I can’t wait to show you.
Come home!
Love,
Claire
I seal the letter and put a stamp in the corner of the envelope. Outside my window, I almost think I can hear the hooves pounding. I’m itching to go back into the woods, but it takes a while to hike as far as Maya and I did the other day. I have another idea.
Then the front door opens and I hear Mom’s and Dad’s voices murmuring. Walking downstairs, I work through a plan in my mind.
Dad’s already pulling sandwich fixings out of the refrigerator. “Hungry?” he asks.
I nod and start pouring water into glasses. I lift one, take a long drink. With every swallow, I bury the knowledge of what I saw in Andy’s closet so deep inside I don’t know if I’ll find it again.
By the time I speak, my voice matches my insides: steady and calm.
“You know Sharon, our group facilitator?” I put my sandwich together and look up just enough to watch Mom and Dad trying not to act surprised that I’m talking about the support group at all.
“Of course,” Dad says, coughing into his elbow. “Sharon.”
Mom’s eyes flit to Dad’s, then back again. “What about her, honey?” Mom’s trying not to sound too eager, but it doesn’t work.
“In our last meeting she told us all to find something we really loved to do,” I say. “Something we can do by ourselves.” I swallow hard and feel the weight of those last two words. “I guess it’s supposed to help us feel… better about stuff.”
“I can see the value of that,” Mom says.
Dad nods. He looks quickly at Mom, then back at me. “Did you have any ideas about what would work for you?” he asks.
“I really want to go riding in the woods more,” I say. “By myself.”
Mom’s eyes get full-moon big.
“I have a phone,” I say. “And I’ll stay in our woods, on the trails. I won’t go past them onto the state land.”
Dad steeples his hands, looks at Mom. “What are you thinking, June?”
Mom takes a deep breath. Her eyes are full of questions she’s not asking. Why don’t you want to go together? Why do you want to start riding on your own now, when we can’t keep the horses for much longer? What are you looking for?
“I… suppose it could work,” she says slowly. “But there would have to be some very clear rules.”
I’m too excited to care what rules Mom comes up with, and I clasp my hands together under the table to keep from bursting out of my chair.
“Your helmet at all times, of course. You’d have to actually bring your phone and have it on,” Mom says. “It’s no use if it’s sitting here on the counter, or on silent. And only stick to the paths. No bushwhacking.”
“I know.” I’ve always seen the wild horses from the path anyway.
“You know the weather can be unpredictable, especially later in October,” Mom adds. “No riding if we’ve had any freezing rain, or—I hate to say this when it’s technically still fall, but we all know it could happen—snow.”
“But—” I start, then shut my mouth. “Okay.”
I definitely don’t want to screw this up. Being able to go into the woods alone with Sam will give me exactly what I need: proof of something new, to draw Andy back and make him excited about coming home.
“Text us when you leave,” Mom continues. “Then again when you get back. I don’t want to have to wonder if you’re just taking your time in the barn or getting lost in the woods. And don’t stay out longer than an hour.”
I silently thank Sharon for giving Mom a reason to say yes in the first place. Who knows how much ground Sam and I will be able to cover in an hour, but it will be a lot more than Maya and I did.
“Thanks, Mom!” Without really thinking, I jump up and wrap my arms around her neck. She squeezes me once, then twice, like she used to when I was little. One squeeze for love, and one for good luck. It feels good to hug Mom like that again.
“Thank your father too,” Mom says. “You know he worries.”
Furrows run across Dad’s forehead like the little rivers around his tired eyes. But he smiles at me, and I give him a high five. High fives are our thing.
“Does this count as me texting you?” I ask. “I’m going to head out to the barn now.”
But Mom shakes her head. “Nope. Text right before you leave. That way I know how to time the hour accurately,” she says. “And when to worry.”
“You won’t have to worry,” I call over my shoulder. I’m already at the front porch, pulling my barn boots over my jeans.
