She squinted, nodded, shrugged. “You’re right. It’s safe here.”
“Safer,” he said, not wanting to mention the hikers who had fallen.
Cecily grew silent, and Graham figured she was thinking about them anyway.
“I’d like to try rappelling sometime.” He hoped to shift her thoughts.
“Sure.” She was staring at the opposite wall of the canyon, a jagged decline, spotted with boulders and cedars that made a mottled design as the ground gradually fell away from itself, cascading downward in a brown, green, and red waterfall to the canyon floor. But Cecily wasn’t looking at that part. Instead, she was focused on a short but sheer drop-off to their right. Her gaze seemed foggy. “Do you think that guy did it on purpose?” she asked.
“Who?”
“The man who fell to his death years ago. Do you think it was suicide?”
Suddenly he felt as though he and Cecily were standing, figuratively, on their own cliff. “No . . . ,” he said carefully. “Seems like the papers said they didn’t have any reason to believe it was deliberate. They think he just got too close and lost his footing.”
Her head turned from side to side as though she were looking for other areas in the canyon. “But haven’t there been suicides out here?”
“You know? As long as I’ve lived here, I don’t remember any.” She was beginning to scare him.
“Yeah, I suppose there are easier ways to kill yourself. Where’s my house from here? Can you see it?”
“Not from here, but you can see it from the far end of the park. Barely. It’s just a little speck deep in the canyon.” He welcomed the lighter topic, and he walked his bike forward until he was next to her. The light breeze was blowing her hair out of her eyes, and her face was flushed.
She smiled and glanced toward him. “You seem to know exactly where my house is.”
Graham’s face heated ten degrees in two seconds. “Wait a minute, now. I can also point out any number of other landmarks.”
She squinted, but her eyes didn’t leave his. “You don’t have binoculars, do you?”
Graham guffawed in surprise. “Of course not.” His laughter settled into a chuckle. “But now that you mention it, that might not be a bad idea.”
“So if we went to the far end of the park, could I see Dad if he was standing on the deck?”
“Only if he was wearing something bright. A red shirt or something.”
“Not that you would know, though.”
“No, not that I would know.” His words came out in a near whisper.
Their bikes were side by side, and Cecily hooked her index finger on the collar of his shirt and tugged until he bent down, his face just in front of hers. “How long have you been watching my house from miles away across a huge gorge in the earth?”
He looked from one of her eyes to the other, then to her lips, ringed with tiny beads of sweat, then he glanced toward the far side of the canyon and shrugged. “It seemed like a safe distance.” When he turned back to smile at her, Cecily’s mouth covered his, and Graham swayed on his bike. She still had hold of his shirt, and she clenched it in her fist, wadding the fabric and pressing it against his chest. With her other hand, she gripped the back of his neck, but Graham left his hands on his handlebars, living out a dream he had imagined every time he’d taken a bike ride since Cecily had come back to town.
When she pulled away, they both exhaled.
“Can we go a little faster now?” She nodded toward the trail.
Her question held a double meaning to Graham, but he wasn’t sure she intended it that way.
“You’re quite the daredevil,” he said.
“This makes me feel alive, you know?” She walked her bike forward three feet. “Makes me realize how bored I’ve been.”
“Okay, then follow me. There’s a soft little bump up here that I think you can handle, but when you get to the big rock, go to the right, not the left.”
“What’s to the left?”
“A bigger bump.”
“Gotcha.”
Graham steered his bike back onto the trail, and Cecily followed close behind. He increased his speed, just enough to give her a thrill but not enough to leave her behind. The rise in the trail was minimal, but just beyond it the ground gave way unexpectedly. It only scooped down a few feet, but that was enough to leave a new rider’s stomach in the air. Graham passed over it easily, and Cecily followed. She cackled, a high-pitched and gleeful sound, and when he approached the big rock, he sped up and veered to the right.
