Ink and Bone(71)

Off the main square, Jones Cooper gets out of bed and gets dressed, quietly so as not to awaken his wife. Sleep, which never comes easily to him, has eluded him altogether. He walks quietly down the stairs to the kitchen, where his files are spread out on the long table. The biggest part of him doesn’t believe in psychics or visions, or anything beyond what he can see or touch. He is a man whose feet rest solidly on the earth. He knows, however, that there are no secrets in The Hollows. And if you just look hard enough at the facts, you will find the trail of evidence that leads you to the truth, no matter how ugly.





TWENTY-TWO


Run, Abbey! Run! The day was clarion blue and cool, the trees in Van Cortlandt Park a fire show of color. Abbey’s track team was racing against Riverdale Country Day School. And they were all there together—Wolf, Merri, and Jackson—to cheer their girl on. It was one of those rare moments when everything was right. Where how they looked from the outside—happy, successful, intact—was how they felt on the inside. The air was clean, the wild chorus of voices cheering and shouting, lifting up high.

And the girls! So young and leggy! With focus and determination beyond their years, huddled together, whispering seriously to each other, sizing up the competition. Most of them didn’t know how beautiful they were, certainly not Abbey, who wouldn’t even comb her own hair if Merri didn’t daily chase her down with the brush.

What amazed Merri about her children, both of them but maybe especially Abbey, was how self-possessed they were. Abbey and Jackson were both strong-minded, full of their own ideas and not afraid to put voice or action to those ideas. Where Jackson had said definitely no to sports, opting instead for Young Scientists’ Club and Chinese, Abbey wanted to run; she came to Merri and told her so. Prior to that it had always been Merri suggesting—piano, ballet, horseback riding? All of which Abbey had gamely tried, quickly losing interest.

“I want to join the track team,” she told Merri after school one day. “Coach says I’m fast.”

“Oh,” Merri had said, surprised. Competitive sports? Really? She’d dodged the soccer bullet with Jackson, who would rather take out an eye than participate in sports. He was a creature of the mind. Abbey was more physical.

Wolf wanted to know: “Does that mean we’re going to be standing around on fields every Saturday? Driving all over the state if she’s any good?”

“I suppose,” said Merri, equally unenthusiastic about the prospect.

“All right then,” he assented.

Whatever their differences in parenting styles, they were both on the same page when it came to supporting the kids. They were not into pushing extracurricular activities. (They were not those parents. They had no illusions, weren’t thinking that their kids were going to win sports scholarships like everyone seemed to think no matter how middling the talents of their offspring.) But they were always present for what Abbey and Jackson wanted to do. That was their job, they figured, more than anything else, just to be there. A job at which they’d ultimately failed.

And so they found themselves at Abbey’s first meet. Merri watched with fascination as her beautiful, lithe, and yes, super-fast daughter left everyone in the dust that her neon pink sneakers kicked up.

“Oh, shit,” said Wolf, watching as Abbey sped by, jaw dropping. “She’s amazing.”

“Wow,” said Jackson, looking up from the book he was reading. “She’s really fast.”

And Merri watched with the terrible mingle of pride and love and fear and sadness that was motherhood. As that girl raced past them, her family cheering from the sidelines Abbey was just Abbey. Not their daughter, their baby, not Jackson’s little sister, not just those things. She was all herself. Merri remembered Abbey’s plump little fingers, how they would grab for Merri’s face and hair, how hot they always were. Now those long, thin fingers interlaced with Merri’s. But one day, Abbey wouldn’t need or want to hold hands anymore. And still Merri cheered like crazy, because Abbey was awesome.

That day was perfect, blue and crisp. They were so happy. Maybe we’ve turned a corner, Merri thought. She was in denial about the pills still that day, not even acknowledging that she was still taking them even though her knee no longer really hurt. It wasn’t even a thought in her head. Things had been better with Wolf, or so she believed. And the kids were happy and healthy.

Run, Abbey! Go, Abbey!

Merri woke with a start, the happiness of her dream memory lingering. She grasped at it, but it faded away, blue draining to black. Joy replaced with a heart-pumping unease, those words hanging on the edge of her consciousness. Run, Abbey!

She reached over for the phone to check the time and saw that Wolf had texted her. She must have been so soundly asleep that she hadn’t heard.

I’m coming up. Don’t bother saying no.

She felt a mingling of relief and annoyance. They were joined together, wrapped around each other whether they always liked it or not. There was too much history, the children, shared investments, joint property. The very idea of legal divorce was as enervating as it was heartbreaking. It was one thing to drift like she was doing, neither here nor there. It was another thing altogether to bring the axe down on everything they shared, splitting it cleanly in half. Of course, nothing like that was ever clean.

It was midnight.

She picked up the phone and dialed. He answered after one ring, as if he had been waiting for her to call.