by Jen Waite
Rose steadied herself. Inched her feet the right distance apart. Looked at Thea’s face, so close to the man’s that they blurred together.
“Mimi,” Thea sobbed, and Rose had to rip her eyes away.
The man started toward her, keeping his head down, cheek to cheek with Thea. He was coming at her at an angle. Rose saw tears flowing from his eyes down Thea’s face. She dropped the gun to her side. “Ok. Ok. I won’t shoot.” The man and Thea were only two arm-lengths away now.
“I just wanted to see her. I just wanted to talk to her. To see if we’re the same. No one has to get hurt.” One arm-length. “I’ve waited so long—”
Rose pivoted and aimed. The sound of the gun, Thea’s scream, and the two bodies collapsing to the ground happened all at the same time. Rose took in Thea’s ashen face and the fact that her granddaughter’s chest was rising and falling. She brought her hands down forcefully on the jagged end of a rock and pulled her hands up and down in a sawing motion. The shoelace finally snapped and she moved quickly to Thea. The ringing in her ears from the crack of the gun drowned out her granddaughter’s sobs. She looked down at the man and couldn’t help but note the tiny dark hole that oozed blood was exactly where she wanted it to be, straight into the man’s temple. Lucky shot, she heard Sam’s voice say in the same cadence he used near the end of their training—an undertone of laughter in his voice—and she would smile back without breaking her stance because they both knew it wasn’t luck at all that Rose’s bullets were landing in the center of her target, no matter how far away she was. “Lucky shot,” she whispered.
“It’s ok, it’s ok,” she said to Thea. She was already wrenching open the man’s hand, placing the gun in his palm and wrapping his finger around the trigger. Rose shoved his hand up to his temple and then let it fall. She did it again and again, until she was satisfied that the resting spot and angle of his hand on the ground was acceptable, or at least possible. She wiped down the gun on her coat, making sure to scrub every single inch. “Ok, that’s good,” she said, feeling her granddaughter’s eyes taking in her quick movements. She carried Thea to the cabin, back up the stairs, through the front door, and plunked her down beside Anne. Rose knelt next to her daughter for several seconds, catching her breath. “The man is dead. Can you hear me? I’m going to go get help.” She turned to Thea, who hadn’t moved a muscle. “Stay with your mother. I’ll be back soon.” She brought her mouth down to Anne’s ear. “If you can hear me,” she spoke slowly, as if to someone hard of hearing, “I am going to go get help. I need to get somewhere with service so I can call 911. So, just . . .” She thought for a second. “Well, just stay here.” She gave Anne’s arm a pat and then stood up. “It’s going to be fine,” she said to Thea, who still sat frozen, eyes wide, shivering on the floor. “Thea.” She squeezed her granddaughter’s shoulder. “Do you understand why I did what I did out there?”
Thea nodded. “The man. He shot himself.”
Rose paused. “Yes. Good.”
“Mimi, my ears.” Thea shook her head to demonstrate something was wrong.
“That will go away. I promise.” Rose stroked her granddaughter’s hair. “I’ll be back soon with help. Stay with your mom.”
Rose walked out the door through the clearing, past the man’s body and back into the woods. She leaned against a tree once she was a good distance away from the cabin. It was then that she let herself have the breakdown that she had been holding in since the man took them, and she screamed into the night. Once recomposed, she continued toward the main path. The wind had died down. As she made her way farther and farther away from the cabin, only the man’s voice in her head cut through the silence of the night as she tried to decipher the meaning: I’ve waited so long.
ONE DAY
AFTER THE CABIN
ANNE
Anne woke up in a hospital bed—clear tubes and blurry overhead lights, a burning in her throat, and throbbing in her temple. Rose sat on a chair across the room, silently, hands woven together in her lap, and when their eyes connected, Rose immediately said, “Thea is next door. She’s ok.” Anne’s body flooded with relief that turned to fear as she realized she couldn’t remember anything past lunging at the man. They were all alive, Thea was alive, but she couldn’t remember anything past attacking the man. She watched her mother’s face intently for what she really wanted to know. What did the man do to Thea? Tell me, please tell me.
