Chapters (46)
- Cover
- Other Titles
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Friday
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- Saturday
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- Sunday
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- Monday
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Shawn looks down at his hands. “Neither do I,” he says.
TWENTY-FOUR
Falling. Falling. The word sticks in Kate’s brain like a burr, like a snippet of a song that you can’t shake loose. Falling inside darkness, how can that be possible? Falling and yet still safe inside. It must have been a dream, it must have. Through the glass in the front of the car Kate sees a deer standing on the side of the road, its ears back, as though sensing danger. Stay back, little deer, Kate says in her head, as she does whenever she passes a deer, willing it not to jump in front of her car in fear. As she passes it, their eyes meet through the glass and she is sure that she feels its confusion, this road appearing in the middle of its place with the trees, this strange hard surface, these swiftly moving masses of steel and rubber, suddenly people there when before there had been none.
London doesn’t notice the deer. She is busy fiddling with the dial on the box that plays music. Kate wonders if she should say something, but then decides against it. The less she says these days, the better – there is less of a chance of getting something wrong, of giving something away. Soon they will reach Duluth, and then Kate will have to face the fact that she doesn’t know where they are going. Because they are either going to Duluth or they are going somewhere south of Duluth. Those are the only two options.
“So?” she says to London. She had been hoping the words after “so” would come to her as she started talking, but they don’t, and so it just hangs there, two little letters floating in the air between them.
“You’re not tired, are you, Nana?” London asks.
“No,” says Kate, and she’s not. She feels as though she has been sleeping for a thousand years, as though she might never sleep again.
“You’re okay to drive the rest of the way to Duluth?”
“Yes,” Kate says, feeling triumphant. Duluth. They are going to Duluth.
“We’ll stay at the Radisson, okay? I think that’s where he’s staying.”
A night in a hotel room. Kate can’t even remember the last time she spent a night in a hotel room, although this seems like something a person would remember, even a person who can only remember random snippets of their past. London seems confident about where they are going, as though she has been on this path before. Yes, that’s right, Nicki used to bring the kids to the States all the time. Kate suddenly has a terrible taste in her mouth, so at the next traffic light she reaches into her purse for some gum and puts her hand directly into something soft and squishy.