And that’s when I lost my footing, stumbled over something, I didn’t know what--a rock or a bump or a body--and fell to the ground. It was cold and wet with just-melted snow that the lawn was still too frozen to absorb. Even though it was April; even though it was spring. Wet and frozen, just like me. I felt my way along, ran my fingers along the cold, prickly grass, dragged my bare knees through tiny, cold puddles. By the time I found the bottom step my teeth were chattering so badly that my jaw was stiff and sore, and my clothes were soaked with water. Like I’d just crawled out of an icy lake.

   She jumped off that mountain. That Indian princess. She looked over the edge and into the water and she jumped right in. And I knew why. I’d always known.

   I crawled up the four porch steps and finally stood up, still shivering. Teeth still chattering. I reached into my purse for my keys and unlocked the door.

   Nine steps into the living room, still shaking. I snapped on a lamp and scanned the paintings on the wall. Brian had spent so much time staring at them, examining them, searching for clues. Because he knew that these landscapes weren’t really landscapes at all. They were people and feelings and moments in time; pieces of me, of my life. Each canvas was covered with beautiful, fragile bits of what was left of my soul.

   A field of fragrant wildflowers…a muddy brown brook filled with trout…a dark, green forest edged with a solid rock wall. Love and friendship and justice. There were others, too. Anger and laughter and shame…and fear.

   Kineo was Fear. I’d sold Hope and held onto Fear.

   I yanked it off the wall with wet, dirty hands, ran into the kitchen, threw it down onto the table, and stared at it. Remembered the bored, mindless waitress who had told me the story of the doomed princess in that stupid voice, that droning fucking monotone. Just like it was nothing.

   No. She was dead before she hit the water. Hell she was dead before she jumped, before she took her first step towards the summit. She died somewhere between her home and that mountain. Her brain willed her feet to move her shaking body forward. One step then another step and another. But her heart had already stopped beating.

   And I was sick of her. Fucking sick of being her.

   I picked up the canvas and hurled it against the wall. It fell harmlessly to the floor, face up, staring at me. It was still alive. And I wasn’t.

   But the fucking thing wasn’t alive. Wasn’t indestructible. It was just a canvas, and what’s a canvas? Just cotton threads woven together and stretched over some wood. Nothing magical about it, nothing special, nothing permanent.

   It was Nothing.

   I rooted around in the silverware drawer and found my paring knife, small but sharp, and it did the trick. Punctured, poked, ripped, hole after hole, one after another, easily--so fucking easily--because it wasn’t really a mountain and a lake. Not flint and water and stone and fear and trees. It was just cotton threads woven together. Hanging in pieces from some wood.

   I zipped the knife through one piece, then another, and another. I missed a few times, got my thumb and then three of my fingers, until finally there were no pieces of canvas big enough to cut. Nothing left except clusters of ribbons dangling from a bloody wooden stretcher bar. And so I dropped Nothing onto the floor.

   But that wasn’t all. I knew.

   I turned around. Gripped the counter. Dizzy and...

   I leaned over the sink and waited, but nothing came out. There was no food inside me, just a little bit of alcohol, not enough to vomit. And that meant it was gonna come up for real, for real oh my God…please make it stop…

   I fell to the floor beside what was left of Kineo, still clutching the knife in my bloody hand. I stared at the sharp, beautiful blade, then at my wrist and I wondered if it would hurt. Probably wouldn’t hurt any worse than the cuts on my fingers. And then afterwards…what it was like to feel everything just fading away? Drifting. Slowly. Probably the same way it always had, the way I’d felt all my stupid, miserable, fucking life. Minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years, watching hope and happiness and love slipping away. Drifting. Slowly. Away…

   But how would it be for the Someone who would find me like that? Covered in dried blood and waste, cold and dead and rotting away for real. Who would it be? Zeke probably. Or Laura. And that would be unforgivable, because that would mean Cassidy would see it, too. And you just don’t do that. Not to anyone. And besides…I didn’t really want to die. Even if I didn’t want to live like this. Oh, God, not like this…not anymore…

   I want. To live. To live for real.

   I opened my clenched fingers. And the knife fell to the floor.

   Dizzy, so fucking dizzy, even sitting down. I put my head between my legs and, with nothing inside me to puke, I had to cry. It was all coming out now, fat ugly tears and brutal sobs that hurt my stomach and my head and my neck and my back, but not as much as holding onto it for so long, too long; holding onto it forever. It was loud and awful, but not loud enough to drown out the voices. So many of them, with words filled with hate and despair and sex dirty whore, and the words were familiar and loud. I listened to my mother and waited to hear my father, but there wasn’t much of him there, not the words I’d needed. Not stop it, leave her alone. Not I love you Tess, but there was Mike to fill in the hole, I thought, I hoped, and a dozen others or even more of them and they echoed in my brain. The ones I’d let use me, use me like a whore, and all the others, the ones I’d used. And then everyone who knew. All the voices that judged…

   But love was there, too, it had always been there, and the kindness seemed greater than the bitterness and hate. But it couldn’t get through the hard, icy ground. It just stayed on the surface to be trampled and washed away. Because I never thought I deserved it. That I was worth it. I never let it in.

