Uncovered Issues

The winding road led to a winding driveway. Lydia didn’t even realize it was a driveway at first. When Ethan paused outside of the imposing gilded gate and entered a code into the box beside the road, she assumed they were entering a gated community. The mature woods on either side of the narrow path were shadows, and Lydia couldn’t tell how deep they went, but understated and classic streetlamps threw gentle arcs of light onto the road. The light mist that had captivated her earlier-in her old life, before all of this- turned into a steady rain, and Lydia watched the light captured in the drops that fell across her window. When the road ended in a circular drive with only one home centered behind it, Lydia gasped. The home looked like a monument to the past, brick and colonial in the front with perfectly symmetrical narrow windows outlined in white shutters on the first and second floors. Two wings angled off of the main house, however- add ons, but done so well that they

The plan was simple, or as simple as it could get, given the very complicated circumstances. Huntington was gone, somewhere in hiding. The dead men found in Lydia’s bedroom floor were identified fairly quickly as known acquaintances of the Huntington family, and questioning among the family would be ongoing for several days as authorities tried to narrow down the location of the missing doctor. The appropriate law enforcement were appraised of Lydia’s position, if not her exact location, and they were familiar with Sandra’s company and asked no more questions. Lydia’s job was, simply, to lay low. “So I just stay here, then?” she asked. “And do what?” “We have a huge theater downstairs,” one of the men across the kitchen called out. “And there’s a tennis court out back, and a two lane bowling alley and a pool table.” “You want me to play pool? Just… stay here and play pool?” The man shrugged. “I’ll take you on,” he

The days passed slowly. Lydia loved having her sister here with her, and understood the reasoning: they did, indeed, look identical. Anyone who didn’t know them well could easily confuse the two. She might even be worried for her older sister if Maddie didn’t live two hours north of them, in Illinois. Thankfully, she was too far away to be mistaken for Lydia, despite her somewhat similar familial appearance. She also had two children and a husband and a completely disconnected life, disinterested in social media and quietly existing outside of the city life. Maddie was the kind of person who took great joy in spending all day baking. She saw her children as gifts and had no qualms about her choices in regards to them. Because of the tangled web that was her own familial background, she pushed herself entirely into her husband’s family events, disappearing into Thanksgiving meal prepping, Black Friday shopping, and Christmas visits with her sisters-in-law and her cherished mother in la

She wasn’t sure what time it was, and she wasn’t overly interested in finding out. Lying awake in the middle of the night in Ethan’s bed- the guest bed he’d offered her untouched across the hall- she felt content and rested, despite the overall life events that led to her being here. They’d finished their shower and, like an old 90’s romcom, made their way to the kitchen, him in nothing but comfortable flannel pajama pants and she in panties and one of his shirts. There were strawberries and delicious misshapen pancakes and late night coffee, but mostly there was a lot of conversation and laughter. It was the kind of night she’d shared with girlfriends in middle school, staying up late in a quiet house, trying not to wake others while she told her secrets and reveled in the stories that her friends told. It was cozy and safe. And Ethan felt very much like a friend: someone who was becoming her confidant and a person to whom she could glance and share a smile when

Iceland was cold. Lydia shivered inside of her generic sweats and felt Ethan wrap his arms around her. She leaned back against his warmth, into his broad chest, and sucked in a deep breath, feeling the icy wind fill her lungs. She felt better, somehow, as if her body was equalizing to the new environment. A partial rainbow sculpture rose up ahead of her, and she wondered if it had been intended to seem incomplete or if its incompleteness made a statement that she couldn’t quite understand. The colorful glass drew her in, and as she continued to take in deep gulps of the cool, crisp air, she stared at it, feeling her eyes glaze and the colors float in front of her. “Neat, yeah?” Ethan was smiling at her now, and she shook herself out of her revery. “You okay?” he asked, and she nodded. “Jet lagged, but hanging in there. I’m just so tired.” She’d caught a few hours of sleep on the plane, comfortable enough in the seats that reclined behind a divider for limited p