The Stranger Inside

by Lisa Unger

  But I can’t heal that lost boy. And I clearly can’t heal myself, as Tess urged. I don’t know why Andrea ghosted me. I’m sure it was my fault. Lara, I know you’ll agree. I’m damaged goods and she’s a smart woman. She probably just figured it out like you did.

  After my session with Grace I force myself to go Angel’s party. The push from my car, up the walkway, to knock on the door, is gargantuan. I almost turn back twice. But I want to support Angel, Jen and William. So few of my stories have a happy ending. I want this to be one of them.

  “Dr. Reams!” says Jen at the door, pretty in a pink dress, smiling. “I didn’t think you would come! You’re shy, aren’t you?”

  I smile. “Sometimes,” I admit.

  She ushers me inside, where a group of smiling, happy people mingle in a stylish living room. Angel is sitting with an older woman, who looks to be showing her photos in an album. There are balloons and flowers, a cake with roses, some gifts. Angel, usually wrapped up tight, knees hugged to her chest on my couch, seems relaxed, sitting close to the lady on the couch, engaged. She smiles and waves to me.

  “That’s William’s mom,” says Jen. “She’s so good with Angel.”

  I spend the next hour being shepherded around by Jen, who introduces me as “the man who saved Angel.” Which is hyperbole, of course, but nice of her to say. I chat and eat, just like a normal person. These are nice people, kind and wide open, not a whiff of dysfunction. Sure, nothing’s perfect and all families have their issues. But these people are healthy—warm and giving.

  “Dr. Reams,” says Jen, coming up on my conversation with William. He’s talking about golf and I’m nodding politely. “I wanted you to meet someone.”

  Oh, now I get it. The young woman Jen presents—she’s lovely. Dare I say, she looks a bit like you. That raven-haired, blue-eyed combo never fails to make me weak in the knees. “This is my friend Beth.”

  Beth smiles, and offers her hand. She looks as uncomfortable as I am at a party, but her handshake is warm and firm. She wears a silver infinity symbol on a chain around her neck. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Beth is a clinical psychiatrist specializing in criminal behavior.”

  Jen may be more intuitive than she realizes.

  “That’s gritty work,” I say.

  Beth gives an assenting nod. “It can be.”

  Almost immediately we’re looped into each other, the conversation flowing, the rest of the room disappearing. Her work, how she studies yoga and practices meditation to counteract the stress, how I run and work out to manage mine. We talk about my books—she’s a fan, which is always nice. The male ego thing and all of that. But it also means she knows my history. It’s awkward, isn’t it? When they know, and you know they know but it hasn’t been acknowledged.

  For a little while, with her, I forget about everything going on in my life.

  But then it starts to creep up.

  As the sun dips and the afternoon turns to dusk, he starts to get restless. I can feel him pacing in his cage; I try to measure my breath, distance myself from him. Still he grows agitated. We have work to do tonight.

  She’s talking and I’m watching her. I’m almost tempted to skip it. I could make the choice to wait on Andrea’s call and go from there. Follow the right channels, the legal ones. Tess’s admonitions, my own admissions about my behavior, have been ringing in my ears.

  And then there’s Agent Brower, her knowing gaze.

  I almost ask Beth if she wants to get a drink somewhere, keep talking. It was a clear setup by Jen and it worked. But I can feel him, his tension growing, and I start to distance myself from the conversation. Like most people in our line of work, Beth is an empath, senses my shift and mimics it.

  She hands me her card. “I’d love to keep talking sometime.”

  “Me, too,” I say, handing her mine. Will I call her? I doubt it, not that I don’t want to. “It’s been so great to meet you.”

  She smiles and blushes, turns to someone else who touches her arm.

  I thank Angel’s mom. “Don’t be mad,” she whispers. “I just thought you two would be perfect together.”

  Mind your own business, I can almost hear him bark.

  “She’s really special,” I say. “Thank you.”

  And then I’m gone, out the door.

  Later, when I’m aware of myself again, it’s after midnight and I’m parked in front of your house. I’m startled to see you in the window, then a few minutes later at the front door. I pull away slowly, heart thudding—at the sight of you, at the wondering of how I got here, and at what else he might have done tonight. Of what he might do in the future if I can’t get him under control.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Guilt. Was it meant to be the primary feeling of motherhood, the underpinning of the entire experience? She was pretty sure it wasn’t, that it was just some unique failing on her part. Mitzi was an angel, every mother’s dream babysitter, stout and smiling, obviously gaga over Lily. Lily practically leaped from Rain into her arms. And still Rain was having an out-of-body experience as she went over the schedule she’d meticulously crafted while Mitzi looked on, nodding, with a plump, heavily ringed hand on Rain’s shoulder.

  “She’ll probably eat the avocado and the sweet potato. If not, the pumped breast milk” (yes, she did it again, hooked up to that damn machine and milked herself like a cow) “is right here. Just run under warm water to take the chill off. You don’t need to heat it.”

  “Yes,” said Mitzi without a trace of impatience. “Absolutely.”

