True Places(14)

She looked out at the mountains, purple in the long-shadowed afternoon. She knew Daddy was dead, because otherwise he’d have come back. But how could she explain that?

Detective said, “Why did you run away from the house, Iris?”

“People. People want to know things about you. People want you to follow rules. People put chemicals in the water, and ruin good food and hurt animals and waste things that are precious. People won’t let you live a simple, good life.” She faced him. “I don’t need people, and I don’t want them.”

He was quiet for several moments. “Well, you’re in with people now, and you’re right about the rules. Maybe once you get used to it, you won’t see things quite the same way.” He reached inside his jacket, pulled out a folded map, and spread it on the foot of the bed. He said the green parts were public forest, where anyone could go. The lines were roads and the circles were towns. He pointed out the circle labeled CHARLOTTESVILLE, where they were now, and slid his finger along a gray line into a green space to where he said Suzanne had found her.

“Now, where do you think your house was?”

Iris studied the map. “Are there woods that aren’t public forest?”

“Plenty.”

“So there’s more woods than what’s green on here.”

“That’s right. Any of the towns sound familiar, say, from a sign you read?”

She shook her head. Her eyes scanned south. There was plenty of space with no roads and towns. She could’ve been anywhere. Her bearing had been northerly, pretty much, but it wasn’t as though she’d been heading anywhere in particular. She’d followed her instincts about where the wildest parts lay, circling back to stay in them but never trying to go back home. Detective didn’t need to know where the house was even if she could figure it out, and her parents wouldn’t have wanted her to tell.

Iris pushed the map away. “I don’t know where I was.”

He folded the map and put it back in his jacket. “You were lucky Mrs. Blakemore found you. I reckon you wouldn’t have survived much longer.” He stood and adjusted his belt. His face went soft. “So maybe in the end it did matter where you were.”

Her nose stung with tears. She turned to the window again, the mountains deep indigo against a rose sky.

Detective was right. She was here in this terrible place, and she didn’t know what she should do or what she even wanted. She’d come out of the woods and left behind who she was.





CHAPTER 7

Suzanne racewalked across the polished floors of the hospital lobby toward the elevators and punched the up button. Several people were waiting, including two men in scrubs, but no one seemed as rushed as she was. Her life seemed ludicrous to her at times. She didn’t dwell on it—it was futile—but she did occasionally entertain the notion that her activities and duties did not add up to a satisfying or even useful existence. Only the inescapable normality of her life stopped her from questioning it more often. Everyone was very busy.

She exhaled completely to relax herself, then checked her phone. Two missed calls and two texts during the last five minutes. Although she had planned her day carefully, she was running more than an hour behind. Brynn’s orthodontist made them wait twenty minutes; then Brynn insisted on picking up a sushi lunch to take back with her to school, claiming Suzanne had agreed to the plan that morning. Suzanne had no recollection of the conversation, but it was infinitely easier to capitulate than to confront Brynn’s inevitable disappointment and anger. What had the preschool teachers said to her and Whit about dealing with children with strong personalities? “Exercise their disappointment muscles.” Brynn’s had become decidedly flabby, but Suzanne did not have the emotional bandwidth to reinstate a regimen now. Like so many of her decisions, an artfully designed twenty-dollar lunch was just another stopgap.

The elevator doors opened. Suzanne pressed the sixth-floor button and stepped to the side as the others filed in. She checked the time on her phone, returned it to her bag, and stared at the closing doors, mentally reorganizing her remaining errands: order the gluten-free rolls and desserts the auction caterer would not provide; shop for the client dinner Whit had asked her to host tomorrow evening; buy green body paint, glitter, and shamrock decals for Brynn’s Saint Patrick’s Day swim team party (not at their house, thank God); and pick up Whit’s restrung tennis racket. She’d already rescheduled her tennis lesson—without resentment. She kept up her game at Whit’s behest because he liked teaming up with her for mixed doubles during the summer. Suzanne preferred to practice her strokes using the ball machine, which asked nothing of her whatsoever, not even a mild suggestion for more topspin on her backhand. But she and Whit had few shared activities, so she acquiesced to the lessons. In any case, the rescheduling had righted her day until she remembered she had to purchase Reid’s SAT prep books so he could complete practice tests over the weekend. She stopped at Barnes & Noble after dropping Brynn at school, and it was there she had paused at a display of coloring books, enticed by the vibrant covers and intricate designs. When the children were small, she had laid huge sheets of newsprint on the floor, and the three of them had spent hours drawing designs with chunky crayons for the others to color in. Her confidence in how to be a mother had been absolute. She didn’t know everything—she made mistakes—but she had the basics right and most of the details. Remembering herself as a confident mother evoked a feeling akin to grasping at the vestiges of a wonderful dream. The futility of the attempt only served to emphasize the magnitude of the loss.