The House in the Pines(37)

He says he was in the woods behind his parents’ house. He’d go back there whenever they were fighting, and they fought a lot in those days. Those woods went on for miles. One day he wandered onto an abandoned road. It was getting late, but he was curious and decided to follow it. The road was overgrown, disappearing for yards at a time beneath dead leaves and ferns and moss. Eventually it disappeared so completely that Frank couldn’t follow it a step farther—yet when he turned around, it wasn’t behind him either. He was lost. He was only ten, it was getting dark, and all around him, an endless sea of trees, like that dream where you’re underwater and can’t tell which way is up.

He doesn’t know how much time passed before he shouted and cried himself out. He only knows that it was dark, and he was clinging to patches of moonlight between branches when he finally fell quiet enough to hear the stream. The soothing, lifesaving gurgle of it—what a miracle it seemed when the sound led him not only to the stream but back to the road, which he followed expectantly.

He saw an old bridge and a clearing on the other side of the bridge and decided to cross over, thinking he might find something there. A cabin. Help. He entered the clearing but found only the barest remains of a home: a low concrete foundation being reclaimed by forest. Frank sat down on it, pulled his knees to his chest. He prayed that his parents would find him. But they didn’t. He waited all night, shivering with cold and with fear.

Then, sometime near dawn, he closed his eyes and imagined that there really were walls around him, and a ceiling above. A cozy fire. Something hot on the stove. He imagined it until he smelled the cooked meat and burning wood. He must have fallen asleep then, because he dreamed that the place was real, and for the first time in months, he felt safe. Safer than he’d ever felt at home. And in the morning, he wasn’t afraid anymore. He’d survived a night alone in the forest and dreamed up a home for himself. The home he promised himself he would build someday, there in the clearing on the other side of the bridge.



* * *



— Knowing the story behind the cabin, knowing what it means to him, makes Maya want to see it even more. She says it would be an honor to be the first to see it. She feels for the child lost in the woods, clinging to the comfort of an imaginary home, as well as for the deep, caring man beside her, afraid of getting hurt. She admires him for turning his dream into a reality and for doing it without going to college.

“Left or right?” he asks.

The question catches her off guard. She looks out the car window at the dark street rolling past. She hadn’t been paying attention, and now they’re on Grove Street, passing Stoddard Ave. “Left,” she says. They’re almost to Aubrey’s house, a destination so familiar that Maya is embarrassed to realize that she’s allowed Frank to drive several blocks past her street. Now they’ll have to turn around, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He drives as if he has nowhere else to be.

Maya does, though. She forgot to keep an eye on the time. The clock on Frank’s dash flashes 12:00, so she reaches for her backpack to check the time on her phone, only to realize that she’s forgotten it. Not just her phone, but the whole backpack containing her pajamas and toothbrush. She can’t believe how absentminded she’s been. She tries to recall if she locked the door, but now that she thinks of it, she can’t remember leaving the house or getting into Frank’s car. “Do you know what time it is?” she asks.

Frank shakes his head. “Sorry.”

“Turn here. Fourth house on the right.”

Most of the windows on the street are dark. Maya has a sinking feeling. She knows, as Frank drops her off in front of Aubrey’s duplex, that the polite thing would be for her to introduce them. But she’s pretty sure she’s late. She’ll have to apologize, and if Frank’s there, it’ll be awkward. “I’m glad you stopped by tonight,” she says.

He leans across the console to kiss her. Just a peck, but it brings back the heat of his breath. It sends a shiver through her center.





TWENTY




The last time Maya had tried to find Ruby—before Dr. Barry convinced her to stop looking—all she’d come up with were a couple of MySpace pages. But now Maya found over a dozen Rubys on social media who called Hood River, Oregon, home. She ruled out the very old and very young and was left with seven women named Ruby, any of whom could have made the mix CD for Frank.

They were almost all Hispanic, and two looked like his type: high cheekbones, straight black hair, dark eyes. Like Maya. Or maybe she was imagining it. Her sleep was broken and her dreams felt close. She messaged the seven Rubys, asking them to please contact her if they knew Frank Bellamy.

She waited.

Just two more hours until she could crack open the gin. She felt as if a strobe light was pulsing inside her skull, catching all her thoughts in strange shapes. The key with its jagged teeth. A young Frank lost in the woods, searching for help, for a door to knock on.

She heard her mom get home from work but didn’t go to greet her.

Her eyes ached from staring at her phone. “Ruby” and “Hood River” had turned up plenty of Google results: pet videos, a real estate agent, the winner of a spelling bee, an article from 1901 about a girl who’d been thrown from a buggy. Maya couldn’t narrow her search down. All she had was a first name and the town where Frank had lived with his mother after his mother divorced his father.