Burlington

Burlington

Heather Dixon

Rising Action Publishing

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places, names, or persons, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2023 by Heather Dixon

All rights reserved. For information regarding reproduction in total or in part, contact Rising Action Publishing Co. at http://www.risingactionpublishingco.com

Cover Illustration © Nat Mack

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 978-1-990253-92-8

Ebook: 978-1-998076-39-0

FIC031100 FICTION / Thrillers / Domestic

FIC030000 FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense

FIC044000 FICTION / Women

#BurlingtonBook

Follow Rising Action on our socials!

Twitter: @RAPubCollective

Instagram: @risingactionpublishingco

Tiktok: @risingactionpublishingco

For Mom.

I hope this makes up for how terrible I was to you when I was a teen.

Burlington

Chapter One

In Burlington, Vermont, a mother disappeared.

The day Mae Roberts heard the news, the air was crisp enough to bring color to her cheeks, and the sun shone down on the wet leaves that dotted the ground in reds and yellows. The kind of fall weather that gave her hope.

A few mothers huddled in clusters outside Riverpark Elementary School, rigid and stiff in their designer rain boots and tailored jackets, while others sipped coffee casually, wincing when steam escaped through the tops of their to-go mugs. Mae stood off to one side, a few feet away from most of the women. They spoke in muted voices and harsh whispers, but Mae couldn’t make out what they were saying. She dipped her head and inched a little closer.

"She couldn’t have just—vanished, one mother said. That sort of thing doesn’t happen around here."

Another woman reached for a lock of hair, examining it as she wove it through her pointer and middle finger. I think I need a new hairdresser.

Lindsay. Did you hear what I just said?

Lindsay dropped the lock of hair and placed her manicured hand into her pocket. What? She’s probably bored. Maybe she got tired of all the laundry, dishes, and school lunches.

That couldn’t be it. Even Mae knew that once you were in at Riverpark, you didn’t leave. It’s a privilege you don’t discard as easily as leftovers. Lindsay glanced in Mae’s direction. Mae looked away, her neck warm at being caught eavesdropping.

The bell rang, signaling the end of morning social hour. Most mothers turned their slender backs and paired off, sauntering away to return to their empty, echoing houses. One woman threw her head back and laughed at something her friend said. Mae was struck by the casual air about them, their indifference. She should have tried harder to find out, but she was frozen in place. She should have asked how this could happen, a mother vanishing, and why nobody seemed very concerned. Did the woman leave, or did she disappear? Words like disappear and vanish were so sinister, though, so loaded with meaning. It didn’t seem right to be using them while standing on the blacktop, watching small bodies with huge backpacks happily file into the building.

The truth, Mae thought, had to be hovering beneath the surface, but nobody was willing to admit it. Nobody insisted on answers, so her questions hung in the air like fog.

And by the end of the month, another woman would go missing.

Chapter Two

Two weeks earlier

The neighborhood Mae walked through each morning could have been ripped from the pages of Better Homes and Gardens, and yet, she didn’t feel quite right in it. Giant oak trees lined the sidewalk, their thick branches forming a canopy of dangling leaves overhead. Ruby and Isla bounced and hopped on the sidewalk up ahead on their way to school, picking up small sticks and kicking pebbles with their running shoes. The sun pushed its way through the treetops and warmed Mae’s shoulders.

From afar, Burlington looked like something a model train might trundle through, all the homes with black rooftops lined up and encircled by lush, green trees. Mae and Drew’s house was situated in the middle of one of the streets, on a quiet court. It was an elegant Victorian-style home that Mae still couldn’t believe was hers, even after several weeks of living in it. The glossy hardwood floors and high-ceilinged rooms were a far cry from the small back-split starter home she and Drew had bought when they first married. And even further from the cramped town homes she had grown up in.

Careful, Mae warned Isla. Her younger daughter, the wild card, always tested the boundaries. Now she walked as if on a tight rope along the edge of a stone wall, pointing her delicate toes, her arms outstretched at her sides.

I’m fine, Mommy.

Isla. She was always so sure of herself. It’s the little ones, the youngest of the siblings, who are certain they’re invincible, isn’t it? Mae knew better about the cold realities of life, but she didn’t tell the girls much about it yet. She wanted to hold onto their innocence with a white-knuckled grasp for as long as she could. When they were born, Mae promised her daughters would never know what it was like to grow up the way she had.

