I pulled the quilt around me, shivering in the cold dawn. A few minutes later Luca returned with a mug of steaming coffee and a cinnamon roll. I accepted them gratefully and bit into the roll. I could feel him watching, arms folded.
“Daphne,” I said, covering my mouth and swallowing. I took a gulp of the coffee. It burned the back of my throat. “Ah, that’s hot. But good. Thank you.”
“Luca.”
“Luca. Nice to meet you.” We did a quick shake, then I slurped the coffee again. I couldn’t help it. It was perfect. A pinch of sugar, even less cream. Just the way I liked it. Luca said something and nodded up at the house, but I was lost. And not so certain what he was speaking was actually Spanish. It had an odd twist to it. But that look on his face. Was he judging me? Pegging me for some rich, crazy white woman who liked the idea of her every move being recorded for a doctor’s viewing enjoyment?
“Everything’s okay,” I said around the delicious cinnamon roll. “I came out here last night and fell asleep. I was . . .” I paused. “I fell asleep.”
He didn’t answer. Either he didn’t understand, or he didn’t care.
“Well.” I stood. “I should go back upstairs and get dressed. I’ve got a whole lot of aimless wandering around to do today.” Not to mention I needed to return the Nissan’s keys to Cerny’s office before he figured out they were missing. “Okay, well, thanks again for the breakfast. See you around.”
Luca sent me a tight smile.
Upstairs, I shucked the quilt and crawled into bed beside Heath’s warm sleeping form. In spite of the coffee I’d just drunk, I was wiped out from sleeping on the lumpy chaise, and in seconds, I passed out. When I woke later, he was gone, his breakfast dishes still sitting on the table. Skipping the cold eggs, I picked up another cinnamon roll and wondered if Luca had any hot coffee left.
I threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater, yanked my hair into a topknot, and found the keys. Downstairs, as I neared the sunroom, I heard low voices—Dr. Cerny and Heath.
“It’s like somebody put a filter over the sun,” Heath was saying, “that makes everything look the same, all the time.”
I slipped through the door and edged toward the key hooks.
“You’re talking about an obsession,” Dr. Cerny said.
My hand stopped a couple of inches from the keys.
“Fine. Tell me how to make it stop.”
“You have to decide first. Do you want to involve Daphne?”
There was no answer.
“The question is, do you believe she is capable of understanding?”
I backed out of the door and closed it behind me. Capable of understanding? Really? I’d agreed to come to this musty old house to support the man I intended to spend the rest of my life with. Of course I could understand whatever it was he was dealing with. I slammed into the kitchen, and Luca, standing at the stove stirring a pot of soup, glanced up.
“Hello,” I said, pointing toward the back door. “I was just heading out.”
“Espere,” he said and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. He wiped it down with the dishtowel over his shoulder and handed it to me. Then he snagged a granola bar from a bowl on the counter. “Para mais tarde,” he said.
“Sorry, I’m the asshole who only speaks English.” I held up the water. “But thanks. I’ll be back for lunch.”
“Cuidado,” he said behind me.
Now that one, I knew.
I stopped and turned back. His clear, intense eyes were boring into mine.
“Why would you tell me to be careful?” I asked.
He went back to his pot without answering, which was frustrating. But the guy didn’t speak English, so I tried not to read too much into it. And I guessed it made sense, his warning. He probably knew that people wandered out without realizing how far they’d gone. I had forgotten water last time I’d trekked up the mountain.
“Oh,” I said, the thought coming to me at once. “It’s Portuguese, isn’t it? You’re from Brazil.”
Over his shoulder, he sent me a smile. I noticed he had really nice, straight teeth.
“Or maybe actually Portugal?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Okay, then. Brazil. Rio de Janeiro. Big stone Jesus.” I spread my arms. “I’ve heard it’s beautiful there.”
He sobered. Then moved to the counter and pointed up at the magnetic knife rack. To the empty space on the end.
“Onde está a faca?” He tapped the magnetic strip, and I met his eyes. Sent him a look of confusion. He raised his eyebrows. “Você pegou.”
