Chapter four
“Wish you’d tell me what’s on your mind.”
We’re in her bed; the now familiar shadows pulsing with warmth. She’s resting her head on my chest. Her hair smells clean as the first day of summer.
“If I sleep forever I’ll die.”
The bed squeaks as she shifts positions.
“You ain’t sleeping, baby.”
If I’m not asleep than both of me exist and here at Becker Lake I’m as real as the sand and mud stuck to my shoes. I am not an image in my own longing, but flesh and bone. I live – happy.
I shake my head, clearing the sudden sensation of waking up off of me.
“Stay forever, okay? It won’t hurt for very long.”
“What won’t?”
After a silence she tells me. “The poison.”
I can sense her biting her lower lip, a look of pleading straining her features.
“The kids adore you.”
I never wanted children, but now that I’ve taught a tomboy girl how to fish and played catch with an exuberant boy I do. I don’t care that they’re not my own. I don’t care that their biological father stalks the woods outside the lake house. I will deal with him. I just love these children and – .
“And I love you.”
I will protect them; each of them. Nothing bad will happen to us, not to my family.
I woke up groggy, my bed empty, and closed my eyes to –
Slide close to Miranda and inhale the warm smell of her –
And eventually relented, blinking against the first rays of morning piercing my bedroom window.
I was starving.
Later, at work, I opened a browser and searched for “667 Becker Lake, Becker Lake, Minnesota.” The search came back with three-and-a-half million sites. I clicked on the first – fishing tips.
“Whoa, what happened to you?”
Larry stood at my cubicle, eyebrows raised with suspicion. He stared at my arms. They were cut from the branches I’d run through when I sprinted through the woods. Each arm was a tangle of deep red lines edged with white infection.
“Do you need something?” A fever burned in my head, pushing a sweat as thick as oil out of my pores. I felt it dripping through my hair.
“The forms for your sick days.”
“I’ll leave them on your desk.”
“And I have to write you up for not calling in.”
“No problem.”
He left. I put my phone on Do Not Disturb, sending every call to voicemail. I kept clicking links and that afternoon I found it: Becker Lake Man Charged with Wife’s Murder. I read the article twice. It gave no gruesome details, only short facts; woman found dead, man arrested. It said nothing about her sweet nature or that she was a good mom. It didn’t say she loved to bake, only that she was found dead in the early evening hours.
“He kills her. If I’m not there, he murders her.”
More sweat poured out of me. My skin went cold. Nausea rose inside me. A thumping dizziness made me rest my head into my palms, exhausted. I closed my eyes.
She meets me at the door. No girl’s ever been so happy to see me before. She is so beautiful it’s hard to inhale, like my lungs are too busy looking at her to do their job. The woods are quiet this afternoon. No birds, no cars on the nearby two-lane, not one sound. She hugs me tight. I lean down, kiss her head.
“Come inside,” she says and leads me into the kitchen. Cookies, great mounds of them, are piled everywhere.
She’s set one aside for me. It’s a large circle on a red napkin and silver tray. She hands it to me. “Snickerdoodle’s your favorite, ain’t it?”
“Should I eat it now?”
“Plenty of time for that later,” she says. “Right now you should come upstairs with me because the little ones are at school.”
We’re in her bed; the now familiar shadows pulsing with warmth. She’s resting her head on my chest. Her hair smells clean as the first day of summer.
“If I sleep forever I’ll die.”
The bed squeaks as she shifts positions.
“You ain’t sleeping, baby.”
If I’m not asleep than both of me exist and here at Becker Lake I’m as real as the sand and mud stuck to my shoes. I am not an image in my own longing, but flesh and bone. I live – happy.
I shake my head, clearing the sudden sensation of waking up off of me.
“Stay forever, okay? It won’t hurt for very long.”
“What won’t?”
After a silence she tells me. “The poison.”
I can sense her biting her lower lip, a look of pleading straining her features.
“The kids adore you.”
I never wanted children, but now that I’ve taught a tomboy girl how to fish and played catch with an exuberant boy I do. I don’t care that they’re not my own. I don’t care that their biological father stalks the woods outside the lake house. I will deal with him. I just love these children and – .
“And I love you.”
I will protect them; each of them. Nothing bad will happen to us, not to my family.
I woke up groggy, my bed empty, and closed my eyes to –
Slide close to Miranda and inhale the warm smell of her –
And eventually relented, blinking against the first rays of morning piercing my bedroom window.
I was starving.
Later, at work, I opened a browser and searched for “667 Becker Lake, Becker Lake, Minnesota.” The search came back with three-and-a-half million sites. I clicked on the first – fishing tips.
“Whoa, what happened to you?”
Larry stood at my cubicle, eyebrows raised with suspicion. He stared at my arms. They were cut from the branches I’d run through when I sprinted through the woods. Each arm was a tangle of deep red lines edged with white infection.
“Do you need something?” A fever burned in my head, pushing a sweat as thick as oil out of my pores. I felt it dripping through my hair.
“The forms for your sick days.”
“I’ll leave them on your desk.”
“And I have to write you up for not calling in.”
“No problem.”
He left. I put my phone on Do Not Disturb, sending every call to voicemail. I kept clicking links and that afternoon I found it: Becker Lake Man Charged with Wife’s Murder. I read the article twice. It gave no gruesome details, only short facts; woman found dead, man arrested. It said nothing about her sweet nature or that she was a good mom. It didn’t say she loved to bake, only that she was found dead in the early evening hours.
“He kills her. If I’m not there, he murders her.”
More sweat poured out of me. My skin went cold. Nausea rose inside me. A thumping dizziness made me rest my head into my palms, exhausted. I closed my eyes.
She meets me at the door. No girl’s ever been so happy to see me before. She is so beautiful it’s hard to inhale, like my lungs are too busy looking at her to do their job. The woods are quiet this afternoon. No birds, no cars on the nearby two-lane, not one sound. She hugs me tight. I lean down, kiss her head.
“Come inside,” she says and leads me into the kitchen. Cookies, great mounds of them, are piled everywhere.
She’s set one aside for me. It’s a large circle on a red napkin and silver tray. She hands it to me. “Snickerdoodle’s your favorite, ain’t it?”
“Should I eat it now?”
“Plenty of time for that later,” she says. “Right now you should come upstairs with me because the little ones are at school.”
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