by Paula McLain
I look away. The softest, most terrible wrecking ball smashes at my heart from the top of the sky. “I can’t.”
“Maybe you don’t think so, but you’re ready for this. Your son should have you there. He needs his mother.”
Everything goes sideways then. I start to cry, but silently. I can’t catch my breath long enough to make a sound.
“How old is he?”
“Almost seven months,” I whisper. I haven’t let myself think about how it would feel to tell this story, not to Tally or anyone. I’ve been hiding from it. The pain and the regret. The unbearable weight of my guilt. “He wasn’t there the day Sarah died.”
“What happened?” Tally’s voice is gentle and compassionate. I know that I have to find a way to answer her. To tell the truth, no matter how impossible that feels. No matter how she’ll look at me afterward. No matter what happens next.
“Brendan had the day off. He took Matthew over to his sister’s house while Sarah was napping. I—” My voice breaks, but I make myself go on. “I’d been working on a big case for weeks and wanted to use the time to follow up on a few leads. When Sarah woke up, I realized we had no food in the house for dinner, so I put her in the car and strapped her in, but then the phone rang in the house. I’d been waiting for a call most of the day, about the case. The victim was an infant.” I stop there as if that detail alone explains everything.
“She was in the car,” Tally urges gently. “And you went inside to get the phone.”
“I shouldn’t have left her there,” I explain raggedly. “But it was only for a second. I could see her through the front window in her car seat.”
“The phone call rattled you, though,” she guesses. Or maybe it’s not a guess. Maybe she already knows all of this somehow in whatever way that knowing has come to her.
“It was my partner calling. The stepmother of the baby we’d found murdered had confessed. I’d interviewed her twice myself, but I hadn’t seen it. I couldn’t believe it. I just froze there, spinning on my mistake.”
“And you took your eyes off of Sarah.”
“Just for a minute. Not even that.” The last word is a strangled croak. I take a deep breath so I can go on, pinching my eyes shut. “I’d left the car door open so I could see her better. She got out of her car seat somehow. I didn’t even know she could do that. She was only two and a half.”
“I’m so sorry, Anna. What a thing to live through.”
Have I lived through it? Sometimes I’ve wondered. Is this living, reckoning with my guilt every day? Being without my family? My son?
I open my eyes. “The car was parked in our driveway at an angle. I only looked away for a second and then I heard an awful sound outside. Our neighbor Joyce had backed into the street from her own driveway and Sarah was there.” Now that I’ve said everything, I feel almost numb. Vacant. There’s nothing to hide, anymore. No secrets to keep.
“Oh, Anna.” Tally’s eyes are kind. “It was an accident. A terrible accident.”
“For Joyce, maybe. She had no idea Sarah was there, but I was responsible for her. I’m her mother.” The blank feeling inside me expands, as if I’m being swallowed alive, from the inside out. “She died instantly. She was so small.”
“A thing like that could have happened to anyone.”
“That’s not true. I was too distracted. My work had taken over my whole life. I wasn’t present. That’s why Brendan told me to go. He knew the same thing could happen to Matthew. He said he can’t trust me anymore.”
“Grief is a powerful force,” Tally says. “A lot of the families I’ve worked with over the years have come to similar places over a child’s death. Maybe Brendan has had time to work out his feelings. Maybe he’s ready to talk.”
“Even if he could forgive me, I’m not sure I could do anything different now. I haven’t changed.”
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“I’ve never been able to have any distance from these victims. The kids I’m trying to help. My cases just swallow everything. That’s how the accident happened.” I lean against the table with my elbows. Everything inside me feels so heavy I wonder if I can go on. If I can ever again hold myself upright. “I miss Sarah so much.”
Tally is silent as she moves her chair closer to mine. Her arms wrap around me, strong and tender, forgiving. Her body is like a harbor. Like a real place to land.