I smiled. “Sorry, I don’t understand. And I should really go. The birds are waiting for me, I’m sure. But I’ll cuidado. Promise.”
I fled the kitchen, not stopping until I’d slipped around the far side of the house, in the direction of the bird garden, out of sight of the kitchen. I was fairly certain Luca hadn’t bought my confused act. He knew I’d taken the knife. I figured I should probably go get it and wait for an opportune time to return it. I didn’t need him reporting me to Cerny.
I glanced over at the barn, at the far end of the yard, and nearly jumped out of my skin. The doors were creaking open just then, a figure slipping out from them. It was a woman—thin, dressed in black yoga pants and thermal top, with a yellow baseball cap pulled low. Glenys. What was she doing in the barn?
She didn’t see me. She was slumped against the side of the barn now, hands pressed to her face. She inhaled once, then again, like she was trying to collect herself. Then she slowly straightened, wiped her sleeve across her face, and took off toward the stand of trees behind the barn.
I set off after her. Although the terrain was level and the path mostly clear, she was taking this trail slower. I held back to keep a safe distance between us. It was a risk, following her like this. I barely knew the woman, and really didn’t have any right to steamroll my way into her private grieving. I just couldn’t get the picture of her poised on the ledge of the window out of my head. The way her thin back curved under the weight of her sadness. I promised myself I wouldn’t push. If she didn’t want to tell me what was bothering her, I’d leave. But I had to know she was all right. She felt like a friend.
I tromped over sodden leaves, the woods smelling vaguely of mildew, of organic rot and decay. A melancholy scent. Bright as it was, the forest was well into autumn—halfway to dying—and it took some effort not to let the vague feeling of sadness settle over me. After about fifteen minutes, I heard the rippling of water ahead, and I slowed. At the bottom of a gentle slope, where the path converged with a broad but shallow creek, Glenys had stopped.
I stopped too, still several yards back, and watched her. She stared past the creek at a row of red-leafed dogwood trees, then closed her eyes and tilted her head back. Whatever she was thinking about, it couldn’t be good. It set my nerves thrumming, knowing she was spiraling into her own dark thoughts.
I approached her. “Glenys.”
She turned. Broke into a smile. “Oh, Daphne. Hello.” She shifted her weight. “I’m sorry about that. I’m afraid I had a moment and got a little emotional.” She waved me over and patted my arm when I reached her side.
“No, I’m sorry for intruding. Are you thinking of your son?” I asked.
She surveyed the creek. “And other things.”
“I’m sorry.”
She waved her hand. “Ah, well. Life is full of so many things that can break a heart, isn’t it? I’m glad to see you, though. Very glad, actually.”
“You are?” I felt an unexpected rush of warmth in my chest.
“You’re a comforting presence, Daphne.” She reached out for me, and I let her catch my hand. “I’m sure that’s one reason why your fiancé loves you so much. You seem to be a very safe person. Very trustworthy.”
“I hope so.”
“You’re what they call a deep well.” She squeezed my hand, then held it up, inspecting it. “What a beautiful ring.”
“It was Heath’s
grandmother’s.”
“Lovely.” She released my hand. “How are you?”
“Oh, fine, I think.” I sent her a rueful grin.
“I know how hard it was for you to share those things you did. I hope you don’t regret confiding in me.”
“I don’t. You were right. It was a relief to let it out.”
“This place rattles the nerves, doesn’t it?” She looked off into the dense woods. “Which is strange. Since it’s supposed to be a place of healing. I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder if there’s anywhere we can go to escape. The pain that’s been inflicted upon us or that we’ve inflicted.”
She sat on a large rock on the bank of the creek, and I sat beside her. Wind rustled the canopy of leaves, and the water burbled below over rocks and submerged branches. I thought of Heath back up at the house, sitting in the doctor’s sunroom office pouring out more stories. Stories about obsessions that he wasn’t sure he could share with me. But could I honestly say I wanted him to? Wouldn’t that mean that sooner or later I would have to open myself up to him in return?