Mom’s extra squeeze worked, because it’s a perfect day to ride: the sky robin’s-egg blue, the leaves bright as paint splotches against it.
I don’t take my time grooming Sam. “Guess what!” I tell him. “We’re going out all by ourselves today. Can you believe it?”
Sam blows softly through his nose. He’s always calm enough for both of us. When I climb onto his back, the memory of the pills in the closet slips away, dissolves under the leaves far below.
But even Sam seems surprised as we start toward the woods. He picks his feet up a little higher than usual, his back muscles quivering. Maybe it’s the way I’m holding the reins tighter than Mom would want me to. I feel my thighs tingle as I press them to Sam’s sides, and Mom always says horses sense even the smallest changes in their riders’ bodies.
“What do you think, buddy?” I ask. “How many will we find today?”
It doesn’t take long for Sam to answer. At the exact point where the trail splits—one path looping and curving east through our woods and the other pointing toward the state land bordering Pine Lake—he quickens his pace north even though we usually stick to the circles among the trees we know.
I realize I’m not exactly steering him, not giving him the kinds of strong signals Mom says horses need. This must be the right direction, I think. The way we’re meant to go.
A sound gathers behind us, a heaviness pulsing on frozen ground. Sam slows, and I turn just in time to see two horses—they must be the same ones I saw when I was with Maya the other day—moving through and around trees. They still seem only half real, the foggy color of their bodies blending in with birch bark, maple leaves, and crooked branches. But they gain ground and move in front of us, their dark tails flashing, so I nudge Sam into a canter, hoping to keep up.
We’re still on a flat, wide path, so Mom wouldn’t worry about this. Still, as we follow the hoofprints unfolding ahead of us, the silvery-gray horses just out of sight, I can tell that we’re going farther than we have before.
What did Jack Hamilton’s horses look like? I wonder. The photo in the newspaper only showed him, his dark eyes piercing the camera.
Those horses died, I remind myself. And it was so long ago.
Still, I can’t shake the feeling that Jack and his horses are connected to the ones we’re following.
Even though I don’t know exactly where I am, I can tell we’re getting close to water. Through the thick stands of trees, I catch glimpses of rippling blue: Pine Lake.
I’ve lost track of the horses. They seem to have vanished, swept away like smoke. But the hollows pressed into the messy leaves in front of us still look like hoofprints.
They led us here.
The wide path trickles to an end in the cedars where hoofprints scatter in every direction. Mom’s voice swells in my head: “Only stick to the paths.” But if I do that, I can’t follow the hoofprints or find whatever it is I’m looking for.
So I make my own path.
I take a deep breath, then nudge Sam into the narrow openings between trees, slow and careful.
We’re close to the fence line separating our land from the state land and the rocky shore of Pine Lake. We shouldn’t go much closer; I don’t want Sam getting tangled in anything dangerous. For a second, I wonder if I should get off and walk him.
But around a curve ahead, past the fence, there’s a cavern that seems to have been scooped
out between the lake and the forest floor. I see something: an opening, ringed by stones. Sam and I go just a little farther.
Why do those look so familiar? I peer closely at the stones and at the dark hollow behind them. They look exactly like the stone from the box: deep black, laced with silver. Only here, there are hundreds.
I catch my breath. Until I opened the box, I’d never seen stones quite like this, and I’ve never seen this cavern when I’ve been swimming in Pine Lake or even when Andy took me out in the canoe and we paddled all the way around. Was it always here, and I never noticed? Or did it suddenly appear, like the horses in the woods?
I bring Sam a little closer, but there’s not much room. On windy days, the waves probably push through the darkness, but the water’s still now, and the hollow in the stones leads somewhere I can’t see.
“Okay, Sam,” I say. “We’re out of time. Let’s go.” As I turn him back around to retrace our steps, I take just one more look past the fence, at the stony cavern that somehow feels more gentle than scary. It’s a place I should tell Andy about. A place I want to come back to.
