Saturday, October 13
Six Days Before
My fiancé, Heath Beck, sat all the way at the back of the crowded bar. I could see his reflection in the mirror behind the liquor bottles. Dark hair hiding his eyes. Shoulders hunched over the glossy oak slab, tipping a glass of brown liquid into his mouth. Seeing him like this felt artificial, like a scene out of a movie. This was the last place Heath would come—this bar on East Howard—hence the last place I thought to try. And yet here he was.
My know-it-all brain helpfully told me why.
He’s hiding from you.
I stood just inside the door, my legs gone wobbly beneath me. From dinnertime to just past midnight, I’d been driving around the city, checking out his favorite haunts, fueled by surging adrenaline. Now that I’d found him, the chemical was receding, leaving my limbs trembling and weak.
The bar was called Divine. Major branding irony, as the place was a discordant hell of shouted conversation, clinking glasses, and migraine-inducing techno-pop. The clientele—youngish, hollow-eyed metro-Atlanta professionals—milled around, sizing each other up for future business deals or a late-Saturday-night hit-and-run.
Heath hated this place. At least, that’s what he’d always said.
I pressed back against the wall and eyed him. Like always, twin bolts of disbelief and desire shot through me. Desire for his jaw-dropping handsomeness. Disbelief that he was truly mine. It always hurt, just a little bit, to look at Heath. There was a woman on the stool next to him. Young, with dreadlocked hair gathered into a tangled bun. She was wearing a transparent peasant blouse with no bra, but Heath didn’t seem to be the least bit aware of her. No surprise there. He wasn’t a cheater, not even a flirt. He’d never given me a reason to worry, not in that respect.
Dreadlocks grabbed her purse, slid off the stool, and walked toward the bathroom at the back of the bar, giving me my opening. I wanted to rush up to him, hug him, and smother him with kisses, but resisted the urge. This wasn’t a happy reunion; it was a confrontation. I needed to know what the hell was going on.
The nightmares had started a couple of months ago. They’d wrecked the bliss of our engagement, exhausted us and made us tiptoe around each other. And then came that first night when Heath didn’t return home from work. It hurt, of course. But more than that, it scared me. What did he need that I couldn’t give him? What was he doing that he couldn’t share? As it turned out, it was the first night of many. A new normal for us.
I could hear Lenny now, drawling in her posh, old-money Buckhead accent. This is why you give a man at least five years before you let him put a ring on it. She was my best friend, my partner in our corporate design business, and she was always looking out for my interests, but when it came to Heath, I took her advice with a whole saltshaker. She didn’t have the full story. She assumed I’d fallen fast and hard for Heath because he looked like he’d taken a wrong turn out of a Greek myth. She had no clue, but it wasn’t her fault. It was because I’d never told her. I’d never uttered the two words that would’ve explained everything: soul mate.
I couldn’t have said those words and expected her to keep a straight face. Nobody said old-fashioned stuff like that anymore. It made people gag and roll their eyes and pity your naïveté. The idea of a soul mate was a cliché. An invitation for mockery—even if it happened to be true. Even if it was the only term that came close to describing the connection you felt.
Somehow Heath and I had short-circuited the customary “Show me yours, I’ll show you mine” dating process and arrived at a perfect understanding of each other. “I have a story,” he’d said on our second date at a cramped Italian restaurant in an out-of-the-way corner of the Westside. “A long, sad story that I don’t particularly enjoy talking about.”
I nodded. You and me both.
He sighed. Took my hand. “It stars a single mom, some of her particularly unfriendly boyfriends. She passes away. There are a lot of nights sleeping on friends’ couches.” He looked down at our interwoven fingers. “The thing is, I don’t believe therapy is the answer. I don’t believe you find strength in talking about your past. I think you find it in a person. The right person.”
I was mesmerized by the elusive logic of it all. Crazy how, in one instant, everything you could never express can suddenly make perfect sense. I wondered if I was the right person, if he was mine. And then he jutted his chin at the speaker above us, which had been playing a steady stream of Sinatra all evening. Now “Why Can’t You Behave?” slithered through the patio.
“This guy,” he said. “He’s always made my skin crawl.”
I laughed. I hated Sinatra too.
