But they were at that point, even then. The grooves of anger and resentment were dug so deep, words weren’t even necessary to start an argument. Just a glance could do it. Even things unsaid were as loud as a shout.
“Jackson,” she called. “Be careful.”
The swing chain, rusty where it wrapped around the branch, was wearing a deep gash in the wood. It looked as though it could break apart at any moment.
“He’s fine,” said Wolf. Just the shade of annoyance, nothing more, but it evoked all the criticisms he leveled at her. She was too protective, hovering, coddling. You’re turning him into a pussy, he’d spat at her during one argument. Which managed to be vulgar and misogynistic and unfair to both her and Jackson all at once. He’d apologized for saying it, but she hadn’t forgotten it. Because, according to Wolf, she never forgot anything, and she never forgave.
The house was beautiful, too. A log cabin, with big plush furniture, a fireplace and chef’s kitchen, a sleeping loft for the kids, a beautiful master bedroom for them, with a hot tub outside sliding doors, looking out onto a mountain vista beyond the lake. They swam all afternoon. Jackson and Wolf tried fishing but didn’t catch anything. They’d bought groceries in town, grilled burgers that night.
After the kids fell into an exhausted sleep, Merri and Wolf made love in the big king bed. And it was still there, all the heat they’d had the first time. She loved the look of him, his lean body, his wild tangle of dark curls, the curve of the strong but not huge muscles on his arms. The caramel color of his skin, the stubble on his jaw. Her body always responded to his; he could always make her his. They’d made promises for this trip. They both had skins they wanted to shed and things they wanted to give up. They’d each made big mistakes, done damage to themselves, to each other, to their marriage. But the love was there, something deep and true between them. It was enough to get them through the mire of their problems. Merri believed that then.
She fell asleep that night thinking how funny it was that in a bad (was it bad?) marriage, vitriol and intimacy lay side by side like the stripes on a tiger. As the stripes on a tiger. Maybe, she thought, there was still hope for them. They’d come through their struggles, stronger and better than they were before. She’d actually thought that back then.
That night seemed like a lifetime ago, though it hadn’t even been a year. The navigation computer told her to turn left now and she did so.
“Your destination is on the right in one-tenth of a mile.”
She drifted down the pretty block until she saw the address on a mailbox up ahead. She slowed in front of a gorgeous Victorian house that sat beneath the shade of a big oak tree. Leaves drifted onto the hood of her car in the wind. The day was overcast, neither sunny nor especially gray. She crept closer, heart thumping. This was it; she knew this. It was her last chance. Far worse than that, it was Abbey’s. Desperation clawed at her insides; she was bleeding from it.
It might be time to let go, her shrink had advised.
Let go? she’d asked. She must have stared, incredulous. Let my daughter go?
When we’ve reached the end of our resources, we have no choice, do we?
I haven’t reached the end of my resources, she answered. I’m still breathing.
She never went back to see that doctor; he was her third. Wolf thought that they were all quacks, and he hadn’t seen anyone. He was into dulling pain, not exploring it. He wasn’t doing any better than she was. But he was, she could see, letting go.
“You have arrived at your destination,” the navigation computer announced in its impassive way. It couldn’t care less whether you’d arrived at an amusement park or a funeral home or the last stop on a futile search to find your missing child.
Merri hadn’t made an appointment with the man she’d come to see, hadn’t even called. She’d read about him and his partner on the internet, and the idea of them filled her with a swelling, irrational hope. She didn’t want to be turned away on the phone. Wolf used to love that about her; that she never gave up. It was just one of the many things he disliked now. Christ, Merri, it’s over. She’s gone. Of course, he’d said that when he was drunk and ended up weeping into her lap for the next hour. He wanted to move away from pain. But that was not an option for Merri.
She’d die before she gave up on Abbey.
Merri climbed out of the car and stood in the cool fall air for a moment. Adrenaline pulsed through her, putting butterflies in her stomach, causing her hands to quake. Then she walked up the drive and onto a narrow, shrub-lined path that led off to the side yard, finally coming to a structure that looked like it adjoined to the main house. She read the plaque mounted on the wall: JONES COOPER PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS.
Please God, she prayed. It was just something to say to herself. Merri believed in nothing except her own iron will. Please. She pushed through the gate.
THREE