Before Joe hit the road on his collision course with the Moon Lodge, he claimed Bobby had reached out to him. If you could have seen the look in his eyes, Genevieve, you wouldn’t have corrected him. You wouldn’t have had the heart to tell him that Bobby was dead.

I know it sounds ridiculous. Bobby’s been gone for ten years. Barack Obama was still president. That weasel hadn’t gotten into the Large Hadron Collider. Donald Trump was still a reality TV guy nobody took seriously. It’s been long enough for a hell of a lot of change, even a shift in the timeline if you subscribe to the weasel in the Large Hadron Collider theory of why it’s all gone weird.

I’m not denying it—one of the things that has changed has been Joe. That tear of bad luck. Laid off, ex gone sideways, kids gone silent, the cancer scare, all of that after losing Bobby, his identical twin, his best friend, his rock. It got to the point where all I could think to do was nag. And nag. And nag. About going to therapists who he claimed didn’t help anyway. Nag about seeing a shrink, nag about how the shrink was the only path to getting back on his feet.

And then he insisted Bobby had called him on the phone.

From the Moon Lodge.

What was I supposed to think?

OK, maybe I should have been more understanding, Genevieve, but it didn’t seem to add up to anything good to me.

I didn’t correct him, no. But I did just fast forward, tell him I thought he needed to be committed. That’s worse, right? Or is it? I don’t even know. I know it sounds cruel, but my intentions were good, I swear they were—the thought that he would be safe and monitored. The thought he could snap out of whatever this was.

“Where even is this Moon Lodge?” I asked, convinced it was a figment.

Those icy blue eyes of his went wild. He ran his hand through his silver-tinged hair, gone long and feral, unwashed for I’m not sure how long—yet still he managed to have better hair than me, truth be told. “It’s in Virginia,” he said.

“So, like three hours away?” I still didn’t think it was real, this Moon Lodge. Who names a motel such a thing?

“More like six. Virginia’s a big state.” He took a deep breath, backing away from me. “It doesn’t matter how far away it is, this is Bobby we’re talking about.”

Every inch of me was exhausted. I flopped onto the couch, opened the drawer in the coffee table that held a cigarette pack with only two stale ones left from my quit date a year ago, lit one up without even a thought to do otherwise. It was like that, Genevieve. I exhaled the gray column of smoke, thought thank you God as the rush of that old friend protected me from the image of the gray tombstone with the words BOBBY CHRISTIANSEN, the pile of red dirt, the weeping mourners, you, Genevieve.

The nicotine left me once removed from the memory, helped me not to feel something other than just a remote acknowledgment of the concept of sadness, like every decent chemical dealer of death does, some more than others.

“Don’t you dare say it, Bridget,” he implored.

I looked at him helplessly, took another drag, then tapped the filter with my thumb.

“Don’t you dare,” he repeated. He sounded strung high like a wire. “Don’t say it.”

I took a huge drag, watching the orange cherry lay waste to the paper and tobacco, the ash expanding to an epic degree, like that meme with Shelley Duvall in The Shining, that fucking legend and RIP.

“Bobby’s dead,” I said, taking the dare.



So of course the Moon Lodge exists. If you were an angel, though, I don’t think it’s where you would go, let’s just put it that way. Well, okay—on the other hand, maybe. An angel whose specific business consists of lost souls and extreme, fearless hunters of cheap lodging.

A motel that’s dug in like a ponderous blight, conveniently located across from a 7-11 and a Tobacco Kingdom, and separated from a shabby neighborhood by a stand of sad, threadbare pine trees. The serpentine procession of single-room, one-story lodging features an exterior that’s a dingy beige hue, like walls that are somehow nicotine stained on the outside, and it’s tempting to believe it started out some other color whenever the paint was fresh, whenever that might have actually been. The main office is in a two-story manor-looking house, from which the flat-top strands of rooms spring, forming three sides of a square around a liberally potholed parking lot.

That one short, sad tree out front that seems to bend from the burden of living there. Like you wonder what it would say if it could speak.

I’m sorry to ramble about things you already know. It just helps to talk it through.

I didn’t think much of it when Joe didn’t come home for a day. We’d been arguing a lot and I already mentioned that I do know that I was nagging, and sometimes he’d go to his buddy Galen’s house after work and spend the night, to play videogames and smoke weed or whatever those guys do, at least that’s where he always said he was and I didn’t really question it. I shouldn’t admit it, Genevieve, but getting a break here and there was a relief. My nerves were shot and I felt like I was this close to being the one who should be committed, if only to get a rest from everything. Don’t get me wrong, I know the grippy sock vacation isn’t really a break, it’s a breakdown, and there’s nothing relaxing about that institutional check-in, but I felt this close for sure. My workdays were bookended with 45-minute subway rides on either side of masquerading as someone who has no personal feelings or problems allowed to come to the surface, much less an ex-husband housemate at home who was losing the plot completely. Obviously, though, the reality was that I wasn’t allowed to lose the plot too, and I kind of wanted to, if that makes sense. Why couldn’t I be the one for once? Why can’t I have a turn and slip away?