I stay there, anchored, until I start to feel stronger. Then I sit up and dry my eyes, and start to tell her about Jamie Rivera. It was late July when we found his tiny body in that icebox, covered in frost. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, how his innocent life had just been stolen, for no reason at all. I wanted to find his killer more than anything. To make that person pay. Meanwhile my own family life demanded so much from me, and I didn’t have it to give. I kept telling myself it was just this case. That once we’d solved it, I’d feel better and get back to what was really important. But in another way, I knew that would never happen. My work is a sickness—an addiction—and always has been.
Maybe I should have been more honest with Frank or asked for help, or gone back to therapy. I should have built that house in my mind and done everything I could to heal. Maybe then I would have been awake and watching—there. When Sarah climbed out of the car, I would have run out and stopped her. I would have picked her up in my arms, and carried her to safety.
* * *
—
“Nothing can bring your daughter back,” Tally says when I’ve finished. Our coffee has grown cold. My breakfast pushed away long ago. “I can only imagine how much pain you’ve been carrying, but she doesn’t blame you. Her spirit is as untroubled as any I’ve ever seen, Anna. She’s like the sun.”
I swallow hard. It’s a beautiful image, and I want so much to believe it. That’s what Sarah was like in life. Just like the sun. “Where is she now?”
“She’s everywhere, like light. She watches over her brother and father and you, too. She’s crazy about your dog. She says she always wanted one just like Cricket, and now she has one.”
More tears then. Where do they all come from? Is the body made only of tears? “She’s at peace? She doesn’t feel any pain?”
“Only when she knows you’re suffering. She wants you to forgive yourself, Anna. You have to find a way to come to terms with all this. There’s so much more for you to do. That’s how you can honor Sarah. You can live out your life’s purpose.”
Suddenly I think of Cameron. “I can’t just abandon her,” I try and explain to Tally.
“Cameron knows you care about her. Besides, she has a lot of people around who love her and will make sure she’s safe.” She tips her chin forward and gazes into my eyes with a clarity that startles me. “Are we really talking about something else, Anna? Or someone? What haven’t you been able to let go of?”
I shake my head, wishing she’d look away or drop this. We’ve been sitting here forever already, discussing such terrible, unsurvivable things. And yet I know instantly what she means. Jason and Amy. Since that Christmas when I was eight, every story has been the same story. Cameron has come closer to my heart than most, but bringing her home hasn’t freed the pressure at the center of my chest. Killing Caleb hasn’t, either. “I don’t think I can get better, Tally. I’ve been this way a long time.”
“Anyone can change. We do it over and over, every time we do even one thing different. Don’t sell yourself short. You’ve helped so many people, Anna. Help yourself. Help Matthew. Then see what happens.”
“What if Brendan still blames me? I’ve hurt him so much.”
Again, her eyes are soft and wise. “Maybe he does. Or maybe he forgave you a long time ago and is waiting for you to catch up.”
* * *
—
A few hours later, Tally walks me to my car. I help Cricket into the back seat, and then thr
ow my duffel onto the floorboard. None of this is easy. My emotions are still chaotic and my doubt is loud, but I know what I need to do now. Whether or not the strength will come to me, I have to try. Even if I have to show up on my knees, Tally is right. I have to go back and face everything. I have to be the mother I am. The sister I am, too. I have to find a way back to Jason and Amy. Maybe they will slam a door in my face. Or maybe they forgave me a long time ago, too. There’s only one way to find out.
Once I’ve settled behind the wheel of my Bronco, I say through the open window, “All the times we’ve talked, you’ve never mentioned Hap. Why is that? I just can’t believe he wouldn’t be watching all this from the other side. Watching me and helping me do what’s right. Why would he leave me alone?”
“Do you feel him?”
That stops me. “Yes.”
“Then how are you alone?”
“I never saw his body. I think that’s why I can’t let him go.”
“Anna, I’m going to ask you something that might sound odd, but think about it for a minute. Where is Hap?”
Where? She’s the psychic. Then it comes to me. He’s inside me. I hear him all the time. All his lessons. His voice. “Here.”
