Chapter 36

Thirty-Six

She won’t come, I’m quite sure.

In nervous excitement, I walk across the parking lot of the Lodgepole Visitor Center with Grey on a leash. Back and forth, back and forth. Like a million times. The sound of my footsteps on the asphalt seems to me like the ticking of a clock running down fast. But despite my doubts, I can’t take my eyes off the only access road.

A number of vacationers have arrived during the day, families with large RVs, vacationers with backpacks and tents, lonely hikers. Just no Lou.

The air is now laced with the chill of the approaching evening and the sky is covered with a layer of gray, ragged clouds. Only in the west, does a narrow rust-red stripe stretch across the tall trees.

I anxiously glance at the clock. Shortly after five. The days are gradually growing shorter.

The dull feeling inside me steadily intensifies and becomes an iron-hard chunk. Lou would have to be completely insane to show up. That would be sick. By now she must have realized that she never really loved me. She might even have a boyfriend in Ash Springs. A red veil descends over my mind at the thought of another touching her. I gag.

No! No! No! She has no boyfriend. Lou loves me.

What if she doesn’t?my heart counters.

Always the same questions, for weeks.

I throw away the cigarette butt, stop, and grip the leash tighter.

If she doesn’t, then what will I do? Should I go back to Faro and finish my therapy as Dr. Lee suggested?

We still haven’t fully grasped the extent of your condition. Maybe there’s another split part, I hear her say. There is a lot of anger in you. Anger that you were not allowed to work out at the time.

I vented during fights.

Your adult self vented. The boy was not allowed to express his anger. He had toput up with everything. Where is his anger, his rage? Can you feel it? Hating his stepfather must be killing him.

For a moment, I think about the red mist, the voice: Move aside! I have heard these words many times during a seizure. Was that the little boy or was that my suppressed anger?

Are you now able to pronounce your stepfather’s name?

Everett Harlow Nolan, I said, my voice firm but guarded.

Good. Do you sometimes feel the need to seek revenge on Everett Nolan?

I don’t know. But, yes…yes. But that’s not sick.

Of course not. That’s normal.

Listen, I have the seizures under control. I haven’t broken anything during an attack in a long time. I even dared to order new furniture.

And yet, after the seizures, fragments of your memory are still missing. This could be an indication of another split side. You’re not healthy, Brendan.

I may never be, Dr. Lee. You even said so yourself. But if there’s a chance for me to live with Lou, I have to take it!

To put it mildly, I don’t think that’s a good idea. A normal life, yes—but not with this girl.

With this girl…

Yes, with Lou, the girl you kidnapped. She triggers you. Do you truly believe you can start a normal life with her after everything that happened? What will Lou’s brothers say about your union? Aren’t you afraid that if Ethan finds out what really happened back then, he will press charges?? From what you’ve told me, I can’t imagine he would welcome you—should Louisa actually show up at the meeting place.

I tilt my head back and look up at the pewter sky. More and more clouds swell over the tops of the dark redwoods.

Will you come, Lou?

A whisper runs through the canopy of the trees almost like an answer—but the murmur could mean either yes or no. If she wanted to come, she’d certainly be here by now, I answer myself. Sadness burns in my chest. Yes, she would already be here, I should stop fooling myself.

With heavy steps, I walk around the visitor center to the back entrance. Grey slinks beside me like a beaten dog. I snapped at him a couple of times today for no reason, and even after I scratched his ears, he still feels the chaos inside me.

I tie him to a stainless steel railing at the back entrance and stupidly think about Lou’s imaginary pink rhino she told me about. She always tied it to the porch. I think it was Liam who invented that game for her.

I shake my head in disbelief at myself. Lou is everywhere, in my every thought, in every crevice of my brain. Now I can’t even tie up a wolf without her coming to mind.

With an inward sigh, I enter the visitor center, go to the restroom, and fill an old plastic bowl with water so Grey can have something to drink. Since long-term parking is a no-go here, I parked the motorhome outside the center yesterday and left it there this morning. Since then, I haven’t dared go back to the RV, fearing I’d miss Lou. So Grey and I had to fast because I foolishly left my money in the motorhome, or otherwise, I would have treated Grey to an XL can of dog food from the visitor center.

