Point du Jour

Dawn bathes her in sequins of ocher and tangerine. Remnants of a late-night vigil litter the picnic tabletop-a Solo cup, a silver-lettered matchbook. She taps a tunnel of ash near a pile of birdseed. Honking from the lake, a family of Mallards heading for the shore, swings her ponytail.

“You wanna sit?” She sweeps a gaze over my heather-gray joggers and sweat-stained tank. 

I stutter step and point at my shoelace, its tip caked in muck. “Oh, no. Thanks. I’m just— it’s… I just need to fix ‘em.” 

“Wouldn’t mind the company.” Her lips curve upward. She scoots until one leg dangles off the bench. “Lots of room for you.”

I lean against the bench and chew my sleep-puffed bottom lip.“Beautiful sunrise. Like the song.” 

“I like that one, too. Here.” A chipped nail skims a cracked screen. A steel guitar riff croons, and she adds a breathy vocal. “Just another Tequila Sunr—”

A breeze ripples a smattering of leaves between us. Her palm, sandpaper-raw, clasps my wrist before I tumble. “Are you OK?”

I shimmy to the edge of the pavement. “Sorry about that. Thanks for the save.”

I clutch my chest as my eyes trace the scar on her forehead, heart-shaped and silvery. “You look like you- no. Never mind.” 

She snatches the last match off and relights her cigarette with a shrug of slim shoulders. “Do you come here often?”

I mop my cheek. “When I can. Lived here most of my life, except during college.”

“Well, I’m from nearby.” She nods across the lake, which does nothing to smooth down the hairs standing at attention on my forearm.

”Again, thanks for the hand.” She offers a salute with a shaking hand. 

I stroll on, past the homes of students I once taught at the elementary. A half-mile later, a sunflower winks from beneath an oak. I sidestep a pair of size eight carnation pink Crocs near the bike rack. 

 A bushy-tailed squirrel scurries under a cone-laden slide. A shift from Warrior into Triangle crushes acorns beneath my heel when I hear it.

 A well-worn trail leads to the source of the thwack—the door to a fort, its wood darkened from last night’s thunderstorm. 

“Don’t be afraid, Maren. It’s just me.”

My knees kiss the pebble-lined cobblestone. I knead the base of my neck, just above the chill heading down my spine. 

“Whoever you are, just go away! It’s not funny.” I gulp what I can—stifling air, maybe some wounded pride, definitely disbelief—and break into a near-sprint.

Soaring twittering jays murmur their assent. Go on. 

So I do.

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I spend the afternoon at Chez Lawson, rereading Maddy’s book report and monitoring JJ’s screen time. Later, I lounge on Carly’s chaise while they splash and cannonball, an annotated Ray Bradbury across my lap.

“Are you OK?” My nephew skims the surface, goggles a chunky necklace around his neck. 

The paperback slides into the grass. “I’m fine, but you look properly prune-skinned.

“I’m coooold, Auntie Maren.”

I toss JJ a towel, then squat near the shallow end to wrap a Peppa Pig bath sheet around her shoulders. “And you have a summary to write, little one.”

“And I want hot dogs!”

 I catch Maddy’s outstretched palm. “Let’s go!” 

After lighting the grill, showers and lots of cocoa butter, we settle at the patio table, my niece and nephew chattering away while I chew my bottom lip.

Kevin texts me, and I respond with 👍when they ask if the kids can stay.

When cleanup is done, Maddy folds her cardigan-covered arms “Emily (a)wasn’t nice to me at practice. I don’t wanna do Swim Team anymore.” 

JJ pushes Kevin’s chair under the table. “Mama said you have to stay on it, at least ‘til the Meet. Can’t quit on your teammates, Maddy.” 

She tries but fails to recap her bottle, dribbling a tiny puddle on her placemat. “But they don’t help. They laugh when I get left behind, I’m just not fast enough.” 

I press the button on the wash cycle. “Maddy, you don’t have to be fast, or even the best, Are you having fun?”

“When I’m just playing in the water. I like it.” 

 I smooth down the towel covering her hair. “Then don’t worry about the rest of them. Do it for yourself.” 

“But I won’t have friends.”

“You’ll have something better-you.” I cradle her cheek and peck her forehead.

Maddy pats my arm. “You’re so sappy, Auntie Maren.”

“I am? Deal?” We pinky shake, then fist bump. JJ rolls his eyes, hands in the air.

Seven-thirty finds them plied with bowls of kettle corn and my famous lemon slushies with berries for her, coconut milk for him, their favorite Pixar tales, stuffed into their sleeping bags.

I’m scrubbing riverbeds of mustard and ketchup besides islands of scorched cheddar when the first knock taps the kitchen’s door, but I don’t stop. Too early to be them.

Halfway through my second wipedown of her marble counter, the knock becomes a bang.  

JJ stirs, but Maddy burrows deeper under the cream duvet from her parent’s bed.

A check of my android reveals no new messages from either Carly or Kevin. I throw the door open anyway. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be back un—”

“But I never said a thing, Maren. But I’m glad to see you.” 

My nail screeches over the doorknob.

“Do you need another break, Maren?” 

Her ponytail now a mop, she traces my forearm. I scramble across the unswept tile, flecks of crackers digging into my thigh. Blood filters between my teeth. “How? What? How are you here?”

Creek water dribbles from her untied Keds. I crawl to the wicker sliding door and roll-slam it shut until it’s teetering off-track. The phone cord I tease my sister about is just out of reach,

I twitch my lips upward. “I mean, you disappeared earlier, before we could speak again. I didn’t mean to be so rude.”

“But you were. You are.” Swamp Thing clops closer, the logo on the sleeve of her tee glows. 

It couldn’t be.

“Melissa Ann, I mean, you, I saw you. We all did.”

She looms, terrifyingly diaphanous, hollowed-out eyes a blazing indigo again

.“You all partied, drank the house dry, played my records, then left me there..” 

“But I couldn’t swim, you know that. You helped me, remember?” My back bumps against the fridge. 

 “So why didn’t you scream, Maren?”

“But I did. No one came.” Tears gather under my chin. “If I could go back, I—”

“I can’t.” Melissa Ann wraps a hand around my throat, wresting me from the floor,

“But you can.” She tosses me over the dish-scattered breakfast table. My sneaker upends Maddy’s Ozarka bottle.

When this fucking ghost, or whatever the hell she is, slips in the puddle on the tile, I twist a chair leg, splintering the wood Carly will never be able to fix. The blunt end smashes what’s left of her head. 

“Get out!” My lungs boil. I shove it out into the darkness.

The living room door rumbles. “Auntie Maren! What happened?” JJ shoves Maddy behind him, her Hello Kitty pillow clinging to her fingertips.

“DId y’all hear that?”

JJ glances at the shards and slime, then back at me, hands covered in shit, or ghost pulp “Just a visitor with the wrong address.” 

He unspools several squares of Bounty. “Maybe we should call someone, before Mama and Daddy get back.”

I foot-wipe the mess and toss the bottle into the recycling bin. “Carry on, les enfants. Nothing to see here.” 

I don’t look back as I usher them up to their bedrooms. I hate to lie, but sometimes, it’s just easier than the truth.