“I’m sorry I woke you. It’s Cliff.”
“Did you find her?”
“Yes.” The realization flooded him with mixed emotions—the relief that she was safe against the grief of knowing she was sinking deeper into delusion. The combativeness, the rage. It was exhausting.
“Is she okay?” Darcy asked.
He sniffled. “Yes.”
“Where was she?”
“At the Ruby Motel, like you told me,” Cliff said. “She wasn’t in her room when I got there, so I waited. Some guy in a pickup truck brought her back. It was after midnight, Darcy. She had been at some bar, dancing, drinking moonshine whiskey. It’s crazy shit, Darcy. She smelled like an ashtray. Michelle never drinks. And she doesn’t go off with guys in fucking pickup trucks . . .”
“Cliff. Don’t worry. She’s back with you now. She’s safe. You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”
“She broke the bathroom window in the motel room trying to get away, Darcy,” Cliff said. “I don’t know what to do with her. She wanted to drive your Explorer—”
“You didn’t let her, did you?”
“I didn’t have a choice, Darce. She threw a fit. Practically ran us off the road.
“When are you coming back to Atlanta?”
Cliff rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. I guess . . . tomorrow. It’s snowing here . . . I think we’ll be able to get out. I don’t know.” He wasn’t sure he had the strength to fight another battle with Michelle. If she wouldn’t go back, what would he do? His business was starting to falter from him being gone so much and his loss of focus. He wasn’t sure what mattered anymore.
“Cliff, are you still . . . ?”
“I can’t take much more, Darcy,” Cliff said. “I don’t think I . . .”
Cliff hadn’t wanted to cry on the phone, but something swirled inside him in such a way he couldn’t stop it. The world had always been a solid, predictable thing with Michelle in his life, his daughter, the business, their home. It followed a logical trajectory that had always made sense. But when Cassie was killed, the gyro slipped off center, wobbling uncontrollably ever since.
“Cliff,” Darcy said. “Do you want me to come up there? I could drive Michelle back? The store’s closed tomorrow. Anna won’t mind driving me up.”
Cliff wiped his eyes. “The roads might be bad by tomorrow. It’s snowing like crazy. We’ll be all right.”
“I’m so sorry, Cliff. You’ve both been through so much this past year. I wish there was something I could do.”
“I better hang up now. I want to get an early start in the morning.”
“Call me when you get home. I’ll come over and help with Michelle.”
Cliff placed the phone in the cradle then sat a moment rubbing the knot in his neck. He rolled his shoulders and pressed his fingertips into the base of his skull.
He switched off the living room light on his way out and stood on the deck, the snowflakes cold pinpoints on his face. In the distance the mountains drew jagged black shapes across the milky night sky. Clouds drifting past created the illusion that the mountains were moving, lumbering through the valley like a herd of enormous buffalo. Cliff found solace in the illusion, the silent sanctity of it.
In a few moments he found himself standing at the railing, unaware of the cold, his palms resting in a quarter inch of snow. Looking down through the lattice of branches and leaves, his eyes searched for the possibility of a light, a light he was certain didn’t exist even though Michelle insisted it did. Nothing but darkness, solid and impenetrable. He brushed the snow from his palms then placed his hands to his neck, wondering what to do with Michelle. The muffled sound of the phone ringing inside the house wrenched him from his deliberation. He hurried toward the door, wanting to get to it before it woke Michelle.
“Hello?”
“It’s Darcy. Sorry to call, but I had to tell you something I should have told you before.”
Cliff waited, glancing toward the bed at the dark shape of Michelle’s body mounded beneath the blankets.
“Michelle has my gun, Cliff.”
“Gun?”
“She took it from the store. I should have gotten rid of that damn thing years ago. I’m sorry. I don’t know why she took it. Maybe she was scared to go up there by herself. Maybe she . . . I don’t know, Cliff. Try to find it, okay?”
“I will, Darcy. Thanks.”
Cliff wondered what Michelle had planned to do with a gun. If she had it, it would be in her shoulder bag; she put everything in there. Cliff went to the foot of the bed, lifting it by the strap. He carried it to the kitchen and placed it on the table. As soon as he opened it, he spotted the gun sticking out from beneath her wallet. Cliff slipped it from the bag and studied the shape of it, the power of it, turning it over in his hands, then placing it on the kitchen table.
He went to the fridge and got a can of beer from the shelf. After switching off the kitchen light, he picked up the gun and carried it out onto the deck. He dragged one of the folding chairs over next to the railing and eased back into it. He tilted the beer back, the carbonation rough on the back of his throat. He set the can down and raised the gun in both hands, revolving it like a Rubik’s Cube a foot from his face, inspecting it. After Cassie’s death, Cliff couldn’t count the times he’d taken his .38 from the drawer of his desk and pushed the snubbed barrel into his temple, hoping it would go off. He could never pull the trigger. Michelle’s face would always snap into his head as he eased his fingertip over the curved steel, her eyes and nose were so much like Cassie’s that he’d start to cry. Shaking, he would lower the gun back into the drawer, wishing just once her image wouldn’t stop him.
Cliff pulled the beer to his lips and finished it. He dropped the can into the snow at the side of the chair, then placed the gun barrel to the soft underside of his chin and closed his eyes, waiting for Michelle to come, tell him no, smile and touch his hand, reassure him, tell him she forgave him. He had placed his faith in the normal process of time. But time had become a dark edge—an unreliable partner. Cliff knew now that no matter what changed or how much time passed, he would always feel the Cherokee buckling around him as it rolled over and over, would always hear Cassie screaming, would always remember the numbing silence that froze the vehicle when it finally came to rest on its side, Cassie hanging limp from her shoulder harness, hair drenched in blood.
Cliff opened his eyes to make the image disappear, then he squeezed the trigger.
Chapter 21
Pink had expected the fall to last a lot longer, the impact to be more jarring, the water to be like ice. Oddly, the lake felt warm. At some point during the drop, Claire had let go of him, pushing him away, screaming.