Anyway, it was Day 2 when I got home from work and the silence echoed back at me heavy with accusation, and I started to seriously wonder where Joe actually was. You know my mother always said I was too anxious, like blowing off actual pathology and instead portraying that my personal anxiety was to an annoying degree, as if I have gone around all my life trying to drive everyone crazy, so I opened a bottle of wine and tried to squash the feeling, frankly annoyed at myself. Maybe it made sense that Joe would stay at Galen’s longer. I had said hurtful things several nights before, I didn’t mean to threaten him that he had to get out and find his own way, but I was tired of the bizarre behavior and the sense that he was stuck, and so was I. I never told you this, it’s a tired, sad story—we basically split up two years before, we didn’t get infected with COVID but still, I credit that pandemic with doing our relationship in, and economics hadn’t allowed him to leave. At what point was I allowed to just say, this can’t go on like this anymore? Of course that did feel overly cruel, now that I think about it. I loved the man once. We’d kissed in the rain, made each other laugh, we’d had big dreams, though if you asked me to name one dream now, Genevieve, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.

So I got super drunk on my own, pretended he was still at Galen’s even though in my heart of hearts, I suspected that wasn’t true, watched the Hallmark Channel to sink into the plastic comfort of a guaranteed happy ending, and went to bed.

So it was Day 3 of No-Show Joe, Genevieve, when I got home from work and got really worried. The house already had this weird, stale feeling that’s hard to explain … it’s not like Joe imbued some real freshness to the place, clearly, but it was like the sensation of long-still air in a vault, undisturbed and heavy, a mausoleum feeling. As if even having another human in there just being and moving had kept things circulating, and I was simply not enough to get it done. It was so pin-drop silent I could hear the wall clock ticking in the living room, but then realized that I actually hadn’t put a battery in that thing for years.

The sound stopped.

I shrugged off the willies, collapsed onto the couch and took the plunge, searching my contacts for Galen and thinking about buying more cigarettes. It took me a while to recall that in some fit of irritation years ago I had changed Galen’s contact name in my phone to “Game Boy.”

“Hi Galen, it’s Bridget,” I said, then cleared my throat, cringing at the awkwardness.

“Oh … hey Bridget,” Galen said, sounding surprised. “Long time.”

“Yeah, it has been.” My stomach literally dropped, if you can believe that—it isn’t just a saying. Surprised wasn’t a good sign. “Is Joe over there by chance?”

“Damn, Bridget, I haven’t seen or heard from Joe for months.”

“Crap,” I said. “Crap, crap, crap.”

“What’s going on?” I heard the greedy intake and pause of a bong hit. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Joe’s mental health has been really shaky,” I answered, grabbing one of those stress relief balls off the coffee table and squeezing it like I could make it scream louder than I wanted to. “Sometimes he would leave for a day or two and say he was going to your place, but I guess not.”

“Nope. Damn.” He paused, long enough for me to wonder what he might be holding back. “Damn. Dammit Joe. What can I do?”

“I don’t know, Galen. I’ll let you know if I think of something.” By “think of something,” I meant something about any of it, not just how Galen may or may not help. The easy, relieving answer was nowhere to be found.

“Look, Bridget, just let me know if there’s something I can do. And if I hear anything from any of our mutual buds I’ll let you know.” He sighed. “You do know I wasn’t part of any, uh, secrets, you know? Like I really mean that I haven’t heard from him in ages. I’m not bullshitting you, I swear. Keep me posted?”

“Of course not, Galen,” I said. Did I believe him? Maybe, maybe not, but I couldn’t even bring myself to think it mattered all that much at this point. “OK, I’m going to go figure this out, thanks.” I hung up, alone again in the silent house, wondering what the next step was, hoping Joe would burst through the door and render this new development moot. I still had the mortgage to pay; hell, I still had all the bills to pay, Genevieve. I didn’t have time for a manhunt. I had a feeling the police wouldn’t take it too seriously, either. Grown adults are allowed to go missing if they want. He wasn’t even technically my husband anymore, just my housemate who might be teetering on the brink of one last poor decision.

