“But now you do.”
If he were a client, she could answer his questions with nothing but fact. Her mother, who’d spent most of her life shutting out other people’s emotions, had taught Hannah the skill of detachment. Except she didn’t feel very detached right now. She wove her fingers together and waited for the first question.
“Was it bad?” Galen said. “Did they lock him up? Shock him? Drill holes into his skull?”
“No, that was your great-grandfather.”
Galen sat up. “Fuck.”
She swallowed her reprimand. If he was being loose with words, he was being punished enough. “What do you remember about the day your grandfather died?”
“I remember Dad telling us but in a backward way. He said you wouldn’t be having dinner with us, then he said we were getting pizza, then he tacked on that Papa had died.”
“Your father doesn’t like emotional mess.”
“Unless it’s his.”
Hannah didn’t respond. She’d never dissed Inigo in front of the boys; she wouldn’t start now. In the months after he left, she used to shut herself inside her closet and scream into her sweaters so the boys wouldn’t hear, but within a year she’d forgiven him. She always forgave. It was stitched into her psyche. Could she blame that on serotonin levels, too?
“You were the last person Papa spoke to,” she said.
“I know. He told me he was going for a walk and that I couldn’t come. I was angry and wouldn’t let him kiss me. For months I thought I was the one who broke his heart.”
God, she needed a cigarette, even though she hadn’t smoked since Inigo’s wannabe punk rocker phase. “I’m sorry. I tried hard to convince you that wasn’t true.”
“I know you did, Mom. And I understood that he’d wandered off like a wounded animal, that he chose not to die in front of me and Liam, but—”
“You didn’t buy it,” Hannah said.
He chewed the skin around his fingernails, gnawing on himself. A habit from childhood, it was astonishing that he hadn’t permanently disfigured his fingers. Galen stood. “If I promise not to be mad, will you tell me what you’re keeping inside?”
Hannah smiled. He was quoting her standard phrase from when the boys were little.
Galen wrapped his arms around her. Hugging him used to feel solid and secure, but now he was little more than skin sagging over bones. Sorting out his eating habits needed to move up her list of priorities.
“I won’t make you promise,” she said. “Because you have every right to be angry.”
Galen’s arms slid from her, and she counted to ten silently. Count to ten and it’ll all be over, her dad used to say before he dug out a splinter or ripped off a Band-Aid. So much could happen in ten seconds: your husband could tell you he was leaving; your father could say goodbye without you realizing that this one was forever; your son could decide not to forgive you.
“Your grandfather killed himself.”
Galen stared at her. “How?”
“Effexor mixed with sleeping pills. He’d been stockpiling his medications.”
“I always said prescription drugs were bad for your health.” Galen sounded calm, but like her, he did anger quietly, with introspection. And then, he did exactly what she would have done: he left.
On the other side of the hall, Poppy laughed and a chair dragged across the kitchen floor. For a brief moment, Hannah was the little girl who got lost at JFK Airport while her family was on its way to Europe. Travelers had rushed past, ignoring the silent child in the red patent shoes. It was the first time she had understood that family couldn’t protect you, that each family member was a separate entity. She had looked up into a world of chaos and realized she was alone. It was the first time she had understood fear.
* * *
Will hovered in the hallway, curiosity too strong to ignore. How did it feel to let go of pretense and surround yourself with truth? There was no sound coming from the den. No raised voices, no smashing of furniture, no kicking of the walls. Nothing but eerie quiet.
The door opened and Galen pushed past.
“You okay?”
Galen ignored him, flung open the front door and ran.
No. Will took off in pursuit. He was not heading back into the forest on another search and rescue mission for someone else with messed-up brain chemistry.
“Dude!” Will caught up effortlessly. “Slow down!”
Galen reached a huge red oak by the edge of the forest and fell against it. He made a gagging noise and spat onto the ground. Nice.
“Any time you want to join me on a run, you’re welcome,” Will said.
Galen looked at him as if he were a cockroach.
“You don’t run?”
“No,” Galen said.
“You should try it. Running’s good for your emotional well-being. Helps boost your serotonin. Didn’t any of your doctors tell you that?”
“You mean it’s a natural drug for crazies like me?”
“Pretty much.”
Galen gave a feeble laugh. “My mother’s been keeping secrets.”
“Yeah, mothers tend to do that,” Will said. “Fathers, too.”
Will glanced into the forest. He was not going back in there willingly, and yet staying out here wasn’t much safer. He didn’t want to care about Galen; he didn’t want to care about Hannah. And yet he’d made that deal. This was why he hated deals—they slowed you down, kept you from powering on through the difficult crap. “Want to talk about it?”
“My grandfather killed himself. Swallowed a bottle of pills.”
Will gave a supportive huh. At least he hoped it was supportive and didn’t suggest that he already knew the family secret. Even though he did.
“Why did she lie to me?”
“You were a kid when he died, right?”
Galen coughed and pounded his chest. “Yeah. I was ten.”
