Survival Instincts Page 4

  “Mom, I fell like an inch,” Thea said, pulling away.

  Rose joined them, running to Thea and embracing her tightly. “Ok, girls, back in the car. Let’s get going while we’re all in one piece.” Rose steered them both back to the SUV.

  Anne settled into the front seat and waited to hear the clicks of the safety belts. She took a deep breath and placed her still trembling hands on the steering wheel and eased her foot onto the gas. “Okay! Let’s go to the cabin.”

  ONE DAY

  BEFORE THE CABIN

  ROSE

  They pulled into the cabin’s gravel driveway around six p.m., the sun long gone from the sky. Rose peered out the passenger-side window, eyes straining, as they crunched through the parking lot. It was more of a condo, really, located in a complex of other identical cabin-condo hybrids called Frosty Ridge Cabins. There were ten or so dark brown cabins scattered in a semicircle. Each with a huge window lining the front and a brick chimney peeking out of an A-line roof. Her daughter parked the car in front of Cabin #3, set toward the back of the semicircle. Rose climbed down from the car slowly, stretched, and stood for a second, taking in the cabins and the deep wooded area beyond. Most of the cabins looked uninhabited; only one cabin, right next door to theirs, had a puff of smoke billowing out of the chimney. They lugged their suitcases and canvas totes up two sets of stairs covered in packed snow. Anne tinkered with the lockbox as Rose and Thea shivered behind her. “Got it,” her daughter exclaimed, revealing a small silver key. Rose prodded her granddaughter ahead of her and then walked through the front door herself to find an immaculate yet cozy interior. Right off the entryway was the kitchen, with light brown cabinets and a large white island that opened to the living room, in the center of which sat the woodstove from the Airbnb posting Anne had sent; woodland-themed decorations (complete with two old-fashioned wooden cross-country skis nailed to the wall in an X) were sprinkled tastefully throughout the space; each bedroom housed a queen-size bed cloaked in a fluffy down comforter and a bottle of Pellegrino waited in the fridge. Rose unpacked her tote bag of goodies into the fridge and cabinets (dark chocolate, mac and cheese, cookies, Ruffles potato chips, wine, and bourbon), while Anne started a fire.

  “This place is so well stocked, Anne.” Rose plucked two wineglasses from a cabinet and a handful of ice from the freezer, impressed.

  “Isn’t it great? What do you think, Thee?” Anne called from the hearth.

  “It’s awesome, Mom.” Thea had already zeroed in on the game shelf and was carefully removing a board game from the middle of the stack.

  “That’s a good one.” Anne pointed to the box in Thea’s arms. “I used to play Trouble when I was your age.” Rose noticed her daughter’s effort to keep her tone level, but she could detect Anne’s pleasure in Thea’s small nod of warmth.

  “Really?” Thea poured out the contents on to the floor, eyeing the bubble dome with dubious interest. “Do you know the rules?”

  The three of them ate mac and cheese and played Trouble by the fire. Behind Thea’s head light flurries of snow fell outside the big window. Rose took in Anne’s smiles—not the tight, quick ones she’d gotten used to—genuine warmth lit up her daughter’s eyes. Maybe this was just what her daughter and granddaughter needed.

  Afterward, Thea asked Rose to tuck her into bed. Rose glanced at Anne, hesitating for a second, but Anne smiled. “Great, I’ll catch up on some work.”

  When Rose emerged from Thea’s bedroom a few minutes later, Anne was in a recliner by the fire, sipping wine and looking at her laptop, brow furrowed. Rose sank down on the couch and they sat in comfortable quiet, the crackling of the fire and clinking of a glass hitting the table the only noises.

  “How did it go?” Anne asked without looking up.

  “She’s a doll.” Rose smiled and pulled a blanket over her body. She remembered when six-year-old Anne would lay her head on Rose’s stomach, giggling at the gurgling from within. “You’re my soft pillow, Mom,” she used to say. Now that Anne was an adult, Rose knew that her daughter worried about her ever-expanding middle and her health in general, and she couldn’t blame her really—Rose still worked ten-hour shifts at the bakery and took cholesterol pills to combat years of indulging on Rose’s Sweets. She always listened to her daughter’s attempts to get her to modify her diet (kale, no thank you), go part-time at the bakery, and do some light exercise, but she had no desire to make any changes.