By the way, I like what you’ve done to your hair, Genevieve. It’s absolutely transformative. I know I’m going on about this, and you probably don’t want to hear it, but I just feel like I need to get it off my chest, and I’ve had so much caffeine. You don’t mind, do you?

Should I have called the cops? Maybe, probably. But like I said, I could just hear them tell me that I was the crazy one, that he probably just … left. As he is allowed to do. Even with mental health challenges, mental illness isn’t a crime, at least not until there is one, if you know what I mean. As long as he isn’t hurting anyone, isn’t hurting himself, there’s nothing anyone can do, particularly an ex-wife who still isn’t over the wish that it all could have been different but feeling powerless to change any of it.

Still, I couldn’t just do nothing, could I? I swallowed my shame at the massive invasion of privacy and found the spare key to his tiny room, which had been the home office we shared before we split, the room we’d originally envisioned as the nursery until we realized kids of our own just weren’t happening.

I also swallowed my fear at what might lurk behind that door.

It could have been worse, but it could have been better, too. I had worried about discovering maybe rotting food or emptied liquor bottles or even tiny plastic resealable baggies of unknown colorful pills mocking me (SURPRISE! TIME FOR A GOOGLE SEARCH!), but really it was just a room stuffed with papers, a fire hazard of papers, just everywhere, full of scrawlings and cryptic symbols. Stuffed beneath the single bed we’d crammed in there, hanging out from between the mattress and box spring, carpeting the surface of the bed so that you had to already know there was a bed under all that mess, Bible-thick stacks, taped to the walls, yellow legal paper pages, white copy paper, occasionally messages scribbled on the back of a cardboard cereal box. Scribble, scribble, scribble. Some were even folded into exquisite origami but written on just the same.

A mile-long CVS receipt tacked to the wall caught my eye, given the bled-through lines of Sharpie ink on the back. Moon Lodge, Moon Lodge, Moon Lodge, it said over and over, about fifty times.

I stood in the middle of the mess pondering the dead trees that all this represented, and whether any of what he had recorded was even based on anything real. I couldn’t make heads nor tails of the symbols, of course. I didn’t know who the Moonside Emperor was, after all, or Our Lady of Lucky Breaks, or, simply, NECROMANCER. In fact, I didn’t want to know. I felt too tired to face mystery or whimsy or nightmare.

“Bobby says bring $500” scrawled in pencil on a hot pink Post-It note I found lying limp on the windowsill didn’t sound good. I knew full well Joe couldn’t get $500. But maybe I was underestimating events that I couldn’t even think to name.

“God,” I said out loud, the padding of the paper-piled room somewhat swallowing my voice, making me small, inconsequential. “Fucking Moon Lodge. Joe, what’s happened to you?”

Am I the best ex-wife ever, Genevieve? Or the worst? Before his disappearance, I suppose I flattered myself over my own magnanimity, giving him a place to live even though romantically and in the partnership sense, we were so done. Codependent and arguably pathetic, I know. But this was beyond the pale, and I could feel myself unwilling to do more. Dragging my feet about what to do next. Possibly becoming more culpable in his downfall with every second, maybe even culpable for his death.

What would I tell his kids? They were mad at him now, influenced by his other ex-wife, unmoved by his run of bad luck not to mention his issues, but that doesn’t always last forever. Sometimes people want reconciliation, or at the very least, just answers later in life. Some sort of closure. What about that? Was it even my business anymore?

What would you have done, Genevieve?

Maybe I was channeling you when I keyed “Moon Lodge, VA” into my browser. You always had a take-charge, ask-questions-later attitude that I truly envied as I’d hem and haw, dragged to a halt thinking “what if” this, and “I’m worried” that. And there it was, real, in all its one-star review glory.

I mean, at first it sounded scary in all the most mundane ways that you could have guessed without paging through the notes left by people connected enough to the living world to actually have the wherewithal to leave a review. Rat and cockroach sightings. Ceiling leaks, damp carpet, and the inevitable mold infestations. Curtains festooned with cigarette burns, comforters spattered with red wine or worse.

“There’s no Bible in here, and it sure could use one,” one reviewer complained.

Noise complaints. Smell complaints. Every variety of eyesore.

Of course, some basically said that for $50 a night, it was worth it if you’re on a tight budget. Just bring some air freshener, pack your own towels and bedding if possible, and leave the lights on.

Oddly, though, a few reviews discussed a surprisingly good daily complimentary continental breakfast in the main building, complete with endless coffee, an array of Danish choices, individual yogurts, and actual fresh fruit.

Even more oddly, though, a few other reviews discussed intruders who turned out to be ghosts.

