The Impossible Knife of Memory(88)

There!

. . . I found the boot prints on the other side and saw something in the snow near the quarry rim.

Climbing up the fence was not hard, one blink, one breath I was on the top and from the top I saw him, my father, a dark lump sitting in a hollow of snow a foot away from where the earth ended. He was in a T-shirt and shorts. The snow had turned his hair white, his skin gray, like dirty ice.

Had he frozen to death? Could it happen that fast?

I wanted to scream his name but was afraid it might shatter whatever spell he was under. Another bank of low clouds rolled in. The flat light drained all of the color out of the world. The walls of the quarry looked like pitted iron, the water black as coal. Dad hadn’t moved. He had to hear Finn shouting, the jangle of the fence as I climbed it, but he sat as still as the rock beneath him, like he was morphing, his bones becoming stone, his solid heart buried forever.

I launched myself off the top of the fence and landed so hard that it knocked the wind out of me and rattled my brains. When I stood up, left knee screaming, the world seemed tilted. Finn’s muffled voice sounded far away and the cold didn’t bother me anymore.

I struggled forward, angling to the side, afraid of startling him. I didn’t know what to do next.

“Daddy,” I called quietly. “Daddy, please. Look at me.”

I thought I saw his head dip forward a tiny bit. But maybe not. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks. I gimped forward another step.

His gray lips moved. “Stop.”

I froze, waited, but he turned back into stone.

“You have to come home,” I said.

Nothing.

“You have to stand up and walk with me to the car. Right now. Do you hear me?”

Still nothing.

My left knee quit on me and I pitched forward into the snow. Dad’s head snapped around.

“You hurt?” he asked.

“A little.” I pushed myself back up to my feet, putting all my weight on my right leg. “I messed up my knee, I think.”

Dad turned away, staring straight out at the quarry again. Maybe it was the knife that felt like it was jammed in my knee, maybe the cold froze the part of me that had been afraid as long as I could remember.

“Why didn’t you ever show me those pictures of Mom?”

He inhaled slowly. “Thought I’d screwed you up enough already. Didn’t think pictures like that would help.”

“And letting yourself freeze to death is going to make me feel better?”

“I didn’t come out here to freeze.”

“So why haven’t you jumped?”

He didn’t answer. I limped another step.

“Don’t!” His hoarse voice pulled me up short. “It’s not safe.”

“Of course it’s not safe, you dumbass!” I scooped up a handful snow and threw it at him. It drifted, sparkling, over the edge of the cliff.

“No, Hayley!” Dad turned around, tried to stand up. “Stop!”

“Shut! Up!” I screamed so loud it felt like my skin split, starting at the top of my head, ripping down the front of me and down the back, unraveling the thin threads that had held me together for so long.

(Out of the corner of my eye, swirling police gumdrop lights colored the snow. Out of the corner of my ear, Finn shouted and shouted, his voice breaking at the same pitch as the crunch of shifting snow.)

I choked up and groaned because everything hurt so much, everything hurt so f*cking much. “Daddy! I know you have nightmares and you saw horrible things, but . . .” I choked up again. “But I don’t care. I want my dad back. I want you to be brave again, the way you used to be.”

“You don’t understand.” He wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“You can’t do this, you can’t quit!” I yelled. “It’s not fair!”

My voice echoed down the walls of the quarry and rippled across the water at the bottom. The clouds scuttled away from the sun and blinding light reflected off the fresh snow. We were standing in a sea of glass shards, millions of tiny frozen mirrors.

“Nothing is fair, but this is better,” Dad said. “Trish will take care of you.”

“She won’t have to. I’m leaving.”

I waited for him to take the bait.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Following you. As soon as you jump, I’m jumping.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Wanna bet? I spent my whole life watching you leave. And then Gramma. And then Trish. Apparently, everybody leaves me. So I’m going to leave, too.”

Car doors slammed.

I struggled to step closer to him. I had to drag my left leg, then hop.

“Go back.” Dad stood up straight, put his hands out to me. “Hayley Rose, baby, please. You’re too close to the edge.”

“You first.”

“You don’t understand.” His tight voice shook.

The snow was blue then red, then blue, then red.

I tried to stand on one leg. The snow under me shifted and I felt it again, the tug of the quarry. The wind pushing.

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand. I’ve been standing on the edge with you for years.”

Daddy said something, but his words froze in the air before I heard them. He pointed and pointed, his eyes going back and forth: me, the cliff, me, the fence, me, the quarry, trying to calculate something.