I take the bowl outside and Grey eagerly drinks while I walk back into the visitor center and survey the parking lot from there. It now seems dead. There are only three vans and a small car in the large parking area. A crow hops over the curb and picks up some crumbs next to a garbage can. Wind sweeps across the trash, grabs a bag of French fries, and spins it past the window. Sam’s Best French Fries.

Anxiously, I watch the area.

Still no Lou.

In the distance, I spot the sequoia I hid behind a year ago as I surveyed the parking lot. Like a hunter. Like a madman. A year ago, Lou was in my RV, drugged and tied with a zip tie. A year ago, I forcefully fed her water and put her in the box.

She won’t come. Suddenly, the suspicion turns to certainty. India Lee is right. How could we be happy together after what I did to her? Such things cannot simply be forgotten or fixed with explanations. Deep inside Lou, there will be a wound where all the fear and pain I have caused her accumulates. When the time comes, the injury will bleed and spill out like poison. Maybe that has already happened and she only feels contempt for me.

The gray area blurs before my eyes. Did I honestly expect she’d come? Granted, it was her suggestion—but she was confused and weak at the time. I shouldn’t have taken her words seriously. But then that’s exactly what I wanted, especially when I started to feel better thanks to the therapy.

Standing at the window of the visitor center, I clench my fists and press my lips together. I don’t want to cry now.

Furtively, I wipe my eyes with my sleeve.

Even if you don’t come… I love you, Lou! I love you, Lou, and nothing else. And I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done. For everything, everything, everything…except for my love for you.

I breathe through my mouth. Breathe like Dr. Lee showed me. Maybe I should just go and save myself the agony of the pointless wait. But something in me resists.

Eventually, I return to the back exit to go to the parking lot with Grey.

Even before I step outside, my gaze falls on the empty space on the railing. I rip open the door and a blast of cool air whooshes over me.

“Damn! What the fuck!” I bang on the steel post in rage. A woman who has just emerged from the shower room wrapped only in a towel looks at me wide-eyed and hurries around the corner.

“Grey?” I yell, and at the same time, start running in the direction of the forest that begins behind the visitor center. “You come back immediately! You hear me?”

It’s just not possible! I stop in front of the first row of trees and look around. It’s impossible to get a full view of the parking lot from where I’m standing, but I can guess where he’s gone.

“Yeah, okay, I didn’t give you any food,” I call out angrily, stepping over some bushes. Light falls in individual stripes on the shady forest floor. “But that’s no reason to run away and go hunting!”

It’s my fault. I was preoccupied and probably tied him up half-heartedly. I walk about half a mile between the sequoias before stopping again. “Grey, dammit! Come here or I’ll make wolf roast out of you when I catch you!”

A reproachful yelp answers me and I turn to see Grey standing beside a hawthorn, tail tucked, ears drooping. He looks at me guiltily from honey-colored eyes.

“There you are…” I snap, half angry, half mollified. “What if Lou shows up right now, huh?”

Grey pricks up his ears as he always does when Lou’s name is mentioned.

“But she’s not coming,” I admit to myself resignedly. “She’s not coming because I’ve been a complete lunatic. A brute. A…oh, hell…” Angry at myself, I dig my nails into my palm. If only I had never kidnapped her. I wish I had taken her to the RV for a beer. If only I had written to her on Facebook. I wish I had…

It’s too late, any chance I had is gone.

I stroke Grey’s short summer coat, but he ignores me. For some unknown reason, he suddenly seems restless. Before I can get hold of the leash, he jumps away toward the visitor center.

“Hey!” I protest, diving after him. Like a baseball player going for the base, I dive directly to the front of the edge of the forest and catch the leash with three fingers. Grey whines.

“Shut up!” I hiss through my teeth. I know I’m only mad because Lou hasn’t shown up. In essence, I’m not angry, just disappointed, sad. It’s not Grey’s fault that my world has shattered into a thousand pieces.

