“It’s always the husband.” That’s how the saying goes. And this time the rule held true—it was the husband. It just wasn’t hers.
Before I go to bed, I make a plan. I set my alarm for one thirty a.m. I will go down, in the dark, alone, to your yellow house. I will try the front door again. I will bring a credit card in case it’s a lock I can jimmy. I will try the back door. I will look for a way in. I don’t know what I expect to find. But it’s late enough that I will be able to search without being caught, and that alone makes me eager to go.
Your mother drawing the lines has made everything feel closer, like the perimeter is a purse string tightening. And even though I know I can leave—that she can’t stop me, perhaps she wouldn’t even try—I can feel the shape of the barrier in my mind, feel its hold on me, like a wedding ring, like a new job, like my parents’ eyes.
Sometimes it seems easier to let other people control me. It’s what I’ve done all my life. It feels safer, when I can’t trust myself, to trust anybody else. Part of me wants to let Addy take control. And another part of me wants to break free, to break out, to be the psycho bitch Moroni said you were.
I push open the rickety screen door, ready to reset it when it swings off its hinges. Then I step down onto the dirt and follow the edge of the cabin to the trail.
I planned to use the light on my phone, but even that feels risky. Every tree shrouds your mother. Your father laughs under every rock. This land is theirs, so very theirs that I feel like I am trespassing even when I am inside my own cabin.
I take the far path, along the perimeter. Alongside it a cliff falls down to the highway below, and the edge is uncertain. The sheer drop unbalances me; I feel it always like a magnet, pulling me off center. I move from tree to tree, sometimes tripping on a root, feeling safer when I stay close to the woods.
The pathway brightens and the journey becomes easier, and it’s only when Jed’s house appears that I realize it’s because his outside light is on. Was it on before? Has it been on all this time?
My nerves are like threads pulled taut. In my mind, Jed is cast as a villain. Was he really on vacation? Or was he hiding your body?
Jed returned to the ranch in the middle of the night. Sera Fleece left her cabin sometime after midnight. She left a trail. It ended outside his house.
I speed up. My feet crack the dead leaves. A figure rises from the dark. I open my mouth to scream, and he lifts his hand to stop me. I smack his hand away.
“Hey.” He has an accent. “Hey, hey, hey now. Just take a breath. You scared the daylights outta me too . . . or the night-lights.”
My breath is pounding. My fingers are numb. But I can’t scream; I have no reason to scream, and I don’t want to wake your parents but I want to scream. I feel like a scream has been waiting, like tears held back over years, like it’s been waiting a long time to rise up and peel open the night. Jed’s fingers brush my shoulders, directing me to the rock on the point of the cliff, the one that looks out onto the highway and the bend in the river. Only now it looks out into the black.
I perch, shuddering under his limp touch, so he releases me, steps back and observes me. I observe him too, in the glow that traces one side of his body. He is dressed like a cowboy, with jeans and boots and a flannel shirt. He has loose dark hair and dark eyes that seem to leak into the skin below. His lips are a ring. His hands are spread, like I might run, like he might have to catch me. “My God, you scared me,” he says. “Who are you? What are you doing out here?”
“I’m Sera. I work here.”
“Work here? Since when? Doing what?”
“Cleaning windows. Riding horses.”
His expression sours. “She lets you ride the horses?”
“Yes.”
He makes a derisive sound. “That woman. You know they hired me as a wrangler, their head wrangler. Been here six months. You know how many times I’ve ever ridden a horse?” He loops his fingers into a zero. He is still for a moment, staring at the ground; then he kicks the dirt. “God Almighty. That woman really is something!”
“I’m just glad there’s someone else here.”
This twists his lips up. “Name’s Jedidiah Combs, by the way—Jed—although I don’t doubt that woman told you all about me.”
I want to ask him about you, but I know I should feel him out first. Everyone is a suspect, even the ones I would like to trust. I watch him closely, searching for signs.
He stuffs his hands in his pockets and moves up toward the cliff. “This is my spot. I have coffee here every morning. Sit on that rock.” His eyes dart back in my direction. “What are you doing out here after dark?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” And then to mask it, “You were on vacation?”
“She told you I was on vacation?”
“That’s what she told me.”
“I was getting a divorce.”
“You’re married?” I say like I don’t know.
He rubs his neck, gazes out at the black. “My wife and I came up here together ’bout six months ago. She lasted about a week. Then she went back to West Texas—Abilene, that’s where we’re from.” He shakes his head. “I went back there. She won’t take my calls. She won’t see me. That’s fine. I just want her to take my money.” He stuffs his fingers in his pockets.
“I’m divorced,” I offer. “Every time I say it, it seems like a lie, even though I know it’s true.”
He smiles back. “Yes, ma’am.” He takes a few steps toward the ridge. “Back less than an hour and already I can’t breathe.” He arches his back and pulls air into his lungs.
“It’s so quiet out here, I can’t sleep.” I don’t mention the voices, the way that sounds suddenly pop, and I can’t tell if they’re right outside or miles away. “I feel so alone,” I say, and wish I hadn’t. People are never supposed to confess to feeling alone, even in a place like this, where it’s obvious.
“I wish I did. That woman is watching every goddamn thing I do and—” He stops short, as if he realizes how that sounds. “My apologies. I reckon I must be tired.” He kicks the dirt.
“You don’t seem happy to be back.” Your name is on my lips, but I hold it back. Something tells me to wait. Someone who looks like this and talks like this, walking around without his wife. Someone in the middle of a divorce. I have listened to enough episodes to know: Jed is a prime suspect.
“Happy to be here? I’m not.” He ruffles his hair so it curls in dark tendrils around his face. “Back home I worked on the rigs. Worked hard, long days. Never saw my wife. It’s no kind of life. I thought this might be something . . . work outdoors, go fishing and hiking and hunting. But it’s not what I was expectin’. And now I’m stuck out here.”