He disappeared inside for a few minutes and emerged wearing a pair of tennis shoes that looked way too new for a hike—practically unworn—and hoisting a bulging duffel bag over his shoulder.
She popped the trunk. He made his way around, and a more conspicuous silence filled the car as she waited for him to buckle back in. He cleared his throat. “I know it’s weird, me taking stuff back to the house, staying there still,” he told her. “I’m not even working right now. My patients deserve better than substandard care, and anyone can see my mind is elsewhere. I just can’t bring myself to—”
“You don’t have to explain.” She risked a glance in his direction. He was staring at her. “It actually seems weirder to me that you’d stay here.”
“Yeah?” He barked out a laugh. “I deliver at the hospital in Xenia—the logical thing to do is find a nicer place there. But even though it’s only fifteen, twenty minutes away, it seemed too far from the kids…” His voice trailed off, and she was seized by a sinking feeling that bringing him along had been a mistake—for both of them.
But no. He needed this more than she did, even if he didn’t know it. It would be good for her, too, to think about someone other than herself, to get out of her own head.
She just wasn’t sure she wanted to be in his.
Izzy waved at the ranger on the way in and steered the car into the small lot by the campsite supply store. “There’s another trailhead that can get us where we’re going—via the old stagecoach trail—but I like starting over here instead.”
“What’s the difference?”
“That one is wide and flat to start, more of a walk than a hike. This entrance through the campground is more like a deer trail.” She could tell from the look on his face that he’d have preferred the former, but she pretended she didn’t notice. She liked the ritual of embarking with blind trust in the barely visible path, the satisfaction of pushing to the point where you could see out ahead of you.
They shut their doors as quietly as they could in the crisp morning. Dome tents of all colors and sizes dotted the drive-in campsites. Some sites were still quiet with sleep, while others had fires going, where campers huddled sipping instant coffee. Izzy inhaled the scent of woodsmoke and felt her blood pressure lower—but only for the fleeting minute it took to remember that the last time she’d sat around a fire had been with Kristin. As she led the way to the hidden trailhead, she hoped Paul wouldn’t be reminded of it too. The last thing she wanted was to spend the morning fielding more questions she didn’t have answers to.
Izzy plunged into the woods, eager to leave as much as she could behind, but Paul was stepping over branches and through weeds as if one of them might jump up and bite him. She slowed her pace so he could keep up.
“We’re just going to make our way down this hill to the creek, and then the path is more defined.”
He nodded, uneasy, and she pressed on with him trailing behind her, hoping he wasn’t hating this, hating her, wishing he hadn’t come. She just had to lead him to the right spot in time. None of this awkwardness would be worth it unless they made it.
The narrow dirt trail declined steeply, cutting and winding this way, then the other, and she ignored his grunts from behind her until at last the path opened up to the rocks alongside the creek.
Here in the ravine, the otherwise subtle shortening of the daylight hours had had an amplified effect on the slow trek toward autumn. While their neighborhood was still a lush green—it had been a wet summer, with none of the lawn burnouts that Ohio Augusts sometimes bring—these trees were dotted in low-hanging patches of gold, orange, and red. Clusters of soggy brown foliage meandered along the water’s surface. A light breeze rustled through the forest, and loose leaves floated down around them like snowflakes.
“Pretty,” he said, visibly relaxing.
She smiled. “Just wait.”
A short distance upstream, they came to the first footbridge. From here, the trail climbed to a safe height above the riverbank and then wound its way along the bottom of the towering limestone ridge. There wasn’t as much undergrowth encroaching, and they had room to walk side by side. When Paul didn’t drop back on the other side of the bridge, she didn’t step ahead, either.
And now that their paces were matched, now that it was almost odd not to make conversation, Izzy’s curiosity—percolating like a slow-brewing distraction for the past week—came to a pressure point. If he was here, that might mean he wanted to talk. But even if he didn’t, would he blame her for asking? She kept her voice low. “I don’t want to intrude, but do you have any family to come be with you? While all this is going on?”
He sighed. “My parents are in Connecticut. They’ve met Kristin and the kids only twice—once right after we got married, since we didn’t really have a ceremony, and once at a funeral. It’s not that they’re not concerned, but…” She stole a look over at him but couldn’t read his expression. He seemed to be struggling to keep it neutral. “I guess it’s not that personal to them,” he finished.
“Not personal? You’re their son.”
“Well, my dad is—” He stopped himself. “You know, I don’t really talk about my childhood. It wasn’t happy, but it pales in comparison to the stuff I see in my line of work. I could tell you plenty of stories that no one should ever have to hear, much less live through.”
Izzy thought of the hopeless feeling that sometimes overwhelmed her at the news desk, and of how much worse it could be for someone like Paul, who was no stranger to life-or-death scenarios. She pictured him alone in a modest doctor’s office, head in his hands from feeling his patients’ pain too keenly, and a sense of solidarity filled her.
“I think what you’re going through now might qualify,” she said gently, and he was quiet for a moment.