  “Are you working?” Rose asked, taking in a large mouthful of wine.

  “Just responding to some e-mails. Actually”—Anne flashed her screen at Rose—“I was thinking we could go here tomorrow and then do a hike nearby.”

  “A hike?” Rose laughed and stretched her feet toward the fire, “That’s ambitious.” She peered at the picture on Anne’s laptop. “That ice castle place looks beautiful, though. Very cool, honey.”

  “It’s not really a hike. There’s a nature reserve with all kinds of trails about five minutes from here. More of a walk really.”

  “Sounds good to me. A walk is more my style.”

  “Mom, I’ve been thinking.” Anne paused, closing her computer screen. Rose sighed. She knew what was coming. “Do you think it might be time for you to go part-time at the bakery again?”

  “Hmm. I don’t see why I would.” Every few months, her daughter brought it up and, in thinly veiled tones of frustration, they both pretended as if Rose might be considering it.

  Anne’s voice softened. “I just think it would be nice for you to relax a bit. You could come to Burlington more and see us, work outside in your garden . . . Remember when you semiretired before Dad died? It seemed really good for you. I think Dad would want you to enjoy life.”

  “I do enjoy life!” Rose set her glass down on the table, in preparation for reciting this part of the conversation. “I like working at the bakery. I get to get out of the house and see people. Dad understood that, and he supported me. But”—she smiled, taking the edge out of her voice—“I will think about it. Happy?”

  Her daughter smiled back and sighed, not convinced. “Yes.”

  They sat in silence for a few more minutes, Anne’s face buried in her laptop, Rose’s in the magazine she’d picked up from the coffee table. The woodstove spit out a crackle every few seconds and the snow continued to fall lightly outside.

  Rose shifted on the couch and said, “Remind me to talk to you about something tomorrow night—when you’re not working.” She kept her tone light, casual.

  Anne looked up from her typing briefly; the air changed for a split second. Rose kept her eyes down, studying the magazine, until her daughter said, “Sure, Mom,” and went back to her laptop. Rose flipped the page on her lap, counting to thirty in her head before stealing a glance at her daughter.

  TWELVE HOURS

  BEFORE THE CABIN

  THE MAN

  The man looked at the GPS. Three hours down, three and a half more to go. This leg of the trip was a lonely country road scattered with large, isolated houses with long, twisting driveways. He imagined gray walls, fireplaces, long wood tables where families sat and ate breakfast. He thought about stopping at one of the houses and taking a look around—they were all set far back from the main road. The perfect distance. It might be to his advantage to get it out of his system, so that he could go into tomorrow relaxed. But he tapped the gas and drove steadily, letting his mind wander back to the day of the shopping trip when he had met Susan. That same night, hours later, he’d almost drifted to sleep when his mom tiptoed in and sat at the end of his bed. She had cupped both hands around his feet and squeezed him awake.

  “It was an accident, right?” she whispered. “The girl tripped?”

  He took a moment to think about the question. “I don’t know.”

  “Sometimes, when we have a lot on our mind, like schoolwork and chores and . . . I know you’ve really been trying to be bett
er with your brother . . .” Her voice got low and all he could hear was deep, insistent breathing. “Sometimes we do things that we don’t mean to do. This will be our secret. There’s nothing wrong with you, ok?”

  “Ok.”

  He felt her waiting, still pressing his feet like the answer was somewhere between his toes. The bed lightened; it was silent again. He couldn’t be sure she was even still in the room.

  “Mom.”

  “Yes.” Her voice came from across the room.

  “It was an accident.”

  “Good boy.”

  The man turned this memory over in his head as he drove; he’d learned how to be with his thoughts for hours, with no need for external interaction. Up ahead, a car braked suddenly and the man brought his mind back to the present. He could not afford to get into an accident right now. He watched as a large raccoon and five baby raccoons skittered across the road, lit up by headlights flooding them from both directions. People had stopped their vehicles for these six rodents.

