Yet somehow she was almost there. She could see the light at the top. She could feel the heat of the sun on her face, so much missed. She hadn’t realized how dark it had been down there, until she felt that pang of loss.I live thirty feet from the ocean, she thought,and yet I never go outside.
It was kind of a travesty.
But it was one that she was about to rectify. She could actually see her car from where she stood now. She could feel the scrubby grass beneath her feet. Both felt as though the world had slipped sideways, but that was fine. That was good. She could walk on a sideways world. She could walk on any world.
She just had to do it slowly—let her shaky legs unfurl one at a time, like a new fawn just learning how to move around. Then once she realized she could do it, she took another trembling step. Then another and another, one after the other in a great rush of relief and happiness. By the time she got to the car she was almost running on wings she didn’t know she had, half crying and half laughing.
She had escaped. Somehow, she had gotten out.
Starting the car seemed like nothing after that. If she crashed the thing on the way there, then so be it. If the metal broke up around her, each piece fluttering and then tearing away just like it had on the plane, she would weather it. She had weathered the very worst that could possibly happen to a person, and she had lived. She had crawled out of the abyss.
Nothing could hold her back now—not even the image that entered her head as she sped over the bridge that separated him from her. She saw something ploughing into her, saw the car turning in midair. She knew what it would be like; she could see her own hands reaching up to stop her head from touching the ceiling. The slow motion of it, the helplessness of it...all were perfectly clear to her.
But she didn’t stop.
She put her foot down instead, and headed for the edge of all the terrible things that could possibly happen.I could die, I could die, I could die, she thought, then drove on through to the other side. All the way through, and to the place that lay beyond it. The one where death held no dominion, and life wasn’t something to hide from, just in case.
There was nojust in case.
There were only possibilities, endless and waiting possibilities that now stretched forever in front of her. Even if he no longer wanted her, even if this was a bad decision, even if, even if...it didn’t matter. Her face was wet and her heart was full and it didn’t matter. She could live now, without wondering what terrible thing would happen next.
She could finally live.
* * * * *
The look on his face wasn’t quite the one she’d expected. Some part of her had imagined him breaking into a smile. Another part had thought he might be angry in some weird way. No part of her had envisioned this, whatever this was. It seemed like confusion, only a type of confusion that had some terrible dark side. As if she’d died just a little while ago and he was trying to process what he was seeing. He was Jenny Hayden, unable to accept that her husband had returned. And the longer she stood there in the shadows, the less he seemed able to accept it.
His voice, when he finally spoke, was very faint.
“Am I dreaming?” he asked, but she couldn’t say no.
It felt as if she were dreaming too. She was awake and this was real, and yet it had all the hallmarks. She’d come across him by accident, on a path through the woods by his home that she couldn’t have known he was on. The moon was out and its light shone down in an almost blurry, soft-focus sort of way. And finally, she had turned out to be not dead after all. She was alive and had returned to him.
What else did this dream possibly need?
She didn’t know. She’d never had one with her eyes open before. It was hard to take it in at first, but she could feel it getting easier. She could see it was getting easier for him too. After a second he seemed to realize logic could be applied—or at least asked about.
“How did you get here?”
“I drove.”
“You drove?”
“Yeah.”
“In a car?”
“Of course in a car. But only because I don’t have a hot-air balloon.”
He didn’t laugh. She wasn’t sure why she expected him to.
Though maybehoped he wouldwas a better way to put it.
She hadhopedhe would. She had hoped he might stop looking at her like that—as though she were a terrible problem he had to work out.
“And then what?”
“And then I saw the gates, and wasn’t quite brave enough to go up to them. So instead I thought I would just explore this little wooded area—it’s been a long time since I was in one.” She paused, considering whether to continue. But he already knew, so what did it matter? He had been as weird as he was going to be about it. “In fact, I never thought I’d want to be in one again.”
