Zero Visibility (21 page)

The clouds had suddenly blown off the mountain, and the sun shone brightly on them. In a matter of moments, their view went from the inside of a cotton ball to a breathtakingly stunning landscape of trees, sky, and mountains as far as they could see. Cassie turned around to look behind them and watched in awe as the bank of clouds simply floated away.

“Oh, my god,” Emerson said in a near whisper, as if afraid her voice would spoil the moment.

“I know,” Cassie said. “That does
not
happen often.”

It was at that moment that she noticed their hands, locked together between them, fingers entwined, as if nothing else had ever been so normal.

“This is beautiful,” Emerson said.

“It is. I know I live here and can see this any time, but the truth is I don’t get up here often. And when I do, it still takes my breath away every single time.”

“I bet.”

They sat, hand in hand, hip to hip, shoulders brushing, and simply enjoyed the view. There was no sound from them but their gentle breathing, nothing to pull their attention. Cassie was certain she could sit just like that, next to Emerson, holding her hand, for hours, it was that peaceful.

Off to the right, the top of the ski lift at Mount Hank had become visible, the man-made metal jutting up almost offensively, marring the view of nature. They both turned and saw it at the same moment, and Cassie could feel Emerson stiffen slightly, then turn away from it and look the other way. Cassie studied her face…the almost imperceptible bump on the bridge of her nose, the smooth skin of her cheek, the mole below her left eye, the soft, downy blonde hair along the front of her ear, then down the side of her neck, at least what Cassie could see before the fabric of her sweatshirt obscured the view. She was so drawn to Emerson, it was like a physical pull. It scared her, but at the same time, didn’t, which made no sense at all in her head. All she knew for sure was that she wanted to know everything about this woman. Everything.

“Emerson?” she asked quietly.

“Hmm?” Emerson pulled her gaze back to Cassie, the ice-blue eyes suddenly seeming warmer than Cassie thought the first time they’d met.

“What happened?”

Emerson’s brows met above her nose. “What do you mean?”

With her eyes, Cassie gestured back to Mount Hank, to the ski lift. “That day. What happened?”

Emerson swallowed audibly and forced her gaze back to the ski lift. She stared at it for a long time, as if that would help her be able to face the memories with less pain and anger. She closed her eyes and stayed that way for so long Cassie thought maybe she’d crossed a line, had asked something she shouldn’t have, that Emerson wasn’t going to answer at all. Then she spoke. Slowly and deliberately.

“I was an idiot. That’s what happened. I was young and I was cocky and I was stupid. I’d done too many runs as it was that day, but my time was bad, and it was screwing with my confidence. I knew I could go faster. I knew it. If I could just do it one more time, take one more run, I’d make it. It was snowing hard and getting worse. My coach wanted to be done. He was worried that I wouldn’t be able to see where I was going. My father even wanted to be done, which never happened. But I was so tired of other people telling me what to do. I was almost nineteen, and I decided in that moment, on that mountain, that I was going to be the boss of me. The visibility was terrible, but I was just freaking out about my time. I didn’t want to go into the championships with doubts. I needed to be in control. I was going to take one last run, and I was going to best my time.”

Cassie barely breathed as she watched Emerson’s face. She gazed off into the distance as she talked, the mix of emotions playing out across her features like a movie. Emerson inhaled heavily, let it out slowly, glanced down at her lap, scratched her forehead.

“I was so stupid.” Emerson’s voice had quieted to barely a whisper. “I don’t remember a lot of the run. I was flying, I remember that. I felt so free and alive. I was going to beat my own record; I could feel it. And then…” She shook her head at the memory. “I don’t even know what happened. One minute, I was gliding down the run like my skis were rockets, blinded by speed in the swirling snow, and the next, I was lying in a heap, tangled in the snow fence, my legs all twisted. I couldn’t feel the pain at the time. I think I went into immediate shock. The rest of it is kind of a blur.”

Cassie shook her head, murmured, “My god.”