With that, loving another person became the most effortless, beautiful thing I’d ever experienced. Our silences were more precious to me than all the conversations I’d ever had with other men. Even after nine months together and getting engaged, Heath knew very little about me. But he knew the things that mattered. He knew I loved him. That I would never leave him. Not even with the nightmares, or the distance, or this ghosting routine he was putting me through. Not ever. Maybe it sounded desperate, but I had been searching my whole life for something I didn’t know existed. Now that I had it, now that I had him, there was no way in hell I was going to let it go.
Dread, like warm bile, pushed up my throat as I threaded through the crushing tide of people in Divine. I slid onto the vinyl stool the dreadlocked woman had deserted, and Heath straightened, a look of surprise on his face.
“Daphne.” He’d been playing with a white business card, rotating it between his fingers, but now he held it still, poised like a flag.
I fought the urge to put my hand against his cheek. “Hi.”
On the other side of Heath, a knot of girls in tight club dresses and impossible shoes not-so-subtly checked him out. I wondered how long they’d been standing there. Posing. Baiting him.
One, in particular, was really locked in. She had long honey-colored, flat-ironed hair, beige lipstick, and bright-blue eyelash extensions. College student, probably. A baby. I almost wished I could pull her aside:
Stay one night with him, I dare you. See how it feels to wake up to him screaming and ripping the sheets off the bed. Trying to climb through the window. Breaking the wedding dishes you picked out together at Crate and Barrel. See how sexy that shit is.
I hung my purse on the hook by my knees, caught her eye, then pushed up my glasses with my middle finger. Not super classy, but you know what they say—you can take the girl out of the Division of Family and Child Services . . .
Blue Eyelashes tossed her stick-straight tresses and turned back to her posse. She said something that made them all titter, then they aimed a collective sneer at me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the bartender chuckling to himself.
“I’m sorry I made you come looking for me,” Heath said.
I met his eyes. “Please don’t apologize. Not if you don’t mean it. Not if you’re just going to keep doing this every night.”
He started to say something but stopped, and in the sudden flash of light from the TV screens above the bar, I realized his eyes were red and damp.
“Not here,” I said quickly. “We can talk at home.”
“No. I can’t go home, not yet. I’m just . . .” He shook his head. “I need to tell you what’s going on. You’ve been really patient, and you deserve an explanation.”
I exhaled evenly. This was going to get tricky, I could feel it. Yes, I wanted Heath home, and yes, I wanted the nightmares to stop, and yes, maybe even an explanation from him would be just the thing to get us over this rough patch. But talking led to other, unwelcome things. Talking led to openness. To heartfelt statements, honesty, and confessions. Dangerous and unknown places. Places that terrified me.
Talking, for me, wasn’t an option.
Heath rubbed his eyes, and in the seconds he wasn’t looking, I picked four cashews out of a nearby bowl. I clenched them in my hand under the bar, feeling their reassuring kidney shape against my skin. Immediately the electrical storm in my head cleared, and I felt calmer.
I drew in a breath and let it out slowly. The counting was residue from my ranch years. A weird habit—or tic, whatever—that so far I’d been able to keep from Heath. Back then, it was always about food—how much was available and would I have access to it when I needed it. Now the counting alone seemed to settle my nerves. It always had to be an even number, preferably four. Four cashews, four stones, four pens. I knew it wasn’t normal—and sometimes I could curtail it with a quick snap of the elastic hair band I kept around my wrist, hidden among a stack of bracelets—but it did make me feel better. Particularly in moments of high stress. Like this one.
“Do you remember what you told me when we first met?” he asked. “About closure?”
I swallowed. Of course I remembered. It was the same thing I had said to every new friend I made, every guy who’d ever pressed me to talk about my past.
“You said closure was an illusion,” he went on. “You said we can’t go back. We can’t fix things. And trying only brings more pain.”
I waited. There was a but coming.
“I so admired you for believing that. For living it out every day. I wanted to be like you. I tried and tried, Daphne, but I’m not as strong as you. I want closure. I need it . . . and I need help finding it.”
He pushed the business card he’d been holding at me. I stared at it numbly.
Dr. Matthew Cerny, PhD, the elegant font read. Baskens Institute. Dunfree, Georgia.
“He’s a therapist. A psychologist,” Heath said.