Terror Lodge, the review by MissKit573 blared. “If you’re looking for a cheap stay right off of I-81, look no further. Just don’t expect to SLEEP. I know people here talk about the roaches and the loud neighbors, but I woke up in the middle of the night with a SHADOW PERSON at the foot of my bed. It grabbed my FOOT as I turned on the light then DISAPPEARED!!!!! I am not kidding, this really happened!”

Moon Lodge replied: “We’re so sorry you didn’t have a restful night. Talk to us at the front desk and we’ll give you a free night. We’ve called exterminators. Don’t forget the complimentary continental breakfast!”

Another review by JKJ read simply, INFESTATION!!! “By demons, I mean. They should pay YOU to sleep at this joint.”

Moon Lodge replied: “We’re sorry you didn’t enjoy your stay. By the way, we’re demon-free here.”

Maybe I’m naïve and don’t get out enough, Genevieve, but I have never seen a review thread like this. It was hard to stop scrolling and put the phone down to formulate a plan or lack thereof.

Then this one did me in.

GRANDMA? BellaBella said, “I regretted reserving a room at Moon Lodge as soon as I pulled into the parking lot. I should have chosen one of the other bargain hotels down the road but this one was slightly cheaper. But the minute I pulled in I felt like, this sense of despair? It was so weird. I decided to just suck it up, like how bad could it be for one night and it fit my budget. I’m in between jobs but my grandmother passed away and I had to travel to her funeral in Florida and every penny counted. In the middle of the night, I woke up to someone in the corner of my room singing “Rock-A-Bye Baby”—it was my grandmother. I swear on her memory. I opened my eyes and saw her shadow. I AM SURE IT WAS HER! When I turned on the light, she was gone but I could smell her perfume. I guess I shouldn’t have been scared because it was my grandma, but it terrified the sh*t out of me and I checked out in the middle of the night. They gave me a cheese Danish to take on the road, which was nice under the circumstances I guess??”

The Moon Lodge made no reply.

I finally put my phone down and pressed fingertips against my temples to combat the sharp headache that was coming on. That was the exact type of headache that always hit me when I was fighting back tears, trying not to feel emotions, putting myself in avoidance mode.

The house’s silence weighed in, expectant and pressuring. With no regular cadence, the kitchen sink dripped from the faucet, reverberating through the quiet with its next plop mocking and impossible to predict. The walls felt close, stifling, like the place was closing in on me. My very home felt like an enemy to peace. One of its own was in danger and the other was trying to refuse to take the call, was considering letting nature take its course. So inhuman. But probably, on the other hand, very human, am I right, Genevieve? The right thing is so often not the easy thing. Sometimes you just don’t want to know, don’t want to do.

Like I could just keep going to work, keep paying the bills, trying to cower in the unyielding yet somehow comforting slog of The Daily Routine of Capitalist Society—like at least I know what to do—while the house blamed me, while Joe’s large absence threatened to swallow me up a little at a time until whatever terrible thing that happened to him caught up with me at last and forced me to look. I guess I do still love him, Genevieve, otherwise I would have left it alone, right? Shrugged and figured out the excuses later. I could have insisted to everyone, most of all myself, that I had already done enough and that there was nothing left to do.

What a way to realize I hadn’t been magnanimous at all, as I looked up the route to the Moon Lodge. I simply still loved the guy and had held him for safekeeping inside a tiny room, hoping he’d become himself again, and we could go about our business again with our dreams and our daily laughs or whatever.

I left at 6pm without even emailing my manager about the fact that I wouldn’t be coming into the office in the morning. I only had a few days of time off left and it was only late November, still time to need time off, and I guess in my panic, I almost convinced myself there was some way I’d be able to get back before anybody even knew the difference.

Remember when we used to do that, Genevieve? Spontaneous road trips, ride or die, definitely no thoughts of letting anyone know. I lost my job at the Gap one of the times we did that back in the old days, way before Joe and Bobby. You and I just took off for the beach on a whim, punctuating the time with coffees then wine coolers and not stopping till we saw the sun rising above the line of the sea, the smell of salt in the air, a display that was just for the two of us. It was so much better than folding khakis, until I had to face the consequences.

Of course, this wasn’t that kind of road trip at all, it was a trip into the unknown and unspoken, punctuated with grim bathroom breaks at gas-peddling purveyors of convenience, RoFos and Sheetzes and Wawas along the way as the odometer rolled and rolled, with me alternating between coffees and energy drinks as the evening grew darker into full night and the clock crept closer to my usual bedtime and then passed it. About halfway through the trip I broke down during one of my stops and bought a pack of Marlboro Golds, because of course I did, that year quit officially down the drain because all bets were off, smoke ’em if you got ’em. This operation called for any legal stimulant I could get, although I did notice that on several of my pitstops, it was probably possible to easily find plenty of illegal stimulants, too. Sad, grey towns that often seemed populated with shadowy night people with empty eyes who certainly didn’t make me feel better about my errand.

