Still Mine (22 page)

“Let go,” Clare says. “You’re hurting me.”

“I know what this is really about,” he says. “This is how you control people.”

“Excuse me?” Clare says.

“You play the victim. You don’t let anyone turn away from it. That’s how you get your way.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clare says.

When Clare yanks her arm away, Derek sits so she is pinned in the banquette.

“You’re mad.” Clare’s voice is quiet, shaky.

“You’re just like the rest of them,” Derek says.

Clare feels her fists clench. “So are you,” she says.

With a cough Derek appears to snap out of it, the focus returned to his face. He offers her a contrite smile, then stands. Clare waits until he has gathered his things before she stands too. In the broad daylight Derek must know that Clare isn’t Shayna, just as she knows that he isn’t Jason, Christopher, or Malcolm, the scorn between them meant for people who aren’t actually here. Clare lifts the glass and drains the last of the water before following Derek out the door.

It had only taken a few months for Clare to plot her exit, her lunch money dutifully stored in a mason jar on the highest pantry shelf, a trip to the city under the guise of a Christmas shopping excursion to acquire fake identification and buy an unregistered car she’d hide overnight at the far end of their fields. Clare remembers feeling astounded by the magnitude of online resources dedicated to shedding one’s identity. It would be easier than she ever dreamed.

Outside, Clare watches as Derek opens the trunk of his SUV and drops his bag in, the view behind him a cluster of snowcapped mountains. There must be something that keeps Derek in Blackmore beyond his duty as a doctor. Some reason he has not plotted his own escape.

W
hen Clare dreams, it is of the cellar door nailed shut, the darkness of that place. Sometimes she is tied. Sometimes the rope is long enough that Clare is able to run, only to be yanked back when she reaches the end of the tether. She never dreams of him tying her up, because he never actually did. He is never in the dream. Jason’s face never actually appears. And then once, the night before she met Malcolm Boon, Clare dreamed instead that she was running across the field. This time, Jason was chasing her.

I’ll find you, she heard him call. I’ll find you.

As she turns the corner toward Louise’s room, Clare nearly collides with Steve Gorman, still wearing the mine workers’ cap he had on at the parade.

“Hello!” Clare says. “Are you here to see Louise?”

“I came to check on her,” Steve says. “Sara told me about the fiasco with the poster.”

A thin band of fluorescent light casts a gray glow down the center of the hallway.

“I figured she won’t be getting many visitors,” he continues. “Thought I might run into Wilf.”

“Is she awake?”

“She was,” Steve says.

“How is she?”

“Confused,” Steve says. “Asking me about Russ. Telling me she thinks he and Wilf don’t get along.” Steve shakes his head. “She doesn’t know the half of it.”

“She’s mentioned Russ before. That’s Charlie’s dad, right? She seems to have a soft spot for him.”

Steve lifts his eyebrows. “That’s one way to put it.”

“Wow,” Clare says. “How long ago was—”

“Forget it,” Steve says. “I’m not interested in gossip. This town has more than enough of it. I just came to make sure Louise was okay.”

“Of course,” Clare says. “Sorry.”

Along the hallway Clare can see rows of boxes, stretchers folded up.

“What’s with all this stuff?”

“Hospital’s closing next month,” Steve says. “They’re bringing in a team to strip it down. Shutter it.”

“What will happen to Louise?”

“What’ll happen to any of us old-timers?” Steve sighs. “We’ll end up wandering into the woods like wounded animals.”

“There certainly isn’t much left in this town,” Clare says.

Steve ends the conversation with a bat of his hand.

“I’m heading over to Sara’s place soon to celebrate her birthday,” Clare says. “Will you be there?”

“She asked me to take Danny for the night. Keep him out of your hair.”

“She said Charlie was coming too,” Clare says.

“He’s already over there.” Steve removes his cap. “I hate that guy.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“I showed up at Sara’s place a few weeks ago and he was sitting at the kitchen table with Danny on his lap. Two shady types were at the table with them. Doing business.”

“You should have called the police.”

“He’s already on charges. Her house is the collateral. If I call the cops, she pays. She and Danny are kicked to the curb.” Steve rubs his forehead. “I’m not a bad man, but I could put a bullet in Charlie Merritt and not lose a minute’s sleep over it.”

