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  “No. I think all of that will happen day by day.”

  “I will never forgive you if you leave now,” he said in a voice as calm as if he was saying he’d stop at the market for dinner on his way home from work. “If you change your mind and come back home, I won’t forgive you. When you get your job back and need to be here, it will be gone. If you leave for some sappy childhood memory . . . This foolishness is absurd. I never meant it when I said we should divorce; it was just words in anger. You knew that. This is our home. We raised our daughter here. We built a life. You will destroy what’s left of us.”

  “I don’t want to destroy anything. I want to build something new.”

  What I didn’t tell him was that I was scared. Scared to be without him. Scared to be without my job. Scared to leave. Scared to stay. Scared as hell.

  “How could you . . .” His voice trailed off because we both knew we’d had this discussion too many times. At home. In the counselor’s office. In the car. In the backyard where we thought Piper couldn’t hear us. We could talk about it again, of course we could. I’d tell him of all the ways he’d hurt me through the years, and he would tell me how he could change. I would tell him how the mistake I’d made in the ER had destroyed me and the fear haunted me both day and night. He would tell me it didn’t have to. We could talk of my deception in making plans to move without him, and I’d apologize again. Image and money were more important to him than my heart, I would say. And to that, he wouldn’t have an answer.

  But I did try one more time. “Lucas, I might have killed someone. A life is gone and it might be my fault. I have spent my entire life saving lives. Now I can’t sleep without nightmares. The slightest sound sends my adrenaline into overdrive and I can’t think or breathe. I feel like this . . .” I paused, feeling the wings that began in my chest before I wept. I wanted to give him a visual of my internal world, the one that spurred me to go find peace. “I feel like I’m at the top of a roller coaster right before it plummets. And I can’t get my harness fastened. That’s how I feel.” I’d done it; I’d told him how I felt. Now he could respond. I almost held my breath.

  “You’re a doctor. You know that will pass. You have to stay here and save your life. Save mine. Save ours. Do something about it.”

  “I am doing something about it,” I said, resolute with a deep breath. “But here’s the thing, Lucas—I have spent so long trying to keep my life and home safe that I didn’t keep my heart safe.”

  “You’re pitiful,” he said.

  It was so cruel and so true. The anger seeped out of the room, leaving us both silent. He took what he needed and didn’t say good-bye as he closed the bedroom door. My natural instinct was to run after him, as I’d done all those times before, and fix it, make it right, save us.

  I dropped to the soft carpet and placed my arms around Gus’s neck for as long as he would let me. “Sorry, old buddy. But you’ll be fine here with your dad. He loves you.” Gus licked my face, and the last of my tears. I scratched behind his ears and whispered, “We’ll come back for you. I promise.”

  After Lucas was gone, I loaded my car. On the way out, I plucked a piece of Lainey’s art from the living room wall—a mixed-media encaustic of a mother and child. It was my favorite piece in a house full of fancy oils and family portraits. I shut the door with one final thought: sometimes you had to leave home to finally find it.

  chapter 8

  LAINEY MCKAY

  PETALUMA, CALIFORNIA

  The canvas had become a mess, globs of wax settling like pimples across the surface. The iconic photo of Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue was now layered with quotes about genius, pictures of electricity and then black swaths of paint over the quotes and . . . well, nothing was working. Mixed-media art became mixed-up mess and I took it from the easel and set it on the floor, then turned to pick a fresh canvas to begin again. If there was one thing about art I’d learned to accept—it was always begin again.

  This studio was my haven. I’d built it for myself out of an old Airstream trailer I’d bought at a car auction in L.A. I’d had the silver and blue bullet towed here to the backyard of our little house in Petaluma, California, and outfitted it for my studio. If there was something I loved—a rock, a crystal, a feather, a small scrap of a poem or even a vial of dirt from a trip I’d loved—it was in here. But mostly it was filled with canvases, art supplies, printers and paint. It was more home than my home a few yards away.

  I’d just dropped the new blank canvas on the easel when the Airstream door opened and the face of the man I loved peeped around the corner with a grin. “Hey, baby.”

  Tim. My husband.

  I loved Tim as much as anyone I’d ever known. We lived together in a San Francisco Craftsman home built on the side of a curved road in Petaluma. He was my best friend and my partner. I loved all the things about him—the way the wrinkle between his eyes furrowed when he tried to understand me; the stubble that bloomed only hours after a shave; his laugh so quick and bursting out of nowhere like a hidden cymbal suddenly ringing out. His almond-shaped green eyes were crowded and surrounded by dark eyelashes. It was the first thing I’d noticed when I met him and the first thing I’d seen every time after, including now. Sometimes I didn’t notice anything else, like whether he’d gotten a haircut or changed his eyeglass style, whether he was dressed up or wearing his jeans and a T-shirt. But that day I noticed Tim was filthy, his shirt and jeans striped with mud.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as he strolled into my space.

  No matter how much I loved him, and I did, I still felt defensive and intruded upon when he burst inside my private space, all energy and fresh air.