One of them looked like you, Genevieve, but with dirty blonde hair and flat jade green eyes as if you’d lost all your light. Don’t ever let that happen to you, okay, Genevieve? I couldn’t bear it.

They talk about highway hypnosis and that’s how it got as the trip wore on, just me occasionally getting passed by huge trucks on I-81. Several times as my eyelids grew heavy and sought to betray me, I thought about just stopping at some other roadside motel three, two, one hours away. Would an overnight really hurt anything at this point? I know that’s incredibly weak, but the caffeine and nicotine weren’t really up to the challenge after a certain point. I popped a curiously strong mint I found in a tin in my handbag; it made my eyes water and my mouth sizzle, snapping me back to alert at least for a few more miles. I rolled down the car windows to let in the sharp winter air, cold and miserable yet obviously invigorating. Do you know what I realized I hadn’t done about an hour away from my destination, Genevieve? I hadn’t come up with any scenarios about what I was going to find and what I was going to do when I found it. My known generalized anxiety disorder had been extremely—and unusually—general.

Of course, that simple realization tipped off my brain and the dread started in, making it difficult to keep my foot down on the accelerator. Was I just going to bear witness to Joe’s downward spiral? And what would I do then?

Would it be safe for me, if he were that far gone?

And of course, the worst-case scenario: what if he wasn’t alive?

Then, of course, the ultimate question flashed, unbidden, across my consciousness.

What if Bobby wasn’t dead?

I laughed into the frigid wind battering me through the open windows, took another sip of now less-than-even-lukewarm coffee. Where had that bizarre thought even come from? Joe was obviously paranoid and delusional, and this destination was where his paranoia and delusion had taken him. Random, and sad, with no real reason for any of it.

At any rate, the dark stretch of hundreds of miles behind me meant I was getting closer to arrival, and possibly—hopefully—the answers I needed, even if it only meant finding out where Joe was. I tried not to think about how my mental health might suffer if he wasn’t there at all.

I just want you to know how I perceived it as I approached: I saw the beacon of the Tobacco Kingdom first; even though it was closed, its sign glared out into the darkness, as well as a variety of neon-type signage advertising VAPES! KRATOM! CBD! DELTA! And of course, next door, the fluorescent, ever-open 7-11, where flashing police lights told the story of one of those nights, or perhaps every night was. The Moon Lodge’s sign was downright subdued next to these, restful but really, seemingly half lit, with “VACANCY” below the image of a pale cheese-colored crescent moon. I bumped through the potholes in the half-empty parking lot and slid the car into a space in front of the main building. Shadows slipped and darted into unlit corners near the edges of the strips of rooms, shadows variety sized such that they might be rats, might be people, might be extremely large rats again. Then again, might be trick of the eyes—maybe it was too much caffeine, I thought, making me jumpy and paranoid too.

The main lobby was nicer than I had expected of a one-star motel (and I know this reeks of privilege, Genevieve, my way of vacationing these last years has been to go big or stay home, so given my budget, I mostly stay home). That mosaic of the crescent moon rising above the forested stream at the front counter. That small portable decorative fountain on the side of the counter, the tinkling of its running water competing with the sound of television in the room behind the wall with the mosaic. That desk bell with a yellow smiley face, which I paused before ringing, once again realizing that I didn’t really have a plan for this.

That grey-haired man who emerged promptly, though a bit dazed. “Can I help you?”

“I hope so,” I said. “I’m looking for –”

“Do you have a reservation?” he asked, opening a beat-up looking laptop.

“Oh … well, no. I’m looking for –”

That knowing look he shot at me! “Ma’am, I should really start this out letting you know that we feel real strong about privacy here.”

“Oh. Huh.” I laughed, uncomfortable. Probably not the best response.

“We really try to … how do you say it. It’s late at night,” he said, pointing to his wrist, then burst out, “Discretion! I think I’m getting closer to what I’m trying to say. We try to preserve our guests’ discretion!”

I stood there, and I admit it, Genevieve, I think I looked pretty dumb as I stared at him. A seven-hour drive and I was standing here getting shut down over discretion. But of course discretion might be important here. And of course maybe he had all kinds of people come here looking for their lost, many of whom truly may not want to be found—like, maybe Joe, to be fair.

I made a big production of taking my wallet out of my handbag. “I get it. Can I get a room anyway? I just drove for seven hours.”