“My dad is … not a good guy,” he said finally. “And my mom goes along with whatever he says.” The statement ended flatly, as if he was debating leaving it at that. “When I was in med school at Ohio State, we’d have these weekly calls, Sunday nights, with both of them on the line—ostensibly to save the minutes on the phone bill. Everything is money with them. Every call, my mom would hardly say a word while my dad gave me the third degree about my professors and if I was getting my money’s worth and whether I was being distracted by any actual fun. But she’d always call back later, practically whispering so he couldn’t hear, to ask if I needed any money. That was always the only question. Like if I didn’t need money, there was nothing else to know. As if I would have taken her money anyway.”
“Maybe they can’t afford the airfare, then. Maybe they’re embarrassed by it.”
But Izzy wasn’t really thinking of his parents. She was thinking of the money Paul had allegedly threatened to fight Kristin for. Maybe with a childhood like that, he couldn’t help himself.
“They should be,” he said, his tone blunt. “My dad has horrible gambling debts. He fell into it when I was little, and for a while it didn’t seem bad. We’d go on long weekends to Atlantic City, stay for free in a suite since he was such a loyal customer. My mom would play on the beach with me while he sat at the tables. But soon after, we’d be dodging debt collectors. Changing houses, changing schools. It pinged back and forth for years, between the high life and the low life, and then it kind of just stayed low.”
He stumbled over a tree root, and Izzy automatically shot out an arm to steady him. He held it for an instant before letting go. “I don’t want you to think I’ve written them off or anything. I love my parents. I paid their way here after the wedding. We would have visited them for holidays, but Kristin wanted the kids to have their own traditions in our house, which I understood. I always offered to fly them down for Christmas or Thanksgiving, but they always declined. I do think you’re right that they were embarrassed. And I’d buy them tickets in a second if I thought they’d be a comfort to me now. But I don’t. They never showed an interest in my wife or the kids while they were here, and they didn’t seem to much care wh
en I told them we were getting divorced.”
They made their way in silence under a rocky overhang.
“I get the feeling my dad thinks I should have kept a better handle on my wife, and if I don’t know where she is now, that’s my problem.”
Izzy didn’t know what to say. “Your kids are adorable, and so sweet,” she ventured. “I’ve always thought boy-girl twins are something special. How rare it is to have someone who is so much the same as you, but also so different, I mean.”
“Thanks, but they’re not my—”
“Yes they are,” she cut him off. Her voice sounded pointed, harsher than she’d intended. “Yes they are,” she repeated more softly. They walked in silence for another moment.
“Thank you for that,” he said, and when she looked over, his eyes were wet.
“They’ll be back,” she said. “Or the police will find them and bring them back. Don’t lose hope.”
“I think I lost that even before this happened,” he said.
And then, it began.
She looked over at Paul as the soft voices of the choir registered and the first notes cascaded down around them, as if the beams of sunlight streaming hazily through the trees had themselves burst into waves of sound. His eyes met hers first in confusion, and then in recognition. Somewhere, on the ridge high above the ravine, was a church. He stopped short and looked up through the treetops in wonder, just as she had during that first hike of accidental perfect timing.
Paul blinked at her. “Is that—?”
She nodded. “Every Sunday morning,” she said softly. “Like clockwork.”
It wasn’t a hymn she recognized, nor could she understand the words through the echo—and that made it all the more beautiful, almost ethereal, as if the voice of the universe itself was conveying a nonspecific yet unmistakable message of peace.
She closed her eyes in gratitude for the return of this moment, the sublime convergence of the natural world and the spiritual realm and the tug of her heart. Stumbling upon it that first time had been like a miracle, the pure unexpectedness of it. She’d been trudging along that midsummer morning, regretting everything about the hike—the humidity that made her clothes stick to her even here in the shaded ravine, the loneliness of hiking solo not by choice but by default, the knowledge that her living room was still filled with unpacked boxes and yet here she was, seeking some sort of reprieve from the choices she’d made instead of dealing, instead of following through. And then the harmonies had begun, stopping her short. When the first song had ended, she could have sworn she was a part of the forest, both of them perfectly still, holding their breaths, afraid the magic would disappear with so much as a rustling of the breeze. And then a new hymn had started, like a promise: When you think the spell has been broken, when you think you might have imagined it, don’t give up. If you wait, there can be more.
“Will we still hear it if we walk on?”
“For at least half an hour.”
His eyes glistened. “It sounds like hope,” he said. And it did. And it was.
“Sometimes it’s the only way I know to find it.”
He didn’t ask why she was looking, and for that she was grateful.
13
A safety plan is a personalized, practical plan that includes ways to remain safe while in a relationship, planning to leave, or after you leave … Although some of the things that you outline in your safety plan may seem obvious, it’s important to remember that in moments of crisis your brain doesn’t function the same way as when you are calm.
—National Domestic Violence Hotline Path to Safety
Clara pulled open the dishwasher and sighed—because a clean, wet mess was still a mess. The top rack was a cascade of flimsy plastic medicine dispensers: squat children’s dosing cups, tall pour tubes, and infant syringes in an assortment of measurement scales, none of which ever seemed to have the right push piece. Both kids had ear infections. In both ears.
