I can’t help myself. I burst out laughing. It’s a low, uncontrollable sound that begins in my belly and sails from my lips with abandon.
And I realize that it’s the first time I’ve ever heard my laugh that I can remember.
Was I a person who laughed a lot? Did I laugh at myself? At others?
I make a silent promise to learn how to laugh freely because that little burst felt like a release.
But the sound must have startled the kittens because they have scattered, two bolting under the fence between Ginny’s and the Welleses’ properties. From this vantage point, I have a perfect view of the Welleses’ garage that sits to my left and farther back—a long structure that matches in color scheme the house, with a steep roof that allows for that room above, and a double garage door. It’s open, and the tail end of a shiny black car sticks out.
And Jesse is beside it.
Watching me.
The rest of my body jumps with my heart as I take him in, leaning against the back wall, legs crossed at the ankles like he’s been standing there for some time, tapping a silver tool methodically against his jeans. Even from here, those eyes feel like they’re penetrating my skin.
A strange sensation washes over me.
One I can’t identify. One I can’t say that I like.
But also one that I can’t say I don’t.
One . . . two . . . three . . . Who will win this staring contest? He doesn’t seem to be letting up. I let my hair fall forward a bit, in case he can see the red line from that distance, though I doubt it. This is just ridiculous. This is Dr. Alwood and Sheriff Welles’s—no, Meredith and Sheriff Gabe’s—son. Why would I not say hi? I hold my hand up in a tentative gesture. It’s not really a wave. And I wait.
Wondering.
For some reason, not breathing.
“Hey,” a panting Amber calls out, stepping out onto the cramped patio in her tall riding boots, startling me enough that I jump yet again. I never heard her come in. “How do you like it so far?”
I drop my hand. “It’s perfect for me.” And it truly feels like it is. Maybe this is similar to my previous life, after all. The horses, the mountains, the fresh air, the quaint little apartment . . . it feels like it fits me.
Amber grins—her typical wide, white-toothed, flawless smile. “Good. We had cleaners and painters come in this past week to fix it up. You wouldn’t believe the fuss Ginny made.”
If it’s anything like that day in the hospital, I think I can picture it. Which makes my heart instantly soften for the old woman, because that couldn’t have been easy. She really does mean well.
I can’t help but glance over at the garage, but I try to do it covertly. My smile falters when I see that Jesse is gone.
“That’s my brother. He barely comes out to say hi. He’s so in love with that stupid car.” She turns inside. I hear her mutter under her breath, “It’s probably stolen.”
My eyes flash as I trail her in. This is the sheriff’s son we’re talking about, right? “Really?”
“No . . . not really.” She sighs as she opens the laptop resting on the table. “My brother just does things that I don’t understand. Things that have made my parents’ lives harder than they need to be.”
“Your mom said he comes home on weekends sometimes?”
She starts hitting a bunch of keys, her fingers moving fast. “Yeah. Over the last few months, he’s been doing it more often. Before that, I hardly saw him.” Click-click-click. “I think something happened, with a girl he was dating. He told my mom that he was going to marry her, which is weird, coming from Jesse, who’s never gotten serious with anyone. I guess it didn’t work out.”
So he was in love with a girl. Is he still in love with her? “What was she like?”
Amber sighs as she scribbles some letters down on a pad of paper lying next to her. “Don’t know. Never met her, and good luck getting any information from him. Jesse isn’t much of a talker. All I know is that she was from Portland.”
Portland. “How far is that?” Have I been there before?
“A few hours. I did my nursing program there. Here . . . I used this laptop for school, but I have an iPad now so I don’t need it.” She pushes a scrap of paper forward. “I wrote the passwords and some basic instructions down, in case it doesn’t come naturally.” She stands and stretches her arms over her head in an exaggerated yawn, her checkered shirt riding up over her taut belly. “I’ve gotta run now. I picked up an extra shift tonight.”
“You work a lot, don’t you?” When I was in the hospital, there was hardly a day that went by when she didn’t stroll into my room with her scrubs on.
Her hands slap against her thighs as she drops her arms dramatically. “For now, yeah. I don’t have a boyfriend, most of my friends moved away from this town, and my father’s the almighty sheriff, so . . .” She throws her hands up in the air. “What else am I going to do?”
I wonder what it’s like to have Sheriff Gabe as your father. He’s only ever been pleasant toward me, but if being married to the sheriff is sometimes difficult, as Meredith said, then I can’t imagine what being his child must be like.
“Bamboo,” Amber suddenly fires at me. It takes an arched brow for me to clue in.
“Panda?” I finally answer, feeling silly. Dr. Weimer has me playing word association games with Meredith and Amber. They say a word and I say the first thing that pops into my head. It’s part of my therapy, to see if something will trigger a memory. I’m supposed to keep a journal of all the word combinations and bring them with me to my weekly sessions. “Why bamboo?”
Lifting the small fabric-bound notebook that Dr. Weimer gifted me—the cover smattered with colorful hummingbirds—off the table, she opens it and scribbles down the words for me. “Because the end table beside your bed is made of bamboo.” That’s how this game usually goes. Random, meaningless words plucked from my surroundings as much as out of the air.
So far, I have half a journal’s worth of words that have enlightened me about nothing.
Except that apparently I’m aware of a panda bear’s dietary preferences.
When Amber’s gone, I head back out to the deck. I take a seat in that rickety lawn chair and simply absorb the peace and quiet while I wait. Because I have nothing better to do.
And, in the back of my mind, I admit that I’m waiting for Jesse to come out of hiding. Imagining what kind of girl he would have fallen in love with. She’s beautiful; I’m sure of it.
