Nora Ray’s mother hadn’t been to the office now in years. Nora Ray didn’t even know if she’d ever officially quit. More likely she’d walked out one day after getting a call from the police, and she’d never been back since.

The lawyers had been nice about it. They’d volunteered their services for a trial that never happened in a case where the perpetrator was never caught. They kept Abigail on the payroll for a while. Then they put her on a leave of absence. And now? Nora Ray couldn’t believe her mom still had a job after three years. No one was that nice. No one’s life stayed frozen for that long a period of time.

Except, of course, for Nora Ray’s family. They lived in a time warp. Mary Lynn’s room, painted sunshine yellow and lined with blue ribbons and horse trophies, remained exactly the same day after day. The last pair of dirty jeans she’d tossed in the corner were still waiting for an eighteen-year-old girl to come home and throw them in the wash. Her hairbrush, filled with long strands of brunette hair, sat on top of her dresser. A tube of pink lip gloss was half-opened next to the brush. Ditto the tube of mascara.

And still taped to the mirror above the dresser was the letter from Albany State University. We are proud to inform you that Mary Lynn Watts has been formally accepted into the freshman class of 2000…

Mary Lynn had wanted to study veterinary sciences. Someday she could work full-time saving the horses she loved so much. Nora Ray was going to become a lawyer. Then they would buy farms side by side in the country, where they could ride horses together every morning before reporting to their high-paying and no doubt highly rewarding jobs. That’s what they had talked about that summer. Giggled about, really. Especially that last night, when it had been so friggin’ hot, they had decided to head out for ice cream.

In the beginning, right after Nora Ray came home and Mary Lynn didn’t, things had been different. People stopped by, for one thing. The women brought casseroles and cookies and pies. The men showed up with lawn mowers and hammers, wordlessly attending to small details around the house. Their little home had hummed with activity, everyone trying to be solicitous, everyone wanting to make sure that Nora Ray and her family were all right.

Her mother had still showered and put on clothes in those days. Bereft of a daughter, she at least clung to the skeletal fabric of everyday life. She got up, put her hair in rollers, and started the pot of coffee.

Her father had been the worst back then. Roaming from room to room while constantly flexing his big, work-callused hands, a dazed look in his eyes. He was the man who was supposed to be able to fix anything. He’d built their deck one summer. He did odd jobs around the neighborhood to help pay for Mary Lynn’s horse camp. He painted their house like clockwork every three years and kept it the neatest one on the block.

Big Joe could do anything. Everyone said that. Until that day in July.

Eventually people stopped coming by so much. Food no longer magically appeared in the kitchen. Their lawn was no longer mowed every Sunday. Nora Ray’s mom stopped getting dressed. And her father returned to his job at Home Depot, coming home every night to join her mother on the couch, where they would sit like zombies in front of a score of mindless comedies, the TV spraying their faces with brightly colored images deep into the night.

While weeds took over their lawn. And their front porch sagged with neglect. And Nora Ray learned how to cook her mother’s casseroles while her own dreams of law school drifted further and further away.

People in the neighborhood whispered about them now. That sad family in the sad little house on the corner. Did you hear what happened to their daughter? Well, let me tell you…

Sometimes Nora Ray thought she should walk around with a scarlet letter attached to her clothes, like the woman in that book she’d read her senior year of high school. Yes, we’re the family that lost a daughter. Yes, we’re the ones who actually fell victim to violent crime. Yes, it could happen to you, too, so you’re right, you should turn away when we walk too close and whisper behind our backs. Maybe murder is contagious, you know. It’s found our house. Soon, it’ll find yours.

She never said these things out loud, however. She couldn’t. She was the last functioning member of her family. She had to hold it together. She had to pretend that one daughter could be enough.

Her mother’s head was starting to bob now, in that way it did right before sleep. Her father had already called it a night. He had work in the morning and that made him somewhat more normal, in this strange little pattern they called their lives.

Abigail finally succumbed. Her head fell back. Her shoulders sank into the deep comfort of their overstuffed sofa, bought during happier times and meant for happier days.

And Nora Ray finally stepped into the room. She didn’t turn off the TV. She knew better by now; the sudden absence of TV voices awakened her mother faster than any shrieking alarm. Instead, she merely took the remote from the pocket of her mother’s faded bathrobe and slowly turned down the volume.

Her mother started to snore. Soft little wheezes of a woman who hadn’t moved in months, yet remained exhausted beyond her years.

Nora Ray clenched her hands by her sides. She wanted to stroke her mother’s face. She wanted to tell her everything would be all right. She wanted to plead for her real mother to come back to her because sometimes she didn’t want to be the strong one. Sometimes, she wanted to be the one who curled up and cried.

She set the remote on the coffee table. Then she tiptoed back to her room, where the air-conditioning was permanently cranked to a frosty fifty-eight and a full pitcher of water sat by her bed at all times.

Nora Ray buried herself under the thick comfort of her bedcovers, but she still didn’t fall immediately asleep.

She was thinking of Mary Lynn again. She was thinking of their last night, driving back from T.G.I. Friday’s, and Mary Lynn chatting away merrily in the driver’s seat.

“Uh oh,” her sister was saying. “I think we just got a flat. Oh, wait. Good news. Some guy’s pulled in behind us. Isn’t that neat, Nora Ray? The world is just filled with good people.”

The man was tired. Very, very tired. Shortly after two A.M. he completed his last chore and wearily called it a night. He returned the van to where it belonged, and though his muscles truly ached now, he took the time to wash the vehicle, inside and out, by the comforting glow of lantern light. He even crawled under the van and hosed down the undercarriage. Dirt could tell stories. Didn’t he know.

Next he pulled out the dog carrier. He sponged it down with ammonia, the sharp, pungent scent stinging his senses back into hyperalertness, while also destroying any evidence of fingerprints.

Finally, he took inventory. He should wash down the aquarium, too, though what could it prove? That he once had a pet snake? No crime in that. Still, you didn’t want to leave things to chance.

You didn’t want to be one of those dumb fucks his father talked about, who couldn’t find their assholes with a flashlight and their own two hands.

The world was spinning. He felt the gathering storm clouds in the back of his brain. When he got tired, the spells grew worse. The black holes grew to tremendous size, swallowing not just hours and minutes, but sometimes consuming entire days. He couldn’t afford that now. He had to be sharp. He had to be alert.

He thought of his mother again and the sad look she wore every time she watched the sun die in the sky. Did she know the planet was dying? Did she understand even back then that anything that was beautiful could not belong long on this earth?