“Yes,” I say. What I really mean is, No. Or, I don’t know if I can. I close my eyes. The breeze is warm and damp as it rushes over me, and I breathe in slowly, then out in a rush.
I open the door to the memory, and the first thing I see is my ex-husband, Melvin Royal, lying next to me, smiling at me as I wake up. I’m there. I feel the crowding, heavy Louisiana humidity. Smell the rotting wood of the house. The damp, stiff nightgown sticking to my skin belongs to a dead woman.
I feel the shackles biting into my wrists.
No. NO.
“Gwen?”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. I turn from the memory, shove it deep, slam a mental door and lock it with a cartoonishly large imaginary padlock. But I still see his Cheshire-cat grin, and the glassy dead eye of the camera watching me.
I watched him beat a woman to death. Beat her until there was nothing left of her. I can’t go back there.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. My voice sounds small and defeated. “I can’t—”
“It’s all right,” Dr. Marks says. “You pushed too fast. Let it go. Step back. Listen to your heartbeat. Breathe. You don’t have to do this until you’re ready, and you’ll feel it. Until then, you need to protect yourself from something that hurts. There’s no shame in that.”
I do as she says. I’m almost panting, but as I slow down, I’m back here, at Stillhouse Lake. The air is familiar. The fresh smell of the trees cuts the memory of rancid decay. I open my eyes and stare at the peaceful, soft ripples of the lake.
I’m not there. But in a way I never left. Maybe I’m not ready to leave it behind yet.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her again. “I just—I thought I could do it today. But I almost lost it.”
“Almost,” she says. “But you didn’t. You need to forgive yourself for human weakness. No one’s strong all the time.”
I need to be, though. I have enemies, just as much now as ever. Strength is the only thing that stands between those faceless threats and my children.
I make an appointment with her in two weeks. We’ll sit for an hour, and I’ll try to get this poison out of me. But today’s not the day.
When I hang up, it’s not quite sundown, just a shady late afternoon, and I enjoy the silence for a minute before I head to the mailbox standing at the bottom of the drive. It’s painted a cheery yellow with flowers on the lid, and though the kids wanted to put our names on it, I told them no, very firmly. I let them sign the work with their initials. I figured that was a compromise. I focus on the painting, on the peace it represents, and I tell myself that I’ll get through this.
I pull the door down and see a blur just before I hear a rattling hiss. Instinct makes me jump back just before the snake strikes. I take several fast, stumbling steps away; snakes can reach almost their full body length, and this one misses me by a few inches, retracts, and begins to slither angrily into a knot inside the box.
A snake. In my mailbox.
I try to control my racing heartbeat and instant shakes. It’s a nasty-looking bastard, mottled gray and brown like the forest floor, with the distinctive head of some kind of viper. I don’t know snakes, but I know if they rattle, it can’t be good. I don’t know if I’ve let out a scream. Probably.
I dial the Norton police officer I know best—Kezia Claremont, one of the few people I trust with my kids—and must reach her in the car, because her voice comes in close and tinny, rumbled by road noise. “Hey, Gwen. What’s up?”
“There’s a snake in my mailbox.” My voice sounds remarkably flat. “I think it’s some kind of rattlesnake.”
“What?”
“Rattlesnake. In my mailbox.” I glance around and grab a fallen branch that’s lying nearby, making sure I look for any friends the snake might have first. I use the stick to flip the door of the mailbox shut, trapping the snake inside . . . and then I begin to wonder if this branch might have already been used for this very purpose. Too late to worry about fingerprints, if that was even possible to get from rough wood. “My kids could have opened that, Kez. Jesus Christ.”
“Is it poisonous?”
“It rattled.”
“Are you bitten?”
“No. No, I don’t think so.” Now that the adrenaline is starting to recede, I feel sick and woozy. I check my hands and arms for any bites, but I’m clean. “I’m okay. But someone needs to come get this thing out.”
“Okay, here’s what I want you to do: keep that box shut. Tape it shut if you need to. I’m sending a specialist to come get it.” There’s a pause. The road noise lessens. “You think someone put it in there? Deliberately?”
“The box was shut when I got here, Kez. And the mail was inside. That snake arrived after the mail. Unless vipers have figured out how to close doors behind them, it sure didn’t seal itself in there on its own.”
Kezia’s quiet after that for a few seconds. I hear clicks; she’s switched over to texting. I can hear the distraction in her voice as she replies. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’ve got the snake guy and forensics dispatched. As soon as the snake’s gone, forensics is going to process that mailbox. If we’re lucky, somebody’s left us a print.”
I can’t imagine anyone fool enough to do that, but she’s right—it’s worth a shot. “Okay,” I tell her. “I’ll wait here until they arrive.”
“I’m on my way.”
Lanny comes back down the hill as the vivid blue sky fades to faint orange above me, and the trees give up their daytime green and become sharp black points. The wind’s died down, and the lake is still. Most of the boats are gone.
I’m standing six feet from the mailbox, and I don’t take my eyes off it.
“Mom?” Lanny says.
“Go back in the house,” I tell her. I’m staring at the mailbox, maybe a little obsessively. “I’ll be there in a bit. I’m waiting for someone.”
“Uh, okay?” She doesn’t know exactly what I’m doing, or what to ask. “Should I go ahead and start the chicken or what?”
“Yes,” I tell her. “Go ahead. Thanks, honey.”
“Okay.” She doesn’t leave. “Mom, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She frowns at me. “Honey, I just . . . I need some time, okay? I need to work through some things. You go on. Tell Sam I’m okay.” Because I know Sam will be down here next.
She knows damn well I’m not telling the whole truth—and I’m not, because I need to keep her safe—but she goes, finally. I like that instinct in her, to question everything. It will serve her well in the future, even with me. And I’m glad she didn’t stay. I’m very aware—hideously aware, as night begins to fall—that I’m standing out here alone, exposed, and a snake in my mailbox is hardly the only threat out here. What if the person who put it there comes back? What if they’re behind me right now?
I give in. I take a fast look around as my daughter heads up the hill.
No one around. No threats I can see.
But it doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Waiting.