His obstinate expression melted. “Of course! And I won’t tell anyone you’re here, either!” he added, which frankly gave me the creeps.

“Oh, plenty of people know I was coming here,” I fibbed quickly, pulling out my credit card. “No secret keeping on my account.” I put the card on the counter and also retrieved my phone, paging through my camera roll as he went about his business on the computer.

After he had run my card and I signed on the dotted line, I attacked. “This guy!” I said, holding up my phone with a close-up of Joe in better days. “Joe Christiansen. I’m his wife,” I desperately lied to avoid the complicated truth, “and he hasn’t been home for a few days. He left notes at home about this place, and I fear he … isn’t well. He’s not in trouble with me or the law or anything. I’m just worried about him.”

Mr. Discretion took on a pained and torn expression. “Let me get your key,” he said, taking a huge keyring out of his pocket and opening a firesafe that held the actual room keys. “I think maybe I have seen that guy, and I worried about him as well,” he muttered casually, under his breath, almost like he was pretending not to be talking to me, scrabbling through until he found a specific key ring. “I think Room 16 will be … perfect for you.” His eye twitched, either a tic or a wink, I wasn’t sure.

“Okay … thank you?” I said, hoping for more.

“Have a great night’s sleep,” he said. “Don’t forget the continental breakfast in the morning! It starts at 7am sharp.”

The room door closest to the main lobby building was 1, so I got back in my car to drive however many feet it was to Room 16, although I assumed it was around the side, facing the 7-11 and Tobacco Kingdom. I was unbelievably exhausted but gripped the steering wheel and fantasized about driving all the way home again, getting showered and heading to work like nothing had ever happened other than an extremely bad case of insomnia. Instead I drove to the closest parking space to Room 16, and saw it—Joe’s beat-up but truly beloved old Honda Civic.

It wasn’t proof that he was okay, but it was more proof of life and actual whereabouts than I had had just minutes before. I emerged from the car. The police lights were still spinning behind me, and there was a watchful, expectant feel in the air that of course, I was probably just spinning up in my anxiety. But I thought I saw curtains moving in the window next to Room 16. What would you have done, Genevieve? I think you would have knocked on the doors of the rooms closest to Room 16, but to me, it seemed smarter to do it once the sun came out in the morning. I was alone, after all, and this was the most alone I had ever felt in my life. In a strange place, miles from home, with no one as backup, no one to call on.

I unlocked Room 16 and quickly darted inside and locked the deadbolt behind me. Now granted, this is not exactly the most secure door and lock I have ever encountered. The door is plywood or something and the knob felt wobbly in my hand. A deadbolt is all fine and dandy unless someone can conceivably literally kick the door down. I caught a pronounced smell of air freshener that I was certain covered up something else far less pleasant. I became convinced someone was waiting in there, watching me, so I desperately fumbled on the wall for a light switch, but when I activated the weak light, I found nothing and no one, just an extremely plain and utilitarian yet seemingly surprisingly tidy room.

I collapsed onto the bed, which groaned in protest, its hard mattress struggling to yield. In testament to my ever-annoying anxiety, I flipped over and looked under the bed using my phone’s flashlight, where I spotted what appeared to be, inexplicably, a shriveled plum on top of a formidable layer of what I believed to be dust.

Now what, Genevieve? That’s what I thought. Now what?

A dog barked somewhere, brayed in the uneasy night.

I didn’t want to touch the plum but also had a feeling it would haunt me that night if I didn’t dispose of it. Those two impulses warred with one another for a substantial amount of time before I decided to do nothing. This would normally be a problem I’d toss to Joe—he was having his issues, but he wouldn’t think twice about grabbing that thing while I yelled, “Use a Kleenex! Don’t touch it with your hand!” and throwing it outside to decompose or feed the supposed pests, and he’d never look back, either.

It's funny, Genevieve. I said I liked your new hairstyle, but there’s more that’s changed about you. Again, I’m not saying you don’t look great, but …

Well. So many mysteries.

And well past the witching hour, you’d think I would have just drifted off to sleep there on that bed as my mind spun on the fate of the sinister plum—I don’t know why I felt that way about a piece of fruit, but I did—but I realized that a muffled sound from behind the headboard, in the next room, which I had dismissed as too-high TV volume, was in fact a conversation. Male voices.

I spotted a questionably clean water glass that had been left on the cheap dresser where the small TV in my own room was, and gently, ever so gently placed it against the wall and listened, like in the old movies and also feeling very stupid because how could that work? And do you want to know what, Genevieve? It did kind of work.

