Chapters (39)
- Cover
- Title
- Author’s Note
- Glossary
- 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
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Acknowledgments
“He didn’t say. Mom asked but he said it didn’t matter. The thing is my father felt terrible, guilty about leaving Derek at the river. Mom said—and this is why I stopped wondering whether you had told Derek that you were leaving him before he tried to cross the river—that Dad shouldn’t blame himself. Derek, she said, would never do anything that didn’t serve his own needs, regardless of his state of mind.”
“She knew him better than anyone,” murmured Faye.
“Better than you? You were married to him for more than twenty years.”
Faye chuckled. “Oh yes. Much better than me.”
Clare looked at her.
Faye went on. “If I’d known him as well as Michelle did, I wouldn’t have married him. Or stayed with him. Or allowed him to manipulate me and turn me into someone I didn’t know. Or like. Someone I was ashamed of.”
“So you’re glad he’s gone?” asked Clare.
“As I said, I’m not glad he’s dead. Even though I think he would have made it difficult for me to leave him, I’m sorry Zach doesn’t have a father and I don’t believe Derek deserved to die.”
“But you’re not ashamed of yourself anymore?”
“No. I’m not. Sometimes I feel a little cross for allowing myself to be duped and dominated for so long, but I am not ashamed. What about you? Has that changed for you too?”
Clare sighed. “Yes. You made me realise how stubborn I was being. How I was choking the life out of my life by not letting others in. By not accepting help. I saw that asking for help wasn’t weak. It was sensible.”
“And the help is helping?”
“What do you think?” Clare glanced down. “I won’t pretend I’m one hundred percent fine. I have moments. But they’re moments and I can talk about them, and I don’t think about myself, my body and food all the time. Sometimes I think about running. Often I think about Mark.”
They laughed quietly and Faye placed her arm around Clare’s shoulders.
“Then we’re both fine. I am so—”
“Shh!” whispered Clare. “Look. On the other side of the river.”
Faye looked to where she was pointing. She saw movement between the reeds, the same reeds that she’d hurried past when she left the river two years ago, ignoring Derek’s cries.
A leopard, sleek and wary, stepped into the open and onto the rocks. She looked around, her yellow eyes glancing briefly at them, walked to the water’s edge, dipped her head and began drinking.
“She came to check on us,” murmured Clare.
“And she found us well,” said Faye. “Alive and fearless.”
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments