The Stranger Inside

by Lisa Unger

  He couldn’t argue with that.

  “What about Lily?” he asked.

  “I’ll work it out.” Her voice sounded weak, uncertain.

  “Like you did today.”

  She leaned forward to defend herself, then sank back. She could still hear Lily crying. She’d left her baby alone in the car to chase after some weird old woman in the woods, on the abandoned property of the man who killed her childhood friend, while she was “investigating” a “story” that no one had officially hired her to tell. She wasn’t sure she could forgive herself.

  “It will never happen again,” she said. “It was an unthinking moment—I got carried away.” Just like her father. Just like she always did when she was following a story.

  She lifted a palm when he opened his mouth to protest.

  “I’ll get help,” she said. “Just part-time. Lily comes first. That’s my promise to all of us.”

  He was quiet for a moment, and she stared into the fire, her mind drifting back to Kreskey’s house, that old woman, the things Tess’s mother had said—and hadn’t said. Don’t go down this road.

  “What about him?” said Greg.

  “Hank?” she said. “We’re tied together by the past. That’s all.”

  She moved over to her husband, slid in close beside him. He was stiff for a moment, then wrapped her up in his arms, rested his lips on the crown of her head. He was the first safe place she’d found in her life. Upright. In charge of himself, but not controlling. Frugal, but not cheap. Studious, but not lost in his head. The opposite of her father.

  In his letters, Hank accused her of choosing the safe man over the man she really wanted. But it wasn’t true. She loved Greg because he was good and strong, because his love was all light. She chose him because he was nothing like her father, nothing like the man Hank became—nothing like Rain.

  She saw the darkness in Hank almost right away. He was not the boy she knew. Still, she knew him immediately. The man in the back of the room at her father’s book signing, hair long, a thick, full beard. He’d grown tall. She could see the muscles straining against his leather jacket. The pull to him was magnetic, irresistible. She pushed her way through the crowd around her father, toward the back of the room where he stood.

  “Hank?”

  Beneath all the layers, he was there. The boy she loved, the one who raced into the woods to save her but couldn’t. She remembered his sweetness, how funny he was, what a brain, a comic-book, video-game dork. How he had this a kind of delicate beauty—almost girlish—even though he was skinny with fine, high cheekbones and straight white teeth that never needed braces.

  She ran to him, to that boy, but a man—someone so different—took her into his arms. That night, she still thought about it. All the time. Too often. That heat, that desire—it was white-hot. She couldn’t have resisted if she tried.

  She remembered the way her father looked at her when she left with him, his eyebrows raised in warning. Don’t fuck up, kid. That was his other favorite piece of advice.

  After the café where they talked and talked, about how his family moved him to Florida after Kreskey, how he tried to forget the past. They followed each other on Facebook; he never posted, and never responded to her posts. But he knew all about her. He’d been watching, he admitted, too shy to reach out. What if you wanted to forget, too?

  They barely made it back to his place, groping each other in the cab, up the stairs to his apartment. Her encounters before that had all been so—polite. Gentle, respectful, halting. Hank took her, and she wanted him to. They were up most of the night.

  The way he watched her; the boy was gone. There was a man, a stranger, muscular and powerful beside her. She felt his strength, his need. Half his face was cast in shadow.

  “Do you have that with Greg?” Hank had wanted to know. It was after three. How many times had they made love? She lay beside him on his futon, the street noise loud outside. Someone yelling. The blaring of a horn. “Does he make love to you like that?”

  “No,” she admitted. “It’s different with us.”

  It was different. It was light and good, healthy. She and Greg—there was laughter, play, genuine pleasure in being together. But no, it was nothing like it was with Hank.

  “Good,” Hank said. His voice was gravel as he moved in closer. “That’s better. Because this thing? It could be dangerous.”

  He kissed her deeply, and though she’d been about to leave, she let him. Then he flipped her on her belly and took her from behind—deep, desperate, leaving her weak and spent when they were done.

  But almost as soon as they were together, she was pulling away from him already. There was a black place inside him, an abyss that she could feel tugging at her. He connected her to her basest self. Sometimes she saw him, the real boy, the one she’d never stopped loving. But he was lost, buried deep in the woods of their past.

  And it was always going to be Greg. Because Greg was the guy you married.

