The Space Between Graves

CHAPTER ONE

The alarm went off at six-fifteen and Mark was already awake.

He'd been awake since five, lying on his back with his eyes on the ceiling, listening to the house breathe around him. Francis's alarm would go off in twenty minutes and he'd hit snooze twice before actually getting up. Simon wouldn't wake until someone went in and got him, which was always Mark, because Lara left for the university at seven-thirty and the morning routine had quietly redistributed itself over the past two years without anyone formally deciding that's how it would be.

Mark sat up. The compass was on the nightstand where he always left it before bed — the one concession he made to fragility, taking it off at night so he wouldn't have to feel it against his chest in the dark while he was trying to sleep. He picked it up now and put it on the way he always did, tucking it under the collar of his t-shirt, pressing it flat against his sternum with two fingers for just a second before letting go.

Then he got up and went to get Simon.

His brother was two years old and woke up like a question — sitting up in his crib with his hair pressed flat on one side, blinking at the world with the serious, evaluating expression he'd had since he was born. Mark had decided early on that Simon had come into the world already skeptical of it, which he respected.

"Hey," Mark said from the doorway.

Simon looked at him. "Hey," he said back, which was new. He'd started mirroring things people said to him and it was, against Mark's will, one of the funniest things he'd ever witnessed.

He lifted him out of the crib and carried him to the kitchen, settled him in the high chair with the efficiency of someone who had done this hundreds of times, which he had. Simon immediately reached for the plastic cup on the tray and held it out toward Mark with the wordless authority of a very small king.

"I know," Mark said, and got the orange juice from the fridge.

Lara was already in the kitchen when Mark came down the second time, showered and dressed, backpack over one shoulder. She was standing at the counter with her coffee, still in her robe, reading something on her phone with the slightly unfocused expression she got when she was thinking about something other than what she was looking at.

She looked up when he came in.

"First day," she said.

"First day," he confirmed, opening the cabinet for a glass.

She watched him for a moment in that way she had — the way that meant she was deciding whether to say something. Mark had become fluent in his mother's silences over the years. This one meant she'd been thinking about today since yesterday, probably since last week, and had prepared something she was trying to decide whether to deliver.

"I'm fine," he said, before she could.

"I know you are," she said, which was what she always said, which did not mean she believed it.

He poured himself a glass of water and drank half of it standing at the counter. Outside the kitchen window the street was still quiet, the early September light coming in pale and unhurried. The neighborhood looked the same as it always did — the Garcias' car in the driveway, the oak tree on the corner already starting to turn at the edges.

"The soccer tryouts are Thursday," Lara said, casually, in the tone she used when something wasn't casual at all.

Mark set his glass down. "I know when they are."

"I'm just saying."

"You've been just saying for three weeks."

She smiled into her coffee. "And?"