In dreams, Lia would see her, Ryan’s form obscured by a hazy, pastel light, bent over the bathroom sink in the house at The Cays, shampooing her hair. Some mornings, Lia awoke to hear a treble of Ryan’s voice retreating as she gained consciousness, as though in sleep, they had shared secrets. In the hazy light of dawn, Lia sometimes opened her eyes to Ryan’s ethereal form resting on a corner of the foot of the bed, clamping down on her eyelashes with that frightening curling apparatus, smearing white-beige powder against her baby-fat face, and outlining her small, round mouth in the scarlet rouge of a harlequin.
For three whole weeks, Lia had steeled herself against the overwhelming need to see the inside of the Green family home—the interior of Ryan’s room—with her own eyes. She wanted t