  Up in the nursery, she reminded the older woman, who had three children of her own, six grandchildren (two of whom she’d helped raise while her lawyer daughter ran her small downtown firm), and was a retired preschool teacher, that Lily shouldn’t have anything in her crib except the sleep sack and her crinkly book (which Rain had allowed after Lily turned one). Even though the threat of SIDS had long since passed—especially now that Lily could roll, sit up and even pull herself to standing—Rain still strictly adhered to the “back to sleep” rules.

  “I think that’s everything,” said Rain with a sigh.

  Lily reached for Rain, and she took the baby from Mitzi, balancing her on her hip. “Ma MA.” She nuzzled Lily and considered canceling her afternoon appointments.

  “I know,” said Mitzi, one hand on Lily, one hand on Rain. “It’s hard. But remember—while it’s critical to be here as much as you can, it’s also important for our girls to watch us pursue our dreams, to have work that matters to us.”

  Another one of those brass rings. Be here all the time. But pursue your career goals, too. Be the best mom but follow your dreams. And also—be hot and sexy, always be totally into getting it on with your husband. Don’t forget to work out, be thin, keep a perfectly organized home and clear that clutter!

  “Anyway, dear, didn’t you say you’d only be gone for three hours?”

  “Something like that.”

  Mitzi looked lovingly at Lily. “I think we’ll manage.”

  Sure, separation anxiety didn’t begin in earnest for another few months, but it would have been nice if Lily had at least noticed as Rain walked out the door. Instead, Mitzi had her so entranced with her Duplo blocks on the floor, that after Rain gave her a kiss goodbye, the baby didn’t even look up when Rain slipped out.

  In the car, she checked the camera. She half wanted to find Mitzi already lying on the couch, having lit a cigarette and cracked open a beer. Then she could go racing back to save her child, and forget all about her appointment with Greta Miller, bird photographer.

  But no, they were still happily playing.

  “Mama?” she heard Lily say, her heart lurching.

  “Mama will be back soon,” said Mitzi, striking that perfect pitch of sweet and easy. Then, a masterful deflection, “Oh! Look at this red one!”

&n
bsp; “Oh!” said Lily, as if it were the most wonderful thing in the world. And, hey, maybe it was. Red Lego Duplo blocks were pretty damn spectacular. It should be her on the floor with Lily. What was she doing? She wasn’t even getting paid yet, no guarantees that the project would even fly with NNR. She was paying someone to watch her baby so that she could do work on spec. Mom of the year.

  “Okay,” she said aloud to herself. She shut off the camera app. “Pull it together!”

  She forced herself to pull out of the driveway and drive up the street. At the stop sign, her phone rang. Greg.

  “How many times have you checked the cam?” he said by way of greeting.

  “Just once,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said, “but you haven’t even left the street yet.”

  “Are you tracking me?”

  “Of course.”

  “So, I’m watching Lily, and you’re watching me. Who’s watching you?”

  “No one,” he said. “No one cares about the dad. He’s just the caveman with the club. All he has to do is drag home the carcass.”

  “Oh, please,” she said.

  “Go get ’em, tiger,” he said, and ended the call.

  Greta Miller’s place had a mile-long drive. The twisting dirt road wound through a thick stand of woods, past a wide-open pasture lined with a wooden rail fence where two horses grazed, then back into the woods.

  Giant oaks shaded the road, and a deer bolted in front of her car, stopped to look at her, then ran on. She’d been going slowly; she slowed down further. That would be all she needed, to hit a deer. To damage the car on this probably pointless errand. Body work. Insurance rates jacked up.

  The phone rang again, causing Rain’s heart to jump. Mitzi? An emergency already? No. Gillian’s number on the dashboard caller ID.

  Could you not drive a mile without someone calling you?

  “It’s a go,” Gillian said, voice vibrating with excitement. “Andrew wants you to come in so that he can make you an offer and discuss terms. I think he’s sending you an email.”

  A flood of excitement washed away her feelings of worry and guilt. Then worry and guilt swept back, a tidal surge. Now it was real.

  “Rain?”

  “That’s—amazing.” She was going for thrilled. Excited. It came out sounding wobbly. But she was excited. And terrified. What was wrong with her? Motherhood had obviously turned her into a soft, angsty stress case.

  “You sound—I don’t know. Off.”

  “No,” she said. “All good.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Lily’s with Mitzi and I’m approaching Greta Miller’s house.”

  “Whoa, is this your first time leaving her with a sitter?” Then, “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” She tried for easy, nonchalant. “I’m fine.”

  She wasn’t fine. She wanted to race home and take care of her baby, leave the other parts of herself—Lara Winter, the journalist, the dog with a bone—by the side of the road.

  “Yeah, right. Okay, fill me in later,” said Gillian. “Let’s talk tonight after Lily goes to sleep and come up with a plan.”

  As the news sank in, she felt lighter, almost giddy, as she brought the car to a stop in front of a beautiful old house, with gray siding and red shutters. It was restored to perfection, with tidy landscaping and a wraparound porch, red Adirondack chairs lined up, awaiting quiet conversation and glasses of lemonade. She checked the app to see Mitzi feeding a happy Lily sweet potatoes.

  She could do this. She could really do this.

