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She huffed and walked out the door.
It slammed shut, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Little wildcat.I’m going to enjoy this hunt.
22
Benjamin
“Mr. Moore? Dr. Hamming will see you now.”
The interior of the clinic was warm. Inviting, even. Not like the last shrink’s office. I’d wanted to run out in two seconds because my surroundings then had screamed, “You have an hour. Spill what you can and get out.”
Dr. Hamming must have been reading some artsy novels on how to make office spaces prettier. Dulcet light filtered in through frosted glass windows. The walls were adorned with pastel artwork, and a scent of lavender lingered in the air.
I was sitting on a little couch when the receptionist came forward carrying a bunch of papers, a plastic smile on her face.
Good to see the false sincerity was still intact. Some things never changed.
I followed her past carpeted floors and potted plants, strategically placed to make the waiting area look like a calm space instead of a tropical forest full of mosquitoes.
She paused near a glass door. I could see Jonah Hamming inside, a benign smile on his face. It made me a little uncomfortable.
How could he sit there all day, knowing that everyone coming in from the outside was looking at him? Like—he couldn’t even go to sleep on that desk without a passerby seeing him and snickering.Looks like the boss’s come to work drunk.
I was ushered inside. This room always made me feel like it could have belonged more in a library instead of a doctor’s office. The sheer number of bookshelves weighed upon my vision, each full to the hilt with volume after volume on the human psyche.
On the walls hung certificates and diplomas, all testifying to his expertise and dedication to his craft. Why couldn’t all these awards and titles help when it came to my sister, though?
Maybe I was turning the last page before I’d gone through the first. But I’d been through so many first pages when it came to Emma. Every time I walked into a new therapist’s office, my mind felt heavier and heavier.
No one had been able to help my sister recover from her life at East Harbor. I kicked myself mentally, wishing, like a thousand other times before, that I would have seen past the phone calls.
It was hard knowing what Emma was going through. That entire year, I’d been on an expedition and then working in Vietnam. I was living the life.
When I did find out, she was neck-deep in a controversy that should never have involved her.
She was too young to understand how to make a culpable man pay for what he had done.
And then, the worst happened. The one woman who could have helped her lost her life. I thought it was an ugly twist of fate at the time. As it turned out, there were more twists to that story than to an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
Five YearsAgo
Rain. Rain had followed me all the way from Vietnam to Ulster County, about ninety minutes away from NYC.
Just yesterday morning, I sat on a sunny beach, my feet slipping through sand, and thought life was looking good.
Today, I was on a flight, my heart in my mouth, hoping against hope that my sister wouldn’t give up before I got to her.
She was at the property Mom had left behind for us in her will. The sole thing we had to our names, besides each other.
I’d vowed never to return to the States. In fact, after she’d graduated, I’d told her I’d help her get a job as an English tutor in Vietnam. It would be easy for someone so talented.
Emma was... gifted. She’d taken after our mother, both in the softness of her ways and the razor-sharp edge to her brain. I knew she would do amazingly well.
This home had seen enough ghosts before us. It was more luxurious and splendid than anything I’d ever achieve. But for all its nine hundred feet of waterfront, the master bedrooms and garages, and the Tudor architecture, it wascold.No amount of walnut paneling or Chantilly lace could change that.
Nothing would fix the loneliness we had known here, even with so much beauty right ahead of us. You could live in a mansion, and you’d still remember the people you shared that space with most of all.
