them to know that someone survived extreme trauma and came out the other side, healthy (ish) and whole (sort of). Naturally, they don’t know the whole story.
“I did,” I tell her. “For a long time after, I didn’t understand how I could live a life.”
“Did you try to kill yourself?”
“No,” I say. “Because of my parents, at first—my mom especially. Later, for other reasons.”
She bows her head. “What other reasons?”
I shrug. Here I must veer from the truth a little. “For all the reasons people don’t want to die. Life has promise. Love. The joy of just being alive—food, music, the sky, the stars. You’ll get there, too.”
A thirst for revenge. An idea that I can help people with what I’ve learned. The desire to cut what cancer I can from this sick world.
“I miss him so much,” she says. “I think a part of me died when my dad did. Maybe too much of me.”
I know what she means.
“We all lose a part of ourselves when someone we love dies,” I tell her. “But we can heal and go on living. We can live well, love, experience joy, and it doesn’t mean that we didn’t love the person we lost. It means we loved them so well, that we do what we know they’d want us to do. Live and be happy.”
“I know he’d want that.” Her voice is just a whisper.
“Of course he would.”
“You’re such a hypocrite,” says Tess from over by the towering vase of fresh hydrangeas. Today she’s dressed in faded jeans and a peasant blouse, her gold hair flowing. “You should start taking your own advice.”
I ignore her.
Later, the day has grown cold and a deep gray. I have been carrying that heavy cloak I always don after. I feel like I’m standing on the edge of an abyss, and that howling empty place, it calls to him, hums a deep B-flat, that hypnotic note of the universe. I could live this life of study, of helping people over the void of despair and into the light. I could maybe even love someone other than you, Lara. But increasingly, he’s in charge. His desires and appetites attracting more and more of my attention.
I want to go home. But instead I’m going to run an errand. I get in my sensible, affordable car and drive. He never stops thinking about you.
“Can’t you just let her live her life?” asks Tess from the back seat. “She chose Greg. Accept it.”
I can accept it. Of course I can.
It’s him.
He’s the one who can’t let go.
TWENTY
Rain’s head pounded, her limbs felt filled with sand. How was it possible to be so goddamn tired all the time?
The bed beside her was empty. Greg had tossed and turned until late, finally deciding to go sleep in the guest room down the hall. She’d pretended to be asleep when she heard him leave. He was angry with her still. Worried, too. She didn’t blame him.
Then she lay awake thinking, her thoughts a manic tumble—the dilapidated house with its door ajar (Could she get permission to go inside? Could she handle it?); the strange old woman (Who was she? Why had she run away from Rain?); how she’d failed her daughter (What kind of mother leaves her child alone in a car? In that place, no less?); about Eugene Kreskey (a monster, a victim, her worst nightmare); about Tess and Hank (Did you ever have friends like that again? Gillian probably came closest. But no, there was a love there that gets lost when adulthood sets in). How many hours had she spent just turning it all over in her head?
You got lucky, said the ER nurse. She’d heard that phrase too many times. Lily had a large local reaction to the sting. But it wasn’t life-threatening.
The older woman had dropped a hand on Rain’s shoulder.
“Take it easy on yourself,” she advised. Rain looked up into a set of velvety eyes, the kind gaze of a woman who’d seen it all. “You can’t be watching every second.”
Can’t you, though? Rain wondered. Shouldn’t you be watching every single fucking second? Because that’s all it takes. One second.
She heard a rustling on the monitor, something strange that caused her to sit up, then a soft cough.
“Good morning, sunshine.” Greg. “Let’s see that boo-boo.”
Lily’s voice was soft, an inquiring coo.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, indulgent, sweet. “You’re a tough girl, just like your mommy. Let Daddy get your diaper and your breakfast. Mommy could use a