Isla hopped down and raced ahead, then stopped and turned, smiling at Mae and Ruby while she waited for them to catch up. Isla had one chipped baby tooth on the right side of her mouth that showed whenever she smiled wide enough. She had decided to play tag with her eyes closed at the playground one day when she ran into a pole and nicked a corner of her tooth off—a clear sign that she wasn’t as invincible as she liked to believe. Mae and Ruby caught up to where she stood, and Isla grinned again before turning and taking off at top speed.

Isla! Ruby called.

It’s fine, Mae said. She’ll wait for us. Mae could sense that Ruby didn’t want to rush. Mae didn’t want to either. Time was another luxury that came with Burlington, and one Mae could enjoy now.

When Drew told Mae about the possibility of being transferred here for work, they left the girls with her mother and drove out for an afternoon to look around. At the time, Mae was hesitant to leave her old neighborhood. They were settled and happy in Montréal, Quebec. They lived on a nice street. There was a park with an old wooden playground and an outdoor public swimming pool down the road for the girls. It was only an hour and a half drive to Burlington, and even though it meant all the headache of a work visa and piles of paperwork that went along with moving countries, it also meant they could upgrade.

In the car on the way to the open house of their now-home, Mae had placed her hands in her lap as they passed the still waters of Lake Champlain and wound their way through streets lined with emerald-green lawns and well-shaped shrubs.

Look at the size of that house, Drew said. He shook his head and laughed, his eyes wide.

A warm current of excitement moved through Mae’s body as she caught a glimpse of what her new life could be.

It was a natural progression; Drew got a promotion to a higher-paid position as Operations Manager of a private engineering firm, which meant they could afford a bigger home. Drew even mentioned that Mae might not have to work anymore if she didn’t want to. In Montréal, she only had a short commute by train to her office in the city, but she didn’t love her job. Mae never felt like she fit into the flashy life of advertising. Expensive suits and buzz words, with people rushing from meeting to meeting asking her to put a pin in it. It was a little too much for her.

Up until that point in life, Mae considered herself an independent woman, able to support herself. Even in marriage, as her life with Drew became more and more entwined in schedules and raising kids and their coupled-off friends, Mae always felt like her own person. Yet, when Drew first dangled the idea of quitting her job and staying home to manage their new house, it surprised her how much she liked the thought of it.

Now, the crown of Ruby’s head shone in the early daylight as if a halo had settled on top of her freshly washed hair. Ruby spoke excitedly about rocks. Sedimentary. Metamorphic. Igneous. Her voice sped up, a constant stream of chatter in her nine-year-old manner. Mae listened, taking it all in. There was no rushing to work, no hurrying through the morning. She could be present for her kids all the time. She and Drew had moved up in life, and she finally got to appreciate every minute of it.

So why aren’t you happier?

Mommy, Ruby said. She glanced around as if she wanted to be sure nobody heard her. Ruby sometimes forgot to call Mae mom when she was around other people, but she was always mommy when it was only the two of them. Mae loved it.

Yes? She turned her head toward Ruby in acknowledgement. Her daughter had cheeks that were starting to thin out as she got older, a nose sprinkled with freckles, and giant teeth that looked awkward in her small mouth. God, it was both beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. To watch your children grow up meant they got both closer to you and also slipped through your fingers more and more every day.

I’m going over there now, okay? They had turned a corner and arrived at the school yard. Ruby pointed toward the vast field in front of them, where the footsteps of four hundred kids left it with spotty grass that struggled to grow.

Sure. Have a good day, Mae said. She made her way to the edge of the blacktop where the parents usually gathered. Ruby and Isla dropped their backpacks with a thud into a growing heap of bags, and Ruby went back to the field, her head down, studying the grass. Isla stood face-to-face with a few other kids in her class, grinning, telling them things that made their eyes light up. Their faces bloomed with small smiles.

A mother walked across the blacktop as if on a mission, her long ponytail swishing back and forth with purpose. Her tanned, lithe body was emphasized by the workout clothes she wore. They were the kind of outfits meant more for fashion than exercise: leggings with strips of mesh along the thighs and calves that showed off a little skin, and a fitted, cropped sweater. When she leaned over to say something to her daughter, the bottom of her sweater rode up, revealing a slick, muscled lower back.

A Riverpark Mom.