   The tears finally ran out and I was left with an aching head, but not as bad as it had been. I was too exhausted to get up off the floor, so I crawled into the bedroom, climbed onto my bed, underneath the blankets, and slept in my clothes. Slept forever.

   When I opened my eyes it was dark and I didn’t know why. I looked at the clock. Glowing green numbers.

   But then I heard it: Rain on the windows. I blinked a few times, and it wasn’t as dark as I had first thought. Just cloudy. A storm. 10:14 A.M. Sunday morning.

   I made my bed and took a shower. Jasmine shampoo. I threw my old clothes into the trash can, rid my kitchen of the remnants of Bloody Kineo and ate breakfast. Cereal and toast and coffee. Washed my hands, brushed my teeth. Lavender and mint. And by that time the storm was done. Outside it was April. Outside it was spring. I opened my windows and let it in. Took in a deep breath, then a deeper one. Filled my lungs with lovely spring air. And I knew.

   So I said it out loud.

   “I’m gonna be alright.”

   And then I lay down on my couch and cried. Again.

   I cried for a mother who hated me and for a father who loved me, but was weak. Too weak to protect me. And for a brother who had seen it all, felt it all, and had taken on the burden of loving me and protecting me. The burden that wasn’t his.

   I cried for Alice, who had tried to love me, and for Jason, my beautiful friend. The man who really had been the love of my life. Once. I missed him so much. His humor and brains and rough, gorgeous beard. Most of all I missed the way he knew me, inside and out, better than anyone ever had; without the words and with them, too. Because there had been a Jason-and-Tess for a long time. Long before I put on a white dress. Before he knocked on my door in the rain. Even before he walked into the store on that cold, perfect February morning. And now there wasn’t. And there never would be again.

   I cried for Rachel because I missed her. I wanted to go back to that last night, Christmas night. Wanted to run back up the stairs and tell her the sweet things that had been in my heart. Tell her I didn’t care about the ring. It doesn’t matter, Rach, it doesn’t matter at all. You matter, though. To take back the anger she’d seen on my face, and the hurt. Tell her, instead, about what I’d seen on hers. Tell her I know you’re hurting and scared. And I know your heart is tender and fragile and full of beauty and love. Even if it wouldn’t change anything, but especially if it would. I cried because I wanted to tell her that I loved her. And I couldn’t.

   I cried for Brian. Because as much as I missed Rachel, as much pain as I was in, his was so much worse. And he was somewhere right now, somewhere on this beautiful Sunday, this gorgeous Spring morning, feeling empty and alone and scared. I wanted to hold him and feel his tears, wet on my shoulder and breasts. To tell him that it would be alright, because it really would be--it really will, and so will you, Brian--and I couldn't.

   I cried because I missed him. I wanted him beside me, right now. I wanted to see his glowing eyes and feel his strong arms around me, to hear his sweet, deep voice. I wanted to hear my voice, too, telling him all of the things that had been locked up inside of me for a year. All the things he had been hoping to hear from me, needed to hear, the things he had searched for every time he’d searched my eyes. All of the beautiful, powerful feelings that I could never find words for. Brian, Brian you are fire. Fire and music and life. You are everything that is good and decent and strong. I wanted him to know me, inside and out, better than anyone ever had…and he couldn’t.

   And when I was finished crying I sat up. I took another deep breath and wiped the tears from my face. The sun was still shining. Yellow and warm. And that’s when I knew there was Something I needed. And I knew what the Something was.

   I put on my light spring jacket and stepped outside. Took a walk through town, down the main road and every side road, too. Even here, away from the woods, I was surrounded by trees. They lined every road and filled every yard and they stretched their arms out to me. Maples, mostly, but oaks and birches, too. The were bare, still, but I knew. Just a few more weeks and they’d be bursting with newborn leaves of the palest green.

   And there was a Something that was green and new inside me, too. A feeling that something more had shifted and loosened, and my heart felt lighter than it ever had. It was even lighter the next day and kept getting lighter in the days that followed that. There were more tears, lots more, and sometimes the pain was almost more than I could bear. But I was still alright, and more alive than I’d ever been. And by the time I looked at the calendar and noted that Rachel had been gone for four months I knew what had happened.

   The ice had melted and the rocks were being unearthed, one at a time, all the rocks of my life. The holes and craters they left behind hurt like hell, and I knew they were going to keep hurting for awhile; but even that was alright. Because now I knew that soil underneath, the soil that had been there all along, was lovely and soft and fertile.

   Just like spring.

Chapter 38

Chapter 40

Table of Contents

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