The drop was more abrupt here, with a curve in the middle, and he whooped as his bike tires gripped the trail and pulled him past. He came to a stop on the rise just beyond, and turned to watch Cecily come around the rock.
But she never came.
Instead, he heard metal against stone and the sickening thump of a soft body slamming into the boulder. In one swift movement, Graham was off his bike and running.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Group text from Nina: might get a tat maybe even a sleeve :)
Shanty: Seriously? That would be cool. As long as it’s you being you.
Nina: huh?
Shanty: I mean don’t do it just cause Cecily has ink.
Nina: im not!!
Nina (forty-seven minutes later): ok maybe/maybe not. cecily did it hurt real bad?
“Cecily, I’m so sorry.”
I was seeing a side of Graham I hadn’t seen before. Nervous and panicky.
“I shouldn’t have brought you on this trail,” he said.
“I shouldn’t have steered straight into a boulder.”
“It was a rough stretch. Probably your front tire hit a rock.”
I sat flat on my bottom in the dirt with Graham’s mother’s bike curled around me, and I gingerly touched the lump that was rising on the side of my head. “Now you’re just making excuses.” I inspected my arms, flexing them to make sure they still worked properly, but other than two bad scrapes on my left elbow, they seemed all right. Graham hesitantly laid his hands across my shoulders, pressing gently as he searched for hurt spots.
“Anything tender?”
I leaned my head from side to side. “It feels like an elephant sat on me.”
“Well, that’s appropriate.”
He slid his hands down to my sides. “Ribs all right?”
“That tickles.” I clasped his hands against my sides with my elbows. A reflex.
“Good sign.” He chuckled, but his laughter turned into a gasp. “Cecily, your legs.”
For a split second, I didn’t know what he meant. My legs weren’t hurting any more than the rest of my body, but as I looked down, I saw that my knee-length shorts had inched up to expose my scarred thighs. A fresh scrape had broken the skin on one of the old cuts, and it was now oozing watery blood. “Oh . . .” I started to say something—anything—but there were no words.
Oh, it’s nothing. Just self-inflicted wounds from an emotional meltdown I had three weeks ago. Nothing to worry about.
I tugged at the hem of my shorts, instinctively trying to pull them down to cover my shame.
“No.” Graham’s voice was gentle as he touched my wrists with his fingertips. “Roll them up so the fabric won’t rub.”
I wondered if he recognized the cuts for what they were. He was a counselor, after all. For crying out loud, he probably saw crazy women and their self-abusive behavior every day.
He stood, gripped the bike frame, and carefully lifted it away. After setting it to the side of the trail, he removed my water bottle and squatted next to me. “Here, take a drink.” He watched as I obliged and then suggested I lean against the boulder for a few minutes. He gripped my right elbow and helped me scoot over. “Anything else hurt?”
I looked away from him, feeling exposed, on display, scrutinized. “Really, I’m fine.”
“You need ice on that bump. I could go for help.”
“You are not leaving me here.” I frowned. “I’ll be able to
ride in a few minutes.”
“Not on that bike.”
“Then I can push it back to the car.”
He settled onto the ground next to me, his weight on one hip with a knee bent. His gaze traveled from the knot on my head to my scraped elbows, and then to my thighs. He looked away.
My eyes pinched shut and I leaned my head against the rock. Graham wouldn’t want me now that he could see what I was. Now that he knew what he was dealing with. My thumb traveled across a scar just below my rolled-up shorts, and even with my eyes closed, I could see how ugly my skin looked. Probably my face was blotchy from exertion too, and I could feel a film of dirt in the crease of my neck.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
I didn’t open my eyes, just told him the correct answer. “Happy thoughts.”
“I’m serious, Cecily.” He sounded stern.
I squinted one eye. “I don’t want to tell you what I’m thinking.”
His expression held a trace of hurt. “Is it all right if I tell you what I’m thinking?”
I shrugged.
“I’m thinking how amazing you are.”
