Chapter 3: The Name on the Screen
The name was Marcus.
Jasmine's uncle.
Her mother's younger brother.
The one person from her mother's side of the family who had stayed in her life after the funeral, who still called on her birthday, who had slipped her a card with fifty dollars inside every Christmas since she was eleven years old.
She had no reason to think Jessica had ever met him.
Jessica picked up the phone and walked out of the kitchen without another word.
The back door clicked shut behind her.
Jasmine stood there alone.
She looked at the spot on the counter where the phone had been.
Then she picked up her own phone and called Marcus.
He answered on the second ring.
"Hey, Jazzy.
You okay?"
"I need to ask you something."
A pause.
Small, but there.
"Sure.
What's up?"
"Do you know Jessica?
My dad's wife?"
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"Why are you asking me that?"
Jasmine felt the hair on her arms rise.
"Marcus.
I saw your name on her phone just now.
She flipped it over the second she saw me looking."
Silence.
"Marcus."
"Jasmine, listen to me.
I don't want you getting mixed up in something you don't—"
"Mixed up in what?
What is going on?"
She heard him breathe out slowly on the other end.
"I know her," he said finally.
"But not the way you think.
I didn't know she was with your dad until about four months ago.
By then it was already—" He stopped himself.
"It was already complicated."
"Complicated how?"
"This isn't a phone conversation."
"Then come over."
"Not there.
Not at the house."
Jasmine walked to the window.
Jessica was standing in the backyard, her back turned, still on the phone.
Still talking.
"Then tell me where," Jasmine said.
"The coffee place on Renner Street.
Tonight at six.
Come alone.
And Jasmine — don't tell your dad yet.
Please."
The call ended.
Jasmine looked out the window again.
Jessica had turned around now and was facing the house.
She wasn't on her phone anymore.
She was just standing there, looking at the kitchen window with an expression that Jasmine couldn't fully read.
Not angry.
Not nervous.
Something closer to calculating.
Jasmine stepped back from the glass.
She thought about what Jessica had said twenty minutes ago.
*Your dad hears what I let him hear.*
She had said it like a fact.
Like something she'd already proven to herself.
Jasmine went upstairs, closed her bedroom door, and sat on the edge of her bed.
Her mother had been gone for eight years.
David had married Jessica two years after that.
Jasmine had been fifteen.
She had never liked Jessica, but she had tried — for her dad's sake, she had tried.
She had told herself that Jessica's coldness was just adjustment, just the difficulty of blending a family, just two women sharing a house who had never chosen each other.
She had told herself a lot of things.
Her phone buzzed.
A text from Marcus.
*Don't google anything.
Don't ask anyone else.
Just come tonight.*
She stared at the message for a long time.
May you like
Then a second text appeared beneath it.
*And lock your door at night.*
