Page 3 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth
I make a noncommittal noise. I don’t need a productivity boost. But I know someone who does. I make a mental note to search “quiet cabin remote retreat” as I power off the tablet, slip it into the side pocket of my gym bag, and tuck the towel around it.
I always tell Emily not to worry about washing my gym clothes with her stuff because they’re sweaty and gross. Still, out of an abundance of caution, I keep the bag in the garage. As far as I know, she’s never opened the duffle, and even if she did find the tablet, I doubt she’d think anything of it. Still, it’s easy enough to be careful. So I am.
I Venmo Dr. Wilde a hundred and twenty-five bucks, then pop the locks and walk across the lot to the grocery store. I did the shopping yesterday, but I’m here, and the market’s mango tart is one of Emily’s favorite desserts. I step up to the bakery counter and wait my turn.
Em could use a treat. Stressed-out is her default setting. She wrestles with generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and PTSD. But right now, her primary source of stress is a looming deadline on a book. And, apparently, her writer’s block is worse than all her mental health conditions combined.
After dinner and a slice of mango tart, I’ll suggest she have a soak in the bathtub and turn in to sleep early to get some rest. After all, she’ll be wrenched from sleep before five o’clock in the morning, gasping, trembling, and trying to hide the fact.
Two
Emily
* * *
The Grief Hour
* * *
I know before I open my eyes and seek out the illuminated face of the bedside clock what time it is. 4:51 AM. Or, as I call it, the grief hour.
My psychiatrist has patiently (and sometimes not-so-patiently) explained the concepts of circadian rhythms and habituated wake-up times and their effect on the human body. He insists this is why I jolt awake at precisely 4:51 each morning with a dry mouth, racing pulse, and tight chest. The fact that 4:51 is the exact moment that I unlocked the door to a tired rental unit to find my blood-covered roommate half-naked and fully dead is, according to Dr. Wilde, a coincidence.
He’s utterly wrong. But I need him.
Need may sound like a strong verb to describe our useless twice-a-year talk therapy sessions. But, at the end of the forty-five minutes, he writes me a six-month prescription for Lexapro. And that, I do need.
My brother has suggested I trade my biannual appointment for a medical marijuana card. Joey says it’d be a piece of cake to get one, seeing as how I suffer from severe anxiety and a panic disorder. He’s not wrong, but that feels too easy. Like cheating. Like I’m not paying the price for being alive when Cassie is dead.
Dr. Wilde would say this train of thought is unhealthy and punitive. He’d want me to reframe it. Easy for him to say. Don’t get me wrong, I try. I tell myself I’m grateful for every new day. I pay attention to sunsets and songs that make my chest swell and the heady scent of honeysuckle on a hot summer day.
But the story in my head is indelible. I know it could have been me, should have been me, bleeding out on a stained and dirty carpet that early March morning seven years ago. And this unshakable truth has guided my behavior in what Dr. Wilde and Joey would both call unfortunate ways if they knew.
After Cassie’s murder—still unsolved after all this time—I left school. Fled home. But I didn’t withdraw or take a leave of absence. I just ran. And when the mumbling administrator tracked me down to tell me I needed to request a leave, which she assured me would be granted, or risk failing the semester and losing my scholarship, I didn’t ask for the leave.
Instead, I dragged myself back to Ohio and gutted my way through the last six weeks of class while working extra hours for the catering company to cover my new, higher rent in an apartment without bloodstains on the floor. When faced with a chance to give myself grace or grit my teeth, I always choose grit. I owe Cassie that much. I get to live, but I don’t get to forget. And I don’t indulge myself.
The one exception to this admittedly monastic rule against indulgence shifts in the bed beside me. “Em?”
“Mmm?” I murmur, trying to sound as if I’m half-asleep, too.
“What time is it?”
Tristan asks the question but doesn’t care about the answer. This is clear when he rolls toward me and runs his warm hands along the length of my body before nuzzling my neck.
I take one of the long breaths Dr. Wilde is so fond of and relax into Tristan’s touch. Tristan doesn’t know. About Cassie, I mean. Or the grief hour. Or even Dr. Wilde. It’s not like I set out to keep these parts of my life a secret from my husband. Or, if I’m being honest, maybe I did. I have to live with the story; that doesn’t mean I have to tell it.
I melt into the dark, uninhibited and free, and give myself over fully to the experience of making love. Or try to. But Cassie’s damaged and gouged face, the copper smell of blood, and the wind and rain whipping in through the smashed window—the killer’s means of access—are as visceral and real as Tristan’s low-pitched moans, the weight of his hips grinding into mine, and the taste of his salty skin. I shove the memories away and push on his chest, signaling for him to flip over. I ride him with a frenzied, urgent rhythm. I’m desperate to chase the shadows from our bed.
Afterward, I collapse onto the bed beside him. I push my hair, damp with sweat, out of my eyes and place one hand on my bare chest to feel the thrum of my heart under my skin. Tristan reaches for my free hand and laces his fingers through mine. We lay, spent and in silent communion, for a few moments. When I feel his weight shift toward me, I push myself up onto my elbows and drop a light kiss on his lips.
“Don’t even try it.”
“Try what?” His full mouth curves into a lazy grin.
“Try to seduce me into curling up and going back to sleep for a few hours. I know your tricks. And I have a deadline, remember?”
He chuckles. “I thought I just finished the seduction part. I must be losing my touch.”
