sometime between now and then

Chapter Three: Sixteen

May 2005

Harry was slouched on the sofa, one foot hooked over the armrest, flicking between channels even though nothing was on but reruns and grainy news anchors.

The living room light flickered slightly— an old bulb Marianne kept forgetting to replace— throwing the space into a warm, uneven glow at times. Harry didn't seem to care, so he threw it a glance and turned his attention back elsewhere.

The house always felt slightly dark, slightly smaller at night, almost like it held its breath between hours.

The clock above the television ticked like it had somewhere more important to be.

He heard the familiar chime of keys and the slow, dragging shuffle before the front door pushed open. The night air swept in first, sharp and salty, then his mother followed— her cheeks flushed from the wind that never seemed to give Bar Harbor a break.

Marianne dropped her purse onto the entry table and exhaled— not dramatically, but with the kind of quiet fatigue that only mothers who've carried too much for too long could ever perfect. Her hair was pulled up in the same loose twist she always wore for shifts, and her navy diner apron was streaked with pie filling and coffee stains she hadn't had time to wipe off.

Harry muted the TV and sat up straighter like he was supposed to.

"There's dinner on the stove," she said gently, almost like she was telling Harry about it; her voice soft even when she was exhausted. "Lucy left it before she headed out."

"I ate already," Harry said, rubbing his palms over his jeans like he needed something to do with his hands. "At the Caldwell's house. Beth's mom made spaghetti."

Something in Marianne's face softened instantly. Just a fraction. The tiniest unguarded warmth.

"Oh," she breathed, like that one syllable held more than it should. "That was nice of her. Were you gracious? Said 'thank you'?

"Yeah," Harry said, shrugging like it wasn't something remarkable. Except it was. Traci Caldwell looked at him the way his own mother used to look at Lucy when things were still easy — before the chaos, before the disappearing acts, before the emergencies disguised as personality quirks.

Marianne set her keys down, then leaned against the counter in the kitchen doorway, studying him like she was collecting her thoughts. She didn't pry; she didn't need to. She could sense it— that her son had met someone who didn't see him as Lucy's shadow or Marianne's helper or the kid whose father vanished.

She saw it like only mothers do: before anyone names it, before anyone admits it, before the child notices it themselves.

"You see Lucy today?" she asked casually, though her knuckles tightened just barely along the counter edge.

Harry felt his throat go tight as he shook his head. "No. Not since this afternoon. She wasn't home when I got back."

Marianne nodded like she already knew that was going to be the answer. She walked toward the stove, lifted the lid off the pot Lucy had left simmering. The alfredo sauce had burned a little at the bottom— Lucy was always forgetting the last step— but Marianne stirred it anyway, as if tending to it could fix something bigger.

There was always the untouchable subject of Lucy: she had been slipping since she was thirteen. It was quiet at first, almost like she was just a quirky kid with bigger emotions. But then, it became quite loud. She was the kind of girl who felt everything too big, too fast, too intensely to ever stay grounded. Marianne spent years trying to soften the fall every time Lucy leapt head-first into bad choices and beautiful disasters disguised as friendships. Harry learned early that pretending to not notice was sometimes the only way to survive the proximity.