Was Tav’s leaving the right thing to do? I didn’t know, but my muscles were drawn to the pantry anyway, assessing the shelves for items that I would take with me in a rucksack if I decided to trek out of here on my own.
How long could I wait? Would I find another bridge or a helpful neighbor?
I imagined shoving all of the cured meats into my pack and the box of protein bars Tav had brought that’d gone untouched.
Why hadn’t he taken them with him?
Was it a kind gesture, leaving them for me? Or had he not bothered taking anything to eat because he knew he’d be able to trek right off of this mountain?
Or worse, what if he hadn’t made it off the mountain at all?
What if he’d only made it as far as the burly mountain man that’d delivered provisions?
I gnashed my teeth together, mind whirling with the possibilities.
Was Tav my enemy?
Could I trust the neighbor that’d delivered early morning goods by snowshoe even if I could find him?
I thought of the tiny cabin in the valley, curls of woodsmoke against the blue sky. It was difficult to tell how far away he was—my perception from atop the mountain was thrown, but I calculated at least a half a day’s hike down the steepest ridge of the mountain if I angled directly for it.
I figured that was my best shot. My memory was hazy from our late night drive into the chalet, but I remembered at least half a dozen side roads and many more paths through the woods that may or may not lead to my nearest neighbor.
It could take me days trying to weave through the woods as I made my way off of this mountain by way of the road. My only option was to hike down to the valley and keep that cabin in my line of sight at all times.
And pray that when I arrived the inhabitants would be welcoming to a helpless stranger.
Twenty-Two
I worked late into that day and the night searching for survival items to bring on my fictional hike.
I still hadn’t decided fully if I was brave enough to leave the chalet, but waiting felt just as futile.
Would I survive if I left? Would I survive if I stayed?
On my hands and knees, I sorted through Tav’s laptop bag again. I didn’t know what I might find, stray cash or bank cards if I was even lucky enough to reach society? A note or receipt or some other indication that he’d known what he was doing when he brought me up here and left me? I fingered through the small zippers and slots, curiosity driving me forward as I suddenly felt like his life had become so removed from mine these last months.
Has it always been this way? Had we let our love wax and wane like the cycles of the moon? Were we settling or just getting started? I emptied his bag of the last remaining bits of paper and scribbled notes of computer code, finding nothing of value, until I turned back to his wallet.
I hadn’t bothered searching it since the first time, figuring I’d find nothing of value, but now as I searched the slots nestled between the layers of fine leather, my fingers ruffled the edges of something old. I angled the thin paper out, surprised again to find another small polaroid, this one a quarter the size of the ones hanging in the room downstairs, even though the subject was the same.
Me.
Bradley held me in a bear hug in the foreground of this photo, my braids flying through the air as he spun me as a laugh lit my cheeks. Mom stood in the background, one hand on her hips and a smile on her face.
But she wasn’t looking at me, she stared at whoever was taking the photo off-camera.
Who had been the photographer?
I struggled to remember Bradley’s parents ever coming to Sunday church, his own dad a miner that worked jobs away more months of the year than not.
I began to wonder if there was more I was missing. Was this another surprise I was meant to find? Or a coincidental mistake?
I know the baby isn’t mine.
Tav’s words rang through my head. If he’d been in possession of so many photos of Bradley and I from our shared childhoods, some I hadn’t even seen or known of their existence before, no wonder Tav thought I might have an affair with Bradley.
Did that justify him following me?
And where had he gotten these photos?
Confusion pounded through my mind as I considered the range of possibilities, and the far greater probability that the reality of the situation was probably something I couldn’t even think of. Tav had probably found this photo at our house in one of my mother’s boxes—maybe he’d meant to frame it and present it to me.
Or maybe he considered it evidence.
I continued searching in the folds of the leather, surprised when two more, almost tissue-paper thin polaroids fell from a slot.
The first, a picture of me and my mother that same day. The same braids, the same flowers on my mother’s Sunday dress.
The other photo wasn’t a photo at all, but a postcard-sized sheet of glossy photo paper. I unfolded it quickly, fingers shaking as awareness rocketed through my nerves.
An ultrasound photo.
Our ultrasound photo.
Our baby.
Twenty-Three
I tossed two water reservoir packs up the stairs, pulling the other two over my shoulders and powering up the steps until I reached the top. I’d been stretching out my muscles all day, trying to build some small resistance training in preparation for snowshoeing down it in the next few days. I was worried about leaving the chalet, but I was more worried about staying.
I couldn’t sleep at night, unwilling to be locked up inside like a caged animal.
My life had been small before the chalet, but it was mine. I wanted it back. It’d been over ten days since Tav had been gone, he was either off of this mountain or dead. Either way, I couldn’t wait to find out.
I reached the top of the stairs, tossing all four of the water reservoirs into the sink to wash before filling them to test their ability to hold water.
I passed the tiny ultrasound photo hanging on the refrigerator, edges crinkled and deep lines where Tav had folded it tightly into his wallet.
What did it mean that he’d kept it?