And I was almost positive it was Joe. The cadence of his words that I couldn’t quite make out, the haltingness he’d presented of late. The occasional little uncomfortable chuckle that didn’t mean anything was funny, more like the entire world around him was a puzzle, a “what can you do?” kind of laugh.

Then, the other voice. Deep and muffled, seemingly further away.

I felt like I was also getting whiffs of a scent emanating through the wall, one I couldn’t place. Like sulfur.

“Stop being so weird,” I whispered to myself.

Both men began laughing heartily as if on cue.

That’s when the knock on the door nearly caused me to drop my old-school surveillance device. Brisk, familiar. That take-charge attitude.

So now I’ve caught you up, Genevieve. I don’t know how you knew I was here, and I’m not sure why you don’t quite look like yourself. And now that I really think about it, it’s been such a tremendously long time, and thinking about the last time I saw you gives me that ever-so-annoying anxiety and I have to just … stop. Your nails are dirty, so unlike you, and you could use some concealer too, truth be told. Those deep blue shadows beneath your eyes, you look like the definition of world-weary.

I don’t mean to give you a hard time. God, come to think of it, I’m so tired too.

And I can’t believe I sounded so critical! It’s like I’m your mom, bless her soul! I like your new perfume. It smells like fresh-cut grass beaded with dew, that early morning scent. I also still smell that odor from behind the wall.

You still don’t want to talk? Should we go over to the 7-11 like old times, like when we were kids, and buy some Mad Dog 20/20 on a lark and bark at the moon? Maybe we could run away from everything.

I know, there’s work to do. Putting everything to rights. Come on, come with me, let’s knock next door. With you here, I’m not scared anymore.

We pound on the door, and Joe cracks it open, check out that furtive expression, hiding who’s inside! “Bridget …? I really needed some time to figure some things out.” He looks so surprised. I guess I would too, to see both of us standing here at the door, so far from home.

“Joe … I’ve been so damn worried. I drove seven hours.”

Genevieve, I’m just standing here waiting for you to yell, “SURPRISE!” Or something. I guess not. I guess you’re waiting for some perfect moment to assert yourself. I feel like I’m missing something big, missing something with everyone. It’s occurring to me that we used to finish each other’s sentences, kind of like Joe and Bobby would do, come to think of it, so of course it’s not weird that you can read my mind.

I jam my foot in Joe’s door to prevent it from closing—isn’t that funny, that that’s actually a thing you can do, and not just a metaphor for breadcrumbs to opportunity? I guess I need to say something to fill the gap, so here goes: “Haven’t you ever heard of leaving a note?” I see you laughing at me. “And I don’t mean millions of cryptic messages.”

“You didn’t understand. You weren’t nice about Bobby. There was nothing to say.”

“Okay. I admit it. I could have been less … blunt about the situation.”

“Yeah, you got that right.”

“Aren’t you going to open the door?”

“I don’t think Bobby wants to see you. It’s all very hurtful.”

“Well … Joe. I think Bobby’s beyond caring about it too much.”

“Not at all, Bridget. Not at all. Just go home, please. Okay? I’m fine. I’ll come home once I’ve figured some stuff out. Bobby’s helping me figure out what I’ve lost. What we’ve lost.”

“We’ve lost everything!” I am so exasperated. Hasn’t it been obvious for years?

“It’s so much worse than you’re even willing to admit, Bridget. That’s part of our problem.”

Why don’t you have anything to say, Genevieve? Once again, I fill the gap. “Joe, you’re being rude ignoring Genevieve. Let us in.”

“What the fuck, Bridget? That’s not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be funny. Would I drive seven hours just to be funny? Call in sick to work just to be funny?”

He yells something unintelligible in his frustration and lets loose of the door and I’m falling inside like a sack of potatoes, onto my hands and knees on the rough, cigarette cherry-pocked carpet. I wonder why you didn’t catch me before I fell, Genevieve, my palms are smarting, my knees feeling broken. I labor to get up, stiff from the long drive and, let’s face it, middle age.

You don’t see Bobby either, do you, Genevieve? This truly isn’t a reunion of his twin and my best friend. His twin and my best friend who fell in love. His twin and my best friend who fell out of love. His twin and my best friend who –

“Joe. Bobby’s not here.”

The deafening, expectant silence, swallowing us all up in this dim, sulfur-smelling cubicle.

I wait for Joe to speak; he looks more himself than he has for ages, truth be told, in case you’re wondering why he doesn’t look the way I described him. His hair is trimmed neatly, he has shaved off the sloppy, crumb-catching beard I hated so much, his clothes are neat and tidy.

Most of all, he appears to exude—pity?

“Bridget. Genevieve’s not here.”

“Please, Joe.”