A therapist. Someone whose sole job it was to make you tell your secrets. To poke and prod at you until you voluntarily gave up information that ruined your life—or someone else’s. I had opened up to a psychologist once, and it had torn a good man’s world apart. Torn mine apart too. The dread I’d been swallowing since I set foot in this place snaked up into my chest and lodged there.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“You said you didn’t believe in therapy.” My voice was faint.
“I didn’t, but maybe I’ve been wrong. Too stubborn to admit it’s the one thing I need.”
“Okay.” I hesitated. “It seems like a big shift, all of a sudden. But even if you’ve changed your mind, there’s no reason to go all the way to Dunfree. That’s at least three hours away, right? Up in the mountains? I’m sure you can find a doctor down here in Atlanta. Somebody who can help you get closure.”
The bartender pointed at me, his eyebrows raised, but I shook my head, and he turned back to the bar. I squeezed the cashews.
“I’m sure there are plenty of good doctors around here,” I barreled on. “Hell, Lenny could probably recommend a battalion of them, knowing her crazy family.” I touched his arm. “Growing up the way you did. Your mom and her boyfriends. Maybe that’s why you’re having the nightmares—”
“Heath. Dude.”
A young man in a badly tailored blue suit had materialized behind us. A basketball buddy or an old college friend. I didn’t recognize him. He clapped Heath’s shoulder and thrust out a hand. “Where’ve you been?”
Heath swiveled to face the guy. “Busy, man. Working. I’ve got a new thing.”
I kept my back to them and let out a whoosh of breath, half listening to Heath describe the warehouses on the outskirts of Cabbagetown that he was developing into condos. Heath didn’t bother to introduce us, rightly sensing I was in no mood to chat up strangers, and for that, I was grateful. I signaled the bartender. He braced his arms against the bar’s edge, and in a low voice I made my request. He raised his eyebrows at my credit card but took it. When he moved back down the bar, Heath was sending the guy in the suit on his way.
“So the therapist,” he said.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the bartender was talking to the girl with beige lipstick. Her gaze slid over to me once, then back to him.
“He’s based near Dunfree, up on the mountain. It’s an old mansion that he uses as a relationship-research lab and retreat center,” Heath said. “He’s one of the best in his field, been leading these retreats for over a decade. He observes how couples interact—he studies their body language, their conversation, all with hidden cameras in their suites.”
“Seriously?”
“He gets amazing results, apparently. And he’ll be able to observe me while I sleep. It’s like a total break from reality up there. Very intense—they don’t let you have cell phones or computers.”
I just shook my head.
“People from all over the world want to see Dr. Cerny. Baskens is really hard to get into.”
“But you did.”
“A guy in the office told me about him, and he must’ve put in a good word, because I called today and got the green light.”
I cleared my throat. “You know, you could just talk to me.”
He smiled gently. “Interesting you should say that.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I told you all about my past, but you keep yours hidden, it would throw off our balance. The perfect, precarious balance that’s made this thing work so well. Don’t you agree?”
I didn’t answer. It was the first time Heath had ever referred to my past—and with such confidence that I wouldn’t want to talk about it, even if he opened up about his. It was a new feeling—like he was indulging my insecurities, like he was a parent whose child was convinced there was a monster hiding under the bed.
“I wouldn’t put this on you anyway, Daphne. Dr. Cerny’s a professional. He’s done everything—couples’ therapy, relationship research, dream therapy too. He does this thing called EMDR. Eye Movement . . . um, something something? It’s a technique they use to help people remember past events. Childhood trauma.”
A trickle of sweat ran down the back of my neck; I rolled the cashews inside my palm.
“I’d like to go there,” he said. “To the Baskens Institute, to meet with him. But”—he hesitated—“it’s seven days.”
My skin goosepimpled. “What’s seven days?”
The whole bar broke into a round of barking in response to the game playing over our heads, and I leaned closer to Heath.
“The retreat,” he said louder. “Dr. Cerny’s retreat for couples. It starts Monday morning and ends Sunday. When I called, he suggested we should register for it. That it might be a really good idea, for the both of us.”
“But if it’s you that wants therapy, why do we need a couples’ retreat?”
“He suggested since we’re going to be married, whatever I had to deal with involved you too—”
“But it doesn’t,” I blurted. “And, frankly, I don’t buy that the only solution to what we’re dealing with is a weeklong couples’ getaway. How much is this thing, anyway? I’m sure it’s not cheap. I mean, think about it. This guy’s a salesman. He’s selling a product.”
