My body doesn’t trust abundance, so when it’s placed in front of me, the old instinct flicks on.
Eat it before the hills eat you.
When I come up for air, Frankie’s watching as if she knew I would inhale every bite and made peace with that outcome before she cracked the first egg.
“You want more?”she asks.
I nod, starting to stand.But she’s already up and plopping more eggs into the pan.
When she brings the plate back, I force myself to go slower, trying to taste things individually.The black pepper, the toast’s char, and the butter’s sweetness.
As I finish, heat pools behind my sternum.Not panic heat.Coal fire.Steady.I lick my thumb where yolk slicks it.
Frankie clears her throat.“How’s it going with Dove?”
I set down the fork and choose the smallest word, the safest one.“Fine.”
“Wolf.”She leans her elbows on the table, eyes gentle but not easily fooled.“You don’t have to be alone in your head about it.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”It’s not a scold.It’s an acknowledgment, like pointing to a scar and naming itScar.She sits back.“Do you trust her?”
“More than I trust myself, which is fucked up, but there it is.”
“Will you tell her your story?”
“She already got the full experience with my scars, my breakdown, and my fairy tales.That’s more than I’ve shared with anyone else.”
“That’s not the same as talking about it.”
“Words don’t fit this.They slide off the bone and make an ungodly mess.”
“You talk to Dr.Thurber.”
“I toss him juicy bits here and there.You know what they say.Vague book—”
“Isn’t the best book.”Her mouth turns down.“Will you wait a second?”
At my nod, she pads down the hall.I hear the soft thud of a closet door, the sigh of a drawer.My pulse climbs, and I occupy myself by stacking plates and aligning the butter knife with the bread crumbs.
Footsteps return.When I look up, she’s holding two books.
I recognize the one on top.The cracked spine.The stains on the cover.The dents and scratches from outlasting arctic blizzards, famine, and a plane crash.
Survivor’s marks.
My stomach drops hard, and the room blurs.
If I open that book, it will open a past I’m not ready to face.
I’ve never read Frankie’s journal, but I know it was written with my sharpies, the ink pressed too hard in some places, bleeding in others.
It started in the hills as one of my scrapbooks and mutated into a forensic case file.She even added hair samples from all the Strakh men.Short and curlies from me, thank you very much.
She wanted everything documented like a true crime investigation.Details about our gruesome childhood.Notes about the women Denver abducted and killed.
Her own kidnapping and torment was part of the unsolved mystery.Each day tallied like a prison sentence.Some entries precise.Others scrawled like she didn’t know if she’d have another chance to finish them.