Wiping my eyes again, I trip over the concrete lip of the walkway that connects the shower rooms and the visitor center. Grey tugs at his leash like crazy, whining and barking, almost getting tangled up. At the closed glass door of the visitor center, he stands on his hind legs.

“What the…” I peer through the glass and fall silent.

A girl is standing in the camping gear alcove with her back toward me. My heart starts to beat wildly. That shiny, flaxen hair that reaches down to her narrow shoulders, that white blouse with the wide sleeves, that shy yet determined demeanor. The silent vulnerability she has exuded since I…well, since I met her here a year ago.

I rub my eyes and look up again, expecting her to be gone, but she’s still there. Like drops, realization seeps into me.

Lou is here!

For several heartbeats, I can’t breathe even though my chest grows larger than the sky.

Lou is here!

She came. I can’t believe it.

Tears well up in my eyes, and without really knowing what I’m doing, I yank open the door to the visitor center. Grey starts running like crazy, impossible to stop. A man in an army-green cap jumps to the side just in time to avoid him. Someone screams.

I stand there stunned, watching Lou walk toward the exit.

“Hey, mister, you can’t come in here with your wolf…”

I have no idea who said that. I have no idea what’s going on. My head is full of wonderful, confused thoughts when I realize Lou still hasn’t seen me.

“Lou! Lou…wait!”

She flinches at the sound of my voice.

“Call the wolf back…” The man at the cash register comes running around his counter.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry!” I yell at him, rushing after Grey.

At that moment, she turns around and Grey jumps up on her. Don’t! I want to scream, but he knocks her down, whines and barks like a dog that has found his master again decades later. Lou clutches his neck like a drowning woman. She laughs, giggles, and sobs at the same time. Crazy.

Eventually, she gently pushes Grey aside and sits up.

She looks at me without saying a word. Her eyes shimmer with tears. And yet there is also this magic, the mysterious dark blue sparkle that drove me insane that night by the lake. My heart clenches with longing, even with Lou so close.

“You came,” I say softly as if loud words might wake me from my dream. She takes my outstretched hand and I pull her up to me. A big lump sits in my throat. Only now that she is standing in front of me do I realize how much I’ve missed her. Much more than my consciousness allowed me to believe. Infinitely more.

She gently squeezes my fingers. “What? Did you doubt it?” She tilts her head and looks at me challengingly, somewhat defiant, like the old, adventurous Lou.

It fills me with a strange wistfulness, but also makes me smile. “All day long.”

Suddenly, her lips begin to tremble. “I thought you hadn’t come,” she blurts out and tugs at my arm frantically as if she needs to get her feelings out. “We broke down and a truck had overturned and there were these stupid oranges all over the road…” A dry sob breaks out of her.

Wait a minute…she thought I wouldn’t show up? Me? I involuntarily laugh even though I feel like crying like I haven’t in a long time. This girl is truly crazy. Maybe that’s why she loves me.

“I arrived yesterday. I’ve been waiting here since this morning,” I tell her, reaching for Grey’s collar because the cashier shouted at me again. “I had Grey tied up outside, but earlier he broke loose and I had to catch him.”

Lou looks at me with incredulous eyes and it’s only now that I realize she was deadly serious. She honestly thought I was going to let her down. She believed I wouldn’t come. Doesn’t she know how much I still love her and that nothing on earth could stop me from being with her?

I reach out to touch her cheek as she wraps her arms around my waist like it was the most natural gesture.

“I never want to be apart from you again, Bren. Never again.”

With an indefinable sound, I press her to me and bury my face in her blonde strands. “You don’t have to anymore, Lou, I promise.” I breathe in the scent of her hair. It no longer smells of fire, wood, and smoke, but also not of lemon. More like honey lavender. Or simply of Lou. My heart begins to pound, a sweet rush of adrenaline and happiness floods my senses. Carefully, I take Lou’s head in my hands and stroke her cheek with my thumb.

