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Yes.Of course he had.
He sat in the Jeep until the sun rose over the mountains to the east, not knowing whether Meg would sneak back home before full daybreak or risk staying at Danny’s all day. It didn’t matter, because he didn’t plan to confront her. He wouldn’t do that to her. But he did need to be sure.
He drove around the corner from Danny’s house and waited, watching for her while hidden from view and detesting himself for it.Was it really necessary to go to such lengths to garner proof of how thoroughly his life had fallen apart?
Again, yes.
When he finally saw Meg heading back home sometime just past six, she walked with focus, her eyes trained on the dark asphalt. Her hair fell forward across her face, and she marched with shoulders squared. She wore Danny’s navy-and-red fire-station sweatshirt, and it didn’t fit, of course. It hung down well past her hips to brush the backs of her pajama-clad thighs, and she wrapped her arms around her torso, drawing the material tightly to her throat. Watching her clench the material to her body, Silas had to concede: if she needed to try this hard to make her relationship with Danny fit, there was nothing Silas could do. She walked steadily on, the sweatshirt billowing behind her like a cloak in subtle resistance to the early-morning breeze, and if this warmed her, if this layer was the protection Meg needed, Silas would never deny her it.
The rest of that morning he packed haphazardly, throwing books and clothing into the boxes already awaiting departure to college. He overstuffed each cardboard box, not caring what went where, despite Aunt Mary’s attempts at interjecting organization. Silas only wanted to rid his room of everything. One by one, he hauled the boxes out to the Jeep in the driveway, then climbed the narrow staircase one last time to survey his room swept clean. The bed sat bare and boxy in the center of the floor, the spread peeled away and packed. The star maps were gone from the walls, the topography scrolls no longer cluttering the oak desk by the window. Standing in the doorway, he stared down the empty walls and wished himself already gone. All the lies and even the truths he had told over the past week crowded his brain, churning in a violent way that made him want to punch the wood paneling and cry at the same time.
Convincing his parents by phone to allow him to drive himself to college—right now, today—wasn’t easy, but it was the only thing left for him to do. He couldn’t stay here and receive Uncle Les’s and Aunt Mary’s condolences and support. He couldn’t even deal with reinsertinghimself into his parents’ whirlwind life, distracting as that would be. And he definitely couldn’t remain in Feather River. Maybe if he fled—no, maybe if he took himself out of the equation completely—in his absence, everything for Meg would make sense to her again.
He hadn’t even hit the highway before he wanted to pull over, find a phone, and call her. The only thing stopping him was what to say:Sorry to take off on you? What did you want from me? Why didn’t you give us a chance?
Maybe she’d say she’d given him the only chances she could while they sat in the lodge, looking anywhere but at each other throughout the vigil of Jessica’s search. But he hadn’t been able to move from his chair then, much less cross the room to sit beside her, for fear of upsetting the delicate balance that was their version of the truth.
He felt afraid now, too. In lieu of calling her, he settled for imagining their final conversation as he rounded each bend along the Feather River. She’d ask him where he was, and then why. He’d tell her he knew about her choosing Danny.
“Do you hate me?” she’d ask, and he’d say no. It was true, but what good did truth do him? She’d heard Silas tell so many lies. He’d want to say something about martyrdom and false bravado and giving up before good things could begin. He wouldn’t know whether he meant her or him.
She’d say, “You’re leaving me with all this?”
And he’d say, “No. I’m taking it with me.”
He grimaced at the grind of the Jeep’s gears as he took the hairpins along the river. If she were here right now, she’d tell him to slow down. He eased up on the pedal but still took the corners too tightly, barely in control, outracing the storm.
32
SILAS
One day post–Matheson search
November 22, 2018
Reno, Nevada
Under the bright light of the ICU unit, Silas learns that Cameron’s rebirth is due to a physiological phenomenon known as a metabolic icebox. He leans against the pale-green hospital wall with Miranda, and they listen as their son’s doctor tells them about unresponsive hypothermia victims essentially stopping time in their own bodies, reducing their need for energy to nearly nothing. Silas imagines Cameron in the tunnel of the mine, his small body hibernating, waiting to be awoken.
Cameron sustains no neurological damage.When Silas hears the wordsfull neurological recovery, the promise of them, uncoiling from the fear at the pit of his stomach, lifts him like a balloon on a string. It enables him to finally have the conversation he owes Miranda.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her simply, standing outside Spencer’s room, where she’s been keeping their older son company. The two words carry the heft of bricks as he finally lays them down. He’s still ashamed for tasking Santos with delivering the initial news that should have comefrom him. “I’m so sorry for letting this happen on my watch,” he continues. “For thinking I could do this, give them this life here.” What he doesn’t add, because he’s never fully opened up to her regarding Marble Lake and can’t possibly start from the beginning now:I felt like I cursed our children, bringing them back here.
Her eyes have been down on the linoleum squares at their feet, but now she lifts her head. “Youcando this,” she says. “Youaregiving them this life.” She cocks her head slightly to peer at him steadily, a sad smile touching her lips. “But one day you’re going to realize, Silas, that not everything is up to you and you alone.” She lifts one eyebrow. “You don’t get to take responsibility foreverything.”
He tries to smile back. “The boys get some credit, too?”
“Don’t push it. Youarethe one who convinced them they could scale mountains.”
She lays a hand on his shoulder, giving it a soft pat that feels like forgiveness and farewell all in one touch. The boys’ discharge imminent, she says her goodbyes to them as well, promising to see them again soon, and the trust conveyed in her departure makes Silas feel pounds lighter as he returns to Cameron’s side. He listens as every shrillbeepof the monitor punctuates another step along a path to revival, feeling his confidence return by slow degrees with each flash on the screen. In the end, Cameron loses only one pinky finger to the effects of frostbite. Lying beside him on the extra bed that’s been wheeled into the room, in between visits from various members of the sheriff’s department and the media—Walters needs his statement to close out the Howard case; News 4 wants a sound bite about Cameron—Silas stares at his younger son’s bandaged hand. This penance is small, but Miranda’s forgiveness notwithstanding, it strikes him squarely in the chest, dagger-sharp. He won’t get used to this: the thankfulness and the fear, the agony mixed with the relief. He takes comfort in Spencer sitting beside him, released back into his care just today, the warmth of his body sinking into Silas’s shirt where he curls in to his side.
“When do we get to go home?” Spencer mumbles, twisting deeper into the blanket the hospital has brought him. His breath, too, is warm against Silas’s ribcage.
A new, second agony arises in him. Does Spencer mean home to Portland? Did he ask Miranda about this, even though Silas knows she explained that she can’t whisk him away? Because whywouldn’tSpencer want to get as far away from this place as possible, after what happened? It was, after all, exactly what Silas had done. But even as he thinks this, he knows that this time he wants to stand his ground. Wants a second chance, with his kids.
This desire feels horribly selfish until Spencer adds, “’Cause I want to put those star posters in my and Cam’s room. You know ... the ones you said you had hung up when the upstairs was yours?”
Silas exhales. “Yeah. Okay. We’ll do that as soon as we can.”
