended to be fun but always turned sour, and the master bedroom was where all of that bitterness was born. But the window that swallowed the majority of the far wall pushed the sadness of her father’s yelling and her mother’s tears out of her mind. Spectacular in its size and view, that window overlooked tree-dotted hills and a stone-topped mountain distant against the sky. She’d spent many an afternoon sitting in front of that very window as a girl, gazing out onto the wilderness. The view, and the fact that the room had its own fireplace, was irresistible.
    Lauren stepped inside the room, gaping at its size.
    “Please tell me we’re bunking together,” she said. “I know there are plenty of rooms to go around, but, Janey …”
    “I know,” Jane mused, still appreciative of its grandeur after all these years.
    Lauren immediately went for the bathroom, and Jane couldn’t help but laugh when a gasp sounded from the open door. The master bathroom was just as extravagant as the bedroom, fit for a queen, with its oversize tub and vanity. For the next four days Jane planned on forgetting her students, the fact that Ryan was going to leave her soon, and that Alex was still back in Phoenix, waiting to make her life a living hell; she’d soak in that amazing bathtub every night. If she was lucky, theirfather’s Italian girlfriend had left expensive toiletries that could be exploited. It was the least that bombshell of a runway model could do.
    “Oh my god.” Lauren’s voice echoed from inside the bathroom. Jane crossed the length of the room and cocked a hip against the doorjamb, her arms pretzeling over her chest as she chuckled at her best friend’s astonishment. “You don’t get it,” Lauren protested, plucking a delicate perfume atomizer off the vanity and lifting it to her nose. “I grew up in a trailer.”
    “I know.”
    “In the back country.”
    “With the alligators, right?” Jane smiled.
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” Lauren asked, and Jane shrugged a single shoulder in reply.
    “It makes me feel weird, I guess.”
    “What does?” Lauren asked, uncapping a tube of lipstick, twisting it to reveal fire engine red. “This house?”
    “The money,” Jane confessed. Her father’s piles of cash had always been a source of discomfort for her. Ryan had embraced it, investing it wherever he could, taking advantage of the fact they had an absent father who liked to buy their love with hundred-dollar bills. But Jane had always turned away.
    “Yeah?” Lauren cast a sidelong glance her way. “At least you don’t let it show.”
    Jane gave the bathroom tile a sad sort of smile, unsure whether that was good or just plain stupid. She’d settled into an almost mundane lifestyle of teaching second graders how to glue together collages and how to play the recorder because it made her happy, but she struggled.
    “Sometimes I wonder whether my dignity outweighs my brain.” Jane shifted her weight from one foot to the other, watching Lauren lean into the oval gilded mirror. She pulled thelipstick across her bottom lip, running her pinkie along the rim of her mouth a second later.
    “That’s what makes you who you are, Jane,” Lauren reminded her, hypnotized by her own bright red mouth.
    “Yeah, except that