It hadn’t quit raining completely, but I wasn’t about to stay inside jotting my thoughts in a journal or go swanning around some bird garden. I needed to get out of this house. Pull off the tentacles of claustrophobia that had started to curl around me and do something proactive.
For starters, I needed to track down a knife. That morning in the shower, I’d suddenly remembered Heath kept a spare set of keys under the car, secured with a zip tie. There was no way the flimsy cuticle scissors in my makeup bag were going to slice through the zip tie, but a kitchen knife should do the trick. Once I got the key, I’d be able to hide in the car and check the iPad to see if Annalise Beard had come up with any answers for me.
What I would do after that, I was less sure of.
Maybe I’d just lay it all out on the table. Tell Heath that he didn’t need Dr. Cerny, because I knew what had really happened to him. Maybe it had been an abusive boyfriend of his mom’s, some guy who had tormented him physically or, God forbid, sexually. Whatever it was, I’d reassure him that it didn’t have to ruin his life, that we could handle anything together, privately, without interference from a therapist.
After we talked, after the truth was out, we’d get the hell off this mountain. Go home, back to the safety of our little house and our orderly lives. Back to the way things used to be.
In the kitchen I nicked a paring knife off the end of a magnetic rack, tucked it up the sleeve of my sweater, and headed back down the front hall to the porch. Outside, the air had taken on a noticeable chill, and everything shone, still slick with rain. The Baskens property was clotted with mountain laurels, oakleaf hydrangeas, and multiple varieties of pine, oak, and maple. The vegetation was thick and lush and heavy with droplets of water. I could hear the faint roar of the waterfall somewhere above me, but hidden from sight on this side of the house, it just sounded like a throaty rumble. I hugged my old, lumpy fisherman sweater around me and hoped the clean-washed air would blow away the thoughts squirreling around my mind.
Just beyond the house, I found where the cars were parked. There were five of them—an old silver Mercedes, a white minivan, a forest-green extended-cab Tacoma, Heath’s blue Nissan, and an ancient brown Buick. And at the end of the row sat a John Deere Gator.
I scooched into the bushes and ducked under the front bumper of the Nissan, settling onto a bed of soggy leaves. I planted the knife in the dirt and ran my hands all under the greasy grille, but didn’t find the key. I repeated the same thing under the rear of the car. No key there either. Dammit. Had Heath used the spare key recently and not mentioned it?
I palmed the knife and strolled away from the cars toward the backyard. A sad collection of damp chairs and tables was arranged around the mossy stone patio, including an old potting bench that was pushed up against the house. Behind the patio lay a grid of raised beds with the bedraggled remnants of a summer garden. Farther back, set against the line of trees, sat a small, unpainted outbuilding, its lopsided double doors chained closed. No bird garden that I could see.
I ambled to the structure, a barn from the looks of it. The trees ringed it, the tips of their overhanging branches, encased in dense caterpillar webs, reaching like a parent’s protective arms. The double doors were fastened with a large, rusty padlock. I fiddled with it a minute, then let it drop with a clank against the door, pressing one eye against the crack and waiting for my vision to adjust to the darkness. The only thing I could see was what looked like a bunch of old furniture draped with dingy sheets. A trio of white moths fluttered in the gloom.
Up at the house a door slammed, and instinctively, I flattened myself against the side of the barn. A woman, maybe in her sixties, stood on the back patio, dressed in hiking clothes—cargo pants and a thermal top and a bandana holding back her hair. Mrs. Sieffert. The woman who’d been watching us as Reggie Teague showed us to our rooms. The woman I’d seen fighting with her husband last night.
I held my breath, watching her. She tucked a water bottle into a small backpack, then slung it over her shoulders and took off at a brisk clip, crossing the yard and then the drive, moving in the direction of the mountain.
After a second or two, I pushed the knife between the cracked barn doors, hoping no one would venture in and find it on the floor. Then I followed her.
The trail was astonishingly steep. A twisted path—merely a rut in a few places—that seemed to climb forever. I stayed far enough back that Mrs. Sieffert wouldn’t hear me, which was easy enough to do, because apparently she was in excellent shape and covered an impressive amount of ground with a practiced stride. As for me, after three days of no running, I felt like my lungs had atrophied.
Trees crowded the path, blocking the sky and turning the light around me gray. The leaves were close to peak color—oaks and maples and dogwoods in blazing yellows and reds—with hemlocks and ferns and moss on the fallen trees providing the evergreen accents. The woods smelled faintly of smoke, from campers, most likely. The musty scent made me queasy.
I never could quite believe that people did that voluntarily—drove to the middle of nowhere, pitched a tent, and sat around a fire all night. The people who ran the girls’ ranch took the girls up to Amicalola Falls once a year for a while. I hadn’t gone, my first year there, and then after that they’d cancelled the trip indefinitely. I hadn’t felt like I was missing anything. Even now that I was an adult, the mountains spooked me, with their overhangs and gaps and twisting paths. You never knew what was just around the next corner.
