by Becky Wade
That’s what I believe. That’s what is true.
She poured out all of her praises and worries and pleas. Then she strained to hear His response.
Long minutes passed.
She waited and waited, ears and senses pining for Him.
“Where are you?” Her question sounded small and raspy in the empty space.
She couldn’t stand to feel this way—so anxious that she wanted to claw out of her skin.
She pounded both fists into the hardwood floor. “Where are you?” she yelled.
She discerned no answer.
Her heart drummed with deep-seated panic.
God had abandoned her.
He missed Gen far more than he should.
Sam crossed the distance from his truck to the front door of the guesthouse and knocked. After receiving her texts yesterday at the apple orchard, he’d hardly slept. He’d been distracted during his work on the farm today and during his basketball game with Eli and the others. After showering at the gym, he’d headed straight here.
Now that daylight savings time was done, darkness fell early in the mountains. Sunset was perhaps only half an hour away, but the storm bruising the sky would get here even sooner.
The door swung open, and Gen filled the opening. Wind lifted her hair, whipping strands of it away from her pale pink cheeks. He simply stood on the threshold, overwhelmed with tenderness, adjusting to the power of her nearness.
She slid her hands around his neck. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
She looked like she’d been fighting her demons with everything she had and losing.
He hated that he couldn’t shield her from what she was going through. He was a fixer. Give him a goal—run a farm, open a restaurant—and he’d take every action needed to achieve that goal. But this? “Gen—”
She drew his profile to hers. Their lips met, and his longing for her answered instantly. Their kiss held an edge of desperation.
“It’s good to see you,” she whispered when they broke apart.
“You too.”
They hadn’t even made it through the front door.
She rested her ear against his chest.
“Your parents?” he asked. He didn’t need to say more. They both knew what he was asking.
She kept her face where it was, saying nothing.
Turn to me, he begged her silently. How could he show her that she could depend on him if she wouldn’t give him a chance?
“My family’s decided to speak with Russell Atwell’s mother and sisters,” she finally said. “I was hoping that we could make it happen today, because I’m dreading it. But my mom didn’t give her approval until a few hours ago. So Natasha set up a visit with them for tomorrow morning.”
“What did you find out—”
She launched herself into his arms, and they were kissing again. He walked her backward toward her makeshift kitchen. If she wanted to distract him from asking about her parents, she’d chosen the most effective way possible. Need gathered within him, an insistent storm.
Her hip bumped against her butcher block island and immediately after, a clanging sound reached his ears.
She gave a huff of amusement against his lips. “Are you tearing up my cottage?”
“Guesthouse,” he corrected, glancing to see what had fallen. A square metal canister. Its lid had popped off, fanning tea bags onto the floor and causing a small bottle—a prescription bottle—to roll free. It turned, label side up, label side down before coming to a stop.
She continued their interrupted kiss.
A prescription bottle.
His body reacted before his mind could, turning to stone. “Your tea fell.”
“Mmm?”
“Your tea.”
“Oh!” In the next second, she separated from him and bent over the floor, blocking his view of the bottle with her body. She swept everything into the canister.
That prescription bottle could be for anything.
Allergies. Iron supplements. Anything.
“There we are,” she said, her tone bright, as she set the canister back on the butcher block. “I’ve fixed the damage you’re responsible for.” She grinned.
The air blowing through the gaping doorway had turned colder. “What about the damage you’re responsible for?” he asked in a level tone.
She cocked her head, as if confused by his question.
“I saw the pills, Gen.”
Her expression went too smooth, and in that instant he knew the pills weren’t allergy meds or iron supplements.
His insides hollowed out. He held out a hand and noticed that it was shaking slightly. “May I see them?”
“Sam.”
“Please.”
She jutted out her chin, lifted the prescription bottle from the container, and handed it to him. The label read Genevieve Woodward. 20mg OxyContin.
“I didn’t take any,” she said.
He dragged his gaze to hers, anger multiplying inside him. “When did you get these?”
“Last night.”
“Where?”
“Riverside Pharmacy. I’d . . . asked my doctor in Nashville to put a prescription into the system for me back in August when I was going through detox.”
“Why?”
“Because I was so sick at the time. And unsure if I could make it.” A line notched the skin between her brows. “I was in a bad place mentally last night, and it helped me feel better, somehow, to know that the pills were nearby. If necessary.”
“It made you feel better,” he said with tight control, “to know that poison was nearby if necessary?”
She set her mouth. “I didn’t take any.”
“Genevieve,” he growled.
“Yes, Sam? Are you going to kick me out of the cottage now?” Irritation rolled off her as she drew herself tall.
“Of course not.”
“That’s what you said you’d do.”
“That’s what I said I’d do months ago. Now I couldn’t stand it if you left.” He hated these pills. His fingers curled around the bottle, and he wished he could crush it in his grip. “As long as you keep hiding your addiction to Oxy, you are never going to beat it.”
“I am beating it!”
