These Silent Woods: A Novel(30)

I sat and just looked at her, and she must’ve sensed that I was skeptical.

“Come on, Kenny. Let’s give this a try. Take a deep breath in through your nose,” she said. “Then breathe out through your nose. Slowly, gently. Think only about the breathing, nothing else. The breathing is all there is.”

I breathed in, I breathed out. Let me tell you, I felt a little stupid sitting there practicing how to breathe with Dr. Shingler. But it did work, and when my medication ran out, six months into our time in the woods, I remembered that day in her office. The big window, the little electric fountain in the corner that hummed and bubbled, the sound of it supposed to help patients relax, and Dr. Shingler with her blue eyes, telling me to think only of breathing.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.



* * *



Finally, what I smell is earth. Rich, sweet dirt. Grass bent and poking at the side of my mouth. At first I’m not sure where I am. But then the river murmurs close by, and I remember: Finch and me, hunting. The doe and fawn, the girl. I push myself up to sit and look around, but it’s almost dark, the woods a wreckage of shapes and shadows. Everything spins.

My lips are parched and stiff, but I attempt a whip-poor-will. “Finch?”

“Here.” Her voice floats out of the darkness and I see the silhouette of her, huddled close by, tucked next to the King of Trees, the camouflage blanket wrapped tight around her body.

“You all right, sugar?”

She nods, and even in the dark I can tell she’s been crying.

“I’m sorry. How long was it this time?”

“A long time. I’m cold.”

I stand up, legs weak, and then take a few steps to her. I kneel down and pull her small head against my chest. “I’m sorry, Finch.” I apologize, always, because I know it’s hard on her to have to witness it, to have to wait it out. I tousle her hair. “Come on. Let’s get you home. We’ll make some hot chocolate.”

She nods, and we stand and start making our way back to the cabin, stumbling on tufts of cat grass, our pants getting hung up in the brambles. The fact that my feet are numb from cold doesn’t make the trek any easier. I keep the headlamp in the backpack, and we use it to guide our path, but tonight the clouds are thick and the night is unforgivingly dark. Finch holds tight to my hand.

Her jacket gets snagged in a thorn, and we stop. “I get scared when it happens,” she whispers.

“I know. I do, too.” What’s the point in trying to hide it or come up with some line about how there’s nothing to be scared of? Finch always knows the truth, anyway.

“Do you think it’ll happen to me someday?”

I stop then, squat next to her and pull her against me, her long hair cold against my cheek. Terrifying, the thought that I could pass any of it on. That Finch could suffer from these very same things, and it would be entirely my fault. Genetics, proximity, influence. “Tough to say, Finch, but I don’t think so. I didn’t always have them. Not until— Well, I never had them until I was a soldier, in a place far away. There were things that happened over there that were hard for me, hard for all of us, and sometimes when you come off a thing like that, your mind and body have a hard time readjusting. Anyhow, that’s how it all started. And since you probably won’t ever be a soldier, I’d say you’ll likely be fine.”

She nods, her face still pressed to mine. I squeeze her hand twice, and we keep on walking.

“How come you never told me?”

“Told you what?”

“That you fought somewhere far away.”

“Aw, I don’t know, Finch. Never came up, I guess.”

“Where were you? Where did you fight?”

“Mostly a place called Afghanistan.”

“What was it like?”

“Brown. Lots of different shades of brown. Light brown, dark brown, green brown, tan. Yellow brown. Dusty brown.”

She giggles. “Cooper.”

When we get home, I light the kerosene lamp in the kitchen and the candle on the trunk. Finch heads straight to the bedroom and gets her notebook and colored pencils. She pulls the chair from the table and starts sketching. Walt Whitman leaps onto her lap and settles in, purring.

I step outside. Pump some water from the well, splash my face, hoping to wash off the fatigue. A screech owl hollers nearby, fluttering in the dark. Other than that, silence, darkness, cold. Inside, I stir the stew on the stove, scraping the sides of the pan. I grab two bowls and ladle us our food, giving Finch a little extra.

“Dinner, sugar.” I set the bowls on the table and nudge the cat. “Off you go, Walt.”

Finch slides her notebook to the side. She has already rendered an image from the woods: the King of Trees, the river, a girl with a blue backpack and long red hair.





FIFTEEN




We eat our stew in the almost-darkness, the light of a candle throwing shadows across the walls, the woodstove purring. My body aches from the panic attack, burdened by a heaviness, and my vision is still blurred a little, slow to return. A headache flares behind my eye sockets, pushing at the temples.

“What do you think she was doing?” Finch asks.

I rise from the table, put the kettle on the stove. “I don’t know, sugar.”

“I mean, why was she there?” She pokes at her stew. “In our woods.”