My head jerked to the left as though he had slapped me, and I had the overwhelming urge to hide myself. I shook my head twice before willing it to stop.
“Yes, Cecily.” He moved closer to me. “You’re a beautiful woman, inside and out, and those marks on your legs don’t change that fact. If anything, they prove how strong your emotions are, and when you learn to manage them, you’ll have a huge amount of love to share with others.”
“What?” I was following along until that last part. “Love for myself, you mean.” I spat the words out. “Wallowing in self-pity doesn’t begin to describe these scars.”
“You’re not wallowing in self-pity. You’re fighting a battle, and you’re winning. You’re passionate about life, about relationships, about your loved ones, but you’re getting things set in their proper order.” He looked me in the eye. “Those scars on your legs prove you feel, Cecily. Three weeks ago, you were feeling pain, but even this short time later, you’ve made tremendous headway in this battle, and now you’re beginning to feel other emotions. You’re allowing people—like your dad and me—to get close to you. You’re trusting us with your problems, and you’re channeling your passion outward instead of inward.” He nodded. “You’re making it, Cecily. You are.”
“But why do I hurt myself?”
He squinted. “It’s called cognitive distortion.” When I frowned, he explained. “We’re made in such a way that our emotions are a direct response to our thoughts, but sometimes our thoughts get a little screwed up. Our minds conjure up lies, but we view them as fact, and since our emotions are a response to our thoughts . . . our emotions go berserk.”
“And when my emotions go berserk, that triggers more negative thoughts.”
“It’s a crazy mixed-up cycle, but once you identify the lies in your thoughts, and how you react to them, you can start to move forward.” He looked as though he didn’t want to say the next sentence. “In your case, recognizing the cognitive distortion will help you deal with the crux of your negative body image.”
I didn’t want him to know I had a problem with body image, but of course he did. Still, I hated this conversation. “What I think about myself affects how I act toward myself.”
“In fact, the human brain actually forms grooves from the pathways created by thoughts and reactions.” He smiled. “But here’s the good news: we can train our brains to process thoughts differently. And make new grooves.”
I tried to make sense of everything he was telling me. “So, you’re saying . . . I’m groovy.”
He chortled. “I’m saying your brain is in the process of forming new pathways, so yes, you’re groovy, Cecily. And all the work you’ve been doing is starting to pay off.”
I pulled his hand into my lap, then looked down at our fingers—interlocked like puzzle pieces—and I knew a few of the pieces to my life’s puzzle had just snapped into place. Edge pieces, too, that would outline the boundary for the rest. I was getting there. But still. “It doesn’t always feel like it.”
“Of course not.” With his other hand he pulled me toward him so that my head was resting on his shoulder, and I relaxed against him, only tensing when his free hand accidentally brushed the bump on my head. “Oops,” he mumbled. “My bad.”
We sat that way for ten minutes, not saying anything, not needing to. But then I felt compelled to remove a load I had been carrying in my heart. The one I never mentioned to anyone. The heaviest burden of all.
“I lost a baby.”
Graham didn’t say anything right away, and I knew he was choosing his words carefully. “Was it a miscarriage?”
“No.” I sat up and rested my elbows on my knees. “She died when she was six weeks old.”
He looked at me but didn’t touch, and I was glad. “How long ago?”
“Five years.” I rolled the leg of my shorts one more time. “That’s when our problems started.”
He nodded silently, and I figured I knew what he was thinking.
“Actually, our problems started before that, but that’s when I acknowledged them. Brett didn’t want a baby in the first place. Or actually—he didn’t want a wife who had a baby.”
“He’s not the ‘father’ type.”
“No, but it was more than that.” My teeth gritted. “He always wanted me to look a certain way—hair, makeup, clothes—and when my body started changing, things were different between us.” I shrugged. “He didn’t want me anymore. I mean, physically. He still wanted me around to be his little wife, but he didn’t want to touch me anymore.”