Kayden’s addiction had been dangerous, and he and Kayden had both kept silent about it. At the time, he’d labeled his silence as loyalty. In truth, he’d betrayed Kayden with his silence, just as much as she’d betrayed herself with it. Hiding her struggle hadn’t helped her. Hiding it had ended in her death.
“The next step is taking pills in secret,” he said, his pulse throbbing. “And the next step is you wasting away.”
Outraged color swept up her face. “No. Kayden’s next step was taking pills in secret. Kayden’s next step was wasting away.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Are—are you comparing me to Kayden every time you’re around me?”
“No.”
“Are you trying to help me because you wish you could go back and help her?”
“Of course not.”
“I don’t want to be your do-over, Sam.”
Her words slapped him. “You aren’t my do-over.”
“Do you still love her?” she demanded.
“I love you,” he said furiously, almost shouting. “You’re the one I go to sleep thinking about and wake up thinking about. I’ve been lonely for years, and you’re the one who’s changed that. You’re everything to me, which is why it terrifies me that you turned to painkillers last night instead of to me.”
She opened her mouth to speak but words didn’t come.
Hopelessness made a grab for his heart. He pushed his palm against his chest as if doing so might keep it intact. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this upset or desperate. He needed to go. He didn’t trust himself to say one more word.
As he stalked from the guesthouse, fat raindrops blew against him sideways. Then thunder crashed. Water wet his shirt, his hair, his neck.
He drove
his truck to his house. As soon as he reached his kitchen, he checked the label for the number of pills that had been prescribed. Sixty. He dumped the pills onto the dining room table and counted them.
Twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Tremors racked his body. He’d understood all along that he couldn’t deal with Genevieve going back to pills again and again and again.
In your weakness I am strong.
Lightning sent brightness flashing through the room.
Horrible memories from the past pulled at him. Grimly, he continued counting.
Fifty-seven. Fifty-eight. Fifty-nine. Sixty.
He counted them a second time, to be sure. Then a third time.
They were all here. Just like she’d said, she hadn’t taken any.
He slid the pills into his palm. At the sink, he flicked on the water, then poured them down the garbage disposal.
The destruction of her pills made him feel no better.
She could always get more. Hide more. Take more.
Natasha
“Did you hear that?” I ask the others on our eighth day in our underground room that smells like a sewer. I was trying to French-braid Genevieve’s hair, but now I cock my head to the side to listen.
“What?” Genevieve asks.
“Shh,” I say.
There it is again, the grinding sound of a big machine. Then comes a far-off groaning, scraping noise . . . as if pieces of our building are being lifted away.
“What is it?” Ben asks.
Genevieve looks at me excitedly.
“I think,” I say, “that might be the sound of our rescue.”
Chapter Twenty-three
The drive to Atlanta to confront Alice Atwell was worsening Genevieve’s state of mind, which had been dismal since her fight with Sam the night before.
Heartsick, she propped her chin in her hand and watched the scenery fly past from within the backseat of her dad’s BMW. The tension inside the car was so thick that, had she scissors, she’d have been able to cut it to pieces.
Sam had found her pills.
In fact, the way things had unfolded, it was almost as if God had wanted him to find them.
Sam had accused her of hiding her addiction, and he’d been right. She’d literally been hiding that bottle of Oxy in that canister.
Hiding . . . still.
Even after all the effort she’d made the past three months to be open with herself, Sam, and Natasha, he’d caught her red-handed, and she’d been horrified. Then he’d chosen that moment—when her very worst flaw had been on display—to tell her that he loved her.
She still couldn’t believe he’d said that. A few times since last night, she’d questioned her recollection of his “I love you” because it seemed so impossible that he’d said that.
But no, it had been real. Had he spoken those words to her a different day under a sweeter circumstance, she’d have been elated. As it was, she’d been wondering if she’d forced the declaration from him the way a person might force a bear to attack by poking it with a stick.
Had he meant it? Did he love her? Really? And if he had loved her last night, did he love her still, after finding Oxy in her cottage?
Her actions last night had woken the ghost of Kayden, which had probably made him doubt whether he had the heart to continue dating her.
After Sam left last night, she’d paced endlessly, her distress oscillating between remorse over their fight and fear for her family. Sam hadn’t come back to the cottage or texted or called. Nor had she reached out to him.
She hadn’t taken a pill in almost three months. Regardless, her life seemed to be spinning out of control, just like it had been the day she’d awoken in an unfamiliar cottage with a stranger standing over her.
Genevieve’s focus settled on her parents in the front two seats. Mom was pretending to read, but Genevieve hadn’t seen her turn a single page. Dad had turned on instrumental music and passed the drive in silence, his profile strained. Natasha sat next to Genevieve in the back, tapping on her computer with a drawn expression. Over the past hour and forty minutes, Genevieve had periodically attempted to catch up with social media on her phone. Mostly, though, she’d stewed about Sam and hovered on the precipice of tears.
“I think we’re coming up on it,” Dad said.
Natasha, family navigator, checked her phone. “Yes. It’s the next left.”
They turned into a mobile home community. Timberland Village’s freshly paved roads took them by neat, modest homes set between towering trees.
