In the evenings, after I’d finished all my chores, I roamed the island. I memorized the cabin numbers and which guest lived in each one. I spent hours walking the inner perimeter of the hedge wall, running my fingers along the leaves while deep in thought. I discovered a second door, also half-covered by bushes, built into a different part of the hedge. I wondered what the staff did beyond these walls.
To help me overcome my fear of public speaking, Ruth put me in charge of a beginners’ class. Although Jeremiah had plenty on his plate with his new job as Wisewood’s accountant, he offered to help me prepare. Like Nat he was organized, a planner, but unlike her he wasn’t intense about it, kept things fun—literally whistled while he worked. With his help the course quickly came together. On my first day he sat in the back row. When I posed a question that was met with a shy but awkward silence, Jeremiah raised his hand and filled the void before panic could paralyze me. After class he said he’d enjoyed himself so much he was going to take my entire course.
Every day I stood in front of ten people and asked what they were afraid of. I told them we weren’t ashamed of our bruises here. I watched as my students took baby steps toward their own fears. Somewhere along the way I forgot to dread public speaking. I no longer trembled in front of a crowd. I came to like the sound of my voice.
During one class, Jeremiah described his crushing guilt for not being there when his brother died. He’d been in a freak accident, so Jeremiah couldn’t have predicted or prevented it. Still, he was stricken, believing he somehow should have saved his brother. I told him I talked to Mom every morning. I’d asked for her forgiveness over and over until I didn’t need it anymore—I knew I had it. He began to try some of my recommendations, took me aside a few weeks later and thanked me, said they were working. I’d done that. I had eased another human being’s pain.
Every morning I watched the sun rise, every evening it descend. I marveled at how little I had noticed before, how rarely I’d paid attention. One night in particular will stick with me always—the moon was the smallest of slivers, clouds empty of birds. The sun had just disappeared, striping the sky burnt red and cool blue, the hue in between them amber and untouchable. Like a painting, I thought. How had I been lucky enough to wind up here?
Fall arrived. The temperature dipped. I pushed my shorts to the back of my closet. I drained the pool and stored the outdoor furniture in the shed, breathing cold air deep into my lungs. My meals with April and Georgina whittled from five days a week to three to one. I’d forgiven them for gossiping about me to Rebecca—though I still didn’t know which of them had—but couldn’t ignore how often their conversations turned to life beyond the island. They wondered what political news they were missing, debated which app they’d use first when they got their phones back, described the family member they were most excited to hug. They didn’t want to talk about Wisewood, at least not all the time.
Instead I began eating with Jeremiah, who always had a pencil behind his ear and that book of crosswords in his back pocket. In between asking me for the answer to five down and whistling Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” he opened up about his divorce, his strained relationship with his deceased father, the weight he’d been struggling to lose since college. As I became closer with him, I got to know the rest of the staff too, members who had been here for years, for whom there was no such thing as life post-Wisewood. While tackling lawn care with me, Raeanne told me the horrors she’d experienced as a child and later as a long-haul trucker, and I began to understand her steely exterior. I watched Ruth fuss over Sanderson, saw how tightly she held him when she thought no one was paying attention, the way his shoulders relaxed into her embrace. As a group we scanned the list of advanced courses, considering what we should take next. I realized with a start that Nat wasn’t chiming in. I hadn’t heard her voice in some time. Mom’s either. It was only me in my head.
Here I woke to the chirps of sparrows instead of sirens. No guns, no viruses, no planes falling from the sky. There was no longer a need for pepper spray or a key between my fingers. I was safe.
My hands were always busy now but my mind was newly quiet. The urge to pull my hair weakened. I tossed my rubber band in the trash. At first my wrist felt off-balance, too free. After a week I stopped noticing its bareness. I remembered Rebecca’s promise during our second session—that soon I wouldn’t need the rubber band anymore. She had been right. The pink scars healed; the skin blended. My hair grew back.