I’m also sure that I’m jealous of her.
He doesn’t poke his head out again.
The round white-wicker table is already set for two, the cutlery and glasses lined up tidily on either side.
“I hope you like chicken.” Ginny slaps a rectangular casserole dish in the center of the table. The dog, who was lying on the old whitewashed porch floor with its eyes closed and seemingly not a care in the world when I first arrived, leaps to its haunches, its nose twitching at the scent of meat.
“Chicken’s great,” I confirm, pulling the zipper on my fleece jacket all the way up. It’s April and, with the sun well on its way behind the mountain ridge, it’s far too cold to be eating outside on the porch, screened in or not. “Can I help you with—”
“Nope.” She waves an oven-mitted hand my way as she passes me. “Go on and make yourself comfortable, girl.” When I reach for the closest chair, she quickly adds, “Not that one.”
Of course. I take the other seat as she disappears into the house, the door slapping shut with a clatter so quickly that I can’t even sneak a glance inside. It’s as if she intentionally removed the hinges on it.
“Hey . . . dog.” Reaching down, I snap my fingers twice to catch its attention. “What’s your name?” It swings its head toward my hand and I see its nostrils twitch a second before it leans in and places a wet-tongued kiss on my wrist. It really is a mangy thing, the fur along its back in matted tufts. “I’ll give you a brushing tomorrow, how about that?” Its tail wags twice, as if it knows what I’m saying.
Ginny returns with two more dishes—one full of mashed potatoes and the other filled with brown beans—and the dog instantly forgets my existence, sliding forward on its haunches, facing Ginny. “It’s nothing special, but I’ve never been much of a cook,” she admits, her chair scraping along the wood boards as she takes her seat. Pushing the dishes forward, she ushers, “Well . . . go on, then!”
“This is my first meal out of the hospital,” I murmur, loading up my plate. At one point, I was twenty-five pounds underweight for my five-foot-eight stature. That was mainly due to muscle loss. I’ve slowly regained some of that, but my charts still say I have more to go. “I saw the quilt on the bed, by the way. It’s beautiful. You’re very talented.”
I get a grunt in response.
I don’t let that dissuade me. “My psychologist said I should consider finding a hobby. Maybe you could teach me how to quilt.” A hobby would be a good start in embracing this new, “fresh” person I’ve become, she said.
“I’ve never been much for teaching anyone anything,” Ginny grumbles, stabbing her chicken with her fork as she saws away at it with her butter knife.
Another minute of silence passes. “I saw Felix out hunting in the field with his—I mean, her—kittens today. They’re cute.”
“They’ll likely get eaten by coyotes.”
That stalls my tongue. Ginny’s a real ray of sunshine.
Taking a deep breath, I do what Meredith said to do and just ignore it. “Two went running into the Welleses’ garage. I can ask Jesse to fish them out and bring them over if you think—”
“That damn boy isn’t to step so much as a pinky toe on my property, do you hear me?” she bursts out. There’s a flash of rage in her eyes. “He’s a bad egg.” She waves her fork at me. “You stay away from him.”
“What did he—”
“You gonna chatter my ears off all through dinner?”
An uncomfortable silence hangs over us as we eat, the clang of our metal cutlery against the old porcelain plates ringing through the quiet evening. That and the dog chomping at pieces of chicken that Ginny tosses its way. It has yet to catch one, too blind to see the flying meat before it bounces off its nose.
The temperature must have dropped 10 degrees by the time we finished dinner, leaving my hands pink and stiff from the cold. All I want to do is go back to my apartment above the garage and start a fire in that woodstove. My instincts drive me to stack our dirty dishes and bring them to the sink, which I start to do. But then I look at that door and the metal bars across the windows and I stall. I’m not sure what the right answer is here. Am I even supposed to notice Ginny’s eccentricities? Do I bring it up? Do I—
“Just leave it be.”
“I’d like to clean—”
“I’m fine!” Patting the dog’s head, she tempers her tone. “Me and Felix have been on our own for years now. Haven’t we, boy?”
I frown. “I thought Felix was your cat.”
“What’s your point?” She swipes the plates from my hand to stack on top of hers. “I like the name. Ain’t nothing wrong with naming your pets by the same name if you like it.”
“But . . .” I feel my frown deepen. “How do you distinguish them from each other?”
“Because I know which Felix I’m calling when I call them. That’s how.”
“It’s a good name,” I agree, slowly, pressing my lips together to keep from smiling. Because something tells me she wouldn’t find my amusement . . . amusing.
Narrow eyes size me up. “You think I’m strange, don’t you?”
I blush, afraid to say anything to offend her. She may banish me from her property yet. “I think . . . you’re very kind.”
Her mouth twists up, like she doesn’t believe me. “Well, Felix is better than Jane Doe, I’ll tell you that much. Why on earth are you answering to that ridiculous name anyway? You can’t possibly like it.”
I can’t argue with her on that. It’s the first time anyone has even asked what I think about the name. “I feel like I belong in a morgue,” I admit. “And I need to find something else if I want a new ID.” Sheriff Gabe already has the judge and paperwork lined up.
“Well, then, give yourself a new name! It’s not hard. I don’t know why you haven’t done it already.”
She doesn’t get it. I don’t just want a new name. “I want my name.”
“Well, it doesn’t look like you’re getting it anytime soon, now does it? So maybe you need to let go of that idea.” She outright glares at me. “Count your blessings, girl. You get to be whoever you want to be, without the burden of your past.”