Heather(91)

And she would forget about the Baby Doe case. Forget her own connection to it, allow the question of her paternity to go dormant again, the way it was for so long. Let Annabelle live her life. Tell her she’s sorry, but she doesn’t know what happened to Sabrina, that they don’t have enough to go on. A broken bracelet, an old lighter, a hunch. Especially not without the resources she’s used to. Sometimes it is impossible to find the end of a story like that. Some cases just go that way, even though it hurts to admit as much. She won’t look for her father, this faceless man who cast such a shadow over so many lives. For once in her life, she doesn’t want the answers. Doesn’t want to know what she might have inherited from him, if they share any mannerisms, if she would look into his eyes and see her own staring back at her. Maybe it was never Jenna’s unruly nature she was reacting to, with her obsession with order, but something uglier and more primal, a cruel strain encoded in her DNA, something about herself she can never run away from or change.

Adrian is the only loose end. It feels dangerous to shape her life around him. And she couldn’t possibly live here in the Pines if she and Jane were—what?—not friends anymore. And if she stays here, will she be compelled to study every man of a certain age at the supermarket, wondering if perhaps his hands are the same shape as her own? If there isn’t something familiar about the turn of his jaw? She’d never stop torturing herself. Adrian could come see her in North Jersey. But even as she thinks it, she knows he wouldn’t. His life is here. The house on the river. His boats. Maybe he would make the trek up to see her a few times, but it would get old, the tug between two places. It wouldn’t work. Though the thought of ending things feels unbearable. She’s already lost too much.

As though he can feel her thinking about him, he turns and smiles at her, the laugh lines around his eyes fanning out in that way that makes him look mischievous. She paddles faster to catch up, to move her body so that she might make her thoughts go still.



* * *



The tent is humid with the heat they’ve created—since dinner they’ve already fucked twice. He laughed after she reached for him the second time—“I’ve barely had time to catch my breath”—but she’s eager for oblivion, the way only sex can smother her ticking brain, all her thoughts pressed flat to the back of her skull.

After, she lies against him. He traces a finger around her ear.

“So, Callie Hauser, is it time we had a conversation?”

“We’ve had lots of conversations.”

“I think you know the one I mean. The conversation about what we’re doing here.”

“We’re having lots of sex in the woods.” It isn’t what she wanted to say. She wants to tell him about the feeling she had in the car on the way here. That this is the real thing. Tell him what she loves about him and have the courage to be honest and just hope he feels the same way. The snark is a habit, ugly and cowardly, the way she is with the guys at the station. Always has her hackles up.

He takes a breath. She’s gone a step too far and she knows it. “Okay. I’ll go first. I really like you. But I can’t gauge whether this is a serious thing for you or a diversion. If I had it my way, you’d be my girlfriend. You’d keep a toothbrush in my bathroom. I’d make some space in my dresser for you to keep some things to wear so you didn’t have to leave early all the time. You’d meet my friends. My sister. And we’d see how that feels. You know what? No. I know how that would feel. It would be awesome. But I get the feeling that you’re not ready for that.”

“Is this why you brought me out here? So I couldn’t avoid your questions?” Stop, Callie, she thinks. Just talk to him. But her mouth is a step ahead of her mind. She’s not going to drag this good man into her messy life, into the dark morass of her heritage. He deserves better than that.

“I’d say you’re doing a pretty good job avoiding them now. Which I suppose is its own kind of answer.” He shifts onto his side, and a little bit away from her.

She moves closer to him, closes the space. Takes a deep breath. “I want this. I do. But things are complicated. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay at my job. Jane and I had a fight. And I don’t know how to stay here without one of those two things. Jane, or a job. Because right now it’s not looking like I’ll have either. I … like … you too.” Coward, she chastises herself. The word like so small. “I’m happy being with you. But I can’t pin my whole life on one person.”

“I’m here. I’m all in on this. I’ll tell you as many times as you need to hear it.”

“I know … but that’s scary for me. Too scary.”

His hand had been on her stomach. He takes it back and she can only feel the cool air rush over where his warmth had been. “So you’re leaving, is what you are saying.”

“No. I’m thinking about leaving. It’s different.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“I’ve had a lot on my mind. I just wanted to enjoy this trip, to be with you.”

“A last hurrah.”

“No! It’s not like that.”

“Sure feels like it to me.” He sighs, sits up. How did you screw all that up so fast? she thinks. He cocks his head like he’s going to say something else. Please, she wills him. I can’t speak anymore. I only make everything worse.