The House in the Pines(74)

“I read that hymn this morning,” her mom said. “?‘The Hymn of the Pearl.’?”

“What did you think?”

Her mom was quiet for a while. Her breath was white. “Honestly? I liked the story better when I didn’t know what it was based on.”

“Why?”

“Guess I prefer stories that aren’t trying to teach me something.”

Maya hadn’t thought much about the hymn’s religious context, but she could see how her mom, who’d resisted converting anyone while on her missionary trip, might view it.

“What do you think it’s trying to teach you?” Maya said.

Her mom looked thoughtful. Then she smiled. “What do you think?”

Maya fought back through her mirtazapine haze to what she’d read online, about how the hymn had been adopted by various religions. “People say it’s about the soul,” she said, “about how it starts off in this other place . . . wherever we were before we were born, I guess. But then we’re born, and we forget about that original home, and our original parents.” As she articulated this, both to her mom and to herself, Maya’s reaction was the opposite of Brenda’s. Knowing the hymn’s meaning made her appreciate it even more. She could see why it had endured all this time.

“Exactly,” her mom said. But she said it like this was a bad thing. They rounded a bend in the lake. “I don’t agree with that. I don’t think my true home is some other place. I think it’s here.”

The words resonated with Maya on a level she couldn’t explain, as if she had said or thought them herself once.

“Look!” her mom said.

Maya turned to see that a dozen geese had landed on the lake and were gliding silently across the water in a graceful V. “Wow,” she said. She had never seen geese, or wildlife of any kind, at Silver Lake. “You think it’s really safe for them here?”

“I do,” her mom said. “I think we’ll be swimming here ourselves someday.”





THIRTY-SEVEN




Dan hugged Maya so hard that her feet lifted off her mom’s living room floor. She nuzzled her nose into his neck. She’d missed the musky smell of his skin mingled with the cedar and pine of his all-natural deodorant.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured into her hair.

She’d told him everything over the phone and sent him the recording from the Whistling Pig. Like everyone else who heard the recording, Dan had found Frank’s strangely rhythmic cadence deeply sinister.

“I’m sorry too,” she said. For breaking his trust. For the dinner with his parents.

He set her down and they took each other in. She had showered and washed her hair, and wore a yellow sweater that her grandparents had given her for Christmas yesterday. Dan looked like he hadn’t slept well, and his eyebrows were tented with worry. “He hasn’t tried to contact you, has he?”

“No.”

“Any news from the detective?”

“She’s looking into Clear Horizons Wellness Center and that therapy his dad developed.” It felt good to be able to tell him this, that Detective Diaz had taken Maya and her theory seriously and was keeping her informed.

The recording from her phone had been cleaned up, and though most of Frank’s words remained hidden beneath the music, the detective heard enough to convince her that he might have had something to do with Cristina’s death. It was her idea to die on camera at the diner, he had said, one of the few full sentences caught on the recording. Not exactly a confession, but certainly suspicious.

Diaz had also traced the late-night calls placed to Brenda’s landline. They came from Frank’s father’s house, which now belonged to Frank—and was also the location of Clear Horizons Wellness Center. The detective had helped Maya file a restraining order.

Dan shook his head in dismay. “I can’t believe I let you confront that psycho on your own.”

“You didn’t know he was dangerous.”

“I should have.” He sounded angry with himself. “You tried to tell me.”

Maya looked away.

She understood that it was complicated. Dan would have been lying before if he’d said he believed her. The murder accusation had seemed to come out of nowhere, and the only evidence she’d provided was the video from the diner—which had seemed, if anything, proof that Frank hadn’t killed Cristina. That he’d been a bystander. Not to mention that Maya had been acting strangely even before all that.

It made rational sense that Dan had doubted her.

But would it ever make the other kind of sense? The kind she felt? Silence clotted in the air between them. Her mom was at work. The house was cold, and Maya had turned out all the lights as she was leaving.

Dan took her hands, brushed her knuckles with a kiss. And Maya reminded herself of the lies she had told him. The omissions. Maybe she had never deserved his trust anyway.

She looked up into his soft blue eyes, so full of worry and love, and wondered if their relationship could survive all the damage they’d inflicted.

She hoped so.



* * *



— Brenda had wrapped Dan up a slice of pecan pie from Christmas dinner, and left it for him with a note: Happy holidays, Dan! Congratulations on your finals! Hope I’ll get a chance to see you soon! She’d signed her name with a smiley face.