“Then she did you a favor. Consider yourself lucky. My mom was psycho but never diagnosed, and the only thing I gained from growing up with that knowledge was fear. Complete, utter terror of what she would do next. Ignorance would have been a blessing—you can trust me on that one. And I doubt the stigma of suicide is something a kid should have to shoulder. Bad enough when you get teased because your mother behaves like an extra from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
“That rough?”
“One time she turned up at my middle school and tried to yank me out of class for a demon hunt. By high school, her antics were standard locker gossip. She was certifiable.”
Galen grappled with the tree trunk as he hacked through a cough.
“Dude, you’re seriously out of shape. We have to start you exercising,” Will said.
“We?”
Will stared at Galen’s natural-colored Toms—canvas shoes for the socially responsible. He owned three or four pairs in various colors himself, but Galen’s were butt ugly. Screamed, I am a grad student with suicidal tendencies. Very homespun, very vegan. Hard not to notice that Galen had the weirdest eating habits. Organic was one thing, but Galen took it to extremes. Even eating overwhelmed this guy.
“D’you own anything other than those burlap Toms?” Will said.
“I have a pair of old hiking boots around here somewhere. I used to hike a fair bit.”
“Ever climb?”
Galen looked confused.
“Rock climbing.”
Galen shook his head. “You?”
“Not as much as I’d like to.”
“Figures, seems like a legit sport for a badass.”
“Thanks,” Will said.
“Neither of my parents would have interpreted that as a compliment.”
“Different generation.” He totally didn’t mean to say that.
Galen’s dad might be an old fart—for all Will knew—but Hannah felt like a slightly more responsible contemporary.
“How long have you been climbing?”
“Most of my life. Started with scramblings and bouldering on Occoneechee Mountain. Nothing extreme. I didn’t go on my first roped climb until I was fifteen. My parents couldn’t afford lessons, but climbing’s a family talent. Most of my dad’s relatives climbed, so I learned from watching them and reading how-to books.”
“You taught yourself to climb by reading books?”
“What better way is there to teach yourself anything?” Will said. “Except for overcoming my fear of heights. I did that with a self-hypnosis tape from the thrift store. I was a self-sufficient kid. Wanted to know something, taught myself.”
“Why would you climb if you don’t like heights?”
“It’s not about heights. When the slightest shift in the position of one finger can make a difference, it’s about skill—balance, agility and precision.”
“You’re an adrenaline junkie?”
“Total opposite.” Will flicked back his hair. “Climbing takes me to some stripped-down spiritual place. Stress, worry—both disappear. When I’m climbing, my mind empties of everything but the purity of the moment. The world shrinks to what’s directly in front of me. I find this laser focus I don’t possess even when I write. Nothing matters beyond my movements on the rock. Nothing exists beyond what I can reach. I concentrate on my breath and the placement of my feet. It’s almost like choreography. I guess you could say climbing’s a controlled dance.”
“So it’s a control thing?”
Will liked this guy. Saw straight through his bull. “Yeah.”
“What if you fall?”
When he went soloing in the Gunks, Will hadn’t permitted that thought to enter his mind. He’d been focused on one thing only—himself. He would never have considered doing that climb unroped while Freddie was alive, and he would never consider it now. Once again, his actions had consequences for other people. But was he thinking about the effect they could have on his dad...or on Hannah?
“Falling’s a given—if you’re roped,” Will said. “You can fall multiple times before figuring out the entire sequence, especially if you’re pushing the limit of your ability. But if you do it right, you fall safely. You check out the hazards ahead of time, you follow the path of least resistance, you trust nothing but your partner. You double-check every piece of gear, the placement of every piece of hardware, and you use only bombproof anchors. Even your backups have backups. You prepare, prepare, prepare, and leave nothing to chance. In fact, I was thinking about doing a climb this weekend.” Actually, he hadn’t been, but his rack was still in his trunk from the trip to the Gunks. It might be good to take a day to check his rope, his harness, his hardware, clean off his shoes. “Want to join me?”
“You’re asking a depressive who may or may not be suicidal if he wants to participate in a deadly sport?”
“It’s only deadly if you screw up.”
“You trust me enough to believe I won’t?”
“I’d take you to a small crag, do a controlled climb, set up a top rope. First sign you’re not following protocols or listening to me, I’d call it off. I won’t climb with a madman.”
“That’s reassuring. I guess.”
“And you’d have to make nice with your mom, see if she and Poppy could dad-sit for me.”
“I don’t feel like talking to Mom right now. Would you do it?”
“Galen, don’t ask me to play piggy-in-the-middle. I have enough of my own problems.”
“Sorry, that wasn’t fair.”
“Listen. If you deal with your mom, I’ll take care of the equipment and find someone to belay for us. I’ll even buy you a brain bucket.”
“Brain bucket?”
“Helmet,” Will said. “Come on, man. Didn’t you ever want to leave the world behind and experience nature from a perspective intended for birds?”
“What does it feel like? To be up high, above everything?”
“Like speaking to God.”