That was the not-so-original name Mae had overheard about a certain group of women you couldn’t help but notice around here. In the short time she had been in Burlington, Mae hadn’t been able to miss the mothers who brought their kids to school and back, day in and day out. The ones who embodied perfection. They had long, curled hair that they wore loose down their shoulders and thin, taut bodies dressed in expensive clothes. They were beautiful and radiated popularity, as if they had always been this way. Mae couldn’t help but stare whenever they were near. These women were just so … put together. Did they not have bad days when they wore baggy t-shirts and didn’t bother with their hair? Mae wondered if they looked that way when their children were babies, when it was impossible to find time to shower, let alone put on a full face of makeup every day.

Their presence oozed money—in the cars they drove, and the boots their kids wore. They lived on streets with gigantic houses that Mae and her kids passed when walking home from school. Mae deduced that most of them didn’t work. If they weren’t dressed in exercise gear and on their way to a mid-morning workout, they were checking their phones and discussing plans to have coffee in the middle of the day.

A few minutes later, another Riverpark Mom approached the school yard, her silky, white-blonde hair falling to the middle of her back. Her bum was perfection. After two children, Mae thought as the woman bent to kiss the top of her sons’ heads. She had on a pair of wedge heels that looked uncomfortable and impractical for walking over a bumpy field and navigating hundreds of pairs of little feet.

A third mother—this one with dark hair twisted into a perfectly messy bun—walked up to the first and touched her elbow. The mom with leggings turned, kissing the side of the other mother’s cheek and squeezing her shoulder. They stood in the schoolyard with their flawless and incandescent skin shining like metal.

Mae glanced down at the old Converse running shoes on her feet. They were the only pair she could wear because they were big enough for her orthotics to fit into. Plantar fasciitis was a bitch.

As she balled her hands into fists inside her sweater, she silently cursed herself for leaving the house with her old maternity hoodie on yet again. The thing was ten years old, and it was a maternity sweater, but she had taken to wearing it around the house. It was loose and comfortable but also made her stick out like a sore thumb here. Mae tugged at the edge of the thick hem to hide the soft rolls around her middle.

Morning, you. Her friend Alice approached with her hands in her pockets.

Hey, Mae said. Her shoulders softened. How are you?

Not bad. It was a bit of an exhausting morning, though. Meltdowns over everything. She nodded in the direction of her kids, who were just out of hearing range, and sighed. I worry so much about them, you know? Especially Hailey. Alice’s daughter was Ruby’s age. They watched Hailey say something to Ruby that caused Ruby to tip her head back and laugh, mouth wide open and eyes closed.

Mae and Alice exchanged an amused glance.

She seems good now, Mae said.

She sure does. Same with Ruby. All good with you guys?

Mae touched the edge of her jawline. I think so. At least, I hope. It’s tough being the new kid.

Alice nodded and reached out to place a hand on Mae’s arm. Hey, you wouldn’t want to come by for a glass of wine tomorrow night, would you? I could use some downtime after this week.

That sounded perfect. So far, Alice was the only friend Mae had made in Burlington, and it was probably because Alice was so outgoing. On the outside, she was like them—the Riverpark Moms. She was beautiful, her clothes expensive and exquisite, and she had a way about her that was extroverted when she needed to be—all laughter and loud talking—except she was also the type of person who was kind and quiet and could be introspective. Alice went out of her way to get to know Mae and include her in things, which caught Mae off guard at first. She hadn’t had any close girlfriends growing up, and certainly not the type like Alice.

I’d love to, but Drew mentioned some plans with his coworkers and their wives tomorrow. We’re having dinner at his boss’s house with a bunch of people I don’t know, Mae said.

Sounds awful. Alice smiled. There was a tiny mole just above her lip that made Alice look striking, like a model.

Actually, you might know one of them? Drew said he works for a guy named Evan. His kids go to Riverpark. His wife’s name is Eleanor, I think. Elizabeth?

Evelyn, Alice said. I know her. Everyone knows her.

And?

She’s … outgoing. You’ll be fine. Alice’s gaze flicked upwards.

I guess you won’t be there then?

Alice squinted into the sun. Uh—no. She brushed a piece of hair away from her face. Mae waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t.

Anyway, be prepared for Evelyn, Alice said. She’ll ask you a million questions like she’ll want you to divulge your entire life story.

