“The hospital,” Cliff said. He reached over and laid his hand on top of hers. Cliff looked so different to her, and it wasn’t just the scar on his forehead. His eyes no longer burned with that same determination, as if life were something to be killed and eaten on an hourly basis. His eyes were soft and easy now, yet sad, flat. Nothing about Cliff had ever been flat. Even his hair was different, most of the blond now gray. He’d shaved his mustache and beard, and at first Michelle thought maybe that’s why he looked so much thinner. Yet by the way his shirt draped off his shoulders, it was obvious he’d lost at least thirty pounds, almost the way he’d looked when he wrestled in college, though not nearly as vibrant. When he spoke, his voice was low and restrained, as if a baby were asleep in the next room. But in spite of all these differences, it was his hand that bothered Michelle most.
“Let me see it,” she said, pointing to the one folded in his lap.
He reluctantly placed it on the blanket.
“How did that happen?” she asked.
Cliff slid his hand away from her and sat back slowly in the chair, resting it in his lap. He seemed to have trouble swallowing. He squeezed his eyes shut, as if trying to erase an image from his brain.
“What’s going on, Cliff? Why am I in the hospital? Have you spoken with Cassie? Does she know everything is okay?” Michelle sat up abruptly, knocking dishes from the tray, splattering food across the sheets and floor. “Where’s Cassie? Where are we, Cliff? Are we in Atlanta?”
The commotion brought a nurse to the room. Cliff motioned that everything was okay. He cleared the dishes from her bedspread.
“Sorry, Cliff. Where are we?”
“We’re still in Ardenwood. Don’t you remember?”
She shook her head. “How long have I been out?”
“Two days,” he said.
Michelle’s memory was starting to come back. The cabin, Sheriff Fisk, going down the dark mountain, falling. Maybe she had a concussion. Her side hurt. Maybe broken ribs.
“Am I okay?”
“Bruised ribs. But other than that, you’re fine,” he said. “At some point we need to talk about why you left the cabin in the middle of the night, Michelle. You were lost for an entire day.”
That wasn’t how Michelle recalled the events of the past few days. “You were the one who left the cabin in the middle of the night. You were the one who got lost. I came looking for you and . . .”
“Okay, Michelle. We don’t have to talk about this right now.”
Cliff walked to the door. “I’m going for coffee,” he said. “I’ll be back shortly. Do you want anything?”
They spoke no more about it.
Michelle was released the next day, the doctors believing it best she return to Atlanta. They gave her a prescription for Xanax in case she became anxious or overwhelmed by her ordeal. Cliff drove a Range Rover up to the curb. Michelle had never seen it before. She got in, shut the door, and stared out the windshield.
Michelle rubbed her neck and felt nauseous, probably from the medication, she figured. She closed her eyes and was in the backyard of their home in Atlanta, the familiar odor of chlorine and wet concrete around the pool—reassuring smells. She thought about Cassie making varsity swim team, about her being team captain, the power of her strokes as she glided from one end of the pool to the other. For a moment, Michelle felt normal, recalling Cassie, the pool, until her mind shifted to Cliff’s scar, his missing finger. He had yet to explain. But those were new. Those pieces could not fit into any puzzle she constructed in her head. And Fisk. The cabin down the mountain, the one identical to the one she walked out of to look for Cliff. Had she somehow gone back up the mountain? Or gotten turned around in the woods? But what about the furniture? Fisk and Bogan? The Cherokee? Cliff’s scar? Cliff’s missing finger? Stop! None of it made sense. Michelle was suddenly engulfed in anxiety. She strained to breathe, to calm down. She shifted her attention home. Michelle pictured their pool in Atlanta, tried to recall the cool water, the sun, how it felt on her face when she sat on the chaise lounge, heat rising from the concrete. It calmed her. The fear started to subside. Michelle wondered if Cassie had told Cliff the big news yet, about being voted captain. He hadn’t mentioned it. Michelle was starting to feel anxious again. She took another Xanax.
It wasn’t long before everything felt vague and jumbled, as if her brain was packed in cotton. Unable to sleep, Michelle focused her attention out the window as they left Ardenwood. Fast food restaurants and gas stations swept by, along with billboards for trout fishing, canoeing, and whitewater rafting. Tire companies, insurance salesmen, and real estate brokers. One in particular caught her attention.
“Stop the car, Cliff!” she shouted.
“What?” he said.
“Stop!”
Cliff mashed on the brakes, throwing her against the shoulder harness. Cars screeched and skidded behind them, horns honking.
“What the hell?!” Cliff shouted. “What is it, Michelle?”
“Go back, Cliff! Go back now!”
Cars rushed past, drivers twisting to glare at them. Cliff turned around in a Shell station. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Make a left up there at McDonald’s,” she said, twisting in her seat to see the giant advertisement.
“What, you’re hungry?” he asked. “You don’t even like McDonald’s.”
“I want you to pull into their parking lot,” she said. When Cliff stopped, Michelle bolted from the vehicle toward the highway. Traffic rushed past as she rounded the pin oaks at the edge of the parking lot. Cliff chased after her.
Michelle stopped in front of the sign. Letters five feet high spelled out the words NOTHING SELLS FASTER THAN PINK. Below the headline it read: Call Pink Souder to find or sell your home FAST!
There was a phone number and a picture of a cherub-faced man who looked to be in his forties, wearing a cowboy hat and pink shirt and a black western-style string tie. His smile seemed to be the only thing holding his heavy, round cheeks apart. His teeth were white as blocks of ice and his blue eyes followed wherever Michelle walked until she was standing beneath him. Cliff ran up behind her.
“What are you doing?” he said.
Michelle recalled the sheriff telling her the Pink Souder story, how Pink had allegedly killed his wife and buried her on the property, and how he and his mother had disappeared soon after. Had she dreamed all that? She could still hear Fisk chuckling, recounting the tale about Mattie turning Pink into an ass and riding out of town like the Virgin Mary. There was a small rip in the billboard below Pink’s chin, and for a moment Michelle got lost in it.
“Sheriff Fisk told me about Pink Souder and his wife, Isabelle,” she said. “She’s supposed to be dead . . . and Pink is supposed to have vanished.”