  “Weeding the summer garden and realizing that you won’t be here when the tomatoes ripen, that I’ll have to eat them all myself or find someone to share them with,” he said with a grin.

  “Funny.”

  “Seriously, Lainey.” He dropped into a lounge chair with faded flower chintz and a deep seat. “How could you possibly leave with our kids, and why? Tell me again and maybe this time I’ll understand.” It was a fake pout but a real question I’d already answered.

  I dropped my paintbrush and moved closer to him. “Because my childhood best friend’s life is unraveling and she’s asked for us. Because I can work almost anywhere. Because Bonny and I promised each other that we’d be there for each other through anything. Because it will be fun for the kids to go to the South.”

  “Because you want to leave me,” he said and slumped deeper into the pillows.

  I leaned over, placed my hands on his shoulders and touched my forehead to his. “That’s insane. I’m sick about leaving you. And I really, really hope you come visit. At least once. I’d love for you to see everyone and you’ve never been to the real, real South.”

  “South Florida doesn’t count?” He pulled me close to him. “I just don’t want you to leave.”

  “I know. Part of me doesn’t want to leave either. But Bonny needs me. All those years and years ago, we promised that if anything really bad ever happened . . .”

  “In your little witch ceremony.” He tried to smile; I saw the crinkles begin to form but then disappear.

  “It was anything but.” I kissed him full on the mouth. “And what a terrible godmother I’ve been.”

  “I believe you’ve been a little busy being a mom to our own kids.”

  I held close to Tim and hugged him before asking the favor. “I need to pack a box to send to Watersend. I am going to work while I’m there. Will you send it to me?”

  “You pack it and I’ll send it tomorrow after I drop you off at the airport.”

  “Thanks, sweetie.”

  “I have to clean up and stop by a construction site. I’ll let you finish that beautiful piece of artwork you’ve dropped in the corner like it’s in time-out.”

  I awarded him a playful pop on
top of the head with my palm. “You weren’t supposed to notice that.”

  He smiled and kissed me again. “I know you hate talking about this, but we must before you go.”

  The electric pulse under my lungs sparked. “My mom,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “There’s nothing left to say, Tim.”

  “Yes, there is. I’m worried about you going there again, tearing into old scars, poking into old fears. It’s something you seem to have finally let go of—searching for her and wondering—and now you want to go where it all happened?”

  “Going there isn’t going to make it any better or any worse. I’m not going to miss her more by going. Or less. I’m not going to wonder more if I go. Or less.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” he said and began to pace around my studio, picking up brushes and paints and setting them back in absentminded motion.

  “I guess then you’ll just have to believe me. I haven’t searched for her in a year. I haven’t stopped my life or my art . . .”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “Do you really want to fight about this right now before I leave with the kids and won’t see you for weeks? Is this how you want me to exit?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  He stopped pacing and faced me, a hard block of wax in his hand. He tossed it back and forth and I felt the irresistible urge to grab it from him and scream, That’s mine! I also wanted to say the same about this trip and about my life and about my studio, but the truth was that I shared my life with Tim, and I wanted to, but he doubted my commitment to stop looking for my mom.

  “Then what do you want?” I asked. “I’m not going back there to dig up the past, but to help Bonny find a new future.”

  “Tell me that you haven’t contacted the private eye or looked online or searched . . .”

  “Stop.” I took the block of wax from him. “Stop now. I haven’t contacted him. I haven’t Googled her name. I have let it go.”

  “Lainey,” he said in that soft voice that let me know he didn’t believe me.

  “Well, maybe a Google or two.” I tried to smile.

  This was a hot spot in the corner of our marriage. Too many times I’d spent money we didn’t have, and disappeared for long weekends without calling, with only a whiff or scent of the possibility of finding her—finding the mom who’d disappeared in Watersend, South Carolina, after putting her young son in the hospital, the mom who’d walked away from her family. I’d promised to stop looking, and Tim took it personally—believing that our family didn’t make me feel complete. I didn’t know how to explain that it did, but still there was a gaping hole where a mom should be.

  “I’ll be back in a couple hours.” Tim lifted my face to his and kissed me. “Listen, I don’t want you to go, or take the kids with you, but I understand. Please just don’t go for long.”

  “Okay.” I kissed him in return before he walked out, gently closing the door.

  I’d believed I would never return to Watersend, but ever since Bonny had called, I’d felt as if part of me was still swimming in that river, running on that beach, laughing in that house, as if a broken and living piece of me was still there and couldn’t catch up to the present. Maybe in traveling to Watersend I could find that fragment of my soul and carry it home. Maybe the emptiness inside of me didn’t have anything to do with finding Mom, but finding what was left of me.

  I picked up my Einstein canvas and apologized. “That wasn’t the best way to handle that situation.”

  Yes, I talked to my art, and to the muses and to the empty room. Because it was how I spent most of my days—interacting with an unseen world, the world that wanted to come into the physical world. I played with the ideas and inspiration and creations that wanted to move from there to here.