She looks down at her feet, still in slippers. Clutching the robe around her, she gazes at me with a level of directness that nearly takes my breath away. “The people we love never leave us, Anna. You know that already. That’s what I mean by spirit. I mean love.”
(sixty-nine)
I spend one more day in Mendocino. One long day—a map without edges. I walk out to the headlands in a cold wind to look at the wild sea, the Point Cabrillo light swinging toward me, then away. I go to Covelo Street and stand in front of Hap and Eden’s house, wondering if it could ever be big enough to hold everyone and me, too, whole or not, missing or newly found. Our stars flickering on and on. Our souls and the shapes they make trying to find one another in the dark.
I go to Evergreen Cemetery with handfuls of ferns in a small ceramic vase. I go to Rotary Park to find Lenore and Clay packing to return to Denver, and clearly happy to see me. I give them my home number in San Francisco, then drive to the Curtises’ to say goodbye to Emily and Cameron, hoping they’ll agree to let me visit again soon.
Cameron is in her room with Gray, the two of them listening to music, sitting on Cameron’s bed. Her right arm is in a sling bound to her chest, and her face still bears the evidence of her harrowing ordeal. And yet I can also see a light in her, newly kindled. There’s a great deal of work ahead, but she’s alive and in her body. How miraculous that is. They’re both miraculous, hip to hip on Cameron’s bed while Madonna sings “Like a Prayer.”
I leave them there and find Emily in the kitchen. She’s organizing her spice cabinet, and there are bottles strewn everywhere. It’s a relief to see her surrounded by a mess somehow, even for a moment, even though she’ll tidy it again.
“Will told me Cameron’s starting to remember more about her early abuse,” I say quietly. “Do you know yet? Has she been able to tell you?”
She nods heavily. “She’s only getting pieces. The therapist is amazing. He’s helping her a lot. I’m pretty sure it’s my dad, though.”
“I’m so sorry, Emily.”
Her sigh sounds ancient. “Yeah. Me too. But I’m going to support her. Whatever it takes, however ugly it gets, the truth has to come out, Anna.”
She’s right. I think of the officer who will knock on her father’s door one day soon. The long-overdue detonation of his secret self. The healing that might begin. “I’m proud of you,” I say.
Her eyes film over. “At least Caleb is dead. I’m not sure she ever would have been able to go on with him still on the loose.”
“Probably not.” I have to agree, though the memory of our struggle in the cabin hasn’t left me for a moment. Maybe it never will. “How’s Troy?”
“Troy is…Troy wants to work it out. He’s promising to stand by us.”
“Well, you’ll know what to do,” I tell her. “It might take a while for you to feel what’s right for you and Cameron. But you can do this. I’ve seen so much strength in you, Emily. I hope you can see it, too.”
* * *
—
Then there is only Will to find. I hate telling him that I’m leaving, but this is the easiest of the things I have to say. The rest is too much to find words for, and yet I do, somehow. I tell him about Sarah, about Brendan asking me to leave. About the guilt and blame and raw grief I’ve been carrying. About Matthew. How afraid I’ve been to mother him. It’s like moving a mountain off of my chest to say his name, even. To tell the whole story of how I got here.
“I should have trusted you more from the beginning,” I finally say through tears, “but I didn’t know how.”
“I don’t blame you. I can’t even imagine what you’ve been dealing with. I’m so sorry. I wish I could have helped somehow.”
“You’ve had too much to deal with too. The separation. Your family. The risk of losing your kids. That’s a lot.”
The muscles in his jaw clench as he wrestles with emotion. “It hasn’t just been Jenny’s case that’s come between me and Beth,” he says. “My drinking’s been out of control for years. I want to get sober, but I don’t know how.”
“Me too. Maybe we can lean on each other. Anyone can change, Will,” I say, trying on Tally’s phrase. “Even if it’s inch by inch.”