“I remember bits and pieces. My dad’s face in mine, shouting at me, except I couldn’t hear him. The ski patrol loading me up on their stretcher. The snow blowing hard, landing on my face as I lay there. I have no recollection at all of the ambulance ride or the first day in the hospital. They rushed me into surgery immediately. My knee was destroyed.”

The lump in Cassie’s throat wouldn’t go down, no matter how many times she swallowed. The thought of what Emerson must have gone through, watching her dreams slip slowly away while she lay there immobile had to have been heart wrenching, and Cassie’s eyes welled up in sympathy.

“Over the next year, I had three more surgeries. Pins, metal, plates. My dad took me all over. The best hospitals. The best orthopedic surgeons.” Emerson smiled bitterly. “I’d made a real mess of things. It was pretty clear, despite how kind and smiling the doctors and nurses were, that my skiing career was over. Just like that. One run. One stupid teenage mistake.” She shook her head. “When I finally came back here, I couldn’t face anybody. My father made it clear that he had no reason to stick around either. My mother fussed over me so much I wanted to scream. I’m sure I did. The shaking heads…the questioning eyes asking how I could have been so reckless. How could I crush the dreams of Lake Henry doing something so selfishly stupid? And the pity…” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “The stares of pity were the absolute worst. I couldn’t take it. Everybody who looked at me was just so…disappointed.”

“They felt awful for you,” Cassie said quietly.

“I know, but it made me feel like a leper. Like a huge failure. Like they were all whispering behind their hands, ‘That’s Emerson Rosberg…she had such potential…’ I have never cried so much in my life as I did those six months I was stuck in the house recovering. I could have been out and about a lot sooner, but I just couldn’t bring myself to face anybody.”

“So you left.”

“I did. I had never failed at anything in my life. Ever. So I ran.” Emerson’s voice was tinged with defensiveness. “It was all I could do if I wanted to keep my sanity.”

Cassie nodded slowly, trying to understand, but she was unable to picture herself leaving her entire life and family behind. “Why Los Angeles?”

Emerson laughed without humor. “It was as far as I could go from here and still be in the U.S. And my dad was there on and off. Since he was familiar with the city, he helped me get settled before jetting off to his next adventure. And his next wife.”

“Your mom must have been crushed when you left.” Cassie said it gently, trying hard not to sound accusatory, because she knew firsthand that Caroline had indeed been crushed. She missed her daughter terribly.

“I wanted her to come with me.”

That was news to Cassie. “You did?”

Emerson turned to meet her gaze. “Of course I did. I didn’t intend to just run away from
her
. I intended to run away from this town. These mountains.” She pointed at the ski lift. “That. I’d hoped that she’d come, too.”

It was so interesting to see it all from a different angle. Cassie had never thought about the possibility of Emerson not actually wanting to leave her mother behind. She was pretty sure the rest of the town hadn’t either. As far as most people were concerned, Emerson had run away and left Lake Henry and Caroline behind without so much as a glance over her shoulder.

“But she always said that Lake Henry was in her blood, that she was part of it and it was part of her.”

Cassie nodded, having heard Caroline say that exact thing. She’d nodded then, too, because she felt exactly the same way.

“And I think I understood that,” Emerson went on. “But I couldn’t share it. I didn’t want to. Everywhere I turned in this town, I saw failure and disappointment.”

“And you do understand that that’s your issue, right?” Cassie squeezed Emerson’s hand in her own, kept her voice gentle. “That it’s not reality? That nobody in Lake Henry saw you as a failure?”

Emerson cocked her head, her expression skeptical.

Cassie held up a hand, palm forward. “I get the pity thing. I do think people felt terrible about what happened to you, and keeping that expression off your face is hard. But nobody saw you as a failure, Emerson. Nobody.”

“And you know everybody in town?” Emerson asked with a chuckle.

Cassie gave the same answer she’d given last time. “Pretty much, yeah.” She was serious. “People didn’t know how to approach you. I remember. I was sixteen at the time. They didn’t know you; you were this familiar stranger, this untouchable, revered piece of our town. Nobody knew what to say, so they kept their distance, gave you space. But when you left, we lost our tragic hero.”

Emerson studied her, then hummed a response and was quiet.