  I’m an artist. I still covered my mouth and whispered this when I was asked what I do. How on earth did I get to call myself something so worthy or wonderful? I made things out of things, and then I sold them. That was it. I’d tried all the art forms but my specialty was mixed media. I used vintage or iconic photos as the base. I then added text, newspaper clippings, pictures, paint—almost anything that struck me as part of the overall impression the photo meant to be all along.

  I placed Albert back on the easel and squinted at him. Why wasn’t it working? I’d heard it said that some writers don’t know what they think until they write. I often didn’t understand what I was making until I was done making it, but this one was especially eluding me. Was it about genius? Creativity? Electricity? Madness? I didn’t know yet. But I also knew better than to force it. That was where the worst of my art came from. Maybe the worst of life also.

  It didn’t take long, but I formed a pile of the art supplies I wanted sent to South Carolina and then I gave my studio one more glance before locking up.

  Back inside the house, I tossed my satchel on the bed and began piling the books I wanted to tote along with me. Daisy, eight years old, and George, six years old, would be home from school in thirty minutes, clamoring off the bus and running along our lane with their backpacks bouncing against their shoulder blades and their flip-flops smacking the pavement. They would fly through the door like sun rays and the world would, for a heartbeat, seem perfect.

  I was in my forties when I’d decided to have kids. I’d waited, always afraid that living without a mom didn’t qualify me to be a mom, scared to death that I would repeat her patterns and abandon my children when they needed me the most. Until Tim lovingly and slowly made me realize that we were our own family, and patterns were shattered with love.

  When I watched the twenty-something moms on the playground, I was in awe of their energy. But I didn’t envy their frantic need to outdo, outrun, out-PTA, and outdress each other or their kids. Daisy and George were simply their own little wonders and I didn’t know how I could ever live without them.

  I smiled when I thought of showing them the Lowcountry of South Carolina. Although I’d visited Charleston a few times to see Bonny, I’d never taken the kids with me. The South to them sounded as exotic as a faraway planet.

  Like Bonny, I’d grown up in the suburbs of Atlanta, so it appeared that I’d taken out a map and stated with intent, “Where can I go that will geographically separate me farthest from my past?” I didn’t really do this. In reality I’d never done anything with that much forethought or planning. So through the years, I’d had to find a way to make a house a home, to make my surroundings soothing. Feng shui was the answer. And because I knew what memories houses could keep, I knew what the river house in Watersend held, and yet I was willingly returning.

  Wondering about Watersend was just another one of the aching moments when I wanted to talk to my brother, when I needed Owen to at least answer his damn phone. But although he was here in the world, he wasn’t in my world. He lived in Colorado, but I use the word “live” lightly. He had a home there, but he owned an adventure company and traveled all over the world finding new and frightening ways to keep the adrenaline pumping. He was certified in every kind of rescue, from mountain to sea to fire.

  When he did show up, I always had hope that he’d stay, but he never did. Somehow our mother’s absence had sent him out into the wilderness, as it had sent me to find one faraway place and root down. Same broken hearts; opposite reactions. I ached for him sometimes as much as I did for Mom, for what we’d all lost. Meanwhile, when we were young, I’d fantasized about Bonny and I becoming sisters—more than Summer Sisters—where we could share a last name. But when that hadn’t happened, and I’d realized that Owen was drawn to her more than his own family, resentment had grown. Of course I’d never told either of them how I felt—it was petty and ridiculous. We love whom we love.

  I hadn’t yet told my brother that I was boarding an airplane to fly across the country to see Bonny with my two bundles of energy in tow, because, like Tim, he would use his
powers of persuasion to try to talk me out of it. But his eager missives wouldn’t work, because I’d tell him (if he’d answer his phone): there’s power in that river, in that long-ago night and in my sisterhood with Bonny. A promise made is a promise kept.

  lainey mckay’s river wish

  I wish to grow up and be an artist, a famous artist.

  chapter 9

  BONNY BLANKENSHIP

  The tropical storm warning had been on every TV station, but then the weather had inched its way north. Still the rain fell and gathered itself too quickly to be absorbed by the roadway’s drains and the earth’s soil. The roads were shallow rivers, but my SUV cut through the water as surely as a boat. The windshield wipers slapped frantically. Palmetto trees bent toward the ground while branches broke loose and skittered along Highway 17 like something alive and running. The bridges over the marshland blurred into the landscape, and it felt like I was part of it all—the wind, the rain and the rising tide.

  I turned off the radio and allowed rainfall to be the music. My heart rate slowed as I drew closer and closer to Watersend. I would absorb myself in painting and furniture and fixtures. I’d spend time with Lainey and Piper. I’d disappear into the remaking of a house while I waited to discover how to remake my life, while I waited for clarity, for the call from Emory (they were waiting on the verdict and holding the job for me, they’d told me) or for a solution to problems that seemed insurmountable.

  The panic had grown worse since Mr. Rohr’s death. Every time the phone rang, every time the e-mail dinged, heat flashed through me like electricity. I’d learned to breathe, to move my attention to something else. The thought of being in the river house saved me from descending into the labyrinth of that horrible night where there was nothing but dead ends, and my fatal mistake waited like the mythical Minotaur around every corner.