“Don’t say that. It’s no good for Sara or your grandson if you end up in jail.”

“He’s got no respect for anyone,” Steve says. “His whole family was like that. Above the law. Boys who’d push cars off cliffs just to watch them blow up.”

The light above cackles and flickers. Every door down the hallways is closed. Steve puts his cap back on.

“I’ll leave you,” he says. “Say good night to Louise for me.”

“I will.”

“Do me a favor?” Steve asks. “Watch out for Sara. She could really use a friend.”

Steve reaches out to shake Clare’s hand, his grip callused from a lifetime of shoveling coal. Clare watches him until he is out of sight, then opens the door to Louise’s room.

The smell. Sterile, sharp. Clare knows it well. She will leave the door ajar. Give Louise some air. A way out. Clare finds Louise fitful but asleep, her forehead warm. The sound of Clare pulling up a chair wakes her.

“Hi,” Clare says. “It’s me.”

“Your cheeks are rosy,” Louise says.

“So are yours.”

“I’m very tired.”

“It’s getting late,” Clare says.

“Don’t be angry with your father.”

It is dark in this room, easy to mistake one face for another.

“I’m not angry,” Clare says.

“He doesn’t handle it well. It upsets him. I don’t think he’s coping. That terrible place.”

“It’s hard for him,” Clare says. “All of this.”

“He can’t just lock you in. But I can’t reason with him. He needs help.”

“Lock me in where?”

“You know he loves you.”

“I know he does,” Clare says.

“He’s only trying to protect you. To save you.”

“Louise,” Clare says, the ruse too much to bear. “Where is she? Do you know where Shayna is?”

Louise blinks, trying to focus. “He’s taken her. Down the hill. I saw them. I tried to follow you.”

Now Louise is agitated, her breathing hard and fast. She looks to Clare, scrutinizing her, her eyes welling up.

“Who’s taken her?” Clare asks.

“They were here for her. And then they were gone.”

But Louise has clamped her eyes and mouth closed, whimpering. Clare presses her hand into the warmth of Louise’s forearm, holding it there until Louise’s breathing settles again and she is sleeping. Clare looks around the room, pulling open the drawers of the bedside table. She opens the cupboard and searches through the pockets of Louise’s clothes. Stuffed in the back of the cupboard is the purse Louise had with her at the parade. Clare takes it and sits again with the purse heavy on her lap, unzipping it as quietly as she can. It is stuffed full as Clare’s mother’s used to be, a hairbrush and tissues carried everywhere. Clare rifles through it, reaching to the bottom. She feels the shape of a book and pries out a small hardcover, its brown front worn and embossed.
The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
. Clare opens it. The inscription is dated April.

S—

I found this First Edition at that antique store in the city. He is a romantic in his own way, this Hemingway fellow. He writes about survival. I know you will soon be fine, if you trust me. We will be fine. In time, right? What we need is time. Time and a place.

D. xx

Clare snaps the book closed. D. For Derek. S. For Shayna. The only man in Blackmore who would enter an antique bookstore in search of something like this, a poetic symbol, a profession of love. Shayna Fowles and Derek Meyer. Of course. Just as Jared suggested. The rage between them in the waiting room.

Tucked into the middle pages of the book are folded sheets of lined paper. Letters. Addressed to Derek, the script shaky but legible. Clare unfolds the first one and begins to read:

Sometimes I dream of my escape.

A surge of panic cuts through Clare. Why is Louise carrying this book? She tucks it back into the purse and returns it to the cupboard. In her sleep Louise’s face is twisted into a frown, her lips tight. If only she could shake Louise awake and insist on a lucid truth, answers beyond the snippets her wayward mind allows.

Derek’s words at his trailer come back to Clare.
Why don
’t we cut her loose?

Clare can’t waste any time. She finds the keys on a hook by the door. As daintily as she can, Clare unlocks Louise’s restraints, each wrist and ankle, then positions them open-side down so she still appears secured. Only when Louise wakes and yanks at them will they fall away, will she realize she’s been untied. Will she be free to escape.