“That’s a cynical way to look at it.”
“Heath. You don’t need to sit in some airless office and talk for seven days straight so some arrogant, money-hungry PhD can tell you why you’re having nightmares. I mean, there’s a billion-dollar self-help-book industry out there, probably scores of books on why we dream what we dream. And not that you want to hear this, but you could just take a knockout pill to help you sleep better. I mean, they’re not going to make you turn in your man card for taking a fucking Ambien.”
I was babbling now, but he only watched me, his eyes patient. The look filled me with more fear than everything he’d just said.
“Look—” I started again.
He put out a hand. “Listen to me for a second. Dr. Cerny said if you weren’t comfortable meeting with him, that it would be fine. You could still come up, be with me when I’m not in sessions, spend time around the institute. The house is really old, and I hear the grounds are beautiful. You could just rest. Relax. Would a week off kill you?”
“No.” I sounded petulant even to myself.
“He said there was a possibility you could offer some insight into the nightmares, too, if you were open.” He looked down at his drink. “If you don’t want to, that’s your choice, of course. But, Daphne, here’s what I’m saying. Whether you go with me or not, I’m leaving tomorrow.”
This was the point where he was supposed to say he was kidding—that all this therapy talk was just a huge joke, and really what he wanted to do was go home with me so we could make love and then fall asleep in each other’s arms. But he wasn’t saying that. He was just staring down at that stupid business card lying between us like it was some kind of magic key, given to him by a fairy godmother. The promise of a better life. I already felt like I was being left behind.
He was very still. “I don’t want to do anything without you. But if we don’t figure this out, Daphne, I don’t . . . I don’t know what’s going to happen to us.”
“So you’re saying . . .” My voice was shaking. “You’re saying it’s the therapy or we’re finished?”
He cleared his throat carefully. “What I’m saying—”
“Heath—”
“—is I don’t know if the way we’re living—the way we’ve chosen to relate to each other—is sustainable for the long term.”
These weren’t his words. They were something a therapist had said to him and now he was repeating back to me. But it didn’t matter where the words had come from. It was clear—Heath wanted to deal with his past. Bring it out into the open. And then—as surely as thunder followed lightning—mine would be next.
The dark, crowded bar felt airless. Like it was gradually shrinking and I would be crushed if I stayed. I lifted a finger to the bartender. “He’ll have another one.” I dropped my credit card back in my purse, then faced Heath. “Drink it slow. When you’re done, come home, and we’ll talk. And whatever you do”—I slipped off the stool—“never, ever make me come looking for you again.”
As I pushed my way back through the crowd, a cross between Joan of Arc and Beyoncé, I burned with humiliation and defiance. I could feel Heath’s eyes on me. And the eyes of the blue-lashed girl. I hadn’t been able to resist striking first. Paying her tab for the night, and thus sending her an unmistakable message: Don’t mess with me; don’t mess with my man.
If the system had taught me one thing, it was that acting tough was a perfectly good substitute for actually being tough. Just like this bar and the people drinking away their Saturday night in it. Heath’s basketball buddy, the girl with the blue eyelashes, the laughing bartender. We all acted like a bunch of badasses with nothing to lose. But I knew it was a lie.
I was a lie. I was weak and I was scared. Losing Heath, losing my soul mate, would be like watching a sand castle that had taken twenty-eight painstaking years to construct be swept away by a single wave. It would end me, if not in body, then in spirit.
I couldn’t let that happen.
Outside the bar, I found a trash can and watched the cashews fall from my hand. I wiped the salt off my palms and stood there for a minute, thinking over my plan.
I would go with Heath to the retreat. Play the supportive fiancée while he met with the doctor and searched for his elusive closure. And in the meantime, I would do some digging of my own, try to get out in front of the situation. If I could somehow figure out what was causing Heath’s nightmares before this Dr. Cerny did, maybe I could cut this process short and get us home where we belonged. Get everything back to normal.
I did have something to start with, something I hadn’t given much attention to when it first happened because I’d been so rattled. Now I realized it was a clue, if only just a seed of one. Words Heath had said during one of his bad dreams, his voice raw and ragged with terror.
Break the mirror, he had chanted over and over until it reverberated in my brain. Break the mirror.