The whole way home, Sam and I ride alone. I look for hoofprints in the leaves, but they’re gone.
Still, I can almost hear the stones whispering that I’ve already found what I need.
CHAPTER 9
At the support group meeting on Monday, I pick a seat next to Nari again.
“Hi,” she says this time. I’m surprised—she’s usually quiet, which is one reason why I like to sit next to her. Before, she’s only ever smiled at me.
But Sharon’s making some notes in a little book and checking her watch, which means the meeting hasn’t started yet and maybe Nari figures she has extra time.
I feel a light flutter at the base of my throat, but I swallow it down. “Hi,” I say.
“I’m Nari.” She smiles, tugging at the long black braid hooked over her amber shoulders. I’m trying to figure out what it is about her voice that makes me hope she’ll keep talking. It’s soft, like falling leaves. But there’s something else underneath it that isn’t so soft, that might have harder edges. Maple bark. Glittering frost. And that makes me think Nari is strong too.
“I guess you know that, actually.” She’s laughing now, rolling her eyes. “We say it every week, during introductions. You’re Claire.”
I laugh too. At first it feels strange to laugh in this room, but then it feels kind of okay. “Yeah, I’m Claire.”
Words bubble up inside. Suddenly I want to ask Nari all kinds of things, like who she’s here for and why she comes back and if it’s helping and even what she might do with pills she found in her brother’s Secret Pillow. But then Sharon clears her throat and her silver bracelets jingle as she clasps her hands and tells us it’s time to get started.
“Welcome,” Sharon says, like we’re at a fancy hotel and not a meeting for family members of people who, like Mom would say, “struggle with addiction,” and who maybe left, and made a big empty space wherever they used to be. But Sharon says it again: “Welcome. It’s good to have you all here.”
Sharon holds up a piece of paper. “Our opening reflection today comes from an article called ‘What We Can’t Control,’” she says. “Would anybody like to read?”
Nari raises her hand. “I will.”
Sharon has a bunch of short readings she likes to use. When Dad first brought me to the support group, she encouraged me to borrow some, but I said, “No, thanks.” She hasn’t asked again.
Nari leans over the paper and takes a deep breath. When she starts reading, her voice is clear and strong.
“Isn’t it easy to want to control everything that happens? It seems like if we can only say or do the right things, life will work out the way we hope. But then, what do we do when nothing seems to be going according to plan?”
Nari pauses for a second. Smiles. Then keeps reading.
“It’s especially easy for our plans to fall apart where other people are concerned. We want the people we love to behave just so. Maybe we even think it’s possible to change how they act, by force of will.”
I look over at Anna, biting her nails. Next to her, Caleb jiggles his leg up and down, his hand gripping his knee so tightly it looks like it might hurt. Marcus sits with his chin in his hands, his dark eyes tired.
“Even though our wishes for these people come from a good place—because we care about them and want the best for them—trying to help control their actions ends up being difficult for everyone.”
This is the kind of thing I hear from the support group that doesn’t make sense. If we aren’t trying to help the people we’re here for, what’s the point of coming?
“The only actions we can possibly control are our own. And we can’t find peace until we let go of trying to control someone else.”
Nari stops, then puts the paper down.
“Thanks, Nari, for that reading,” Sharon says. “Let’s sit with it. Take a moment to think about those words. They aren’t easy, are they?”
A couple of chairs down, I hear someone mutter, “Definitely not.” Which is exactly what I’m thinking. Doesn’t Andy need somebody to help him control his actions?
Silence fills the room and I do what Sharon says. I sit with it. The words burrow under my skin and itch.
Then Marcus clears his throat. “I get it, but I don’t,” he says. “It just seems like if my dad really cared about me at all, he’d stop drinking. Like it wouldn’t be that hard. But he hasn’t stopped. So then, why doesn’t he care about me? Like, what am I supposed to do to make that happen?” Anger burns in his voice, and underneath it’s like a paper cut: sharp and painful.
