“Hannah,” Julia said gently, “why do you think you had Wyatt?” She lowered her voice, the way you talked to someone unhinged, and Hannah realized that was what she was: unhinged.
“Because we’ve been . . . together all summer.” Hannah faltered and in the background heard Dana and Yolanda laughing.
“Hannah.” Julia looked around helplessly. “You can’t think that, can you?”
Hannah looked over at Dana and Yolanda, back to Wyatt, even to Reggie, whose mouth curled in a curious smirk, and realized they all thought she was making it up. A delusional child. A foolish idiot.
Her face burned, and she stepped back, away from Julia, who truly had no idea what she’d been doing all summer. Only Wyatt could set the record straight now.
Hannah looked at Wyatt, her hands splayed outward for help.
Wyatt turned his head, exposing the white of his neck, the neck Hannah had kissed so many times. He extended his hand, the hand that had caressed her hair, her back, all summer.
“Hannah,” he said. She wished everyone would stop saying her name like that. His face was pained, his eyes clouded.
He wasn’t going to save her.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Now
She’d escaped Wyatt’s on Sunday morning in a flurry of guilt and sickness—some from the wine but mostly with herself. She’d left him sleeping and sneaked out the front door. He’d called three times and texted even more; she’d lost count. Nothing harassing, just wondering if she was okay, and could they talk? She hadn’t answered yet. Her mind swung wildly between guilt—Huck—and snatches of the night: Wyatt’s hands on her hips, his breath on her stomach, a light, feathery tickle. The feeling of him curled against her as they slept, the way she fit in the hook of his body, perfectly. And disloyally, how she and Huck had never done this. She’d thought she liked to sleep alone, the feel of sheets beneath her palms, the cool distance of his biological furnace. She could breathe freely. She’d thought she wanted that. But with Wyatt, she hadn’t felt suffocated.
She was unable to reach Huck. They were missing each other—talking to each other’s voice mails, texts going unanswered for hours. Almost as if he knew what she’d done. She sent him periodic missives: How are you? Hope you’re not too crazy there. But she acknowledged that if she hadn’t stayed at Wyatt’s, she would have been out of her mind trying to reach Huck. What must he think of her? It didn’t matter; she deserved all of it.
She spent the day sick with herself. Packing up a suitcase, preparing to leave. She had to get home to Huck. Had to figure her life out. She literally felt like she was losing control of everything. She took Rink for a long hike, down to the Beaverkill, and followed the river trail halfway into town and back. He’d been stuck inside during the night while she was at Wyatt’s, adding to her guilt.
That night she slept deeply and startled awake in the morning, crying out when she realized she was in Ruby’s room. The locked room. She sat on the floor, legs folded, surrounded by pictures. A photo box next to her was tilted on its side, glossy images strewed out and around her.
The smell of death permeated the air, stuck inside her mouth and nose. The gentle image of dirt sifting over a shovel. The remnants of the dream.
She shoved the pictures back into the box and put the lid on. Then stood helplessly in Ruby’s room holding the box. Her sleeping self had found it. Her conscious self had no idea where it had come from.
Her head felt foggy, and her eyes burned. The nauseous pit in her stomach was made worse, not better, by the appearance of Alice in the doorway.
“Why are you in here? No one is supposed to come in here,” Alice said, and Hannah offered a feeble “I don’t know” before Alice turned and brusquely headed down the hallway to Stuart’s room, where Hannah followed her. She’d left the box on Ruby’s bed.
“We can’t move him. You realize that by now?” Alice’s voice was sharp, and Hannah found herself feeling chastised. No. She hadn’t realized that. She’d thought they were waiting a few days but would be making the decision—the one she’d assumed would be yes—and Uncle Stuart would move to the facility. She would go home. This was the plan.
And yet she was still here.
“He has hours. Days. Possibly a week,” Alice whispered in a hiss, held up his catheter bag. The liquid inside had turned a deep brown. “Kidneys are shutting down. His heart rate is erratic, fifty, then ninety.”
Hannah took her seat next to her uncle’s bed and again picked up his hand. His skin looked blotchy and blue; fifty thumbprint bruises dotted his arm like islands.
So she would stay. See this through. Organize another funeral, another luncheon. This time without Huck. Would he come back? She couldn’t even bear to ask him to. No, this was hers to do alone. She’d made a mess of everything, even if Huck didn’t know it yet. She’d tell him, eventually, about everything. Right now was about priorities. First Stuart. Then Wyatt. She had to close the door on him, on them. She knew she owed him a conversation. Then, home and Huck and whatever the future held for her. Would Huck stay? She didn’t know.
Alice busied herself changing saline, the catheter bag, then the blankets, snapping fresh, clean linens in the air while Hannah sat silent. The woman’s silence seemed almost antagonizing.
“Is there treatment for sleepwalking? Medicine?” Hannah asked her softly, partly to make conversation, partly because it hadn’t occurred to her to ask until this moment. Alice was a nurse. She might know.
“Is that why you were in Ruby’s room?” Alice stopped snapping the sheets and stared at Hannah. Hannah felt like a moth pinned to wax.
“Yes. I think so? I wake up in different rooms here. This didn’t happen at home.” Hannah didn’t say that at home she had six rooms in her whole condo.
“Klonopin,” Alice finally answered. A heavy-duty antianxiety medicine.
The front bell clanged, echoing through the house, and Hannah cried out, startled. Alice looked at her strangely—Hannah was so on edge. Hannah stood, letting Stuart’s hand fall by his side, and made her way to the front door.
She looked through the small window. Wyatt.
What did he want? She could refuse to answer, but if it was about the case, her sister, Ellie, Ruby, or Warren, then she wanted to know.
She opened the door, and his face was unreadable. She was still in her nightgown, no bra, and she folded her arms across her chest. Stupidly self-conscious.
“Hannah, are you okay?” he asked, his face the picture of concern. His voice low.
“I’m fine. Why are you here?” Hannah’s voice was sharper than she’d intended.
“I have . . . a development.” He stammered over his words, reaching his arm out to touch her elbow, but she stepped away. “Can I come in?”
She opened the door wide for him, and he brushed past her. He smelled like soap and Wyatt, and she instinctually wanted to hug him. Feel him against her again. She noticed how well his dark button-up shirt fit his frame, tucked into jeans, with a black belt. How long his legs looked. She closed her eyes and tipped her head up to the ceiling.
In the sitting room, she sat on a velvet armchair, letting Wyatt take the love seat alone. Her emotions were too wild, her impulses too unpredictable with Stuart upstairs and Huck radio silent, to trust herself. Physical barriers felt necessary.