She’d never fully appreciated, before becoming a parent herself, how even a fairly straightforward childhood illness could shut down a household, taking adults and kids alike out of commission for days in a blur. The understanding had come the first time Thomas was ever truly, miserably, exhaustingly sick, with the wave of trepidation that hit her in realizing that she was wholly responsible for the well-being of this little person who could not yet communicate his needs beyond a pitiful cry. In the days when parenting was a hypothetical, she’d put too much stock in the power of pediatricians. Sure, they could set your mind at ease for a few moments—if you were lucky. But then they passed the buck right back. Call if he seems worse. Look for the subtle signs of dehydration, of oxygen deprivation, of something more serious. Call me if … Yet who was to say you would recognize that if when it came? Those were the watchful days—and, more often, the nights—that laid bare the best and worst parts of this rewarding and terrifying new career.
She thought of Kristin being left on her own with not one but two babies and wondered how she’d ever managed, especially with her own grief. If the sadness didn’t drive you to the brink, the sheer exhaustion would push you over.
There was no telling what—or whom—you might say yes to, just to avoid dealing alone.
She unloaded the damp mess of medicine dispensers into the dish drainer and set about trying to match sippy cups with their lids. Much as Clara never would have wished this nasty run of illness on her children—or herself, for that matter—she had to admit it may have been a blessing in disguise. Thursday night’s wake-up cries, Friday’s trip to the pediatrician, and the subsequent sleepless weekend had kept her busy enough that she’d barely had time to obsess over the implications of Kristin’s computer search history, or Paul’s accusations and denials, or Detective Bryant’s sneer as he’d chased after the repair van, or Hallie’s audacious reporting. At least, she hadn’t had time to concentrate on obsessing. Whereas the revelations on Hallie’s recording might have otherwise rendered her glued to her laptop stalking Paul’s sparsely updated Facebook page, or to her windowsill checking up on his whereabouts, now she could only play it over in her mind, again and again, while she rocked her crying children, coaxed down chalky antibiotics, and waited nervously for Natalie to return.
Benny had been so calm—so careful—when she’d relayed the whole recorded ordeal as best she could from memory. I’m sure there’s an explanation; Paul might seem clueless, but he also seems harmless; and the kicker, we can’t let on about anything that we have no business knowing anyway. Beneath his measured façade, she could see his concern—not for Kristin, but for her.
“Maybe Kristin did what she had to do,” he’d finally conceded last night, when she’d risked bringing it up for the umpteenth time. She knew she was pressing him, but she couldn’t help it: In some backward way, it was nice to be able to talk to Benny about what she’d learned, even if he was reluctant to talk back. Otherwise, she’d have burst by now. “Maybe we should hope she isn’t found,” he’d said, and she’d clung to the reassurance like a stubborn child.
Yes, thank goodness for Benny, as usual. He’d been her partner in slime fighting all weekend, running to the Amish store for homemade chicken soup and coming home with silly toys from the dollar aisle—flimsy airplanes to be assembled, coloring books to be filled, playdough to be molded. She’d taken over solo on Monday with the still-cranky version of her kids, and the long hours of double sick duty had taken it out of her. Here was Tuesday, though, and the morning had gone better. The antibiotics at last kicking in, Maddie and Thomas both went down for their naps willingly—a small miracle in itself—and now she had serious cleaning to do if she didn’t want to be the next one sick. Not that there was any real chance of escaping that, but she had to go through the motions, for her own sanity.
And also, for the health of anyone who might happen by. Hallie and her parents had gotten back sometime yesterday—Clara spotted their lights on last night—but Natalie had never called. Clara could guess Hallie
would claim she’d forgotten Clara’s instructions to ask her to, but then again, it had also been Jim’s last night home, and Clara couldn’t bring herself to intrude on their good-bye. Now, though, Hallie was back at school, and Jim was back at the base, and Natalie was fair game. She usually worked a shift at the Sunrise Café on Tuesday mornings, then studied in the afternoon. Clara wasn’t exactly looking forward to their conversation—she still hadn’t grown comfortable discussing her own children’s bad behavior, let alone someone else’s—but she knew they needed to talk. And she was glad for the excuse to talk with just one more person about the extent of the drama next door, to find out what she made of it all. She’d sent Natalie a couple of vague texts earlier, with no response. If she didn’t hear back by the time Maddie and Thomas were up, she was heading over. She’d already waited too long.
She gathered all the hand towels and set the washing machine to hot. She sanitized the doorknobs, the light switches, the remote controls. She ran out to her car and gathered the detritus from the backseat—the follow-up appointment reminders from the doctor and the dropped Cheerios and the wrinkled books and clunky computerized toys she’d dragged along in a failed attempt to distract them from the pain between their ears.
And then she went to the mailbox.
As soon as she saw it, she knew. The gravity of her mistake hit her with full force as she took in the large letters across the top of a crudely stapled pair of trifolded papers: The Color-Blind Gazette. But it couldn’t be. How could Hallie have possibly found the time? Where could she have even done this, without her parents seeing? At the Lakeside Lodge? Or did her parents know? If that was the case, at least Clara would be off the hook for not having warned them when she’d had the chance …
Not That I Could Tell: A Novel Page 10