“You don’t remember?” Rose looked at her intently. “He didn’t . . . He didn’t get to her.” Rose answered the question etched on Anne’s face. Rose started to speak again but a rap on the door interrupted her. A female nurse entered the hospital room, followed by a male police officer.
“Ms. Thompson.” The nurse moved quickly but spoke slowly, “Officer Searle has a few questions for you. I’ve told the officer already that you are on voice rest and aren’t yet able to talk, but he’d like you to nod or shake your head in response to his questions. Do you feel up for that?”
Anne nodded once, not sure she really had a choice; her mind was on her daughter. She had to see Thea with her own eyes. Her daughter was alive, but how badly was she hurt? Where was the man? These questions spun through her head as the tall, thick policeman lumbered over. Before he reached Anne’s bedside, he turned around. “Sorry, I need to question your daughter alone, Mrs. Thompson. Your statement has been a great help, there are just some specifics we need to corroborate. The crime scene really speaks for itself.” He looked from Rose to Anne with an apologetic smile. “This is more of a formality.” As the officer began rambling on about preliminary evidence and piecing together the events from the past twenty-four hours, Rose quietly slipped out the door, but not before catching her daughter’s eye. She looked at Anne hard and then stepped into the hallway. Anne switched her gaze back to the officer, uneasy about what Rose’s parting look had meant. He averted his eyes from hers as he asked questions that she couldn’t answer due to her swollen throat. Despite Anne not being able to speak and despite leading with the assurance that this would be brief, the cop asked question after question, jotting down Anne’s head nod or head shake on his small lined notepad. The first questions related to the circumstances that led to the nature walk. “You were hoping to have a nice quiet weekend in the White Mountains with your daughter and your mother, is that right?” Head Nod “Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until about twenty minutes into your walk when you made contact with the perpetrator?” Head Nod Finally, Officer Searle looked up from his pad and met her eyes. “I’ll try to be sensitive with these next questions. I know you’ve been through a lot and, contrary to what you may have heard about cops, we do try to be sensitive to trauma.” He twisted his silver wedding band around his finger. “I just want you to know that you did exactly the right thing. In these situations . . . Well, they don’t usually turn out the way yours did. And that’s in large part to you thinking fast on your feet under an enormous amount of stress. I really can’t commend you enough, Ms. Thompson.” The officer’s eyes were glistening, and for the first time since waking, Anne was very glad that her throat was on fire. Officer Searle misread her look of confusion for distress. “I’ll get right to it, ok? No reason to hash it all out right now. Just need to get the basics.” He clicked his pen once. “The man attacked you, and your daughter managed to escape the cabin, correct?” Officer Searle stared at her. Head Nod “Do you remember your mother being in the cabin with you?” She paused but only for a half a second before . . . Head Nod “And, did you hear the gunshot?” Head Shake What the fuck? She wracked her brain. She remembered lunging, thrashing on the ground, and then . . . nothing. Suddenly, a flash of the gun moving past her eyes entered her mind, but the memory didn’t make sense. She remembered a feeling of surprise and then a blank nothingness. Who had been holding the gun? She held this moment in her mind, and just as the image sharpened, Officer Searle broke her concentration.
“I have one more
question for you, Ms. Thompson. Does the name ‘David Redmond’ mean anything to you?”
Anne searched the officer’s face. David Redmond. She knew she’d heard that name before, Redmond, but she couldn’t think through the thick fog that was starting to drip drip drip into her brain from the IV in her arm. She closed her eyes tight, trying to make it click. Nothing. She opened her eyes, shook her head no.
“That’s all I need for now, Ms. Thompson. Again, I can’t stress enough how differently this situation could have turned out were it not for your quick thinking and bravery. And, of course, if the perpetrator hadn’t turned the gun on himself at the end. That’s not usually how this type of scenario plays out. You are all very, very lucky.” Officer Searle nodded once and stood at the bedside awkwardly for a moment. Anne nodded back, and as she slipped into heavy sleep the name echoed on repeat in her head, like a song with only one lyric, David David David.