This is why Joe and I had problems, isn’t it? Increasingly unable to land on the same page—hell, maybe not even in the same book—unable to see things the same way? But this, this feels so next-level fatal it’s taking my breath away.

“Bridget, Bobby told me what really happened that night.”

“We know what happened that night. It was a terrible tragedy, a random, homicidal act.” My stomach, full of so much coffee, rumbles, threatens. “It was horrible. I know you lost so much, Joe. I know losing Bobby has been so damned hard to get over.”

It’s not funny, Genevieve. Why have you always laughed at things that aren’t funny? I suppose it’s a coping mechanism, but sometimes it makes you seem like a psycho. Now is one of those times.

“It wasn’t random. Genevieve shot him. He’s admitted he cheated on her, but she plotted it out. Arranged for him to meet her in that park. Shot him dead and faked her alibi and had the nerve to show up at the funeral.”

“Joe, that’s ridiculous and you know it.” Genevieve, don’t you have anything to say about these allegations? You always had a flaming temper. And sometimes it did careen over the edge of rationality. I always did pity anyone who crossed you. But! But I know you have a good heart—you have to, because I love you like a sister. You cried more than anyone at Bobby’s funeral. Your sorrow was so deep and gigantic, Joe and Bobby’s mother laid aside her own grief and comforted you. It was like you had lost everything, had lost yourself.

My God.

How much of yourself did you lose?

Joe is going to keep going, isn’t he? Until I scream “no more” … I want the past to stay there, not come to life all over again in this crappy room, but not only can I not scream, I can’t even speak. Frozen in place.

“Bobby told me that Genevieve … took her own life yesterday evening. See what I did there? I said it nicely. She finally couldn’t take the guilt anymore. Someone will find her in that same park soon, when the sun comes up.”

I sit on the bed, more like collapsed. The right answer is, “That can’t be true,” so why am I questioning? Maybe because come to think of it, you look so wrong, Genevieve. Like a semblance of yourself, just off. When you turn a certain way, your face does sag, one eye unfocused and staring into eternity. That striking new dye job and messy hair look could simply be blood-soaked and blown all to hell; I can’t look so close.

The worst part is, after what Joe’s said, after what I now see, I can’t figure out which version of you frightens me more.

Should I believe that the Moon Lodge is where ghosts congregate? Or that Joe did something with $500 that accomplished some summoning? Or that Joe is insane, or I am insane, or both of us are? Or, that we’ve somehow pushed through the confines of reality, found those we lost before we lost ourselves and each other, reunited at last with those we love best but also are staring at the bitter pill that maybe we never really do know anyone, examine it in our palms and consider swallowing it?

And once you do, how do you go back?

Forgive me, but I can’t look at you anymore right now, Genevieve.

NECROMANCER, that one paper had said.

There’s no such thing.

That stupid weasel in the Large Hadron Collider. I’m not saying it’s the reason, but it is true, everything got weird, everything.

Everything but not all of us! Everything like politics. And news headlines. Billionaires gone batshit. But not all of us.

Reality couldn’t have become that twisted that loyal, solid, sensitive Bobby could ever cheat. That was a man who wrote you love haikus on sticky notes and left them on the bathroom mirror to see before your morning routine, hearts and smiley faces and validation. All those bouquets just because. That time he walked a mile in the snow to meet you after your car got stuck, shepherded you home and dried your freezing tears.

The kind of couple that made Joe and I feel ourselves lacking, if you want one more truth flung onto the table.

How could that be a guy who would cheat? And how could it be that you, Genevieve, who claimed he calmed your riotous heart, could ever think to actually murder him over it—and hold that secret so long, so deviously. Visiting his resting place in mourning once a year at sunset, pouring out a scotch into a crystal glass that you’d set on his headstone, leaving him a Cuban cigar and a match, posting a solemn graveside selfie for the world to see (O, my murdered love!) before disappearing into the dusk.

None of this can possibly be real.

So why do I believe it? Further, why do I wonder if deep down, I knew all along?

“Oh Joe,” I finally say, but that’s it, like I slammed into a wall. Like shock and grief and realization have robbed me of words to speak.

And you’re just standing there, Genevieve, no longer a force to be reckoned with, no longer vibrant, no longer silently laughing, the secrets are out and you’re just cold and distant and throwing off an eerie curiosity about what happens now that I know the world’s upside down and backwards.

That clock with dead batteries is ticking out there at home, I can hear it from here, the hands are lying about the exact hour and minute like everyone else has been, but it’s still counting the time passing with fearful precision.

What happens now that we’re here, reunited in heartbreak we’re all completely clear about, trapped in this shabby room with all our ghosts?