The red-leafed dogwoods on the other side of the creek swam into focus. There were three of them, I noticed, planted in a straight line, parallel with the water’s edge. How odd.
Glenys nudged me. “They’re lovely, aren’t they? Pink dogwoods. Spectacular in the spring. Fiery in the autumn.”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to talk now?” Glenys said. “I have some time.”
I toed at the wet leaves. Underneath, a trio of mushrooms had sprung up, pale white, crusted with dirt. I wondered if they were the poisonous kind. I was a city girl, though, unable to tell the difference between an edible mushroom and one that killed you.
“It was a complicated situation,” I heard myself saying. “What happened at the ranch. I was a child, and I didn’t know what I was doing . . . what I had done, until it was too late.”
Chapter Twelve
After a couple of days at the girls’ ranch, it became clear that Chantal had decided she was my own personal earthquake.
My third day there, I’d satisfied my itch to explore every inch of our house and yard. We were the last house at the end of a long dirt road, backed up against the woods, and I’d grown curious about the other houses and the rest of the place. Sunday, after church, Mrs. Bobbie said Chantal could show me around the expansive sixty acres.
The girl took me behind the house and through the woods, looping back around to the entrance, where the ranch’s mile-long red-clay drive turned off the state road. A hand-carved wooden sign swung on the branch of a gumball tree, and even though I’d seen it before, I smiled.
“Welcome to Piney Woods Girls’ Ranch,” Chantal announced in a tour-guide voice and then took off, jogging down the drive. I followed her, panting and struggling to keep up in the sticky south-Georgia September heat, until she slowed at the main offices. The buildings were designed to look like an Old West town, ramshackle and shingled and hung with old-timey signs that said “Office” and “Library” and “General Store.” A boardwalk connected them, and our feet made satisfying clomping sounds as we walked over it.
The building on the end was where the director, Mr. Cleve, and his staff worked. I’d met him that first night—he was a jovial man with a white beard. There was a sparse library with homemade bookshelves, a game room with a Ping-Pong table and board games in cabinets, and one other building, for group activities and meetings. From the Old West town we walked down a hill past two large vegetable gardens, to an open-air pavilion where Chantal said everybody from each house gathered together on Sunday evening for something called Vespers. Past the pavilion, we started back down the dirt road where all the houses, including ours, sat in two untidy rows. We dawdled for a minute in our front yard, which was mostly dirt and crabgrass.
“If we go in, we’ll have to finish our Sunday-school lesson,” she said. “Wouldn’t you rather go to the lake? And maybe somewhere else, a place I haven’t showed you?”
We’d been to church that morning. And Sunday school after that, where a lady had handed out worksheets on a parable that Jesus told about a woman who swept her house. The teacher had kept staring at me while she put paper cutouts of the characters in the story onto a flannel board, as if it was a lesson she thought that I, in particular, could learn from. A few times, her gaze dropped down to my clothes, and I thought I saw her nose wrinkle the slightest bit. I hadn’t had a chance to check the cast-off-clothes box in the hall closet, so I was wearing the old, stained yellow pants with the hems ripped out that I’d brought from home.
And now that I thought of it, why hadn’t Chantal shown me the lake in the first place, on our tour? It was just like her, keeping something back. Trying to show me who was boss.
I told Chantal I wanted to go to the lake.
It was a pond, actually, a murky man-made thing crusted over with green algae and rimmed by thick, sharp-edged grass. A cloud of gnats swarmed over it, and I made up my mind that I would never dip a toe in its disgusting depths. There was a short, wobbly dock of splintered wood, booby-trapped with nail heads that snagged at our shoes when we walked to the end of it. In the summer, Chantal said, the girls were allowed to swim or fish with poles they kept up at the ranch house. Onshore, a cobwebbed canoe lay flipped upside down. When I asked about it, she looked at it blankly for a second, like she’d never noticed it until now.
“We don’t use it. No oars.”
I pushed at one end with the toe of my sneaker, but she grabbed my arm. “Don’t. There are probably snakes under there.”
