The Ridge

by John Rector

  And waited.

  Megan didn’t know how much time had passed, but she felt every second. After a while, she got up and looked out the window. Tyler was coming back, his head low as he made his way up the street.

  She hurried to the front door, opening it right as he climbed the porch steps.

  He didn’t look at her when he came inside.

  She started to say something, but then she noticed the look in his eyes and stopped. Tyler glanced at her and frowned. Then he walked down the hall toward the kitchen.

  Megan closed the door and followed.

  She wanted to give him time, but the wait was eating at her.

  She had to know what he’d seen.

  Tyler grabbed a glass from the dish rack. He opened the cabinet above the refrigerator and took down a bottle of bourbon and poured. Then he set the bottle on the counter and drank, emptying the glass.

  When he spoke, his voice sounded empty.

  “I can’t do this again, Megan. I just can’t.”

  She frowned, stepped closer.

  Tyler refilled the glass, took a sip.

  “What are you talking about?” She reached out and touched his back, feeling him go tense. “Tyler?”

  “I don’t have it in me,” he said. “I can’t do it.”

  “Can’t do what?”

  He shook his head, didn’t speak.

  Megan hesitated, then whispered, “Did you see her?”

  Tyler laughed under his breath, then turned to face her, his eyes sharp.

  “Of course I saw her,” he said. “She answered the goddamned door.”

  8

  Megan didn’t understand, and all she could do was stand there, staring up at him. Her throat was dry, and when she tried to speak, the words wouldn’t come.

  She told herself she hadn’t heard him right.

  The idea was enough for her to find her voice, but all she managed to say was “She what?”

  Tyler looked at her, his eyes cold.

  “She answered the door.” His voice was calm. “What were you thinking? Why would you do this to me?”

  Megan didn’t know what to say. She kept waiting for all of it to make sense, but it didn’t, and each second that passed only made it worse.

  “What do you mean she answered the—”

  “I mean she answered the goddamned door, Megan.” Tyler’s voice turned sharp. “How much clearer do I need to be?”

  “That’s not possible.” She shook her head, looking up at him. “Tyler, I saw her die.”

  “You saw her die?” He lifted his glass and pointed in the direction of Rachel’s house, splashing his drink on the floor, not noticing. “That’s funny, because she’s over there right now, and she’s sure as hell not dead.”

  “I—” Her voice cracked. “I don’t—”

  “I don’t understand you,” he said. “I know you’ve had your problems with the woman, but this?”

  “Tyler, I didn’t—”

  “This isn’t normal, Megan. It’s not healthy.”

  “I didn’t make it up.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but then something in his eyes changed, turned soft. He bit down on his lip and looked away, silent.

  “You don’t believe me,” she said.

  Tyler stared down at the glass in his hand, shook his head. “I can’t go through this again. I can’t. Are you this desperate for attention?”

  A flash of anger burned through her, so strong she took a step back. “You think I made this up? For attention?”

  “Then explain it to me,” he said. “Because right now I don’t know who you are.”

  “I’m not lying, Tyler.” She tried to keep her voice down, but each word came out louder than the last. “I saw her fall. Her neck was broken.”

  “It’s not broken now.”

  “I know what I saw!”

  Tyler made a dismissive sound and lifted his drink. He drained it, then leaned against the counter. “Even now, this is some kind of game to you.”

  She stared at him, hard, then turned and walked out.

  “Megan?”

  He followed her down the hall. She could hear his footsteps behind her, but she didn’t stop and she didn’t slow down. When she got to the front door, she slipped on her red Chuck Taylors and walked outside.

  “What are you doing?”

  Megan ignored him. She went down the steps and across the yard and had just stepped into the street when she felt Tyler’s hand on her arm, pulling her back.

  Megan jerked away. “Don’t touch me.”

  Tyler let go, and she kept walking.

  He tried to step around her, but she ducked past him, moving down the street toward Rachel’s house.

  “Megan, wait.” Tyler ran in front of her, cutting her off.

  She stopped walking and stared up at him. “I know what I saw, and I’m not making it up. I’m not crazy.”

  “You can’t go over there,” he said. “You can’t drag the neighbors into your personal shit.”

  Megan made a low growling sound and pushed past him.

  Tyler reached out, grabbing her arm again. This time, she screamed at him. “Goddamn it, let go of me!”

  Her voice echoed through the neighborhood, surprising her. All at once the situation came into focus, and she glanced around at the houses lining the street. She didn’t see anyone, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being observed.

  Tyler must’ve felt it too, because when he spoke, his voice was even and soft. “Megan, please. Come back inside.”

  Megan’s entire body was shaking, and she couldn’t make it stop. “I know what I saw, Tyler.”

  “Please.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “Not out here. Not right now.”

  The air suddenly turned cold, and she looked around at the oddly silent audience of houses.

  Tyler held out his hand. “Come home, please.”

  This time, she took his hand.

  Tyler closed the front door and locked the bolt.

  “I’d ask if you’d like a drink, but I’m guessing you’ve had enough.”