I remembered the moment he’d found out I was expecting over a video call late one night. I’d wanted to wait to tell him in person, but I'd been so overwhelmed with a mix of emotion and worry he’d noticed something was off. Soon I was breaking down as I confessed my secret. Tav was in his car within minutes, driving the five hours to wrap me in his arms. He rubbed my back while I fell asleep that night, and made sure he cleared his schedule for my prenatal appointments.
I only had three, but he attended each of them like the dad I prayed he would be.
I know the baby isn’t mine.
His words from my dream still rang loudly in my ears. I fingered the shape of the tiny black and white form on the glossy paper, thinking I would take this with me when I left the chalet as a reminder that each step I took was a step towards truth. I didn’t know what I might find on the other side of the door, but I would walk headfirst into the fire anyway.
The way Tav spoiled me into complacency in the months since the miscarriage was tempting, his generous gifts and attentive devotions were always intoxicating, but his availability to me only on long weekends and over video chat grew exhausting. Loneliness had been the driving force when I accepted Bradley’s phone call that first day he was back in town. His friendship mattered more to me than I realized, and it was him I thought I would call first if I wasn’t able to find Tav. I imagined hiking out to civilization and getting cell phone reception for the first time—would Tav answer my call? Did he even still have his phone?
The quest for answers drove me into the night, gathering items and rearranging them in my rucksack to make everything fit.
By the time I was falling asleep on the couch, I figured I’d be able to fit two weeks of provisions in my bag. I’d found two new ski poles that would serve as safety tools to help me test the ice and avoid any deep crevices, and they would double as
my only weapons.
Despite searching every closet in this house, the rifle that’d been here once was gone.
That meant that I had to make sure I had an alternative fit for any occasion. I could kill a charging wolf or a threatening stranger with a well-aimed ski pole to the throat. I hoped I wouldn’t have to, but I could if needed.
I held the small polaroid in the light, yawning as I thought back on the series of Sundays that’d rocked my life over the decades. The times when Chuck and my mother fought so loudly and so late into the night that I hid under the mattress with a pillow over my ears. I often woke up Sunday mornings to his boots at the edge of the bed, grin on his face as he pulled me out and wrapped me in a hug. He always smelled like mom those Sunday mornings, and I hated him for knowing her so well. I hated her more for letting him into our lives like she did, even though his presence only brought chaos.
I hated Sundays.
I planned on changing that.
This Sunday I would leave the chalet and take back my life.
This Sunday would be the start of something new.
Twenty-Four
The car is gone.
I stood at a large snowbank, snowshoes strapped to my feet, and the place where Tav and I had left the car before hiking into the chalet was empty. I struggled to remember what Tav had said: the car is covered by a snowdrift.
My eyes searched the embankments, heavy evergreen boughs sweeping the snowy forest floor as I tried to estimate how much the snow may have piled up since I’d been on the mountain.
I’d been at the chalet for fifteen days.
How much snow had accumulated since Tav left? And how much had been blown around in the blustery winds that circled this peak?
I stabbed my ski pole into the snow, testing my next few steps as I walked to where I vaguely remembered Tav parking the car. I didn’t think the snow was so deep that I wouldn’t notice if I was standing on top of my own car, but the only other explanation was the bridge, which still looked closed down from my view of it in the cloudy distance. One entire ice-ridden suspension cable hung down into the depths of the frigid waters that lapped at the base of the mountain.
Driving over Deception Gorge at night was a trip in terror, but during the day it was far more terrifying. The frothy white waves licked the base of the rocks where the steel of the bridge anchored to the slippery granite. Everything about Deception Gorge was clouded with mist and treachery. If one bad ice storm could knock out the only means of civilization, why would anyone live on this mountain?
And then I realized the isolation was a perk for a certain sort of people—the kind that had secrets to keep.
I stabbed my pole into the snowbank at the far southern edge of the clearing. I remembered the sheer cliff that dropped down to the water just a few yards around the bend that’d taken me by surprise as we climbed the switchbacks up the mountain weeks ago.
I shivered, wishing again that I would have just begged Tav to find the nearest seedy roadside motel for the night. The chalet was layered with luxury and had become my own house of horrors.
I turned then, heading back out of the clearing the way I’d come. I wound my way through the trees, following my snowshoe tracks the few miles up the trail that ended at the chalet. I wondered if the man that’d delivered my box of rations had taken this same trail, or if there was another that led more directly to his cabin.
By the time I’d crested the small ridge, my thoughts had fallen on a late night call Tav and I had had one night while he was in the city.
With my eyes falling closed, he’d told me a horrifying bedtime story of his parents fighting when he was young. “Time, money, women, parenting, you name it, they fought over it,” he’d said.
Their vicious insults were so chilling to him and his little brothers that one of the boys would bloody or bruise the other until their parents would have to stop their fighting temporarily to take care of their sons. It was a heavy price to pay, but one they believed was worth it. I’d held our future baby in my stomach then, and he’d promised that he would never turn into his parents. He vowed to take care of me and our children, and he vowed to love us harder than either of his parents had ever loved him. He promised me the world, and I believed him.