Something buzzed in my head—not so much a warning bell as just an indication of the presence of new information. The upside-down canoe was important to Chantal, and I could imagine several reasons why that might be so, mainly because I had immediately recognized it as a prime hiding place.
“You want to see a secret place?” Chantal said quickly.
“Okay.”
“Swear on your mother’s grave that you won’t tell anyone.”
“How come?”
“Just swear.”
“All right. I swear,” I said, not bothering to mention my mother wasn’t dead. Besides, there probably wasn’t really a secret place, so who even cared?
Chantal and I set off, following the curve of the lake until we reached the woods. About a half mile in, we arrived at our destination—a moldy plywood structure that looked like a cross between a tree house and a fort. It was built by some girls who’d lived at the ranch long ago, maybe even in our same brown brick house. They’d filched the wood from somewhere—probably from Mr. Al, who, since I’d arrived, had spent every afternoon in the driveway, surrounded by stacks of lumber and tools. He was building a doghouse for Bitsy, the ranch hound who wandered from house to house, begging scraps and pooping in everybody’s front yards. I thought that was sweet of him.
Inside the clubhouse was another world—a distant planet strung with old Christmas garlands and grimy cast-off pillows, and filled with an impressive stash of snacks, magazines, and tattered paperbacks. It reminded me of what the inside of a genie bottle must have looked like, and smelled like it too—that same scent of sweet cologne that clung to Omega and Shellie and Tré. It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen.
“These woods don’t belong to the ranch,” Chantal said. “They’re a national forest. So we can do anything we want here—smoke, drink beer, or read dirty books. Even if we get caught, there’s not a damn thing Mrs. Bobbie can do about it.”
I nodded, truly and legitimately enthralled.
“You ever read a porno book? They have them here. And Omega and them bring boys out here and have sex sometimes too. But you’re just eleven, so I can’t say anything else about that.” She ticked a lock over her mouth. I was relieved.
That night, after we all sat down to dinner and Mr. Al said the blessing, Mrs. Bobbie pointed to a large orange pill sitting in the upper-right corner of my place mat. I scanned the table. All the other gi
rls had identical pills sitting on their mats as well. Chantal had two—one orange and one small blue.
“Vitamins first,” Mrs. Bobbie said.
I swallowed the pill with one big gulp of cherry Kool-Aid, then noticed the other girls only sipped theirs. I wondered why.
Mrs. Bobbie watched me with a gimlet eye. “It’s a multi.” She said it like mult-eye. “Because I can’t afford to be driving you gals into town for this, that, and the other. Around here, if you get a fever, we call the preacher ’cause he lays on hands for free.”
“He sure does,” one of the Super Tramps muttered.
One of the girls giggled, then all of us got to laughing; even Mr. Al cracked a grin and shook his head. Mrs. Bobbie hushed everyone. She declared she had something else to say, and all at once everything got really quiet. My stomach flipped—the way it used to every time I came home to find our apartment door locked even though it was too early for my mom to have gotten home from work for the day. That stomach-flip feeling meant she was inside and up to no good, and I would have to find a place to wait until dark. It meant I’d have to figure out a way to stay out of sight of the older boys who hung around the parking lot.
“There’s some food missing,” Mrs. Bobbie announced. “From my top shelf.”
She didn’t elaborate or say what the food was, but I figured it was something good, cookies or candy or something. I’d seen inside the pantry—counted everything from stem to stern one morning before anybody was up. Mrs. Bobbie was on the ample side, and she probably didn’t like it when the kids got into her snacks.
“We don’t hide food here, Daphne,” Mrs. Bobbie went on, and I jerked in surprise. “There’s a gracious plenty to go around for growing girls. And anyhow, when you hide food in your room, it brings roaches, so you need to bring it back to me right away.”
I glanced around the table. The Super Tramps were all staring at me—Omega with her beautifully pursed fuchsia lips, Shellie with her languid eyes, and Tré behind her curtain of stringy hair. I could feel the weight of their attention, like stones crushing the breath out of me. Their eyes were aflame with some expression I didn’t recognize. It might’ve been admiration. Or bloodthirstiness.
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