  It sounded like a joke, but Megan knew him well enough to know that it wasn’t. Either way, she was beyond caring.

  “How about a cup of coffee?” he asked.

  She shook her head, kicked off her shoes, and started for the stairs.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Upstairs,” she said. “I’m going to take a hot bath and go to bed.”

  “We need to talk about this.” He followed her to the foot of the stairs. “I’m worried about you.”

  Megan stopped halfway up and looked down at him. He had one hand on the banister, one foot on the first step.

  “What else do you want me to say?” she asked. “I know what I saw. I’m not making it up.”

  “Okay, I believe you.”

  She shook her head. “No, you don’t, and that’s the problem.”

  “I believe you believe it.”

  Megan laughed, but there was no humor in it. “What the hell does that even mean?”

  “It means you saw something. Maybe you thought—”

  She held up a hand. “Just stop.”

  Tyler exhaled, slowly. “Megs, Rachel Addison is alive, and she’s inside her house right now. So whatever you think you saw, it obviously wasn’t what you thought.”

  Megan stood there, staring at him, but there was nothing else to say. Every part of her was exhausted, and all she wanted to do was sleep.

  She turned and continued up the stairs. “I’m going to bed.”

  “This isn’t something we can ignore,” Tyler said. “We’re going to have to talk about it.”

  “Not tonight.”

  She went into the bathroom and locked the door. Then she turned on the water in the tub and closed the drain. She slipped her shirt over her head and leaned against the sink, staring at her reflection in the mirror.

  It was her face, but it wasn’t her.

  M
egan tried to replay everything that’d happened. She wanted to believe she was wrong, that she’d made a mistake, that Rachel really was still alive.

  But everything inside of her knew better.

  She stayed at the mirror until the steam clouded the glass. Then she took a pack of matches from the medicine cabinet and lit one of the candles on the counter before getting undressed and stepping into the tub.

  The water was hot, and it burned her skin, but as she closed her eyes and slid under the surface, she barely felt a thing.

  PART II

  9

  In the dream, Megan is standing in her old apartment in Chicago. She’s alone, and the room is filled with a deep red light. All her furniture is missing, and there are no curtains on the windows. The jeweled city lights are gone, turning the glass into depthless black mirrors.

  She stares at her reflection.

  Then her focus shifts, and Megan sees the ghost of a child standing behind her, a girl, motionless, like a doll. Her dark hair is long, and she’s wearing a thin white nightgown that falls to just below her bruised knees.

  Her face is lost in shadows.

  Megan spins around, fast, but the girl is gone.

  The front door is standing open, and the pale fluorescent light from the hallway buzzes, calling for her.

  She steps through, but she doesn’t see the girl.

  The hallway is long and lined with dozens of numberless wooden doors. The carpet is a heavy sea green and dotted with candy-yellow snakes that seem to shimmer and move under the watery light.

  Behind her, Megan hears a door slam shut. She turns and follows the sound to a metal door, pushes through, and steps out onto the rooftop.

  The girl is there, standing along the far edge. Her back is turned, and her dark hair moves slowly from side to side, drifting like seaweed in the cool night air. She has one arm outstretched, pointing toward the darkened Chicago skyline.

  Megan feels a twist of panic deep inside, and she moves closer. She tries to tell the girl to step away from the edge, that it’s not safe, but she has no voice.

  The girl doesn’t move.

  As Megan gets closer, she can hear the wind sighing through the maze of empty streets below, while above them, the sky spins in an endless tapestry of starlight.

  She looks down at the girl and follows the line of her arm toward the black skyline and the Sears Tower rising in the distance, a shadow among shadows.

  At first, there’s nothing.

  Then she sees it: a single pulsing blue light, faint and faraway, the color of arctic ice. It pans over the city like the call of a lighthouse, growing brighter and stronger with each turn.

  It’s impossible to look away.

  Megan watches as the light crawls across the abandoned city, reaching down into its concrete canyons, and covering rows upon rows of dark, haunted windows.

  The closer it comes, the calmer she feels.

  Next to her, the girl is still and quiet, her arm outstretched toward the growing blue light. Megan wants to reach out to her and tell her that everything is okay, that it’s all as it should be, but she can’t move.

  She can’t turn away.

  When the light reaches the river, the blue reflects off the water in a shatter of silver that tears through the city like an explosion of glass. The light grows, rising and folding over them in a wave, scattering the world into the wind, and then up into the silent, swirling sky.

  And then there is nothing.

  When Megan opened her eyes, the bedroom was bright. The curtains were partly open, and the warm morning sun shone across the foot of the bed in a thin golden line. The dream was still fresh in her mind, and she tried to hold on to it, but eventually the images faded, slipping into daylight.

  She sat up and looked over at Tyler’s side of the bed.

  The sheets were untouched.

  Megan let her head fall back on the pillow, and she closed her eyes. Her mouth was dry, and she could taste the wine from the night before in her throat. The smell of her own breath made her stomach turn.

  She needed to move.