“Just here.” Natasha pointed. “That’s the one.”
Dad pulled onto a concrete slab behind a Buick and a Kia. Alice’s white rectangular house loomed alongside them. Spiky plants dotted the mulch at its base. The dark green stair rail leading to the front door’s landing matched the home’s green shutters.
After extracting his keys from the ignition, Dad simply sat, staring out the windshield at the house. Mom, who was far too pale, watched Dad.
Her father had been the one who’d advocated for this meeting. Yet wanting to do this in the abstract didn’t mean he was looking forward to this in actuality.
Would their family be the same after this? Or would this fracture everything? Dread boxed Genevieve in on every side.
Dad led the way to the door and, soon after, a woman near her parents’ age answered their knock. She wore a blue sweater and short blond hair. “I’m Dawn.” Russell’s youngest sister. Russell had been the eldest sibling. Followed two years later by Sandra, the one who’d sent the letters, then two years later by Dawn.
“It’s been a long time.” Mom made an attempt at a smile.
“It has.” Dawn’s manner communicated politeness. “Come in.”
They followed Dawn into a living area adjoining a kitchen. Dawn indicated the elderly woman occupying the sofa. “My mother, Alice.” Then she lifted her hand toward the figure standing straight and hostile near the sofa’s end. “My sister, Sandra.”
Mom introduced her family members to the Atwells.
“Caroline, dear,” Alice said, extending both arms, “let me hug you.”
Mom bent to hug Alice while Sandra remained motionless. She’d crossed her arms over a long-sleeved T-shirt with a faded picture of a hot air balloon on the front. Even in belted jeans and Nikes, Sandra had the demeanor of a judge about to hand down a prison sentence.
Genevieve, Natasha, and Dad helped Dawn bring over chairs while Mom and Alice murmured about how fast time flies.
Russell’s two sisters resembled each other strongly. Both were thin, with sharp chins and noses. Sandra’s hair was highlighted like Dawn’s, though Sandra’s was longer. It fell in a no-nonsense style to her shoulders.
Alice Atwell, eighty-three, had a sturdier build than either of her daughters, yet appeared frail of health. A walker waited near her, as did an oxygen tank on wheels. The older woman had secured her long white-gray hair into a twist using a double-pointed wooden hair prong. The dusky pink housedress she wore matched the shades of her decor.
Walls of stark white hemmed gray carpeting and gray furniture that smelled of baby powder. Throw pillows integrated bursts of pink and teal.
Dawn took a seat on the sofa next to her mother. Sandra perched on the armrest on her mother’s other side.
Bile climbed Genevieve’s throat as she sat, facing them.
“I’ve thought of you many times,” Alice said to Mom. She dispensed her words carefully, as if each one required effort.
“And I you.”
“You left Camden so shortly after Russell’s death.”
“I did, yes.”
“After a time, we found that we couldn’t stay in Camden, either, and we moved to Atlanta. I’ve often regretted that I lost touch with you.”
Genevieve suspected that Mom had made a concerted effort to distance herself from everything connected to her Russell Atwell years. Alice may not have been able to keep in touch with Mom even if she’d tried hard to do so.
&n
bsp; “It’s wonderful to see you,” Alice continued, “and your new husband and your grown daughters. You’re all so beautiful.”
We’re all so guilty! Genevieve wanted to say. She really didn’t know how she’d be able to watch Alice’s current graciousness turn into anger and then condemnation.
“Thank you very much for inviting us to visit,” Mom said.
“When Natasha explained over the phone that she’d been looking for me, I asked her to bring you all over straightaway. Didn’t I, Natasha?”
“You did.”
A becoming peachy undertone lit Alice’s skin. Hers was not a bitter face, as Genevieve had been expecting, considering what had happened to her son and husband. Alice’s wrinkles, furrows, and lines gave evidence of her years and her sorrows, yes. But she had a calm and perceptive demeanor.
“Gordon passed away more than thirty years ago,” Alice said to Mom. “Did you know that?”
“Yes. I was very sorry to hear it.”
“Sandra lives with me here and takes good care of me. Dawn works for the United States Postal Service. She and her husband have two boys. One’s a police officer and the other restores old motorcycles. We’re very proud of them.”
“As you should be.” For once, Mom resisted the urge to play a game of “my children are more impressive than yours.” She cleared her throat. “In addition to our desire to . . . reconnect with you, we looked you up because we wanted to discuss something with you. The night of Russell’s death, actually. That’s what we’d like to discuss.”
“Oh?” Sandra said, the sound critical and mocking.
“We know the facts of what happened,” Dad told Alice. “I wish we’d shared them with you much sooner.”
“Then why didn’t you?” Sandra asked.
“Sandra,” Alice murmured disapprovingly.
“We didn’t share the details with you sooner,” Dad said to Alice, “because we were afraid.”
Alice considered that. “Go on.”
Mom told them about the relationship she’d had with Dad in college. Then about her relationship with Russell. She outlined the abuse she’d suffered at Russell’s hands, keeping the details clinical. No blame rang from them.
