Perhaps Maude was right.

“You’re confused, Alice,” she whispered again, the crinkles around her eyes deepening. “Your grief is causing you to imagine things. But you must not allow it to—you must put them out of your mind.” She attempted a smile. “Do not worry, my dear. I will take care of everything.”

I had nodded dully, still lost in a cocoon of my own grief. If Aunt Maude said that Lucy did not hold the answers, then I would trust her, completely. I thought back to when my parents had died, how lost in grief I had been, how the shadows had stolen across my vision and I had howled for her to make them go away. And she had. She had fixed me, just as she had promised, if not completely, at least the best she could, gluing and taping back the pieces of me that had fallen apart in the aftermath of my parents’ death. And so now, now I would trust her again, to put me back together, just like the old nursery rhyme, to make things right. I found comfort in the thought, in the ability to let it go—my anger, my hatred, my conviction. There was a peace in letting it slip between my fingers, no longer a mass that I was forced to grasp, to cling to, with all my might. After all, Tom was gone, nothing else mattered. Not Lucy, not what had happened to her in those days afterward, her side of the room empty and still, not even the strange words that my aunt had spoken.

And so, I did not ask her what they meant.

IN THE QUIET, I could feel it again—the anger, just like that night—beginning to grow. I was tired of the elusive answers, of the bits of information that Lucy fed me only when it suited her. I still did not know why she was in Tangier, not really, or how long she planned to stay. I did not even know how she spent her days, only the stories she told me each night. I could feel my face start to flush, feel my hands start to tremble. I willed myself to remain calm, to instead focus on my mint tea, which had grown cold and thick, but I found I couldn’t concentrate. I was tired of the pretense and I could not continue, even if she could. I felt my emotions begin to well, begin to creep inside, to the hollow of my bones, the accusation sitting on the edge of my tongue.

The truth was that nothing had felt right since the night of the accident. And between us, between Lucy and me, things had started to sour long before then, so that the time since we had been close was so long ago now that I struggled to remember. There were moments when I would catch pieces of it, glimmering in the distance, when I could feel that same pull toward her, strong and insistent—but then there was something else there as well, something hard and unyielding, so that I still did not entirely trust her, felt that I could never trust her, after everything that had happened, not even if I had wanted to.

I knew, of course, that she was not responsible for what happened, not in the sense that I had first suspected, that dark, cold night when I had turned around in the car, eyes blazing, certain she was the one. In my mind, I made her into something profane, something monstrous—one of my shadows that lurked in the darkness, waiting, always waiting, to lay hold of me. The truth was much more simple. The truth was that, had it not been for her, I would not have made that telephone call, would not have crawled inside his automobile the night of the blizzard. If it had not been for her jealousy, her strangeness, it would never have happened. That was the truth, or at least part of it. It was the real reason why I had stopped and stuttered at her presence the morning she had arrived in Tangier, for in her I would always be reminded of him, of what had happened, of what she had made happen.

But there was something more too.

I turned to her now, lowering my black sunglasses once more, so that my eyes peered out at her, wide and unflinching. I opened my mouth to tell her, to accuse her, finally, but instead, what I said was “You left.” I had meant the words as a question, but they fell, heavy and dull, and I wondered then whether that wasn’t the real reason why I had spent so long blaming her—for abandoning me when I needed her most. “After the accident, after Tom,” I said, giving voice to what I had long since puzzled over, of what I had read as evidence of her guilt, of her admittance. “You left.”

She looked up at me, squinting. “You told me to, Alice.”

Her words were simple, but true. I had told her to go that night, had told her other things that I could no longer remember but that I felt in the pit of my stomach on those rare occasions when I let the memories find their way in. I had wished for awful things in those moments and they had come true—only it hadn’t been to her that they had happened. They had happened to me, to Tom.

And it was my fault, not hers, that they had.

It began to slip away then—the wall that I had placed between us since her arrival, since that night of the blizzard. I felt it give way in that moment, the resistance that I had worked so hard to cultivate, its mass no longer something that was tangible, solid, so that my fingers grasped, unable to hold on to it any longer.

“I haven’t felt like myself since we arrived, not really,” I said then, pausing a moment, letting the confession settle between us. “It all feels too much sometimes, don’t you think? Sometimes I feel as though I can’t breathe. I’m filled with so much dread at the thought of walking out my front door on my own. I know it’s ridiculous, but I can’t help it. I just don’t feel myself here.” I stopped, staring into space, my breath heavy and ragged. “I know it’s all down to me—isn’t it? I chose to come here.” A laugh escaped from me. “Although what other choice did I have, really.”

Lucy waited the space of a few moments before speaking: “Is it really as bad as all that, Alice?”

I wanted to flinch then, under the intensity of her gaze, but I didn’t. I could see from her face—could tell from the sound of her voice—that she didn’t understand, that she couldn’t. I thought of what she had said earlier, about the different names that Tangier had had over the course of history. In some ways, I felt like it was appropriate to the moment—we were both of us in the same place, but in two very different versions of Tangier, and I could not imagine hers, a place of excitement, a place to start anew. Mine held only fear and isolation. “Of course not,” I murmured, my voice barely above a whisper. But then, because I could not stop, not when the words were finally pouring from me, I asked, “Do you ever regret going to Bennington?”

Lucy frowned, startled it seemed by my words. “Regret it?”

My voice wavered as I spoke. “Yes. Sometimes I feel like I do, regret it, I mean, almost horribly so. I feel like they lied to us, in a way. Making us feel like we could go off into the world and be equal to them—to men, I mean. But it’s all lies, isn’t it? They lied to us. We thought we were learning a vocation, but really, they’re just a finishing school in disguise. Preparing us with hobbies to pass the time once we marry. It makes it all so much more difficult.”

“But, Alice,” Lucy began, “it doesn’t have to be like that.”

A laugh escaped me, one that sounded more akin to a sob than anything else. I rushed to cover it. “Don’t mind me, Lucy. It’s the heat, I think. I never was very good with it. There’s something about a hot, sunny day that puts my teeth on edge. I always feel as though I’m teetering on the precipice of something.” I paused. “It will pass.”

But in that moment I knew that I didn’t want it to pass. I wanted—oh, I didn’t know what. For her to take my hand, like she had in the old days, to tell me that if I wanted to get away from Tangier, she would be that for me—my way out. The words swelled on my lips—everything, the whole mess: how distant John had grown over the months, how I had become convinced that I had made the wrong decision when I had agreed to marry him, to come to this wretched place. I longed to speak then, to confide, to tell Lucy everything. But the words would not come.

I stood, fumbling in my purse for francs, looking around for the boy who had served us our tea, anxious to leave, though to go where, I didn’t know. I felt stuck, trapped, and the realization that there was no way out, no place that I could escape to, threatened to overwhelm me. In response, Lucy stood, placing a few coins on the table, her movements anticipating my own once more, I noted.