  For the rest of the drive, he kept his thoughts focused only on what was coming. By the time he reached the cluster of fancy cabins, he’d been driving for almost seven hours, and it was late, the pitch black punctured only by his headlights. He turned slowly into the parking lot and drove past the wooden sign shaped like a mountain range that announced: FROSTY RIDGE CABINS. It was too dark to see much of anything, but he pointed his lights toward the two cars in the lot—a large black Lexus SUV and a blue RAV4—and memorized the licenses plates before he made his way back out to the main road. He pulled off into a small clearing and reclined his seat, the engine still running. His eyes burned. He strained to keep them open, but eventually he gave in to the heaviness. He would sleep for a few hours, wake up refreshed and ready for the day.

  When he woke, the sun streamed through the windshield like it was trying to crack the glass, and the gas meter sat just above empty. The clock read nine a.m. He made a U-turn and drove back to the Frosty Ridge complex, this time slowly easing his way around the empty parking lot. He’d fucked up; she was gone.

  SIX HOURS

  BEFORE THE CABIN

  ANNE

  It was clear as soon as they pulled into the parking lot that this was a bad idea. Anne had hyped it up over breakfast as a “cool surprise” but she could see from Thea’s embarrassed expression that she had miscalculated. Shrieking toddlers raced through the parking lot, pointing at the massive ice structure. Disney character mascots roamed around, posing for pictures and giving hugs to fanatic three- and four-year-olds.

  The ice castles themselves were magnificent, just like in the pictures she had clicked through online last night after they arrived at their cabin. Now, Anne watched her daughter drag her feet through the ice castle. Thea kept her distance from the character mascots, especially the plushy moose (or was it a reindeer?) asking for a high five, but as she wandered through the maze of ice, she perked up a little, skimming her fingers against the ice walls and watching water spurt out of a hole in the ground with some other kids. Thea loved water when she was little. Anne had called her water bug because no matter what the season, Thea wanted to be in water, even before she knew how to swim. She would beg to wear her swimsuit every day and some days Anne would relent, letting her wear a pink flamingo bathing suit underneath her school clothes.

  “Mommy! I can’t wait to grow up!” Thea yelled when she was three years old, an age where everything that came out of her mouth was a burst of magic; Anne never knew what she would say next and found herself almost constantly amused by the workings of her daughter’s mind.

  “Why do you want to grow up?” Anne had nudged.

  “So that I can swim with horses. I am so excited to swim with horses!” Thea jumped up and down, gleeful in this sudden realization that growing up might involve swimming with horses.

  Anne laughed out loud at this memory, grateful that such a small moment had found its way back into her head nine years later. Rose looked at her and smiled. “What?”

  “I was just remembering something Thea said when she was a toddler.” Anne paused. “Do you remember how Dad taught Thea to swim in one day when she was . . . what? Three and a half?”

  “Of course I do. He took her to the community center pool and she came home saying she’d jumped off the diving board. I just about had a heart attack.” Rose laughed. “Ah, the toddler years. They were the best of times, they were the worst—” Rose stopped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up . . .”

  “Mom”—she forced a smile—“it’s fine. Those years were rough for all of us.” She glanced at her mother. “But look.” She pointed to Thea. “We’re fine now.” Anne squeezed Rose’s hand and smiled again, this time genuinely. Because it was true. They were fine, better than fine.

  “What did you want to ask me about, by the way? Or talk to me about?” Last night, when her mother had said she had something she wanted to talk about, Anne had been in the midst of responding to work e-mails. Sara, a newish client, had canceled her appointment for the second week in a row. Anne had flagged the e-mail and wrote a reminder note to check in with her on Monday. During their last appointment, Sara had finally started to open up about why she was coming to therapy. She had described her relationship with her husband as “really good,” but revealed last week that there were times, “not all the time; it’s honestly pretty rare,” during sex when he would turn from loving to violent.

  “It’s not rape,” she had said quickly, answering a question Anne hadn’t asked, after describing an incident where he suddenly grabbed her by the ponytail and brought her head down roughly to his penis.

  “When it happens, I just shut down. Like . . . my body goes numb. It’s hard to describe.” She rubbed her hands together and sat up straighter. “It’s not rape,” she repeated. “I haven’t really said no or told him to stop . . . but . . . it scares me.”