We stare at each other. A silence connects us for a few seconds, during which questions remain silent. She is like magic. It’s only Lou and me and nothing else. And when we kiss it seems to me that we never left the lake, the sand, and the willow. It’s like back then. Lou’s taste, her soft lips, her warm, cautiously probing tongue. My blood fills with heat and in my chest I feel this deep, rough drumming like the heartbeat of the earth. Hot and cold shivers run down my back. A sweet, wild desire that seems as natural to me as the eternal Yukon winter nights.

I don’t know how long we cling to each other after our kiss. Also the words of the man behind the counter, threatening to call the rangers if we don’t get out of the store with Grey right away, don’t come through to me.

Lou has to tell me several times to bring me back to reality. She also tells me that Jayden is waiting in the parking lot.

“He drove you here?” I ask, aghast, as we walk hand in hand to the exit. I can’t believe it. I actually thought Lou had come by bus.

“He said he won’t let me go unless he has your cell phone number and the exact coordinates of the land you lease.”

So, she must have told him the truth about me. “He’ll get them, sure.” I nod to her. If I were Jayden, I probably would have gotten into a fight that sent me to the hospital. Of course, I don’t mention that. I recall Dr. Lee’s words.

What will Lou’s brothers say about your union? Aren’t you afraid Ethan will press charges if he finds out what truly happened back then?

Did she tell Ethan everything? Certainly not because then he would have come along for sure to strangle me with his own hands.

Jayden is standing in the parking lot with his hips against an old Ford, eyeing me darkly. I look back deliberately open since I don’t want to provoke a fight under any circumstances.

Without a hello, he coolly asks for the property details as if I wasn’t his sister’s kidnapper but some real estate agent whose premises he wants to inspect. The situation is bizarre. He writes everything down on a piece of paper including my cell phone number.

“You won’t be able to reach us often,” I say as he slips the small pad into his pocket. “There’s rarely signal in the Yukon.”

“Well, make sure it works once in a while,” he replies dangerously calm.

He hugs Lou goodbye. Long, very long.

When does he think he will see her again? What did Lou tell him? Back in September, she said we should spend the summer together, but after that summer, she’ll be eighteen and free to do whatever with her life. I think we both mean not just the next few months, but a lifetime. Maybe we can go to Faro, too, so I can continue my therapy. So Lou can get what she most desires. A normal life. It might work.

When Jayden breaks the hug, he stares at me with his chin jutting out. “If you hurt her again, I’ll kill you,” he says again with that stoic calm that harbors more danger than if he was yelling at me.

I nod and he gets in the car. I understand him only too well. Girls like Lou need protection.

With a smile, I take Lou’s hand and call Grey, who is sniffing the Ford’s rear tire. He immediately trots over to my side.

“He stayed with you,” Lou says astonished, looking Grey up and down. I realize how long it has been since she last saw him. The last time he was a puppy.

I pat Grey on the back good-naturedly. In the spring, at first I also thought the day would come when he’d simply disappear into the forest and never come back. For a moment, I remember our showdown under the wide-open sky, in the endless forest, and on the banks of the stormy Pelly River. What would I have done without him during all that time of waiting? I look gratefully from Grey to Lou. “We had a few rough fights before he figured out who was in charge,” I tell her.

Lou nods and scans the parking lot. The Ford just rolls onto the road. How is she feeling now?

“The RV is parked a bit off.” I point vaguely to the south. “I wasn’t allowed to park here all day.”

Lou smiles silently and together we walk hand in hand across the wide stretch of land. It is dusk and only the setting sun casts a few pale red rays on the ground, a shimmering golden interplay of light and shadow.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I’ve had the wrong idea in my head this past year. Lou forgave me. She still loves me. She loves me not because of the kidnapping, but in spite of it.

It is possible that many things in life can be put right again, even if at first it seems as if there is no hope.

Bad people can become better people.

Crying to laughter.

Shadow to light.

Gray to silver.

I look at Lou again. Just like a year ago, I could look at her all the time now. The wind grabs her blonde hair with its stormy fingers, twirls it, and inflates her blouse like a balloon. Laughing, she pushes the fabric back against her flat stomach.

I remember the teddy bear mobile, of the happy family on Thorson Ave.

Sometimes, a place of horror becomes a home again. And a boy who knows only darkness becomes someone who loves.