I paused and then decided to keep going. “I thought it would change once the baby was born and I was slim again, but it was only worse. Apparently stretch marks and saggy skin were worse than being fat . . . in his eyes anyway. After that he spent more time looking at pictures and videos online. He’d always done that, but after the baby, he didn’t hide it anymore. I think he felt justified.”
“And then the baby died?”
“She went to sleep in her crib one afternoon and didn’t wake up.” A nervous chuckle slipped past my lips, a crass attempt to mask my feelings.
I expected Graham to say he was so sorry, Cecily and look at me with the same sad eyes I’d seen on other people’s faces. But Graham did none of that. Instead, he leaned forward and nodded once, slowly, never breaking eye contact. I felt as though he had hold of a single thread that spiraled around my pain. In his silence, he gently tugged on that thread, and I could feel my memories loosening and beginning to unwrap themselves from my heart.
“Sometimes I feel like she slipped away because I didn’t love her enough.” I wiped a tear from my cheek, not wanting to cry, not wanting to reveal everything.
“You loved her deeply. I can see that.”
“I did.” I could hear the insistent tone in my voice, and I realized I was trying to convince myself, had been trying to convince myself for years. I nodded. “I did love her, but I always felt as though I wasn’t a good wife to Brett after she was born. Things were never the same.”
“You were busy with the baby. It’s normal for a husband to feel left out.”
“But he never wanted kids in the first place.”
Graham was silent for a moment, then he asked, “Did you plan the pregnancy?”
I surprised myself by laughing. “No, but Brett thought I did it on purpose. He probably still thinks so.”
The wind whooshed past us, and Graham squeezed my hand. “You grieved alone then, more or less.”
“And I went just a little bit loony, to tell you the truth.” I blinked rapidly, trying to dry the wetness around my eyes. “That was the first time I went to counseling, trying to make sense of losing the baby, and trying to accept Brett for who he was, and trying to hang on to my sanity at the same time.”
Graham’s thumb rubbed the back of my hand, twice clockwise, twice co
unterclockwise, over and over. He stared across the canyon, but it wasn’t as though he were contemplating what I’d said. Instead, he seemed peaceful, and I wondered what on earth he was thinking.
He cocked his head to the side. “What was her name?” he asked.
“The baby?” I smiled. “Ava. Ava Denise Ross.”
Graham returned my smile. “Denise was your mother’s name.”
“That’s right.” I looked away from him then, not wanting to admit what I was about to say but knowing it might help me if I did. “For a little while . . . at first . . . I was glad she died.” I held my breath.
“That’s understandable.”
My gaze snapped to his. “What?”
He shrugged. “That only makes sense. It’s not that you didn’t love Ava, and it’s not that you actually wanted her gone. The truth is that your husband was emotionally abusing you, and you thought her death might stop his behavior. You wanted the love of your husband as well as the love of your child, but the two couldn’t happen at the same time.”
I’d been told that before, but this time it seemed to sink in a little deeper and to make some sense of the craziness. I reached my arms around Graham’s waist and held onto him like a lifeline. He pulled my head down to his shoulder and ran his fingers through my hair, and I felt more peace than I’d felt in a long time. Maybe in my entire life. A burden had been lifted from my shoulders, and my heart finally felt light.
I chuckled. “I guess your exercise idea worked. It ended up being counseling.”
“I meant it more as therapy all on its own, but I guess what needed to happen happened.”
“Slamming into a boulder?”
“Not that part.” Graham kissed the top of my head. “But all the other parts.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Group text from Cecily: Shanty, you holding up all right?
Nina: wuz afraid 2 txt. u killed al yet?
Cecily (fifty-eight minutes later): Shanty, let us know how you’re doing.
Nina: i can come over :
Cecily (one hour and twenty-four minutes later): Shanty, come on now . . . let us know you’re all right.
Shanty: Been better. Will survive.
Looking Glass Lies Page 18