Page 49

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The question is simple enough.

The answer isn't.

Because I was tired. Because I was twenty one and drowning in other people’s emergencies. Because Maggie screamed that I thought I was better than everyone, and Ben looked at me like he wanted me to deny it, and I didn’t. Because leaving felt like the only way to find out whether I existed outside the role I’d built.

Because staying would've turned me mean.

“I needed my own life,” I say.

“That’s not a crime.”

“No.” I step over a root, careful not to slip. “But it can still leave evidence.”

Ashby nods once.

We reach a bend in the river where the trees open out enough to show the suspension bridge downstream. It hangs over the water in a thin gray line, damp cables disappearing into fog.

I used to be terrified of that bridge.

Maggie loved it. Ben would jump in the middle just to make both of us scream. I stop at the overlook. The railing is slick with rain beneath my fingers.

“When Ben died,” I say, “I came back for the funeral. Stayed three days. Maybe four. I don’t remember. Everything was… blurred. Maggie cried like she was being torn apart. I organized food deliveries and did the necessary paperwork.”

“Both were needed.”

“I left right after,” I say. “Maggie never forgave me for that.”

“Did you forgive yourself?”

I huff out a humorless laugh. “You really do ask terrible questions.”

“I ask useful ones.”

I shake my head. “They’re not the same.”

“They often overlap.”

I grip the railing hard and look down at the water.

Below us, the river pushes over rocks, white water breaking around dark stone.

“I don’t know,” I say finally. “Some days I think leaving was the only reason I survived. Other days I think it proves I’m exactly what Maggie said I was.”

“What did she say you were?”

“Superior. Cold.”

Ashby is quiet for a long moment. Then he says, “Cold people don’t fly back in the middle of their lives to care for a child who barely knows them.”

I turn toward him too quickly. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“Yes, you did.”

Anger flares. “No, I didn’t. Maggie is missing. Apparently, Tom is useless. Sophie and Mick are overwhelmed. Lucy needed someone.”