After what seemed like forever, the land leveled out, and I stepped out onto a wide rock ledge. It, in turn, opened onto a stunning vista. The spreading ranges of southern Appalachia. A sea of mountains at my feet. The wind was fierce up top—it whipped my hair into my mouth and stung my eyes—but the sun was strong too, beaming some of that late Georgia heat, now unimpeded by the canopy of trees. I squinted one eye in the light. The woman was standing on the far side of the ledge, hands on her hips, gazing out over the view. She seemed perilously close to the edge.
Alarm filled me, and I had a nearly irresistible urge to run up and grab her by the arm.
I blew out my breath and forced myself to look away from her, out over the scene.
There was no single range that I could identify, no straight line of mountains like on a map. These mountains were different. They moved like ocean waves. An endless undulation of green and gray spreading out in every direction, hiding towns and houses and farms, rivers and creeks and waterfalls, between their slopes.
I turned from the view just as Mrs. Sieffert tipped up her water bottle and caught sight of me. Self-conscious, I raised my hand in greeting. She lowered the bottle and stared at me. I waited, snapping the band on my wrist nervously. She wasn’t exactly waving me over, but didn’t look annoyed either. Then, just as I’d made up my mind that I should head back down the mountain, she started toward me. I straightened, tucked my tangled hair behind my ears, but she stopped several yards away and shaded her eyes with one hand.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” I called out. “You seemed like you knew where you were going, so I followed. But I’ll go, if you’d like to be alone. I know Dr. Cerny—”
“It doesn’t matter what he says,” she broke in. “We can do what we want.” Then she grinned—a bright flash of white teeth that made her look at least twenty years younger. And she was beautiful. Definitely in her midsixties, with barely lined skin and light, arresting eyes. I wondered, suddenly, what her husband could’ve done to make her so sad.
“You thirsty?” She held up her bottle. “Take it. I have another.”
I approached her, accepted the bottle, and gulped down half of it in one swig. “Thank you. That’s one hell of a hike.”
“You’re not a hiker?”
“No. I’m a runner, actually. I mean, I run around a track for exercise. But I mostly sprint. So that”—I jutted my chin in the direction of the trail—“nearly killed me.”
“Yes, up here you find the mountain challenges you in ways you’d never expect. Anyway, you can’t set out with no provisions, not under any circumstances. It may not be the Rockies, but things can still go wrong really quickly up here.”
I averted my eyes from her penetrating gaze. Things going wrong on mountains wasn’t something I liked to think about.
“So you don’t think we’ll get in trouble for talking?” I asked.
“Not if we don’t tell.” She smiled again. “Your husband’s in his first session?”
“Fiancé. And yes, he is.”
“I’m Glenys, by the way,” she said.
“Nice to meet you, Daphne.”
I studied her, trying not to think about how I’d spied on her and her husband. How I’d watched them fight and her cry and how I’d defended my eavesdropping to Heath.
“It’s Sieffert, right?” I said to shut up my mind.
“Yes.”
She looked out over the panorama. “My husband’s doing his required reading. So I thought I would come up here. Collect my thoughts. It’s very peaceful up here. Wild, but peaceful.”
She pulled off her bandana and ran her fingers through her hair, and I sent her a sidelong glance. The woman seemed so calm, so together, like she had a handle on this place. I wondered if her marriage had been a rocky one for years or if she and her husband had just recently encountered a new, insurmountable problem that could only be solved with the help of therapy. Was it an affair? Some knotty financial issue? She looked so placid now, it was hard to believe I’d seen her sobbing last night. Maybe she had that much confidence in Cerny’s ability to fix her marriage.
“I hear you’re not meeting with him,” she said.
I cocked my head. “You heard that?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it, but you’re a bit of a celebrity, coming up here with your fiancé but refusing the therapy. Very rock-star of you.”
“Oh, well. Truthfully, I’m not a big believer in that kind of thing. I mean, not to say I haven’t read my share of ridiculous self-help books. You know, Chicken Soup for the Perpetually Panicked. But no, I guess I prefer a quick sprint around a track to talking about . . . all that.”
Her eyes sparked. “Interesting. So you’ve never had therapy?”
There was a lump in my throat suddenly, and it was difficult to talk around it. I coughed.
“I actually did meet with someone once, after an incident at the place where I lived.” The lump in my throat felt like a boulder now. “Anyway, I think I was supposed to see her, the doctor, I mean, a few more times after that, but for some reason it never happened. The system was overloaded, and things like that seemed to fall between the cracks a lot.”
