cheek and then perched herself on the deacon’s bench in the kitchen, prepared to keep vigil until either Emily returned or the sun rose, whichever came first.
Y ou know you are in a hospital bed. There are the metal rungs along the sides, there is a galaxy of small dots of light: distant stars, but not really distant at all. You listen to the sounds of the nurses, including the slim fellow with the immaculate, graying goatee, as they tend to you and whoever else is on this floor, passing by your half-open door. How long ago was it that Michael Richmond was here? An hour? Two? Three? You believe you are alone, but you are not completely sure. You hear no one breathing in that second bed, and there had been nobody there when you were first brought here from the ER. You recall that earlier your stomach hurt, but no more. They have given you something, and this is your principal source of frustration at the moment. You should be in pain. You deserve to be in pain. When you recall what you were contemplating, you grow a little nauseous. Would you actually have turned the knife on a child? Your own child? Apparently. It was close.
You fear that you will never be able to look your children in the eyes again. You almost did the absolute worst thing a parent can do. And the fact that you failed (thank God) doesn’t mean that you can be trusted. You can’t. Your daughters should never trust you again. You will never trust yourself. Ever.
You wonder what time it is and scan the hospital room for a clock. There doesn’t seem to be one amidst all those pinpricks of light. But you presume that your girls are sound asleep right now. As is Emily.
At least you imagine that they are sound asleep. In your mind, however, you don’t see them in their rooms on the third floor of the house. You hope, when you think about it, that they are not even in the structure: You like to believe that they have gone to a motel or an inn. That they are with John and Clary Hardin. Anywhere is better than that despicable place you now call your home. Three floors of malevolent timbers and plaster and pine board. Knob-and-tube wiring, every inch of which is as ominous as a snake. Rooms and corridors that are claustrophobic, wallpaper designed to make a man despair. Those sunflowers. The foxes. Weapons and cigarette lighters hidden throughout the house like Easter eggs, but evil. And then there is the basement. The pit of despair. Doors that lead nowhere. Whatever led you to nearly take a knife to a child was spawned in that pit. You need to get out. You need to get your family out.
Or is this just the morphine or whatever painkiller they’re giving you? Are you being melodramatic, trying to shift blame? It’s a house. It’s not alive. Actually, it’s a place that you are painstakingly making your own. You know people in Pennsylvania who would kill for a house just like this. The truth is, you are the problem. Not the house.
You have known all along that your future began to diminish last summer, on August 11. That was when the possibilities began to narrow. And now? Look at the way you are giving sentience and breath to bricks and mortar. You are becoming estranged from the world of the sane. You deserve nothing, and you have nothing.
You contemplate going home tomorrow and realize that you are afraid. The idea of being alone with your children terrifies you. What might you do when they climb off the school bus tomorrow afternoon-or the day after, or the day after that-while Emily is at work? Everyone fears you will hurt yourself. That should be the least of their concerns. Still, you find the notion of suicide growing real in your mind. You killed thirty-nine people back in August and nearly a fortieth this evening. You know this has to end. You tried to end it this evening, but wouldn’t your death at your own hands scar your sweet girls even more? Of course it would. And look at the emotional wounds you have inflicted upon them already. Or would your death be a relief for everyone? In the long run, might it save your children’s lives? Emily could take the girls back to Pennsylvania. Or raise them right here in Bethel with the help of Reseda and Holly and Anise. With John and Clary, with Peyton and Sage. Everyone here adores your daughters. They adore Emily. They say it takes a village to raise a child; well, this village loves your girls. So be it.
But you love them, too. You love Emily.
You stare at the horizontal blinds in the window and try to focus. A thought: You fly the plane until, pure and simple, you can’t. Aviate. Navigate. Communicate. It’s what you do. It’s all about concentration.
Yes, tomorrow you will go home. You will try to stay away from the basement. You will try not to curl into a ball in the bone-ridden dirt in your own little pit of despair.
Outside your hospital room, you hear the nurse with the goatee laughing gently with another of the nurses, the stout woman with the button mushroom for a nose. She seemed very kind. They all seem very kind.
Yes, yes, the poor, dead Ashley Stearns does deserve friends. She does. But you can’t do what it takes. You won’t.
Aviate. Navigate. Communicate. Fly the plane until you can’t.
You close your eyes against the stars in your hospital room, and eventually you fall back to sleep.
Chapter Ten
In the morning, John Hardin came to the house. The sun was up, and it was apparent that the last of the snow in the yard would be gone by lunchtime. There would still be snow in the woods, and a small, crunchy, knee-high ridge along the north wall of the carriage barn was likely to remain for at least a couple more days. And certainly more snow would fall at the end of March and into April. But the morning felt like spring when Emily opened the front door around seven-thirty. Holly and the twins were still asleep, but Reseda was upstairs showering. Emily had been so exhausted when she returned from the hospital that she hadn’t bothered to climb into her nightgown and had instead simply collapsed on her bed in her clothes and pulled the quilt over her. She had somehow staggered to her feet when the alarm went off, and she had only set the alarm because she was a mother of ten-year-old girls who were going to need her rather badly when they awoke.
“Good morning,” John said, his voice as cheerful as ever. She noticed that he was dressed more formally than usual. He was wearing a necktie with his tweed coat, and penny loafers instead of his usual L.L. Bean duck boots. She was impressed by how well rested he seemed; she hadn’t glanced at herself in the mirror when she made her way from the bedroom to the kitchen, and so she presumed that she looked terrible-tired and messy and not even clean. But simply having made it awake and vertical seemed a monumental accomplishment at the moment-or, perhaps, a testimony to whatever antidepressant Michael Richmond had given her.
“Hi, John,” she whispered, ushering him into the hallway and then into the kitchen. “The girls and Holly are still sound asleep in the living room.”
He hunched his shoulders and nodded, as if making his body a little smaller would make him a little quieter. He sat down at the kitchen table in the seat nearest the counter with the coffeemaker as she started to brew a pot. “Giving the girls a day off from school?” he asked very quietly, enunciating each word with care. “I think that is an excellent plan.”
“I wouldn’t say it was a plan. It’s just what’s happening.”
“Well, I hope you weren’t intending on coming into the office today.”
“No, I wasn’t. I presume you don’t mind.”
“I would have sent you home the moment I heard you coming up the stairs. Your girls need you today. Chip needs you. What time are you getting him?”
“I thought I would call the hospital in a few minutes and see what’s going on. But I guess I was hoping he would be back here by lunchtime or so.”
“I want him to have the best care available,” John said. “It’s why I’ve come by. We both know in our hearts he didn’t fall on that knife.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and rubbed at her temples. She wanted this-whatever this was-to be a one-time aberration. She wanted Chip to come home and be fine and this latest phase in their nightmare to be behind them. “What do you have in mind?” she asked finally. “Is there a particular doctor or psychiatrist you would recommend?”
“I know Dr. Richmond spoke to him for a couple minutes last night-”
“Michael is his psychiatrist here in New Hampshire,” she told him. “They have a relationship. It wasn’t like he just dropped by the hospital.”
“I understand. Not a problem at all. But there’s another doctor I would love him to see, too. Her name is Valerian Wainscott, and you can have absolute faith in her. She’s very, very good-an excellent therapist.” He chuckled and shook his head slightly. “I remember watching her grow up.”