They sat in comfortable silence for a long while after that. The sun sank lower in the sky and the breeze picked up, but neither of them was in a hurry to move. The change in weather had brought the tourists back and soon there were another dozen people milling around, ooo-ing and ahh-ing and taking pictures of the view and of each other. All it took was a shared glance to understand it was time to go.

They stood up together, their hands falling back down to their sides.

At seventy-three, Mary
O’Connor was no spring chicken. This was a fact that became clearer to her each morning as her muscles ached and her bones crackled and ground together while she hauled herself out of bed promptly at six a.m. Not that she even needed the alarm clock since Caroline died. She was awake long before the alarm. Some nights, she’d gotten no sleep at all. She’d simply lain in bed and vacillated between being angry that Caroline was gone and being absolutely devastated.

Had she been this emotional when her husband, Bill, had passed away? She wondered this often, and had no idea why. Honestly, her brain had begun to take strange pathways at night, especially if she made it past one or two o’clock without sleeping. She wondered about Bill, about where he was, if there really was a life beyond death. She wondered if she made the right choice to not have children, especially now that she was alone. She wondered if she should have traveled more often, seen more of the world instead of being so completely content to stay in her little Adirondack Mountain town.

Mostly, she wondered what would happen next. Emerson would sell the inn. She was certain of that. What other option was there? She could leave it open, let Mary run it, hire one or two other people, and check in from afar. But that wasn’t Emerson. She hated this town, hated being here. Frankly, Mary was surprised she’d stuck around this long. More than a week. Nearly two! It was shocking. If only she’d thought to make this long a visit while Caroline was still alive.

Caroline.

The tears started again, and she wiped them away angrily as she washed her face in the small bathroom sink, then chose her clothes for the day. She lived barely a quarter of a mile down the lake from the inn, so she didn’t need a lot of time to get herself up and ready before walking down the cobblestone path to the inn’s office, the smell of Caroline’s famous blueberry muffins catching her nose before she even opened the door.

God, she missed that woman. Her best friend, despite their age difference. People tended to think Mary was younger than she actually was, when in reality, there was actually a sixteen-year gap between the two women. Still, Mary never thought of Caroline as a daughter. She was a friend, the best one she’d ever have. How was she going to go on without her?

Bracing herself against the bathroom wall, she slowly sank down to the toilet seat and allowed herself a good cry. This had become the regular morning routine. Get out of bed, brush her teeth, wash her face, cry her eyes out, get on with her day. She expected it to be better by now, though that was probably silly. She had quite literally lost her best friend. That wasn’t something one recovered from quickly, especially at this age.

When she was finished, she pulled herself together, got dressed, filled Bill’s old green travel mug with coffee, and locked her little house behind her.

It was November, and the smell of fall was melding into the smell of winter. There was no doubt. The earthy scent of leaves and wet dirt filled her nostrils, a smell she’d loved her whole life. The trees were almost bare, and pretty soon, the mountainsides would be brown, then white. Many people mourned the loss of summer, the leaching of all color from the trees, reminiscent of death in many ways. Not Mary. She loved the impending winter. Hell, you couldn’t really stay in Lake Henry full-time if you didn’t. Many locals despised the tourists, but Mary enjoyed them. She and Caroline would laugh over the various guests at the inn, try to figure out their stories. She loved talking to people from faraway places, and they got a lot of them. Last year, they’d had a couple from New Zealand, and the year before, a man from Turkey. There were also countless guests who’d returned yearly, over and over again, a testament to how Caroline ran the place, how she took care of her guests.

Now, that would all change.

She pulled her coat tightly around her as an unexpected chill shook her body.

Mary greeted various neighbors as she walked, nodded a hello to Joan Norris sitting on her side deck despite the cold of the morning, waved to cars that drove past. She knew almost all the locals. How could she not? She’d lived in Lake Henry her entire life, and she would die here, and she was okay with it. Content. She’d never wanted more.

But that was supposed to happen first. She was supposed to go
before
Caroline.

Okay, maybe she
did
think of Caroline as a bit of a daughter every now and then.