Nobody answers. Marcus’s questions hang in the air. “My dad always wants to watch the sports channel,” he says. “And even though he drinks when he does it, I watch it too. I don’t even like football or basketball, even though now I know all the stupid rules because I’ve watched so many times, waiting for him to talk to me. He can probably tell I don’t like the games that much, though. Maybe if I liked them more, he would like me more.”
I watch Sharon watch Marcus, her eyes full and warm and reaching somehow, like she wants to wrap Marcus in a hug but all she can do is listen for as long as he needs her to.
Marcus shouldn’t have to like football or basketball. Maybe everyone else is thinking the same thing and filling all the cracks in Marcus’s voice, because he shakes his head suddenly and his face, usually still as a pond, pinches and twists. “No,” he says. “When I listen to myself say it out loud, I know that can’t be it. That’s not it at all.”
He leans back in his chair, slumped a little, but his eyes have more light in them now.
Sharon waits another beat, but Marcus doesn’t say anything else. “Thanks, Marcus,” she says, and we all echo her.
Silence again. The clock on the wall ticks, and my heart beats. Words tangle in my chest, too deep for even me to hear. I just know they’re there.
“I thought I could change my sister,” Nari says.
Her voice, ringing into the room, sounds different than it did when she said hi. It’s even more confident. Full of purpose.
“Seriously, I tried everything.” Nari looks at the paper, turns it over in her hands. “Tagging along to do the things she liked. Leaving her alone. Writing her notes. Getting mad at her. None of it helped.”
Nari looks around the room, her eyes finding Marcus and Caleb and Anna and kids whose names I’ve forgotten.
“My sister used to be awesome,” Nari continues. “Seriously, the coolest. She was super-funny and the only person I wanted to see when I was having a horrible day. She talked me through so much drama with friends, especially when everyone started getting weird in fifth grade—oh my gosh, I can’t even tell you.”
Nari shakes her head and looks up at the ceiling, her smile stretching wide like thinking about her sister that way makes everything good again.
“I learned to play guitar because of my sister. She’s a
n amazing singer and I thought it would be so cool to perform, like as a duo. A girl band, sort of. I got pretty good. We would practice in her room, with songs she wrote. She wanted to go on the road together, like during summer vacations—I think she almost kind of convinced Mom and Dad to drive our tour bus, and that’s impressive, because I have no idea how they’d ever take time off from work.”
I imagine Nari and an older sister I’ve never met hurtling down mountain roads, singing out the windows.
“When she overdosed, I wondered what I could have done differently. Should I have practiced with her more? Or less? Did I care too much about the band, put pressure on her? Did I annoy her? I thought these things all the time. It made me so tired.”
Everyone’s looking at Nari, but with different expressions: Marcus relieved, Anna nervous, Caleb hopeful.
“Then she had to go to jail.” Nari’s face tightens, and she squeezes her hands together. “That was hard.” Her voice sounds so quiet at first I think she’ll stop talking, but then she shares more. “Afterward my parents spent all this money to ship her off to some horse camp down in Connecticut that’s supposed to help, but she had to go by herself, she couldn’t even call us, and at that point I guess I kind of realized, yeah, okay, it’s not about me. And it’s not because of me.” Nari lets out a breath and her shoulders relax. Her voice is steady. “She seems to be doing better now, but not because of anything I did. Just like she wasn’t doing worse because of anything I did.”
Horse camp? Jail?! I try to absorb everything else Nari said, but I’m stuck thinking about what else we might have in common. I feel the heat from the sparrows’ fluttering wings rising up the back of my neck and to my forehead.
“Okay, that’s all I wanted to say,” she says more softly. “For now.”
Nari stands up and hands the paper to Sharon. When she turns back to her seat, her eyes look calm and still as bare fields.
“Thanks, Nari,” we say.
Usually, when the meeting ends, I run up the stairs and out the door. But this time, as Sharon closes, I take a deep breath and turn to Nari.
The Wild Path Page 6