  “What worries me,” said Greg now, “is that this is not about you, not about what happened, not about telling the story, and finally healing.”

  His voice was a sad whisper. She didn’t say anything, just held on to him—his kindness, his gentle strength, his faithful love, his adoring fatherhood. A good man anyone would be lucky to have as a husband. Maybe she didn’t deserve him.

  “What worries me is that this is about Hank Reams,” he said. “And if you chase him, you won’t be able to come back.”

  She looked up at him, put a hand on his jaw, which was rough with stubble.

  “This has nothing to do with him,” she said. They probably both knew it was a lie.

  He held her a moment longer, then rose, leaving her. He had circles under his eyes; she felt a sudden distance between them. She watched as he walked out of the room. She wanted to chase after him, try to make him understand. But she let him go, listening as his footfalls faded up the stairs.

  NINETEEN

  I have a small office here at the psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of town. I think it used to be a generously sized janitor’s closet, but it works. There’s a narrow window, enough room for a desk and a chair. The desk is bare; I carry my laptop and notebooks back and forth with me in a leather satchel that reminds me of the one your father used to carry. It was a gift from my parents when I got my PhD.

  Today, I am here to see Ashley. She’s been my patient for over a year now, and in that time, she’s wasted away to almost nothing, attempted suicide twice. If you ask me, her life is like a daily suicide attempt—as she slowly starves herself. Though since she’s been here, she’s been better. Some color has returned to her cheeks. Last week I made her smile.

  This is not what you think of when you think of a psychiatric hospital, not the kind of place where we house people like Kreskey—there are no gray corridors lit by fluorescent lights, no metal doors with tray slots and glass run through with wire. Here at Fieldcrest there are gardens, well-appointed rooms, a chef who grows his own produce and herbs on the property, there’s a library, art therapy room, a meditation space. It’s more like a spa, a retreat from a world that is cruel and unfeeling. Ashley’s here for clinical depression, though like most of my patients she has no simple, one-word diagnosis. People always want a name, a pill, a cure. But the human psyche doesn’t always fit in a tidy little box, as we both know.

  Her trauma was the accidental death of her father, one she witnessed as she was a passenger on the back of his motorcycle at the time. After her last suicide attempt, wrists slashed in a hot tub, I thought it might be time to take her out of her home environment. The cuts were shallow, but her mother was away (though I’d suggested it was best that Ashley not be alone). If not for Ashley’s boyfriend, we might have lost her.

  I wondered how she’d fare away from her mother; it’s part of the reason I recommended a stay here. True to
my suspicions, she’s gained weight, opened up more in session, has started painting. Her mother is grieving differently—which is to say drinking, staying out at night, sleeping around, sleeping all day.

  Today I see Ashley in the dayroom, a sun-drenched space filled with cozy couches, fresh flowers, shelves lined with books. There’s no television here, no Wi-Fi. Here we shut out all the crazy-making chatter of our day-to-day world. It’s so hard for the strongest among us to stay sane, isn’t it, under the conditions we have come to think of as normal?

  Ashley reminds me of you in some ways. The sweetness of her smile, an innocent twinkle that belies the sharp wit, the dark thoughts. Like you, she’s authentically both—light and shadow. Maybe like all of us.

  “I’ve been thinking today that maybe I don’t want to die after all,” she says when I sit down. Since she’s been here, she’s stopped pulling her hair back into the painfully tight ponytail she usually wears. She’s ceased gnawing at her fingernails.

  “That’s good news,” I say easily. “What has led you to this change of heart?”

  “In meditation class, the teacher asked us to dwell in a place of gratitude. I asked her, ‘What the hell do I have to be grateful for? I’m in a mental hospital.’”

  “Good question.”

  “She said, ‘Today, someone who was clinging to life lost the battle against a grave illness. That person would have given anything for one more day, one more hour, one more breath. You might start by being grateful that you can draw air into your lungs. It’s okay to just start there.’”

  “And that resonated with you?”

  “I never thought about it that way.”

  I am not sure if she’s being a smart-ass or not. She’s capable of great snark. But I think I see a change in her, something softened, something more relaxed.

  “My dad,” she says, looking down at her hands. “He wouldn’t have wanted this for me. He’d be mad that I tried to throw away my life, when he would have done anything, I think, to hold on to his.”