I’d never met Tav’s parents, and after that story, I’d never wanted to. I ached for the little boys that cowered in closets and under beds, and I was reminded of my own moments spent cowering in the shadows of my own house. With tears of sadness in my eyes, Tav and I swore to be better parents than we’d both had. I think it’s something that connected us more than we realized. And I think I lived for that connection more than I realized.
I unstrapped the snowshoes from my boots, planted my bottom on the top stair of the chalet and took in the stark beauty around me. The thought crossed my mind that these mountains could be like calm, benevolent parents or traumatic, terrorizing tempests.
One of my own worst childhood memories came back to me then, and with head pounding and teeth on edge, I stumbled into the chalet trying to forget the night a series of small horrors unfolded into tears and terror.
The first time I’d gone on antidepressants was because of one entire night spent curled up under my dingy mattress.
I gulped, trying to distract myself by punching at the smart house screen, suddenly feeling the need to confirm the security system was operational. I needed a distraction, any distraction. These were the moments my medication was prescribed for. For the seconds that stretched to eons when it felt like the world was crumbling down on my shoulders.
I continued tapping through the menus until I found the one thing I knew how to do on this house: the weather report.
“What’s the weather?” I could hear the crack in my own voice.
I dropped down onto the leather couch, letting the sun-warmed hide against my back loosen my tense muscles.
“Today: clear with a high of twenty. The overnight: snow showers with a chance of gale-force winds. Tomorrow below zero temperatures and heavy cloud cover will make visibility low.”
I groaned.
Sliding deeper into the leather, I let my mind wander as I thought it was odd that the smart house wasn’t connected to the internet but was still able to give me a current weather report. Maybe the weather radio was powered by a satellite. Or maybe the internet wasn’t broken, but only disabled. Maybe the fact that the chalet could feed me the weather report and not my social media messages was a feature, not a flaw.
I remembered Tav’s fingers whipping across the keyboard, the incessant tap, tap, tap like a soundtrack to my life with him.
I loved Tav, but what had that gotten me?
Where did love get mom?
Tears burned at my eyelids as I wiggled myself deeper into the couch, furry blanket wrapped around my shoulders while I hummed softly to myself in an effort to keep the memories at bay.
Love and Sundays. I hated them equally.
Twenty-Five
“Look at this pretty girl in her Sunday best.”
Thick fingers shaped like calloused sausages tugged at my shoulders. I pressed my knobby-kneed legs against the metal bed frame, wedging myself under the mattress to avoid his contact.
“Come to papa Chuck. Give me a hug, girl.” I cringed at the slur in his words.
Tears leaked at the edges of my eyes as I squirmed out of his feeble grasp, my lungs screaming with the need for fresh air. Chuck’s palm yanked at the last place he could reach then, my strawberry dress from church tore at the seams, the dainty spaghetti strap not nearly strong enough for a grown man’s grip.
I crammed my eyelids tightly closed, fresh tears melting down my cheeks as I prayed over and over for someone to deliver me from under this mattress. With the smell of cat excrement in my nostrils, I prayed for deliverance from this desperate place. I prayed for a miracle and I believed that if I prayed hard enough, maybe Bradley or someone else would knock on the door and interrupt all that fighting they were always doing.
I fell asleep clutching my strawberry dress to my chest and blocking out the vicious insults mom and Chuck hurled at each other late into Sunday night. At some point he shuffled out the door, fired up his car and left mom early before he had to be at work Monday morning.
I hated Sundays.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Twenty-Six
The Second Sunday
I shot off of the sofa, heart in my throat after another terrorizing dream-memory. At the edges of my vision I saw someone rushing away from the chalet.
Another box.
I moved to the front door, opening it to find another box on the top step.
It was identical to last week, with The Sunday Wife written in dark marker along one edge. I slid the box inside of the house, fingers working at the seams before I uncovered another handwritten note laying on top of a new array of cured meats and canned vegetables.
I hope you enjoyed the snowshoeing yesterday. Stay safe. Deception is deadly.
x Yours
Instead of fear cracking my throat, anger bubbled to life. It burned up my spine and sent an adrenaline rush of goosebumps through me.
Deception is deadly.
I know the baby isn’t mine.
The lawn guy, Frey? Aren’t we both better than that?
The jumbled memories of Tav’s words came together with sudden realization. The sense of paranoia I’d previously held evaporated to crystal clarity.
“Fuck you, Tav.”
I moved quickly then. I’d been ready for this moment. I pushed my feet into my boots, lacing them tightly before pushing my winter jacket with the faux fur collar over my shoulders. I snagged my already packed rucksack, zippers straining with the amount of food I’d packed inside of it. With my backpack on my shoulders and both ski poles in hand, I slung the filled water reservoirs over my shoulder and hobbled out onto the icy steps. I worked quickly, fastening the snowshoes to my boots and locking my foot in securely before sliding off down the driveway.
The Sunday Wife: A Lockdown Thriller Page 8