  Greta Miller was a dried branch of a woman, brittle and gray, and not at all what Rain expected of someone who took such beautiful photographs. In spite of the agent’s warning that Greta Miller “was not exactly warm and fuzzy,” Rain had still imagined someone expansive, lighthearted. Someone joyful. The images the photographer captured were moments of breathless natural beauty—one could almost hear the birdsong.

  But Greta greeted Rain with a scowl at her front door, reluctantly swinging it open so that she could step into the rustic, high-ceilinged foyer. The scent of sandalwood mingled with the aroma coming from a vase of stargazer lilies on a center table.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” Rain said, as she followed the old woman into a grand living room—beamed ceiling, enormous fireplace flanked by an overstuffed chintz sofa, a collection of Staffordshire dogs on the mantel. All around the room, in tiny glass vessels, were birds—a fat robin, a glossy cardinal, a perky bluebird, a blue-sheened crow. Taxidermy birds, perched on branches—singing silently, or just about to never take flight, wings hopelessly spread.

  “You were persistent.”

  Rain had been persistent—a slew of email, several calls, finally a call, then another email to her agent. “And my agent thought it might be worth my while to talk to you. Apparently, she’s a fan of your work.”

  She issued the last line with a wrinkle of her nose.

  “And you’re not, I gather,” said Rain easily.

  If you were going to work in news it was necessary to have a thick skin—every story she’d ever done was met with an equal amount of praise and anger. Gillian’s email overflowed daily with love letters and hate mail, threats and compliments. It’s not about you, her father counseled when this truth was first revealed to Rain. It’s never about you.

  “I’m not a fan of the media in general,” said Greta, taking a seat. She tucked herself into the corner, folding her arms around her middle. “Nothing personal.”

  On the mantel there was an owl, staring with stern yellow eyes. Greta had a similar gaze and held it on Rain.

  “Okay if I record?” she asked.

  Greta gave an uncertain nod and Rain didn’t ask twice. Chances are she’d forget as soon as the conversation got rolling—which she hoped it would. Sometimes you worked for every sentence you squeaked out of someone; sometimes you couldn’t get people to shut up.

  “Well, I love your work,” said Rain, glad that she could be genuine. “You really capture something special. Each of your birds seems to have its own—energy, a personality that shines through. The light, the detail. Amazing.”

  The woman seemed to relax a bit; a sincere compliment could work wonders.

  “They do,” Greta said. “They’re all special, those that let me capture them.” She gazed at the blackbird that sat on the coffee table between them. He had his head cocked to one side, a berry held in his beak. He almost looked like he might hop off his perch and fly away. “I rescue these, in case you were wondering.”

  Great pointed at the stuffed bird in his glass cage. “I find them at flea markets and antiques shops, sometimes garage sales. I give them a home here.”

  “It doesn’t bother you, to have them like this?” Rain asked. Frankly, she found it unsettling. She never got the whole taxidermy thing. “Your photos have so much life.”

  Greta smiled. “That’s the comment of a young person. Everything dies.”

  The sun moved behind the clouds and the room grew dim, suddenly cold.

  “The bird’s life is a hard one,” said Greta. “You’ve heard the phrase ‘free as a bird.’ But their life is a constant foraging for food, grueling migrations, evasion of predators, protecting their young. They’re so delicate, so fragile—victims of human carelessness, cruelty, destruction of the environment. Flight is their gift, as is their purity, their innocence—like all animals. But it comes with a price. Here, they’re free from struggle.”

  Greta leaned forward, tapped on the crow’s glass. “They’re safe.”

  Rain really wished Gillian was here; they’d be hooting later about the creepy bird lady. But alone, in the old woman’s thrall, Rain felt chilled.

  “Your home is beautiful,” she said, eager to change the subject. “How long have you been here?”

  “I grew up here. It was my par
ents’ house. I’ve renovated, added on over the years. I have a darkroom a ways back on the property—I still develop much of my own film the old-fashioned way even though the world has gone digital. But I’ve lived here all my life.”

  “So you knew the Kreskey family.”

  Greta shifted and looked out the window in the direction of the adjacent property. “As much as you can know people like that,” she said. “We kept our distance.”

  “People like that?”

  “My grandfather sold off some of this land when times were hard. And the Kreskey family—this would be Eugene’s grandparents—bought it for a song. This was before my time. My mother was an empath—do you believe in that type of thing? She felt energies, even as a young girl. She just knew things. She’d always sensed a malevolent energy, and we were always warned to stay away.”

  Rain waited. Silence always encouraged more talk.

  Greta went on. “Violence is a genetic condition. If someone doesn’t break the chain, it gets worse with every generation. The grandfather was an abuser—his son grew into an abuser. Eugene turned into a ghoul.”

  “Did you listen to your mother? Did you stay away?”

  “I did,” she said, nodding. “Even now, I stay away.”

  “I saw you,” said Rain. It had been Greta, the woman she’d seen in the woods. She knew it right away.

  “Our property connects to trails that lead behind the Kreskey house,” she said with a shrug. “Let’s just say I stay to my part and I don’t linger.”

  That might explain why she was moving so fast, why she didn’t stop when Rain had called to her.