* * *
—
When Anne woke up, she couldn’t tell if it was day or night. She was in an interior hospital room and she could feel the fluorescent lights penetrate the thin skin of her closed eyelids. Before she opened her eyes, she heard slow breathing, and for a moment, she knew that the man had come to finish what he started. Her eyes flew open and she tried to tense her muscles, in preparation of flight, before realizing that she had no control over her body.
“Anne,” said a voice. “It’s ok. It’s just me.”
Anne focused her eyes, adrenaline slowed by the soft tone of the voice, and saw a woman sitting across from her bed. She sat straight, her feet crossed at an angle in front of her, hiding the interior of a tan skirt that draped just past her knees. Her black hair was cropped short and neat.
“It’s me. Diana.” The woman stared at Anne for a moment, searching for a flick of recognition. “Diana Redmond. I spoke with the doctor and she said it would be ok—”
“Diana,” Anne’s voice barely came out and her throat burned. “Diana. You knew Ethan.” A long pause and then: “David.”
“Yes. We spoke years ago. Ten years ago to be exact.”
TEN YEARS
BEFORE THE CABIN
DAVID
The boy heard everything. The whole conversation between his mother and the lady on the other end of the phone. At least his mother’s side of the conversation—and he could guess what the woman, Anne, had said, based on his mother’s replies. When his mom talked about their family, she said she only had one son, his brother, Edward; she didn’t mention him, David, at all. He crept back to his bedroom when his mom started saying goodbye and crying again, mumbling “thank you” over and over. His bedroom door creaked open a few minutes later and he felt his mother’s gaze on his cheek even though he kept his eyes closed. He waited thirty more minutes, until the house was completely silent, before creeping back to the study. The newspaper clipping was folded neatly four times in the very bottom drawer of the desk, under a stack of books. David read it and then read it again, trying to figure out what it meant. The man that the article was about, Mr. Ethan Mills, was a bad man. That much David understood. His mom and grandma liked to say that there were no bad people, only people who did bad things, but David, at the age of sixteen, knew they were wrong. There were people who did bad things and there were also bad people who did bad things. He knew this for certain. David scanned the article for the fourth time and concluded what he had already sensed on the other side of the study door, and what he had known all along: there was something wrong with him; it was in his blood. He wasn’t actually a Redmond at all. His biological father was dead, according to the article, but there was another person out there who shared his DNA. He read that line again: “. . . survived by his daughter, Thea Thompson.” He tucked the clipping into his waistband and walked back to his bedroom. Thea Thompson, a toddler in Vermont. This girl, his sister, would someday understand what he felt. She would think the kinds of thoughts that kept him up at night. He’d always thought that he was alone, a freak of nature, tolerated by his father, pitied by his mother, but he’d been wrong. This girl was his light in the dark. She would be the one to set him free, and tonight was the night he would stop fighting who he was.
ONE DAY
AFTER THE CABIN
ANNE
Anne was silent as Diana spoke. Partly because her throat was swollen and raw; mostly because the woman across the room spoke without pausing, using her hands and face to tell her story, barely stopping to breathe, her voice wobbling and righting itself.
“I’m so sorry, Anne,” Diana was saying, “I never thought David would . . . No, I’m sorry, that’s not true. I prayed that he would never hurt anyone again, but I knew. Let me start at the beginning.” She sucked in a breath. “I had an affair a few years after I got married. My husband, Rich, changed after we got married—he went from being sweet and kind to drinking every night, barely speaking to me. He was always working, never home. And then I met Ethan and he just swept me off my feet.” Diana gave a sharp laugh. “Suburban housewife has an affair with a mysterious stranger to spice up her life. It sounds so cliché. Ethan was smart and interesting, and he adored me. I met him at a coffee shop in town and he said he was in New Jersey for business, that he traveled all the time for his job.”