Mae detected a hint of something in Alice’s voice, but she couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

Thanks for the tip.

Sure, Alice said. I have to run. Text me when you’re free for that glass of wine.

Mae waved at Alice and then made her way across the field toward the sidewalk. There was no way she would be telling anyone her life story tomorrow night. It was best left in the past. Mae had worked hard to get here, and she was proud of how far she’d come. She and Drew had a big, beautiful, shiny new home, and she had given up working to take care of her family. Aside from a little extra baby weight and the casual clothes, she was just like the rest of the women in this neighborhood.

Nobody needed to know anything else.

Chapter Three

Nine years earlier, Mae sat upright in a hospital bed, cradling Ruby’s delicate newborn body in her arms, baffled that her body had created and grown another living thing. Not only that, but she was now responsible for her. Everything from feeding and clothing to ensuring Ruby made the right choices in life. The weight of it was almost too much if Mae thought about it hard enough.

After a few weeks, Mae learned to keep her sight on short-term goals instead: first, it was ensuring Ruby gained weight as a baby, then it progressed to helping her learn to say her first word, working with her on her reading, and teaching her to ride a bike. Once each goal was checked off, she could move on to the next, and Mae could be certain she was doing enough for her daughter. Everything repeated itself when Isla came along.

As Ruby got older, Mae could already see the beginnings of hormones at work. It was the first sign that the naked baby with soft, downy hair on her shoulders in the hospital was no longer Mae’s alone. Ruby was becoming her own person with big emotions. Her friends were starting to matter more and more, and Mae was no longer the center of Ruby’s universe. As Ruby’s sense of self was really starting to establish itself, Mae had a deep need to give her daughter everything she required to feel good in her skin. Everything Mae didn’t have at that age.

#

The next morning, before the bell rang, a Riverpark Mom wearing jeans with aggressively large holes in the knees and a tight black t-shirt arrived at the schoolyard. She had a large, bulky, cloth bag slung over her forearm. After digging inside for a minute, she pulled a small canvas painted with bright colors out of the bag and scanned the little group of girls that had gathered in front of her. Their faces were pointed up at hers, grinning, expectant.

The mother smiled and reached over the crowd to hand the painting to one of the girls. A budding willow tree grew on a bright background of pinks and yellows. It was impressive artwork for a nine-year-old. The mother dug into the bag again and pulled out the next one. Another willow tree. Same pinks and yellows as the first. She handed it to one of the girls and then passed out another one and another until she had no more. She handed out nine identical willow trees, all on pink and yellow backgrounds, to nine smiling kids. It dawned on Mae that they were birthday party favors from one of those kids’ art parties, and all the girls in Ruby’s class had one. Except for Ruby.

Mae’s chest tightened. She spotted Ruby standing off to one side, leaning against the brick wall, her hair hanging like a curtain down one side of her face. Ruby kicked at a rock with her flower-patterned running shoe, then leaned down to adjust her sock. That morning, she had chosen bright blue socks with a giant llama face wearing glasses. Ruby thought they were hilarious when Mae first brought them home. Now she pulled at the edge of the sock and then pushed it down, scrunching it over her ankle, so you could no longer make out what was on it.

When Mae was in school, standing alone waiting to be included was a regular occurrence. But Ruby was different. Ruby was easy-going and well-liked back in Montréal. It made Mae swell with pride that her daughter could be so different from her. Being the only one not invited to a birthday party must have felt so odd for Ruby. Mae couldn’t help but wonder if this was somehow related to her.

Shit, she said out loud. A few startled mothers next to her looked over with a gaze of disapproval. Mae shifted her weight from one leg to the other. Maybe she needed to make more of an effort to belong with the parents around here so she wouldn’t be so overlooked, and her kids wouldn’t be overlooked by association.

She went to take a few steps toward Ruby but then stopped. There was nothing Mae could do at that moment to fix it, and she was hit with the weight of how much work Riverpark Elementary School was going to be for her daughters. Every friend and club and group and activity would need to be earned.

When the bell rang, Mae quelled the urge to rush to Ruby’s side, to wrap her in a hug and kiss the top of her head, to rest her nose on Ruby’s scalp and breathe in her lavender shampoo. She would have loved to brush a piece of velvety hair off Ruby’s face and ask her how she felt before she disappeared into the school for the day, but Ruby would be mortified. She didn’t like public displays of affection,