The Winters(55)

Passing through the iron gates and then the last stand of oaks before Asherley, I tried to remember where Rebekah’s car had crashed. She must have been going fast. I couldn’t find the stump, but I could make out parts of the burnt forest that had begun to blend into the old growth. Soon it would be as though the accident had never happened. The forest would forget, and maybe so would the island’s inhabitants.

At the end of the long drive, a bright moon accentuated Asherley’s spires and cast a pall over that incongruous greenhouse. I imagined driving through the glass at high speed, sending shards flying in a million directions, releasing all the bad memories. There was no light coming from the turret and yet, even dark, it maintained its sentinel quality.

I drove into the maw of the garage and sat for a while, weighing the cost of betraying Dani at the most fragile intersection in our relationship. We were just beginning to form some semblance of a bond, however tenuous. It was a month before the wedding. The damage would be irreparable, the repercussions, knowing Dani, arriving in unpredictable ways. Yet to not tell was to stew over the plausibility of Dani’s claims.

I checked my phone. No new texts from Max since the one at dinner. No Drive safe, no I’m thinking about you, no Text me when you get home. A new feeling welled up inside of me, niggling and dark. There it was, the doubt Dani had hoped to plant in me with that story. Then and there, I vowed to rip it up by its roots before it grew into a malevolent weed.

As I reached for the door handle, I heard a small thump and saw a shadow pass across the rearview mirror. I froze, only my eyes moving. There it was again. I pivoted around in time to catch the barn cat, Maggie’s mother, padding across the back of the car. I was about to exhale when I caught a glimpse of something, no, someone, standing alone in the dark of the garage. Adrenaline flooded my limbs. The shape moved towards my window. Someone was in the garage with me. I slapped at the lock, a scream escaping my throat.

“Ma’am! Ma’am, it’s okay! It’s only me!”

Gus crouched down at my window.

I shoved open the door. “Jesus Christ, Gus, you scared me half to death!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“Don’t sneak around like that!”

“I wasn’t. I—I came out to see if you needed any help with bags or anything. I was going to leave, but you stayed in the car a long time. I worried maybe you were sick or something.”

I sat for a moment, a hand on my sternum. It hurt to pull oxygen back into my lungs, they’d emptied so suddenly. I stepped out of the car, my legs wobbly. “I was just gathering my thoughts.”

Here I was alone again with Gus. What if Max were to pull up right now and see us leaving the garage at night? Would he laugh off Dani’s inference a second time?

He peered into the backseat. “You need help with anything?”

“No. Everything’s being delivered.”

“Okay, well, some packages came for you earlier. I put them in your dressing room.”

“Oh good,” I said. I had hoped to put Louisa’s gifts away before Max came home. “Thank you.”

“I really didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that. When you didn’t come out of the car right away . . . you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. I’m just tired. When did you two get in?”

“About a half hour ago.”

He stood there expectantly, as if he wanted to tell me something else.

“Well . . . good night.”

“Yes, I—”

“What is it, Gus?” I barked. I didn’t like being near him. Tonight, at the restaurant, I had seen a different Gus, impatient and familiar with Dani, convincing me Max’s concerns were well placed.

“Well, I just wanted to say, ma’am, that . . . I’m glad Dani has someone like you in her life now.”

“That’s nice to hear.”

“She’s not a bad kid, you know. She’s just been through a lot.”

“Losing a mother is hard, I know,” I said. “Well, good night, then.”

“Again, I’m sorry, ma’am. I really didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Please don’t call me ma’am.”

“Sorry. It’s a habit from the first Mrs. Winter.”

I practically sprinted across the gravel drive to close the gap between the garage and the house the way a child leaps from floor to mattress to prevent the monster under the bed from grabbing at her ankles. It wasn’t Gus I feared, or even Dani. It was the way the memory of Rebekah constantly shifted and changed. The minute I pinned her down as this way, she became that way. Was she a bad mother or a good one, a devoted wife or a scorned one? I had a stubborn need to define myself in relation to her, so the more elusive Rebekah remained, the more confused I felt here.



* * *



? ? ?

I went straight to my room and collapsed into bed. Dark ruminations about Dani’s story and the episode in the garage eventually morphed into my dream, the one that always ended with Rebekah holding me under water until I jerked awake with that feeling of dread in my chest and the sense that I had barely escaped something dire. The sun was not yet up. Max growled and sleepily pulled my back into the cave of his body. I hadn’t heard him come in. I spun around to kiss him, deeply, hungrily.