Anne watched Diana’s face; she looked like she was inside a dream.
“For a few months, it was incredible. We’d meet a couple of times a month, sometimes more. I was going to leave Rich. I really loved Da—Ethan.” Diana’s face clouded for an instant. “And then when I told him I was pregnant, he became a different person immediately. I still remember his eyes . . . They went almost black. His whole body changed. He said he was happy, but there was nothing behind the words. No emotion.” Tears streamed down the woman’s cheeks. “And then he was gone. I couldn’t get in touch with him. It was like he never existed.” Diana wiped her eyes. “Anyway, Rich never knew that David wasn’t his. I didn’t even know for sure that the baby was Dav—Ethan’s. Though I hoped he was.” She looked at Anne and then the floor. “That’s why I named him David.” She looked down at her hands, plowed on. “When David turned three, he started to act out in a way . . . It wasn’t normal. Our younger son, Edward, was always easy, right from the day he was born.” She smiled sadly. “But that’s when I realized how . . . different David was.” Diana paused. “There’s something I have to tell you. David came to our house, two days ago. I hadn’t seen him since before he went to—since before he went away. I almost fainted when he walked in the door. He looked right at me and said, ‘Mom, you should leave. Go out of town for a few days.’ I tried asking why, but he just kept saying I should leave, for my own good. I didn’t know, Anne, what he was going to do to you . . . and to Rich. I’m so sorry.” Diana’s words came out between sobs. “I’m so sorry. I tried to fix him. He wasn’t all bad.”
Diana snapped her head up at the machines’ loud beeps as a nurse rushed into the room.
“Please step outside, ma’am,” the nurse said, pulling out a syringe.
As Anne sank back into darkness, she heard the dull clicking of heels leaving the room.
THREE MONTHS
AFTER THE CABIN
THEA
Thea lay in her bed, looking at the ceiling. Her night-light, the one she got three months ago, cast shadows on the ceiling, and she dropped her hand down in front of the light to make the shadows move. They’d gotten better, the nights. She’d only called for her mom twice tonight since going to bed. The first week after the cabin, her mom slept in her room, on the couch, because she was waking up so much during the night. Thea hadn’t told her mom, but she heard her mom’s nightmares, too, and she saw the sheen of sweat on her mom’s forehead in the mornings. But, like her mom promised, things were getting better; the terror was fading, though she still felt different, older, and she thought she probably always would be a little bit different now. The anxiety attacks were less frequent, but she felt
a heaviness, a wariness that she’d never felt before.
There was good that had come out of the cabin, too, though. Like her mom telling her about her biological father. The first week back, when they were up all the time at night, they would whisper back and forth from the bed and the couch, and Thea told her mom about the Google search. She just couldn’t keep it in anymore; she had too much stuff now, and she needed to get rid of something. Her mom was quiet for a while and Thea thought she was mad, but then she said, more sad than mad, “Oh, Thea, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I could say I was protecting you, but I think I was protecting myself more than anything.” And then she talked for a long time. They talked again the next night and the night after that and then they started seeing a counselor together and somehow, just by having another presence in the room, Thea felt safe saying things she’d never said before. Her mom, too, had confessed to feeling like she’d failed Thea in a lot of ways—by choosing Ethan, by not being able to stop Thea’s epilepsy for so long, by not knowing the right things to say about what happened with Ethan. Thea had stared at her mother, genuinely shocked, and said, “Mom, you’re like the best mom in the world. I mean, I’ve been mad at you a lot and you annoy me a lot, but you’re my best friend.” Her mom had burst into tears at that and Thea had rolled her eyes at the therapist and then hugged her mom for a long time. Thea was angry and sad a lot still, but she could feel spaces in her reopening and, even though she felt more, it felt weirdly better than before, when she knew nothing.
She closed her eyes, thinking about what happened in the cabin, how they survived, but how it also took a little sliver of each one of them, and when she finally fell asleep, she dreamed about her brother, standing across the room, not saying a word, just standing there in the shadows, watching.