He’s silent for a moment, gazing down at his desk, the files and Post-it notes, the half-drained pens in a spill of light. Then he says, “I know it’s crazy, but I still think we’re going to work together to solve those murders from 1973, even if Jenny wasn’t involved. It should be us. I just feel it.”
I have to smile at that, just a little. “His famous feelings are back.”
“Very funny.”
“I do want to visit in a few weeks to check in on Cameron.”
“Of course. Whatever you need. And let me know how you are, okay? You’ll be on my mind.”
“I love you, Will. You know that, right?”
“Yeah. Me too. Come back soon.”
(seventy)
Leaving town is harder than I imagined, even though I know I’ll be back—for Will, for Wanda and Gray and Emily. For Cameron. I walk the length of Lansing Street, unable to get into my Bronco. Bristling with cold, underdressed for the bite of the wind, I look up at Time and the Maiden, starkly white against the blue fist of the sky, utterly cloudless and blameless, silent and everywhere. A single raven is perched squarely on the hourglass, looking not at me but away, its sharp head in profile, an arrow pointing at the sea. A symbol in a puzzle full of symbols, a mystery in plain sight.
For decades I’ve been drawn to the carving without knowing why. But just now, all I can see is the weeping maiden with her head bowed, and how like Jenny she is. Jenny on the beach, singing “Goodnight, California,” her long hair blowing in front of her eyes. I see Shannan in the maiden, too, wearing her rabbit-fur jacket, her soul too heavy to carry. I see Cameron in the grove, and then Cameron as she is now, taking herself back, climbing off of the plinth and out of the puzzle. I see Amy with her white-blond hair in her mouth, sobbing the day she was taken out of our home, out of my arms. Finally, I see the girl I was on my first day in Mendocino, guarded and wounded, watching a simple sunset. The green flash of luck, Eden called it. But really it was the first moment I saw what love might still do to save me, if I had the courage to let it in.
* * *
—
For the longest time I stand on Lansing Street, thinking about beauty and terror. Evil. Grace. Suffering. Joy. How they’re all here every day, everywhere. Teaching us how to keep stepping forward into our lives, our purpose.
Long ago Corolla told me that it’s not what happens to us that matters most, but how we can learn to carry it. I’m starting to underst
and the difference, and how maybe the only way we can survive what’s here, and what we are, is together.
I turn my back on the carving and begin to walk toward my Bronco, and as I do so, something flutters and knocks from behind me. The raven taking flight. Moving on. I smile a little, and then call for Cricket. She stands up in the back seat and tips her ears forward, eager to be on the road. Ready or not, it’s time to go home.
For Lori Keene, there from the beginning as I dreamed this dream
(acknowledgments)
In the three years I spent writing this novel I’ve leaned on far too many books, editors, colleagues, and friends to adequately thank, but the following deserve special acknowledgment.
My brilliant agent, Julie Barer, believed in this book and encouraged me to write it from the very first spark, over a long, wine-tinged lunch at Soho House in downtown Manhattan, as I remember. For her intelligence, unerring intuition, and huge, brave heart, I thank the universe for her now and always.
I’m ever grateful to my editor, Susanna Porter, for her excellence on the page, and complete investment in me and the worlds I’m trying to build; and to Kara Welsh and Kim Hovey for publishing my work with incredible integrity, thought, and care.
My dear friend and accomplice for twenty-two years and counting, Lori Keene, read dozens of drafts and also plunged with me through the real village of Mendocino, as we hiked many of the trails Anna and Hap do in the book and she listened to me find my way to these characters and their stories. For these and so many other reasons, I’ve dedicated the novel to her.
Retired detective Marianne Flynn Statz seemed to appear in my life randomly, but we know the universe doesn’t do random! She read my manuscript with care, answered all of my questions with patience, wisdom, and a wickedly dark sense of humor, and gave me a richer and more granular template for understanding sensitive crimes. This book and Anna are deeper and truer because of her. Thank you, Marianne!
