True Places(5)

Brynn at the breakfast bar hours earlier, her face, skin smooth as icing, framed by hair the color of champagne, one side grazing the brow of one eye, the other parted neatly over her shoulder, as if it were not hair but two sheets of silk. Her eyebrows neatly arched over her hazel eyes, the lashes coated with mascara. Her mouth pulled tight as if holding back the full measure of her disdain.

You are such a tool, Mom.

Suzanne slapped the turn signal all the way down, indicating left, crossed the intersection, and headed east, away from home. She pressed the accelerator and felt the weight and power of the car beneath her, heard the growl of the engine. In a few moments the fenced pasture gave way to woods, dark straight trunks and tangled bare branches separated from the roadside by a weedy verge. The foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains rose before her, a nubbly carpet of muddy gray, running to olive in the sunlit patches. Suzanne gripped the steering wheel tight and drove faster, the wind whipping her hair from her face, then sending it back to sting her cheeks. The air was sharp in her lungs.

She could no longer smell the hyacinths.



The sign for the Blue Ridge Parkway entrance surprised her. She knew it was there but hadn’t been paying attention, too occupied with controlling her emotions and the car, hurtling along at well over the posted limit of forty-five miles per hour. The sign for the parkway appeared, and, before the decision reached her awareness, Suzanne veered right onto the ramp and came to a jolting stop at the T intersection. The road was devoid of traffic. Turning south onto the parkway, she crossed an arched stone bridge.

She would drive until she felt like turning around, until she felt like going home. The idea of such a nebulous plan unsettled her; she didn’t trust herself to know when she had gone far enough. Her day would be shot. If she reversed course this instant it would already be too late to drop off the flowers at the country club before her lunch meeting with Rory, the Boosters treasurer, and that didn’t take Brynn’s forgotten paper into account. Suzanne’s thoughts tumbled along the falling dominoes of broken commitments. She spotted an overlook, pulled off the road, and came to a halt. Hers was the only car.

She would text everyone, cut some corners, turn around, and resume the necessary frantic progression of the day. She swiped to activate the screen and paused. No reception. Not one little bar. Texts might go through regardless, she knew that, but her finger balked.

Suzanne lifted her head. The foothills tumbled gently down to the valley floor, an undulating expanse, farmland and wood, hazy through lingering mist, still and mute. On the far side, mountains rose again, an ocean swell of dull ochre. The sky above the range was an indefinite shade at the horizon, grading to a somber blue overhead.

She was alone. Her chest constricted and her heart raced. She reached for the window controls, raised both front windows, set the door locks, and stabbed her finger at the radio button. A woman’s voice, matter-of-fact and even toned, filled the car. Suzanne’s breathing slowed. The car was safe. She was alone but not stranded. Her car had just been serviced; she brought it in every month religiously. She could head back right now to Charlottesville, to her appointments and obligations—the self-imposed chain that kept her linked with other people and immune to solitude, her enemy.

Placing her foot on the brake, she shifted into drive and thought again of her daughter’s look of contempt, her dismissive, rude words. She thought of her husband’s displeasure should the intricate clockwork of their lives fail to operate smoothly, and of the ease with which his responsibilities became hers. (She couldn’t resent it, though, because he had work and she had only duties.) She thought of her son, who did not (would not?) fit in, which pained and frustrated her in equal measure.

She was alone in her car, but that had never been a problem. And today she would fail to text her absence. She would fail to rescue her daughter. She would allow the dominoes to fall without having a reason anyone would understand.

She would drive.

Suzanne rejoined the parkway and drove fast, neglecting to decelerate into the corners, jerking the steering wheel to feel the car hitch a little, like a prodded animal. She didn’t cross the line to recklessness but did wish the road were twistier, her car more able to tuck nimbly into the turns. The Navigator had been Whit’s idea, and she hadn’t cared enough to disagree. She’d come to appreciate the very tanklike qualities she used to resent.

She switched off the radio as she passed the Wintergreen Resort and the turnoff for Love. A sign read: COME IN LOVE. STAY IN LOVE. LEAVE IN LOVE. She slowed. The road she was on snaked through dense woods, a circuitous track no animal would make. Perhaps it traced the contours or avoided rocky ledges. She couldn’t know. All she could see was a tunnel of bare trunks and evergreen boughs surrounding her, open above, with reluctance, to the sky.

Her phone bleated periodically, like a fussy infant passenger. Suzanne ignored it and drove on, following the serpentine path through the maze of hills and out again onto the ridge, where the trees were pulled to the wings of the stage, where the valley to the east, or the one to the west, lay exposed, only to be veiled again seconds later.

As she passed a turnout on the right, she caught sight of something sizable lying between the gravel parking area and the forest. She checked her mirrors and came to a stop. There was nowhere to turn around, so she put on her blinkers and, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, reversed up the road and swung into the turnout, backing past the trail entrance. Suzanne shifted the car into park and peered through the windshield.