  When she felt ready, she swung her legs out from under the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, cradling her head in her hands as the room tilted around her.

  Eventually, she got up and made her way to the bathroom. She turned on the faucet and let the water run cold. Then she cupped her hands, took a long drink, and scrubbed her face, trying to clear the fog from her head.

  Slowly, everything came back to her.

  When she turned off the water, her hands were shaking. She squeezed them into fists until they stopped. Then she went back into the bedroom and got dressed.

  She could hear the rumble of the lawn mower starting up outside, and she crossed to the window and looked out. Tyler was pushing the mower from one side of the lawn to the other. He had on a thin white T-shirt that clung to his skin and seemed to glow in the sunlight.

  Megan watched him for a few minutes, thinking about everything that’d happened the night before, going over it again and again in her mind. Then she turned away from the window and walked downstairs to the kitchen.

  Tyler always made coffee on the weekends, but this time the pot was empty, so she made it herself. While she waited for it to brew, she thought about what she was going to say to him when he came inside.

  Last night had been the first time he hadn’t come to bed after a fight, and while she didn’t want to read anything into it, it was hard not to.

  She knew what he wanted.

  He wanted her to apologize and say she’d made it all up, and part of her thought that would be easier, but she couldn’t do it. She knew what’d happened in that garage, and she wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t.

  Megan tried to think of how she could convince him she was telling the truth, but it was pointless. Whatever Tyler had seen at Rachel’s house, it wasn’t what she’d seen, and there was nothing either of them could say that would make a difference.

  If she wanted him to believe her, she needed proof.

  By the time the coffee finished brewing, Tyler was done mowing the lawn and Megan still didn’t know what she was going to say to him. She took her yellow coffee cup from the dish drainer and filled it. Then, as she walked out to the living room, she noticed a brochure sitting on the counter.

  Megan picked it up and sipped her coffee.

  The photo on the front showed a young couple standing together on an ocean pier under a peaceful blue sky. They were staring up at each other with wide, smiling eyes.

  The words printed under the photo read:

  Hansen Institute Family Counseling

  Megan set her coffee cup on the counter and bit down hard on the insides of her cheeks. She counted a few deep breaths, then carried the brochure down the hall and out the front door into the light.

  Tyler was in the yard, kneeling over the mower. He had it on its side, and he was scraping thick clumps of grass from around the blade with a short-handled knife.

  “Hey.”

  Tyler glanced at her over his shoulder. Then he turned back to the mower and said, “How’d you sleep?”

  For an instant, all the hurt and disappointment disappeared. The memory of the blue dream flashed through her mind, but it was gone as quickly as it’d come.

  “It was lonely,” she said. “I missed you.”

  “I thought it would be better if I slept on the couch in the office.”

  She waited for him to say more, or to at least look at her, but he didn’t. Megan stared down at the brochure in her hand and let the silence between them grow until she couldn’t take it anymore.

  “I assume you left this for me?”

  Tyler stopped cleaning and glanced back.

  She held it up for him to see. “Subtle, by the way.”

  He sighed and dropped the knife. When he stood, he took a rag from his pocket and stared off toward the ridge in the distance, wiping his hands clean. “I think I’m finally starting to see how unhapp
y you are here.”

  The comment surprised her, and Megan thought about her response before she spoke. “I miss Chicago, that’s all.”

  “There’s obviously more to it than that.”

  “If you think how I feel about this place has anything to do with what I saw last night, you’re wrong.”

  “What you think you saw.”

  Megan took a breath and reminded herself to stay calm. Then she said, “You really don’t believe me, do you?”

  “How can I?” He motioned toward the street. “I saw her myself.”

  “You saw her? You talked to her?”

  “We didn’t have a conversation, but I rang the bell and she opened the door enough to look out and see me.”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “Nothing. It was late and I felt like an idiot. I apologized for bothering her, and I came home.”

  Megan looked over at Rachel’s house. The curtains were all closed, and it occurred to her that this was the first morning she could remember that Rachel wasn’t outside in her garden. She thought about mentioning this to Tyler, but decided not to.

  It would’ve only made things worse.

  “We should talk about counseling.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “I think there is.” He pointed to the brochure in her hand. “It helped after your mom died, and it could help now. I’ll even go along if you think—”

  “This is completely different.”

  Tyler hesitated. “All I’m saying is we should see what they have to offer. It won’t hurt.”

  “No.”

  “Megs, I really think—”

  “I’m not going, so drop it.”

  Tyler frowned, then he knelt down and picked up the knife. “I’m going down to the plaza when I’m done here. If you need anything, let me know.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Megan said. “I want to see if—”

  “I think I’d rather go alone.”

  “Are you—” Her throat closed on the words. She swallowed, tried again. “Are you serious?”

  “I need some time.”

  Megan stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say. Then she turned and went back inside. As she closed the door, she felt something break in the center of her chest, and she had a sudden, overwhelming desire to run outside and wrap her arms around Tyler’s neck and tell him she was sorry, and that she’d talk to a counselor if they could just stop fighting.