  I don’t say anything right away, just nod. The less you say in session sometimes the better, otherwise it can become about you. She’s quiet a moment, then wipes at a tear.

  “It was, you know, like an aha moment.”

  I had a moment like that once.

  When I woke up in Eugene Kreskey’s basement, I thought I was dreaming. I was lying on concrete and there was nothing around me that I recognized. Odd shapes in a shadowy space, some light leaking in from a high window. He hadn’t even bothered to tie me up. The pain in my head, my jaw, my leg, my back. Sometimes those breaks still ache in the rain and Christ, it brings me right back to that basement. I can still smell it.

  “Mom,” I whimpered. “Mom.”

  We always want her, don’t we? Those of us who were lucky enough to be loved by our mothers. She’s the one who picks you up, dusts you off, cleans up your wounds and sends you back on your way. No one else ever loves you like that, not really. She’s the one you want when things go bad.

  Then I remembered—the woods, the dog, the monster of a man. Panic ramped up my breathing, brought me wobbly to my feet. It was so goddamn quiet.

  Remember what he said, that cop. He said: No matter what, don’t let them take you. And if they do, fight like your life depends on it. Because it does. Break all the rules, don’t listen, don’t be polite, make a mess, make a scene. Anything you can do to call attention to your situation, do it.

  It was such an abstraction then, something from a movie, something so outrageous it was almost funny. Though I remember looking around that assembly and everyone so silent, staring. No one, not even the bullies and the troublemakers, made a sound.

  But I was frozen, afraid to open my mouth.

  “You have to get out of here.” Tess stood in the corner of the basement. She was still and calm. “He’s coming for you.”

  “Tess.” I was so relieved to see her, moved toward her quickly.

  But then she wasn’t there at all; I was alone. To this day, I don’t know if she is a product of my addled brain, or—something else. I moved over to where she was standing and there was a box of tools. A screwdriver, a saw, a rusty hammer.

  I was shaking. My body quaking with fear and pain; my jaw, my head, my arm. I wept with it, unable to stop. I was so weak, I could barely lift the hammer. But I put it in the pocket of my shorts, took the screwdriver. Then she was at the top of the stairs.

  “Use the screwdriver to remove this doorknob,” she whispered, urgent and sure. “Then run. And, Hank? Do not look back.”

  By the time I got to the top of the stairs, she was gone again. My mind, shattered, just accepted her as she was, whatever she was—a friend who was trying to help me. In the black, it was impossible to see the knob. But I felt the screwdriver into the screw head, and slowly, painstakingly, I turned, and turned, and turned, until the knob fell off and the door swung open.

  The house was rank, smelled of mold and garbage. It’s funny how children of privilege experience the world—our homes are attractive and safe, things are clean, rooms bright. We think it’s all like that—every house, the world, clean and safe. Even when they tell us that it isn’t, we don’t believe it.

  Kreskey’s house was a hovel. Stacks of newspapers lined the walls, dishes spilled out of the sink, naked bulbs hung from wires in the ceiling. It was a maze of junk, old computer monitors lined up against a wall in the kitchen, furniture stained and sagging, walls yellow. It was a horror-movie house, nothing like anyplace I’d seen.

  I limped quietly, trying to stifle my breathing, ignore the pain, looking for a door, a window. The back door in the kitchen was boarded shut, the windows, too. I saw Tess standing again; she motioned, silently urgent, and I followed. There it was. The front door. I broke into an unsteady run, hope giving me strength. That’s when I heard it.

  The low rumble in his chest, guttural and ferocious. Wolf.

  He was lying by the door, got to his feet as I approached.

  I froze. I had the hammer and wished I’d brought the saw.

  I had one of those aha moments: fight or die.

  Maybe this is not quite the same as Ashley’s breakthrough. I’ve had other light bulb moments, too. But this one has served me best.

  “Have you—ever had a moment like that, Dr. Reams?” asks Ashley now.

  “I have,” I tell her. “I think all of us on the path to wellness have those moments. They’re like stepping stones, the places where we find a foothold to bring us to the next stone.”

  “Did you ever want to die?”

  I am open with my patients. Most of them know my path, my history. I think it helps 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?