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“Agree,” Alice said. “To be honest? I don’t think either him or Nicola are really processing what happened to their little girl.”
Josie felt sadness nipping at her insides. “It will take a lot more than a retreat to get them to that point.”
“If it was me? I would have offed myself. I don’t think I could live with something like that.”
Josie turned her head and looked at Alice. In the dim light of the room, the flecks of green in her hazel eyes sparkled as she blinked back tears. Her eyes always reminded Josie of Noah’s and the way they subtly shifted color depending on his mood.
“I’m sorry,” Alice said. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was awful. We shouldn’t be making fun either, I suppose. I just thought I would lighten the mood. You seem so sad tonight.”
Josie leaned her head against Alice’s shoulder. “Thanks.”
The sound of dishes clattering and ceramics breaking startled her upright. Across the table, Nicola stood, fists clenched at her sides. Her chair had fallen over. What was left of her dinner now lay in Brian’s lap. Her plate and water glass were shattered on the wooden floor.
“You son of a bitch,” she snarled, eyes aglow with rage. Brian stared at her, a strange expression on his face. It almost looked like boredom. All week, he had not been as vocal as his wife or as engaged in any of the sessions. He barely spoke and when he did, he talked about the fire that had burned down his first foster home and left him with a lifetime of nightmares. Sandrine had spent the entire week urging him to stop avoiding the topic of his daughter’s death by focusing on an earlier trauma. He often looked uncomfortable and usually stared at Nicola with sympathy writ large across his face but now, he looked indifferent to her display of emotion.
Sandrine was out of her seat, moving toward Nicola, but before she could reach her, Nicola stepped back, away from the table.
Brian said, “Nicola, please just sit down.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, you bastard,” she shot back. “You don’t care about me or my feelings. You never have!”
Taryn stood up. “Nicola,” she said sweetly, “I’m sure that’s not true. Why don’t you come back to the table, and we’ll talk it out.”
Anger twisted Nicola’s delicate features. “Oh shut up, bitch. No one wants to”—here she lifted her thin arms to use air quotes—“‘talk it out’ with you.”
Alice gasped.
Taryn opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Her lower lip trembled. Meg put her fork down and rested both palms on the table, as if ready to spring from her seat. For once, her big brown eyes narrowed and locked on Taryn. Every muscle in her body seemed tensed, as if bracing for something.
Sandrine put her body between Nicola and Taryn, shaking her head, her tone gentle but firm. It always amazed Josie how Sandrine kept her poise around all of them, especially when one of them was having a meltdown. “Nicola, I understand you’re upset right now, but Taryn’s right. Whatever is bothering you, why don’t we talk about it? I could take you and Brian into a private session if you—”
“Oh, you shut up, too!” Nicola snapped.
Taryn said, “Hey!”
Softly, Alice said, “Nicola.”
Her voice—gentle and almost motherly—seemed to get through to her. The angry lines of her face loosened as she looked over Sandrine’s shoulder and met Alice’s eyes. “I know you’re frustrated right now, but we promised we would have compassion for one another this week and be respectful, remember?”
“Yes,” Sandrine agreed. “Those were the rules. I can see that you’re angry right now. I understand what that’s like—better than anyone…”
At this, Nicola’s features twisted again. She opened her mouth to speak once more but changed her mind abruptly when Alice gave her another maternal look.
Taryn wiped tears from her cheeks. “We’re all angry here, Nicola, but barking at each other is not a good way to go about expressing or processing that anger.”
Nicola groaned. She rolled her eyes and spun on her heel, striding toward the front door. As she passed through it, a gust of icy wind burst into the room, bringing with it a snow squall. After it slammed shut, the eyes of everyone in the room turned to Brian. He hung his head and heaved himself out of his chair. The remains of his dinner tumbled to the floor. As he bent to clean them up, Meg stood to help. Brian made a half-hearted attempt to get all the food up from the floor but seeing how efficiently Meg worked, he left her to it, drawing to his full height. He looked at the rest of them, then at the door. “I’ll go talk to Nic,” he said in a tone that implied that someone was making him do it.
“No,” Sandrine said sharply. “You stay. Help with dinner clean-up. I’d like to speak to her.”
Once Sandrine was gone, Josie and Alice helped Meg finish cleaning up while Taryn started clearing plates. Brian stood awkwardly, watching, until Taryn snapped at him to do something. Instead of helping, he left. After that, no one talked. The only sounds were the dishes clinking and Taryn’s sniffles.
In the kitchen, Josie started washing the dishes. Moments later, Alice joined her, carefully drying each dish once Josie finished with it. She glanced at the door to the kitchen and, satisfied that neither Taryn nor Meg would hear her, whispered in Josie’s ear, “Now, which one of our retreat mates do you think would get mauled by the bear first?”
NINE
By threea.m. Friday, Noah felt like he’d downed two pots of coffee. He hadn’t been able to sleep after his Thursday evening shift. Now he sat in bed checking and rechecking the radar on his weather app. Although Denton wouldn’t be badly impacted by snow, a major storm was bearing down on Sullivan County at an alarming rate. Before he’d left the stationhouse, Gretchen had texted Josie back to tell her a blizzard was on the way, but had gotten no response. Nor had Josie come home early, which meant that she was going to get stuck on that mountainside—possibly for days—with no electronics and limited supplies, surrounded by people she barely knew.
No matter where things stood between them, he wasn’t letting that happen to his wife.
