Grief,” Ellie Tyler spoke about recovering from the drowning death of her toddler. She was candid about her mental health and the need to destigmatize mental illness and the addictions that arose around it. And yet . . . the stigma dogged her.
Next to the pile of news stories was a file folder titled ELLIE. It had come from a PI who had also quizzed Doug Tyler’s new wife. Another file folder was titled MARTIN.
The dot began to move. They were leaving the airport.
THEN
ELLIE
Over one year ago, October 25. Jarrawarra Bay, New South Wales.
The small prop plane dropped as it slammed into another wall of turbulence. I gritted my teeth and clutched the armrests. I was flying on my own to meet Martin, who’d gone ahead of me three months ago, once our financing had come through. I’d been traveling for more than thirty-six hours over several time zones, and I felt sick and dehydrated from too much wine and too many lorazepam pills taken in an effort to quell my anxiety. The air vent above my seat was not working. And now the storm. And the plane was too tiny. My claustrophobia was tilting toward panic.
The plane plummeted again. We were beginning a descent. Something fell with a dull thud at the back of the cabin. The object rolled down the aisle and came into view—a bottle of water. My thirst was suddenly fierce. The bottle was out of my reach. I thought of the Ativan in my purse. Another bump and rattle and the wings rocked. The clouds seemed closer. Denser. Darker. Lightning jagged through the blackness. I lunged for my purse under my seat. Hands shaking, I hurriedly rummaged in a side pocket, found the container, and popped a sublingual pill under my tongue. I closed my eyes and put my head back, waiting for it to dissolve. Sweat pearled on my brow and dribbled down the sides of my face. I struggled to breathe in, counting to four before I exhaled slowly, purposefully. A soft fuzz gradually began to soothe the sharp edges of my panic. I took in a deeper breath, exhaled more slowly. Calm began to wrap around me like the familiar arms of an old friend. I yielded to the drug. My muscles softened. My mind eased, and to help further distract myself I glanced around at the other passengers. They seemed unperturbed.
Most were casually dressed—shorts, flip-flops, T-shirts, summer dresses, jeans. A couple in more businesslike attire. All deeply tanned. Some more weathered, sun-spotted, sun-bleached than others. A range of ages. They fit with Martin’s description of Jarrawarra Bay—a rural seaside hub, historically a center for local sawmill operations and wattlebark production, dairy, beef, and oyster farming, as well as “epic” deep-sea fishing. He’d said the locals either worked in one of these industries or fell into a camp of telecommuters, retirees, holidaymakers, and second-home owners. Even Nicole Kidman, he’d claimed, owned an estate just north of Jarrawarra in one of those secluded, scalloped bays where lilly pilly trees grew tall and attracted flocks of lorikeets in startling rainbow colors.
Despite my malaise, or because of my meds, happiness began to bloom softly in my chest at the thought of being with Martin again, at seeing the newly constructed house he’d bought for us on the banks of the Bonny River. He’d sent photos. It looked spectacular. The house was an architecturally designed double story with lots of glass and clean lines, and there was a boathouse with a dock, he’d said, which would be ideal as my studio.
A streak of lightning speared through the clouds, and the plane tilted as we headed into a steep, bumpy descent toward a bay fringed with yellow sand.
The lone flight attendant ordered us to restore seats to the upright position and stash loose belongings beneath them. She’d remained buckled into her fold-down seat next to the door for the duration of the short flight from Sydney’s international airport. The pilot announced we were about to land in Moruya. He said it was unseasonably hot and that the storm was moving south of us. Moruya was a short drive from Jarrawarra Bay. Martin would be waiting.
Crosswinds buffeted us, and my stomach surged as a foreign landscape whirled up to greet us—a twisting chocolate-brown river and estuary thick with mangroves. Spindly gums bowing to the wind. Oyster beds in the river with decaying pilings and docks. A crane flew low over the water. As we lowered, I saw kangaroos