Nancy Jackson went off her antidepressants in February and realized almost immediately she'd made a mistake. Not by going off the Celexa—she'd gained fifteen pounds in the year she'd taken it and her libido was skidding along rock bottom—but choosing to do it at the start of the rainy season. Every gray morning set her asail like a leaking boat into a placid pool of ennui and creeping despair.

But after a week or so, withdrawal brought new sensations: irritability and a dizzy mania that was preferable to the lethargy. She was up in the mornings before her seven-year-old daughter, tidying things, organizing things. She lost eight pounds in one week. She developed a consuming crush on Hailey's soccer coach, a man she'd barely noticed before; she sat in her car watching the girls practice in the drizzle, imagining Ted dragging her into the equipment shed and bending her over the scorekeeper's table.

Her doctor had given her a schedule to taper off the drugs. It proposed smaller and smaller doses over several months. Nancy wasn't patient enough for that.

Tuesday morning was at Jill's, in the last house on Cherry Blossom Court, where they'd laid a cul-de-sac over the busted asphalt skeleton of the road that once wandered a couple of miles into strawberry fields.

Payton was telling a long and pointless story about a home furnishing shop that had gone under before delivering the table she'd ordered. Nancy's impatience would not brook much more of the conversation; as exhausted and jittery as she was, the other women's concerns seemed unbearably trivial. She stood and set her coffee cup carefully on the table; her hands had been shaking a little lately.

"Catherine's in the powder room," Jill said. "Go ahead and use my bathroom."

Nancy slipped into the master suite, past the enormous walnut furniture and into the cavernous bathroom. Two sinks, a huge slate-tiled tub, a walk-in shower with a complicated set of faucets on the walls and overhead.

Nancy washed her hands and opened the medicine cabinet. It wasn't the first time she'd peeked. She suspected everyone did it.

There was a bottle of Effexor next to Jill's deodorant and makeup remover. Jill's name on the label. Nancy took the bottle in her palm and stared at it for a long time. Then she spilled half the pills into her hand and rolled them around. She put the bottle back on the shelf, then dropped the pills into the sink and ran water over them. When they didn't dissolve, she picked up a quartz soap dish and used the corner to grind the pills down until the pieces swirled down the drain.

Friday the Koshaks had a poker party. Platters of wings and mini-cheeseburgers and cheddar pretzels; the ladies mostly stuck to the veggie tray. Nancy waited until Rex Nash cleaned everyone out with a suspicious four-of-a-kind to slip upstairs to the Koshaks' bedroom.

Elaine Koshak had a collection of Limoges boxes on a mirrored tray on her dresser. Nancy was surprised—Elaine's style was relentlessly contemporary, her furniture all pale and uncomfortable. Some of the tiny hinged porcelain boxes looked vintage, probably worth hundreds of dollars. Nancy considered a tiny mailbox with a gilt letter in the slot, before slipping a miniature basket of painted tulips into her pocket.

At home that night she waited until Gavin was asleep before taking it down to the workbench and carefully smashing it with a hammer. She kept at it until all the shards were practically dust. A bit of the gold band from the hinged edge remained like a curl of shiny lemon peel.

Monday she took Dusty for a walk along the path where it followed the creek. Dry in summer, the creek was swollen with the rain, eddies swirling and bubbling over rocks and fallen branches.

Rounding a bend, she found the dog rooting at a large, glossy bird that was clearly injured. Droplets of blood flew, but she couldn't see the source of the wound.

"Dusty," Nancy murmured, and tugged at the leash. There was low, humming sound in his throat as he pawed and bit at the thing. The fur on his back stood up in a ridge along his spine. His black lips were bared, exposing white teeth. Dusty was a gentle dog, the sort to bring slobber-covered tennis balls to whoever happened to be around.

Nancy kept watching long after the bird had stopped flailing. Feathers drifted, a few coming to rest against her shoes. Blood dripped from the bird and created a slash of red against the chalky gravel of the path.

Abruptly, Dusty dropped the bird and looked up, ears peaked. He listened for a few seconds and then turned and poked his snout into Nancy's thigh. A smear of slimy detritus remained on her pants.

Nancy walked home with Dusty leading the way, sniffing at invisible smells. She got the dog into the back of her SUV by tossing a liver treat inside. She dropped Dusty at the groomers and drove to the car wash. While she waited, she watched the team of immigrants washing and buffing her car and thought about the way the bird had struggled. Its wings had been so much bigger than she would have imagined, the feathers gleaming blue-black; when Dusty shook the bird in his jaws, it had spasmed in a way that struck her as almost sexual.

That night Gavin came into the living room, where Nancy was reading Metropolitan Home and drinking a glass of red wine.

"Top Model's on," he said. "Hailey's watching it by herself."

"Well, why don't you watch it with her for a change," Nancy said, surprising herself with her tone. She didn't ordinarily raise her voice with Gavin.

He folded his arms over his chest. "Christ, Nance, how long do you plan to go on being a bitch?"

Nancy looked up from her magazine, considered her husband's anger. It was a rare enough thing, and it didn't do much to improve him—made the brackets around his mouth more pronounced, emphasized the vertical line between his brow.

"As long as it takes," she said.

Nancy had volunteered to run the Easter egg hunt with Catherine Desjardin. Champagne brunch would be served in Nancy's dining room. The kids would eat in the kitchen.

Nancy was expecting Catherine at seven on Easter morning, to help set up the borrowed folding chairs and hide the dozens of plastic eggs. At five-thirty Hailey stumbled into Nancy and Gavin's bedroom and threw up on the rug.

Nancy had been awake for an hour, lying on her back and squeezing her eyes shut; she'd been imagining that she was a stowaway on a ship, maybe a liner that had been put into service during World War II. She imagined lying in the dark on a narrow bunk—a top bunk—only inches from the ship's steel walls and ceiling, a storm on the ocean rocking the ship. All around her soldiers were losing their footing and falling, but she was well hidden and secure in her bunk.

The sound of Hailey's retching got Nancy's attention. She sat up and threw the covers back; Hailey rushed to her and pressed her soiled face into Nancy's nightgown.

"Shit, Hailey!" Nancy said, before she could stop herself. She pushed her daughter away with such force that Hailey sat down hard on the floor and started to wail.

"Get her, Gavin." Nancy gave her husband a jab in the side. She stepped over the puddle of vomit and shut herself in the bathroom, locking the door.

She ran a hot shower and threw her nightgown in the trash, twisting the top of the plastic trash bag closed against the smell.

In the shower she closed her eyes and let the water run down her face. She didn't want to be here. She didn't want to see anyone, didn't want to stand on her porch looking out at all the other beautiful homes on Cherry Blossom Court, waiting for everyone to come out on their porches and smile and wave and pretend that they all liked each other more than they actually did.

But she had a job to do. Nancy had been in their most intimate places, touched their private things. In some way she'd touched their emotions, too, the ones they never revealed. The rage. The disappointment. Now she carried those with her, mingling with her own; she was doing them a service they didn't deserve, that they would never even understand.

Eventually Nancy turned the water off. The shower enclosure was dense with steam, and she toweled off slowly. She hadn't used soap. She wasn't a lot cleaner than when she got into the shower, but soap was no good for the stains she carried anyway. Those, she knew, were permanent.

Copyright © 2011 by Sophie Littlefield