A vague, non-answery answer, if there ever was one. But if Glenys had questions about what the hell I was talking about, she didn’t show it. She just nodded like it all made absolute sense to her.
“Have you?” I asked. “Had therapy, I mean? If you don’t mind me asking.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “Oh yes, I’ve seen therapists before. And you’re smart to be skeptical. A lot of them have no idea what they’re doing. Others go beyond incompetence and are actually destructive. It’s almost as if they became doctors in order to mess with people’s heads.” She ruffled her hair again. “The good ones, though”—she sighed—“the good ones are magic. It’s like, when you finally let go, release your problems to them, they take some of the pain away, and suddenly you’re lighter. Unencumbered and free to live your life.”
I considered this.
“Am I convincing you?” She laughed. I laughed too, then our eyes met.
“Is that what you’re trying to do, convince me?”
She waved her hand. “Goodness, no. You seem like a smart woman. Like someone who can certainly figure out what’s best for herself.”
Silence settled between us. Overhead, some kind of bird cried. Little did this woman, Glenys, know how far off the mark she was about me. I was not a smart woman. I was scared, floundering, terrified over the thought of losing Heath. But I liked that she said it, anyway. It reminded me of the way Barbara Silver used to talk to Lenny. That motherly tone—all at once protective and confident in her daughter’s infinite capabilities of resourcefulness. I liked the way it felt when it was directed at me.
“So you think Dr. Cerny is one of the good ones?” I said.
“I do. I saw him for the first time years ago. And I’ve never found anyone to be quite as perceptive as he is.”
I absorbed this.
“I lost my son,” she went on. “It was a long time ago, but it happened very suddenly. One day he was with me, and the next . . .” Her fingers pressed against her chest. “It was terribly difficult. It still is, if I’m being honest. Which it seems I am.” She smiled sadly at me.
I spoke before I had time to think. “I don’t mind. I’m glad you are.”
She nodded. “No one tells you that you never get over losing someone you love, do they?”
“No,” I said.
No, they didn’t.
She sobered. “So. I came here to release some of the pain. To see if there was a way forward for me.”
“And your husband.”
“Yes. That’s right.” She regarded me. “I’m sure your issues are different. But you must want the same thing for you and your fiancé.”
“I do, but it sounds like a fairy tale. Like something that can’t even be real.” I glanced away, feeling tears press against my eyes.
“It’s real.” She said the next thing in such a matter-of-fact tone that it didn’t even surprise me. “Why are you here, Daphne? It’s not just for your fiancé, is it?”
I shook my head. The tears had sprung up, in spite of my best efforts.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
I sniffled and dabbed at my eyes. “Ah, well. I’m probably due.”
She seemed to want to say something else but, in the end, turned back to the overlook. Grateful to escape her scrutiny, I sniffed mightily and wiped my running nose on my sleeve.
“Hey,” she suddenly said. “A hawk.” She pointed, and I looked but didn’t see anything. “He just dove into the trees. He must’ve seen something tasty down there.”
We stared at the empty sky for what seemed like a very long time. I wanted to speak, to say something to break the silence, but I was afraid of what would come out of my mouth. It had become a physical sensation now, a painful cramping all the way down in the lowest part of my stomach, the way the memories pressed against my insides. I realized my hand had moved up to my neck. That I was digging my nails into it.
After a while, Glenys turned to me. “I understand why you might not want to talk to a doctor,” she said quietly. “Especially one like Cerny. But—would you consider talking to someone else?”
I stared at her, not understanding.
“What I mean is, you could talk to me. I’m not a professional, I know, but maybe that would be easier for you. To talk to a regular person first, before you go all the way with a doctor.” She smiled. “That came out wrong.”
I smiled back.
“I’m a pretty decent listener. You could consider it a practice run.”
I shook my head and thought of Heath. “I appreciate the offer. I really do. But it would be breaking the rules.”
“Technically, yes, but we already seem to be doing that.”
“I don’t know.”
She smiled. “Oh well. Just a thought.”
She moved to the edge of the cliff, then beckoned me over. “Look. He’s back.” She pointed at the hawk, wings spread, lazily looping above us.
“Oh my God. He’s gorgeous.”
“See how he’s not flapping his wings? He’s soaring. Using air currents to hold him up. He can stay up there for hours, wheeling and watching for prey, without even trying.”
I closed my eyes, feeling the sun and the dizzying height and the wind on my face. Picturing the wheeling hawk. I yearned to be like that, weightless and free, circling above the earth. Above my problems and my fear. And somehow this woman, this absolute stranger, seemed to understand that. I wasn’t fooling her. So what was I fighting against?
I snapped open my eyes. Filled my lungs with the brisk mountain air.
“My mom was a prostitute,” I said quickly, before I could change my mind. “When I was eleven, the state of Georgia transferred custody of me to a girls’ ranch.”