Contents ( 85)
- Contents
- Part I
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Part II
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Part III
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Seventy-One
- Seventy-Two
- One
- Two
- Reading Group Guide
- A Conversation with the Author
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
Bury, New Hampshire.
Most locals pronounce it berry, though there’s a small faction of lifers who insist it rhymes with fury. Doesn’t matter how it sounds out loud. In my head this town always makes me think of underground things, burrowed by worms, hidden from light. Secrets.
I grew up here. Part of me has always been buried here.
Thunderheads jostle for space in the summer sky. The air is heavy enough to create a drag on my steps, or maybe it’s just my natural hesitation to walk up the long stone path to my father’s front door. The house in which I grew up looms, as it always has, grand but not beautiful. Rum Hill Road is filled with mansions, but none of them feel like homes.
Max grabs my right hand as we approach the door. He does this when he’s scared, feeling shy, or simply wants to be somewhere else. In other words, a lot of the time. Not atypical for any eleven-year-old, much less one who’s going through what Max is. What we both are.
I look down and the diffused light from the gunmetal sky makes his blue eyes glow, as if all his energy is stored right behind those irises. Max has his dad’s eyes. Looking at my son, this fact haunts me, as if I’m seeing the ghost of Riley. I don’t want to see any part of my dead husband in Max.
It hits me again. I’m only thirty-seven and a widow. It’s both depressing and freeing.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. I think I’ve said those two words as much as I’ve said I love you to him over the past month. One phrase is the truth. The other is a hope.
“I don’t like Bury,” he says.
“We just got here.”
He gives my arm a tug of protest. “It’s not Milwaukee. It’s not home.”
I tousle his hair, which probably assures me more than him. “No, it sure isn’t.”
We reach the front door, a curved and heavy slab of maple reinforced with iron hinges and bands. My father told me when I was a little girl that a door like ours conveyed wealth and strength. That we needed a thick door, like a castle, because it sent a sign to all who tried to enter. I asked him who we needed to protect ourselves from, and I’ll never forget his answer.
Everyone.
For a moment, I have the impulse to ring the bell of the house where I spent my childhood. I try the door. It’s locked, so I press the doorbell and hear the muffled ring of the familiar chime inside.
I’m surprised when my father himself opens it. He stares at me, then offers a smirk that never blossoms into a smile.
The air of the house leaks out and crawls over me. Smells of the past. The aroma of time, of long-ago fear. My father is one of the reasons I left this town and never looked back. He’s also one of the reasons I’m back. Now, in this moment, a time when I need to be here but am dying to be anywhere else, my past threatens to scoop me up and wash me out to sea.