Every Single Secret(28)

I told her just enough to send her down the right trail. And to get Mr. Al hauled from the ranch in handcuffs. The tragedy was, he was nothing more than a guy who liked to smoke weed—a stupid one, yes, since getting high with teenage girls was not an okay thing to do by anyone’s standards. But he was harmless. Better than that, he was kind. His concern for me was sincere, and it comforted me to know someone truly cared about me. Until Hap Silver, he was the closest thing I’d ever had to a father.

I opened my eyes, tucked the iPad back under the mat, and got out of the car, leaving it unlocked for later. Shoving the keys in my pocket, I hurried back to the house, arriving just in time to see a man—Luca, probably—slip into the house through the screen door. I glanced at my watch. Lunchtime. There must have been someone eating out here.

I crossed the lawn and found a graveled walk that led down the terraced levels. At the bottom, I could see a grove of gnarled trees with a concrete bench in the center. Heath sat there, two silver-covered plates beside him.

“So this is the bird garden,” I said, coming up behind him.

Heath twisted around. “You weren’t in the room, so I figured you went for a hike. Luca brought us lunch, just in case I ran into you.”

He smiled at me, and I couldn’t help it—I pictured Instagram Annalise, her apartment filled with smashed glass. Cowering in fear before her boyfriend. I blinked the image away.

“That was nice,” I said. “But aren’t we supposed to take our meals in our rooms?”

Heath shrugged and removed a lid. “So we get a demerit. Who cares?”

I took in the bird garden. A stand of mature redbud trees formed a ring around the small, smooth lawn where we sat. The trees’ heart-shaped leaves had gone bronze, and each branch was trimmed, like a Christmas tree, with dozens of wooden birdhouses. The houses were hopping, quite literally, with activity. Birds popped in and out, flying off in search of nest-building supplies or worms or whatever they ate, and returning. A giant avian-party apartment complex.

I inspected one of the houses hanging on a low branch. Its walls had once been painted with a detailed purple-and-green-and-gray paisley design. Miniature birds made of tiny dots marched in a circle around the base of the house. It must’ve been painted long ago. The mountain weather had faded the colors so much they were only visible if you got close.

“Come eat,” Heath said.

I joined him on the bench and dipped into a bowl of thick butternut squash soup. “Was it bad? Your session?”

He shook his head. “Not particularly.”

I thought of what I’d overheard Dr. Cerny say in the office. Do you think having her here was really a good idea? I tucked my legs up under me. It was perfect here in the garden, sun shining in dappled splotches through the trees. The whistles of the birds. You could only see a red smudge of the house from here, high on the hill above us. I tried to let the peace soak into me. Tried not to think about Cerny talking about me. Or what Annalise had written in her email.

“He asked me about my memories,” Heath said. “My first day of college. How strange it felt to be sitting in a classroom the size of a theater with all those other students. The papers shuffling and pens scratching. The smells of other people’s laundry detergent.” He seemed far away, staring past the trees and the swaying birdhouses. “I was just so glad to be there. To be lost in the crowd, one in tens of thousands. It was good to talk about it, which was a surprise. Easier than I thought.”

He went back to his food. “I also told him about my mother.” He hesitated. “I told him that I wanted, more than anything, to be able to forgive her.” He paused.

I knew what he was doing. He was giving me a chance to engage in his therapy. To help him in his search for closure. I forced myself to speak.

“What do you have to forgive her for?”

He got very still. A chill brushed my skin.

“Were there boyfriends?” I asked.

He put down his fork. “No. What I have to forgive my mother for was something different. Something I’ve never told you.”

I gripped the edge of the bench with both hands, my knuckles gone white. What a fool I’d been, thinking I could control any of this, that I could somehow manage the way the truth came out. This freight train was coming, hard and fast, and I was tied to the tracks.

He went on. “My mother was single when she had me—and older, past forty. She’d been hustling a long time . . . She was a dancer before I was born. And probably more than just a dancer, even though I didn’t have any proof of it. After she aged out of that career, she got a job at some taco place. Sold weed—and probably harder stuff—to the rich kids in the suburbs.” He let out a long breath. “She’d grown up Catholic enough to feel guilty that she wasn’t giving me a fair shot at life. So when I was still very young, she gave me away—to a couple she met. Well, not gave exactly. I’m fairly certain money changed hands.”

So it was basically what Annalise said. He’d told each of us a portion of the truth.

“From the time I was three or four years old, I lived with them.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “They were an older couple. And they wanted me—not because they wanted to be parents, but for other reasons. Disturbing reasons.”

His words washed over me, and I started to go numb.

“They owned me. Not to physically abuse. There was no sexual abuse, either, nothing like that. It was . . .” He scanned the woods beyond the garden. “Mind games.”