* * *
Marie arrives at first light. Finch is still asleep, but I’m on the porch, waiting. Drinking a hot cup of coffee, French pressed, because this is the last time. Last sunrise at the cabin, the woods turning red and then pink and then all of it yellowing, bright. Last time pumping water from the pump. Last scooping of coffee. Last everything.
She parks the Prius and steps out, and seeing me, runs. Wraps tight around me, body pressed close. I rest my chin on her forehead and breathe her in.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry if I brought this on you.”
“It wasn’t you. Bad luck, that’s all. And some bad decisions, years ago. But I’m gonna settle things. Make things right.”
We stand there, the two of us, and I consider what might have been. How close we’d come to something like happiness, here, that week of Christmas. Its wings had brushed against us: an almost.
I press the piece of paper with the name and address for Finch’s grandparents into her palm. “Judge is a piece of work. Mrs. Judge is worse.” I kick at the gravel. “Tell them you found us here. That she’s been cared for. Loved. All that. And also—tell them I’m sorry. If there’s anything you can do. If you can help me have a chance to see her—”
Marie wraps her fingers around my hand. “Of course.”
* * *
At eight, I say my goodbyes. Kneel down and fold my arms around Finch. She holds the note Scotland left on the table, pressed tight in her hand, but she won’t look at me, just flat-out refuses. Stares straight ahead. I climb in the truck. Pull the door closed, roll the window down. Marie wipes her eyes with her sleeve and waves, and Finch stands there with her face buried in Marie’s skirt. I gather my courage. Turn the key.
I drive away, slowly. Take a mental picture of the whole place in my mind. The cabin, clothesline, well pump, orchard, brambles. This place where I have grieved and toiled and also grown whole again. Marie and Finch in the yard: my second chance at happiness and I have no choice but to drive away from it. I watch it grow smaller in the rearview mirror and then Finch—Finch is chasing after me, all arms and legs. I step on the brake and pull the shifter into park and climb out.
She throws herself into my arms and wraps herself around me, squeezing hard. She nuzzles her face against my neck. Crying hard. “I changed my mind,” she sobs. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Sugar, don’t do this.”
“Don’t go. Please! I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said you should be ashamed of yourself. I didn’t mean it. I was wrong, I take it back.”
“You weren’t wrong, sugar. Casey’s parents. They deserve to know she’s not alive. They deserve to know the truth. And Casey deserves justice. I have to do this, Finch. Not just for them. For you. And me.”
“Marie could go.”
“Even if she did, people will be looking for us. That picture. Finch—there’s no other way.” I try to pull away from her, but she clings tighter. I stand up and she doesn’t budge. Wraps her legs tight, like a clamp.
“Daddy, please.”
She has never called me that, and the way she says it—a plea, deep and desperate, barely a whisper. Makes me pause. Question everything.
Marie walks toward us. She places a hand on Finch’s back. “Finch.”
Finch shrugs her off. “Get away from me,” she hisses.
“Let go now, Finch,” I say gently, trying to keep my resolve. “Be a good girl.”
She is crying so hard.
“Give me a hand,” I say to Marie, and the two of us work together to pry Finch from me and she is screaming screaming screaming. I pull free and Marie has her. Sits down in the gravel and wraps her arms and legs around Finch, restraining her, and she’s fighting hard, bucking and kicking and flailing, every ounce of her. A wild animal, vicious with rage.
I dash to the Bronco, climb in. Drive off and once I’m a hundred yards down the road, just about to curve out of sight, I look in the rearview mirror once more. Finch has fought free and is chasing me, and Marie is running after her and even above the roar of the engine I can hear Finch screaming, Cooper, don’t leave me! Cooper, don’t! and that’s the last memory I’ll have of my daughter out here: begging me to stay and me driving off and I think maybe I have never hated myself more.
THIRTY-FOUR
The night Jake and me were pinned down and he was dying and I killed the two people, darkness rolled in. After it was quiet for a bit, I slung Jake over my shoulder and started walking, tucked in close among the shadows of buildings and thinking we’d never make it but since we were out of water and had no means of contacting anyone, we had no choice but to try. That night, I was sure we would die, sure of it. Though I wasn’t the religious type, I’d always believed there was an after. Answers you had to give, maybe. Explanations. I’m not saying heaven or hell per se, but a time of reckoning. My ugly soul would face what it had coming and there was no way to explain my way out of what I’d done, but even then I suspected there was a worse alternative, too: that living with the weight of my own actions would be its own sort of hell. Which it was. Is. We survived and I have relived what I did that day ten thousand times over, and I assure you, it has worsened now that I’m a father myself because becoming a parent—it makes something inside of you bloom and deepen. You love as you haven’t loved before.