  “I think that sometimes we decide that labeling something gives it power. Makes it real,” Anne said gently. “And that if we don’t call it out by name, then we can kind of put it into a box and hide it away. But whether or not you label it, whether or not you say ‘this is rape’ or simply say ‘this behavior scares me,’ it’s still happening and affecting you in the same way.”

  This was a scenario that fell into a gray zone, like many scenarios that she dealt with in her practice. Technically, from what Sara had described so far, there was nothing that obligated her to break client confidentiality—reporting Sara’s husband to the police for rough sex would not only likely result in no charges but could jeopardize the woman’s safety further. And yet, Anne was certain from Sara’s body language and carefully selected words that she had only disclosed the very tip of the iceberg. Anne knew she had to tread carefully; she wanted to continue to develop Sara’s trust while at the same time reevaluating her patient’s safety with each piece of new information she received.

  Now, Anne nudged her mother. “Remember? You said you had something to tell me.” In the past few years, Anne had started paying attention to any lapses in Rose’s memory. So far, she hadn’t noticed anything too concerning, but sometimes she couldn’t tell if her mom was developing memory problems or if her mind was just . . . elsewhere.

  “Oh, we can talk tonight,” her mother responded. “It’s not a big thing. After Thea goes to bed.” Rose crossed her arms over her chest and made a loud Brr sound. “Should we get going?”

  “Ok, Thee,” Anne called out. “Ready to grab lunch?”

  “And then the hike, right?” Rose murmured beside her.

  “Yep! Well, more of a walk.”

  TWO HOURS

  BEFORE THE CABIN

  THEA

  Thea stared at the cheeseburger in front of her. She had taken a single bite out of it and the inside glistened with fat and gelatinous cheese that hung over the edge like a wilted flower. It was suddenly the most disgusting food Thea had
ever seen and she had trouble fathoming how it had been her favorite meal prior to this bite.

  “Thea?” Her mom spoke through her own bite of fried haddock. The oily white fish and crusty breading, almost as repulsive as the burger on Thea’s plate, peeked out from behind her lips as she asked, “Why aren’t you eating? What’s wrong? Are you feeling ok?”

  “Nothing is wrong,” Thea answered quickly. “I’m fine. I’m just not hungry.” Thea took a long drink of lemonade through a straw, to demonstrate that, while her appetite for solids was nil, her body was still functioning. Her mother sighed in her usual way, but seemed, if not pleased, somewhat abated by Thea’s intake of liquid glucose. As her mom and Mimi chatted about dinner (they were always planning their next meal even if they were literally just sitting down to the one in front of them), Thea let her thoughts wander, as they often wandered these days, to Mr. Redmond, Ted. Her new middle school offered an elective foreign language starting in sixth grade and Thea had chosen Spanish over French (the only two choices), against her mother’s wishes. Spanish made a lot more sense than French, practically speaking. Thea’s mom conceded that point, though it didn’t stop her from retelling a story from her year abroad in Paris, about her uptight French roommate, Marianne, who, on principle, refused to speak to l’Américaine, wore all black, and communicated mostly in expletives. Why her mother presumed these tales would tempt Thea to take French, she did not know. In any case, after the first two weeks of Spanish class, Thea had come to the very disappointing conclusion that her mother may have been correct; she hated the class. Her teacher, Señora Pilas, was a squat, mean woman with short black hair and a large mole on her top lip. She used a ruler, not to actually hit the kids (though Thea was certain she would if the school would allow it), but to smack their desks if they got an answer wrong or talked out of turn. The class environment was stressful and hostile and Thea felt her stomach twist every time she stepped foot inside Señora Pilas’s sterile classroom. The afternoon she met Mr. Redmond for the first time, she had made up her mind—she would go to the principal’s office and ask to drop the course; it was an elective, after all, a bonus class. Besides, Livi, Zoe, and Gretchen were all taking French. She walked into the classroom feeling as if a weight had lifted off her shoulders, knowing it was one of the last times she would have to be in the same room as Señora Pilas. As soon as she stepped foot over the threshold, though, she could feel something was different. The energy was excitable, frenetic almost, with kids chatting and laughing, hanging out of their seats and standing in clumps, and Señora Pilas, usually perched at the chalkboard in front of twenty silent, rigid students, was nowhere to be seen.