The night Clare left, there was no snow but the ground was hard with cold. She wore her running shoes, the camera clenched in her fist and the single key to the car tucked into her shoe. Jason would be home in an hour. It would take another hour before he began to wonder, before he sat in the old leather chair by the window and waited for her silhouette to appear up the driveway. Out for a jog. Clare did not lock the back door behind her. She sprinted the length of the hay fields, westward. The car was parked nearly a mile from the house, hidden so well under a navy bedsheet that even Clare couldn’t see it at first. Then, she was driving, down to where that side road met the paved highway. West. She’d only been driving for ten minutes when the snow started, a swirling galaxy of flakes out the windshield. By the time she reached the next town, the blizzard had fully set in.

In the warmth of her car Clare imagined Jason, home for certain by then, his routine unfolding like clockwork, so that by the time he opened the front door to come after her, by the time he revved his truck and flew down the driveway, Clare would already be two hundred miles from home.

That snow, covering her tracks, a small and perfect mercy.

Louise is sound asleep now. Clare puts the restraint keys back on the hook. She leans in and pulls the hair away from Louise’s ear.

“Where’s Shayna?” she asks again, hoping. “Do you know where she is?”

Nothing. If Louise hears her, she doesn’t stir.

The hallway is clear. Clare leaves by the same route she came. The emergency room is empty. Down the hall a nurse fiddles with one of the beds, her back turned. Clare sneaks out the doors unseen.

Outside the hospital, the light is gone. The streetlamp on the main road has burned out. As she cuts across the rise of the parking lot, Clare can see down to where Charlie’s truck is parked across from Ray’s. Clare thinks of Louise asleep in her room, untied. She might well wander away in search of Shayna. Or she might wander home. Something terrible may come of this. Perhaps they will blame that nurse for the breach, no working cameras in the hallway to prove otherwise.

On the sidewalk, Clare pauses. Why did you do that? she thinks, turning her gaze back to the hospital. Why? Because she can’t bear to see a woman trapped, held down, tied up, no matter what her state of her mind. Because she had to set her free, because she wants to know where Louise will go. Because no one in Blackmore is watching.

W
arm rain pelts her cheeks. Clare widens her mouth to catch the flying drops on her tongue. Sara sits with her legs stretched the width of the truck bed, her arms draped over the side, the two of them in the back of Charlie’s truck with Jared and Charlie in the cab. Cigar smoke wafts from the driver’s-side window, and occasionally Jared glances over his shoulder to catch Clare’s eye. Beyond him the dashboard lights are fuzzy and bright. Charlie Merritt drives slower than he usually might, but still the trees whip by. Clare can’t be sure how far they’ve gone, which way they’re going.

The wood will be wet, Clare thinks. How does one start a bonfire with wet wood?

How many drinks did she have? Jared arrived at Ray’s minutes after she did, and the four of them sat at the bar, cold beer chased with warm liquor. Ray’s was otherwise empty, and when Charlie reached over the bar to snag a bottle of whiskey, Donna threw a fit and kicked them out. Jared took hold of Clare as they staggered to the lot across the street, propping her up, his arm around her waist. They loaded into Charlie’s truck, Sara dragging Clare up onto the flatbed though the rain had already started.

“Don’t you love the wind in your hair?” Sara says.

Though her shirt is damp, Clare does not feel cold. Charlie’s truck turns and slows. The clouds are backlit by the moon, the sky spinning overhead, the swirl of falling rain. Sara sits up, breathless, and makes a show of shaking out her hair. They are pulling up the Merritt driveway. Clare expects the truck to stop at the house, but instead Charlie leans out the window and calls back to them.

“Hold on!”

Both Sara and Clare look for something to grip as Charlie revs and steers the truck around the house and alongside the barn. He flicks on the high beams so the back field lights up before them. Charlie drives right for the fence posts, each still standing crookedly right where Wilfred left them. For a split second Clare meets Jared’s wide eyes through the rear window.

“Slow down!” Sara yells, laughing, flat on her back.

The fence posts ping as they give way, six of them in quick succession. Clare ducks with her hands over her head, her knees raw against the bumpy flatbed of Charlie’s truck, as if the posts might fly up over the cab and land on her. At the far end of the field Charlie hits the brakes so that the rear of the truck swings in a donut. Clare rolls on top of Sara. She regains her stance and looks up. They are speeding back toward the barn. Through the window Jared’s voice booms at Charlie to slow down. He grabs at the wheel and pulls it to the right. They veer around the barn and stop in front of the Merritt house.