TWENTY-EIGHT
Sweetwater, Virginia
June 3, 2017
Wade pulled up Christy-Lynn’s number once more and hit “Send.” His last three calls had gone straight to voice mail, and he’d had to settle for leaving a message, asking only half jokingly if she was upside down in a ditch somewhere. He was surprised this time when she actually picked up.
“Hey, it’s Wade. I thought you were going to call me.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I just wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.”
“You went back, I take it?”
“I had to.”
“If you say so.”
“Please don’t be snarky.”
Wade instantly regretted the remark. She sounded as if she’d been crying, her voice dull and ragged. “Sorry. Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t think I can. Not now. I just walked through the door, and I’ve been driving all day. I’m beat.”
“Sounds like you need a meal and a good night’s sleep.”
“There isn’t much in the house, and there’s no way I’m going back out. I’ll settle for a hot bath and good night’s sleep. That work for you?”
“Right, I get it. I’m nagging. Go then. Get in your tub.”
Forty-five minutes later, Wade found himself standing on Christy-Lynn’s front porch with a bag of takeout from Lotus. He’d be lucky if she didn’t dump it over his head, but he was willing to risk it. She had looked a bit frayed around the edges the day she left, and the last forty-eight hours couldn’t have done her much good.
He was still trying to come up with an excuse for popping by unannounced when she opened the door, wearing a white terry-cloth robe cinched at the waist. Her hair was wet, and she smelled of shampoo, like rainwater or the sea.
“Hello,” he said thickly. “How was your bath?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I brought food.” He held out the bag as proof. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I got an assortment. There’s lo mein, shrimp and vegetables, and cashew chicken. Oh, and soup. You sounded like you needed soup. It’s on top, and it’s hot, so be careful.”
She took the bag, looking dumbfounded. “There’s ten pounds of food here.”
He smiled sheepishly. “Leftovers.”
“Wait,” she said as he turned to go. “You’re not staying?”
“I’m not here to invite myself to dinner. I just wanted to make sure you got some food.”
“I’m inviting you. Just watch where you walk. It’s kind of a mess in here.”
Wade navigated a maze of cardboard boxes as he followed her through the living room. The place looked like a warehouse, jammed with furniture, knickknacks, and half-packed cartons. “What’s going on? Are you moving?”
“Redecorating. Carol was in such a hurry to get to Florida she left almost everything behind, and with the store opening, I haven’t had time to get through it all. I’ve been packing most of it up for Goodwill, which explains the boxes. I’m thinking about updating the bathroom and kitchen. I want to hang on to the vintage feel. Missy thinks her cousin Hank might be able to handle it. There’s just so much to get rid of first.”
Any first-year reporter could see what was going on. She was keeping up a steady stream of conversation, moving around the room so she wouldn’t have to look at him. It was classic avoidance, and after the last two days, she had a right to that. Tonight, they’d talk about what she wanted to talk about.
He peered into one of the nearby boxes, eyeing chipped plates and battered pots and pans. “I know about having to get rid of stuff. When I moved to the cabin, there was a ton of my grandfather’s stuff to clear out. It was weird, sorting through broken mugs and stray gloves, wondering when he thought he was ever going to need any of it.”
Christy-Lynn was unpacking the takeout containers, removing their cardboard lids and setting them out on the table. She paused to look at him. “Maybe it wasn’t about needing them. People hold on to all kinds of things, silly things, even broken things, because of the memories attached to them.”
Wade studied her as he digested her words. In the kitchen light, her face looked puffy and mottled, her eyes raw and red-rimmed. She’d been crying, for hours by the look of it. “I’m more of a clean break guy myself. People like to dig up the bodies, anguish over mistakes. What’s the point? The water’s poisoned. There’s no cleaning it up after it’s done. The only thing you can do is walk away—and set fire to your bridges.”
Christy-Lynn stared at him, clearly mystified. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”
Wade shrugged the question off. As usual, he’d said too much. Not everyone saw the merits of a scorched-earth policy. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he said finally. “It’s just an expression. A work thing.”
It was a lie, of course. In leaving New York, he’d set fire to more than just his career. He really had tried to make it work with Simone, though in retrospect he couldn’t imagine why he’d bothered. He had shelved his writing and knuckled down at Review, earning a shelf full of awards and all the perks that came with them. For a while, he had even convinced himself they were happy. But neither of them had been able to sustain the illusion. The truth was a happy ending had never been in the cards.
An awkward silence fell as they swapped containers and spooned out portions, the quiet heavy with unasked questions and surreptitious glances. Finally, Christy-Lynn set down her fork and looked at him across the table. “This isn’t working, is it?”
Wade looked up from his eggroll. “What?”
“Us not talking.”
“I’d be lying if I said I’m not worried about you.”
Her face shuttered suddenly, as if she had tucked her emotions away for safekeeping. “You don’t need to be. I found out what I wanted to know, and now I’m going to get on with my life, like everyone’s been telling me to.”
Her robe had loosened, offering a glimpse of pale shoulder. He forced his eyes back to her face. “Why don’t I believe you?”
She shot him an unconvincing smile, waving a vague hand at the mess in the living room. “Look around. This is what getting on with my life looks like.”
“That’s the external stuff. I’m talking about the internal stuff.”
Christy-Lynn picked up her fork again, eyes on her plate as she toyed with a sliver of carrot. “I’m working on that part. The last two days have been . . . hard, but I finally got all the whens and wheres. Now I can move on.”
“What about the whys?”
She shrugged. “He was a man. She was a woman. The why speaks for itself.”
“And the girl? Iris?”
“Inevitable, I suppose.”
He looked at her, not bothering to hide his skepticism. “So that’s it? You’re ready to just . . . move on?”
“Yes.”
Wade raked a hand through his hair, wondering who she was trying to convince, herself or him. “Look, I know I’ve been telling you to stop torturing yourself, but I didn’t mean like this. You can’t just pretend you don’t have feelings if you do.”
Christy-Lynn tossed down her fork with a clatter. “Of course I have feelings. But what am I supposed to do with them? There’s no way to walk it back, is there? No way to put the genie back in the bottle. No one to even rail at since Stephen’s dead. There’s just this little girl with no parents!”
The words rang sharply off the walls of the kitchen, shimmering hotly in the small space. Wade watched her, startled and uncertain as she went very still, head lowered, a hand pressed to her mouth. She was shaking visibly. Eventually, she opened her eyes. He pushed back his plate and folded his arms on the edge of the table.
“What happened today, Christy-Lynn?”
Her eyes slid away, looking everywhere but at him. “He wanted her,” she said softly.
“Honey?”