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My vision blurs, and the room is off kilter. Suddenly, I just want to go home and go to bed. I nod, but I don’t know what I am supposed to see. I only know she is offering me something that seems of great value and that I want to accept it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SADIE
I’m asleep. I’m awake. I’m sleeping while awake. I’m sleepwalking through life. I’d hardly made it through the front door. All I could think about was sleeping it off. I wanted to lie down in the middle of my floor, anything to make the spinning and the headache go away. I managed to make it to the couch, where closing my eyes brought sweet relief. I hadn’t even bothered kicking off my shoes, apparently.
I slept for an eternity, for so long that when I wake, it feels a bit like I haven’t slept at all. I feel delirious. I feel hung over. I feel stuck, half in this world, and halfway in another. My mouth is dry, my eyes are sticky, and my body aches in places I don’t even recall being possible.
Part of me hadn’t wanted to wake up. I had been dreaming of Ann. I dreamed we were digging. Digging a grave. Digging and digging. By we, what I really mean is, she was doing the watching. I was doing the heavy lifting.
While I was busy working up a sweat, Ann told me all about her life before she and her family moved to Penny Lane. Most of what she said was stuff I already knew. But her voice is lovely, and so long as she was talking, she wasn’t killing me. So long as I was digging, I was still alive.
She told me her family were members of a church. By church I inferred that what she really meant was she was in a cult. Something I find so, so interesting. Not that she referred to New Hope as such. But that hasn’t stopped the press—or the authorities—from doing it.
The details are hazy. It’s a pity I can’t recall the specifics of what she said, but dreams are rather like that, aren’t they? The further I get from sleep, the hazier things become. There were, of course, some answers she wouldn’t—or couldn’t—give. Nor were they found in any of the reading I’ve done. So much reading.
I guess you can’t really ever know everything about a person, can you?
Still, I suspect Ann did some shady things—things she’s not proud of, things she wouldn’t want anyone to know about. Not in her new life. Not with her growing fame. Which is why she didn’t tell me about any of that. She doesn’t trust me yet. I know because she accused me of spying on her. Before all of the digging started. Ann was livid. I promised—I pleaded with her—I wasn’t. It was just…well, I figured since she knew so much about my history, that it was only fair if I learned a little more about hers. I explained that I want to know her. Really know her. I want to know everything. The bad, the good, and everything in between.
My response only half pleased her. She said I could have just as easily asked. She was right about this, obviously. I just figured why bother with awkward conversation—when you learn about a person via a simple internet search and a few phone calls? That’s why spy novels set in present day aren’t very interesting. How hard do you really have to work at it when everything is literally at your fingertips? Not very.
It wasn’t hard to find out that Ann’s husband is a surgeon, or that he works with charities like Medicine Without Borders, which is why he is frequently away. (She told me that much.) It wasn’t hard to find out that she’s a licensed therapist in the State of Texas. (She said that too.) It was all listed in her children’s school records. Records I
had easy access to, thanks to Ann’s resourcefulness. She provided the admin password, after all.
What she didn’t say, in my dream or in real life, was whether or not she is a murderer. Or is it murderess? Do we still live within an era where it’s important to differentiate? Or is murder gender neutral too?
I don’t know. What she did tell me was that since leaving New Hope, since the Feds had disbanded it, since the court had suspended her license, that she had set her sights on something better: becoming a guru of sorts. Ann has big dreams. Real dreams, not like mine. Dreams she’s actually pursuing. She gives people advice on the internet for free, and she said it’s amazing because you don’t even have to have any sort of credentials to do it. But even if you do have them—and worse, they are stripped from you—likely for gross abuse and negligence— she says you don’t have to worry. If you’re good enough at deception, there’s still hope in the land of the internet, where you can say what you want, and it’s hard to be held accountable for anything.
But then, Ann doesn’t know about social scoring the way I do.
I told her all about it as I dug my way to the center of the earth, in an empty field with only the light of the moon to guide us. She said it was the perfect team-building exercise—that if we were going to work together—if we were going to be friends—she had to know she could trust me. She said after the incident in the garage, her trust was buried way down deep, and if I wasn’t careful, I might never see it again.
I threw out some accusations of my own, and it felt good. I told her I was aware that she’s using me—that she needs a success story, and I know she thinks I can be it. Look at me, look at what I’ve done. If I can help someone as wretched as Sadie transform, I can help you too.
That’s when she knelt down in the dirt beside me and cupped my face with her hands. She stared directly into my eyes and told me I was wrong. She told me I was worthy of transformation. She said she was glad I brought my insecurity to her attention. She said this was a breakthrough for us. She said I was a dream. She said that just because two people see things differently doesn’t mean they give up on each other. My feelings are normal. The truth sets you free, she said, but first it pisses you off. She said some things are hard to hear but those are usually the things worth knowing. And then, after she said all of that, she said the best and most important thing. She promised not to give up on me.
Afterward, right before I woke up, she asked if I hated her for making me do all of that digging. I assured her I didn’t. And I don’t. It wasn’t a lie.
I understand the dream. I understand all of that digging served a purpose, and that it was a form of symbolism. She told me I was right—that there are many more qualified and capable women in the community she could have called upon for help. Women more like her. But she didn’t ask any of them. She asked me.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SADIE
It’s on nights like these that I really miss it, Sadie,” Ann tells me wistfully. Paul is away, and she has a lot on her mind. I know this because she texted and asked me to join her for a glass of wine so we could finish discussing the details of our work together. Also, there is something she wanted me to see. Something “unbelievable.”
“Austin?” I ask, thinking I’m glad she brought this up. It’s a good time to gather some intelligence. It’s a good time to see where her head is.
Ann has positioned her Adirondack chairs on her front porch so that they overlook the lane, which is really nice because it gives you a bird’s eye view. It makes me feel otherworldly, one step beyond, sitting here beside her. “That—and just—well…home.”
“I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess for me…this is home.”
“Really? Doesn’t it ever just all feel the same to you?”
I take a moment to consider what she is asking. “Well, the houses are constructed similarly.”
