“No.” I feel his gaze on me as I eat and carefully avoid it.
“Children?” he tries again.
I shake my head. By some mysterious divine intervention, a secret chamber inside me where every warning about Henry I never heeded was tucked away, I did not make that particular cardinal error. I send a silent note of gratitude to my innermost self, who kept watch while the rest of me slept.
“Truly a free agent, then,” he comments.
It’s light, not meant to carry the weight I feel in it, but his words sing through me,a free agent.
I inhale the sandwich and Regis takes my plate, cleans it right away, and leaves it on a towel to dry. He turns. “I’m just gonna get some things then go outside.”
“You don’t have to,” I say. It seems wrong to make this man sleep in his truck when he’s been nothing but nice.
He shrugs. “I don’t mind. You’ll sleep better that way.” He slips into his room and back out, a throw blanket over his arm, toothbrush and tube of toothpaste fisted in his hand.
At the door, we pause, staring into each other like mirror images, the night crooning behind him.
“Well, sleep tight,” he says, reaching for the knob, his hand finding my own.
I stand there foolishly, feeling the way his fingers cup mine, not quite able to pull away. The little girl from the picture is suddenly there in my mind, all front teeth and laughter, a crease across the tip of her nose. She floods me with joy, a warmth for this man like the soft light of the sun, filtered through budding trees. None of the horrible flashes I’ve seen before with othermen—gasping corpses, crying women. Only a rippling girlish energy like pink lemonade.
He lets go and she fades away. I lock the door behind him.
ISLEEP LIKEthe dead and wake with a start. It takes several long, heart-thudding seconds for me to remember where I am. The house is perfectly silent, dust motes dancing like glitter through beams of sunlight, not even the hum of an air conditioner to greet me.
“Regis?”
I walk to the door. It’s still locked. When I turn back, the face of the girl in the photo smiles out at me, a little off-center. Why does he only have a picture of her so young?
At first I think it’s late morning, but the slant of the light is wrong. Disoriented, I look for a clock, but can’t find one. I turn on the television, only to be greeted by another news report. Not morning,evening.I recognize Don’s thermos lying in the grass at the reporter’s feet, and my intestines ball up inside me.
“… And that’s when they found the body, lying here beside the road. The man has been positively identified as Don Rodgers, a high-profile political consultant from Washington, DC. Police are still investigating his cause of death but ask anyone with information to please come forward.”
Someone hammers on the door, and I hit the power button, going to peer out the window. Regis smiles back at me and I let him in. My knees knock with every step, the thermos in the grass an exclamation point at the end of the sentence condemning me. Why did he have to be someone newsworthy? However much I wanted to be a moving target so Henry couldn’t find me, now I want to bury myself somewhere deep and not come out until Don’s flesh is stripped from his bones and the question of how he died submerged under a mountain of ever-piling current events.
“Did you just get up?” he asks, the bright smile he carries flickering like a candle hit by a sudden wind.
I wrap my arms around myself. “What time is it?”
“It’s after six,” he says, peering at me as though I’m another species. “My word, what have you been through?”
I clear my throat. “Can you give me that ride now?”
He sets a paper bag down, pulls out a pack of pork chops and a couple cans of beans. “Thought you might want to eat something first.”
It’s sweet, but all I want is to disappear. “I’m not hungry.”
His mouth flattens, twitches, and reforms itself into another, kinder smile. But I can see he’s disappointed. “No problem. Let me put these away.”
I use his bathroom to brush my teeth, and splash some water over my face and arms, the grime of the river still clinging to me. I used the hand soap last night to wash away the worst of the smell, but wasn’t comfortable enough to take a shower. I comb my fingers through my hair and rearrange it in another tight knot.It’ll be okay,I tell my reflection.She’ll be there. She’ll help you.For confirmation, I conjure the article and picture I found before leaving Charleston of the woman from my childhood standing beside a vintage green-and-red motel sign. The caption read:Myrtle Corbin, owner of the Balsam Motor Inn, found the body Wednesday morning when she went to inquire about her guest.It was seven years old.
The drive is shorter this time, the road clear. Regis explains that he spent most of the day helping the county break up the tree so it could be hauled away. He talks as we drive, amiable, light conversation, the occasional question I answer as succinctly as possible, a kind of happy white noise to fill the time until we pass theWELCOME TO CROW LAKEsign and begin to spot signs of life— a mailbox, a gas station in the distance, a tiny, bustling tavern: the Drunken Moose.
“So, where to? Do you have an address?”
“No,” I tell him. “But I have a name. The Balsam Motor Inn.”
His eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. “What do you want with that place?”