Galen straightened up. He looked older, more confident, more like a cocky young grad student who could pour contempt on genre fiction writers. A pair of hawks cried back and forth on Saponi Mountain, and Will shivered. Far as he knew, there were only two reasons for speaking with God: to make a confession, or to find peace. Hopefully Galen wasn’t thinking about everlasting peace.
“You’re not contemplating hurling yourself off a rock, are you? Because no way am I taking you if you’re going to risk both our lives.”
“I find nothing appealing about dying with an audience. If I were going to kill myself, I’d do it behind a locked bathroom door. Lie in a warm bath with a glass of vodka and a sharp razor, then open my veins.”
So, Galen had strategized his own death scenario. That couldn’t be a good thing.
“How would you do it?” Galen said. “Jump off a mountain?”
Now they were comparing suicide techniques? Yes, if Will were going to kill himself, he’d totally want to die doing something he loved. But only if he could do it with no one else around. “No. I couldn’t screw with climbers who might be watching. You don’t mess with people’s spirituality.”
“Like my mom and sweat lodges?”
Will inspected his fingernails and tried to ignore images of Hannah surrounded by steam, her naked body glistening. “Your mom goes to sweat ceremonies?”
“Yeah. She didn’t tell you?”
Will shook his head.
“Careful or she’ll invite you along.”
And a ripple in his mind, less than an afterthought, said, I wish.
Twenty-Three
Thrashing through a tangle of nightmares and erotic fantasies had left Hannah’s mind raw and her eyes rheumy.
She paused by the hall mirror, squinting at the latticework of crow’s-feet under her left eye and the gray hairs that had begun infesting her scalp. She flattened her palms across her cheeks and lifted, raising her skin upward by ten years. It made no difference. This tired, aging woman was not someone Will Shepard would find attractive.
And yet he had invaded her sleep unremittingly. She hadn’t recognized him until he’d turned to appraise her with those eyes—cold, distant, familiar. Eyes she remembered but could not recognize. Then he was behind her, his hands sliding up her ribs to tease her breasts, his voice on her neck, whispering, “Make love to me.”
Such dreams didn’t belong juxtaposed against those of Galen stumbling through a black forest, Galen being chased by a pack of baying hell hounds, Galen sinking to the bottom of an icy lake.
At one point in the night, camisole and boxers soaked through from sweat, she’d roamed the house, turning on lights, trying to ground herself in the mundane. Even awake, fear had pelted her.
Then she woke at 3:00 a.m., the hour of hauntings, with her heart pounding like a jackhammer. Pure evil had sauntered out of her subconscious to hover in her bedroom doorway, watching, waiting, barring her escape. For a moment, she had thought Galen was screaming—a distorted scream like a manufactured Hollywood sound shot through a wind tunnel. But when she’d tiptoed upstairs to check on him, he was lost in peaceful slumber.
Why was her mind torturing her now, when Galen was beginning to heal? Even though he had been unwilling to engage in a conversation about his grandfather, Galen had repeated, several times, that he felt wonderful, the surprise on his face suggesting he believed his words to be true.
Hannah walked out into the afternoon heat. On the porch, her pumpkin had begun to rot. She’d carved it too early, hoping Galen might find his festive spirit and join in. He hadn’t. And now the pumpkin was turning black and collapsing in on itself. Its shrunken, toothless mouth sneered.
The October sun
burned the back of her neck, hitting the spot Will had kissed in her dreams. Crispy leaves sprinkled to the dead grass where he was sitting, cross-legged, watching a box turtle lumber toward the shade of her redbud tree. He was surrounded by what appeared to be climbing gear: a thick, coiled rope, an assortment of metal clips and pulleys and something that had to be a harness but looked more like a huge, nylon diaper. Safety equipment, in other words, for a life-threatening activity.
Hannah approached him and stopped, arms folded. “You are not, I repeat not, taking my son rock climbing.”
Will tilted his face to glance up at her, then glanced down at his lap. If he smiled, her resolve would unravel.
Hold on to your anger, Hannah. He’s just a guy with a sexy smile. One who’s letting his youth show.
“October is the high season for adult deer ticks,” she said, hating the condescension in her voice. “You’ll need to do a tick check when you’re done sitting on the grass.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Did he have to call her ma’am? “I won’t give my permission.”
“He’s of age. You can’t stop him.”
“Want to see me try?”
Will picked up a pair of nylon shoes, inspected the soles and bashed them together. “Are we having our first fight?”
“Unlikely. I don’t fight.”
He frowned. “Neither do I.”
“No? Then why are you pushing me on this?”
“I’m not. I asked Galen to come climbing—he accepted.”
In the distance, a car honked repeatedly. Tires squealed and someone else honked. Road rage had finally moved into Orange County, which was hardly surprising. The heat and drought had been chipping away at tempers for months.
“But it’s a dangerous sport, and he’s in clinical depression and he’s—”
“Suicidal?” Will said quietly.
Why did people keep throwing that word around, tattooing it across her son’s chest? He’d made a mistake, one mistake, but it belonged in the past. Never to be repeated. He was doing better, and the world needed to forget.
“Are you worried he’s going to be careless with his life or mine?” Will said.
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