Page 109 of Snow Creek

“Are you in touch?”

I look down at my water glass, appropriately half empty.

“Hayden is in Afghanistan. We email sometimes, and I’ll see him when he returns to the states. Our relationship has always been a little strained, but we’re working on it.”

I wonder if she still can tell when I’m lying. I’m working on the relationship with my brother. However, it’s a solo effort. Hayden doesn’t want a thing to do with me.

“I’m glad to hear that,” she replies.

She can’t tell anymore. That’s good, I think.

“Are there any other tapes?” I ask.

She looks at me quizzically. “No. Just the ones I gave you. Why?”

I’m not accusing her, but I need to know.

“No copies?”

She pulls back. “Of course not. I told you when I gave them to you that they were the original recordings and that no copies or transcriptions were ever made. For obvious reasons, Rylee.”

Obvious reasons, indeed.

I let out a sigh of relief.

“I’m going to destroy them when I finish listening to them. I just needed to make sure that, you know, nothing ever got out.”

She suddenly looks defensive.

“I would never do that,” she says. “You know that. Don’t you?”

My face feels warm.

“Sometimes I don’t know anything. Sometimes I’m going along, and I feel like a regular person. And then bam, I see something that reminds me of what I did. My parents. All of that. I want to shed my past and live without it bombarding me every now and then. You know what I mean, Dr. Albright?”

“I do,” she replies, getting up and moving closer to me. Her white hair is framed like a halo in the light. Her blue eyes seem even more watery.

I hurt her.

“You need to know that even if it weren’t the law,” she adds with an air of indignation, “I would never disclose anything about you. Not to anyone. That isn’t how I operate. No good psychologist does. However, that’s almost beside the point, Rylee. I have always wanted one thing for you… to live life free from all that bullshit from the past.”

I think that’s the first time Dr. Albright ever used a swear word in front of me.

She puts her hand on my shoulder and invites me to stay for dinner.

“Nothing fancy,” she goes on. “For someone with eastern European ancestry, I make a pretty decent lasagna. It’s in the oven.”

I smile. “I thought I smelled something wonderful.”

A half hour later, I sit across the table and look at this kind and generous woman and wonder how it was that she was able to rescue me.

And how it was that I could doubt her.

She tells me about her life, her pet iguana, her recent trip to Hungary and the Czech Republic. There is very little shop talk between bites of pasta and sips of cabernet. I tell her that I have the occasional bad dream and some generalities about the Wheaton case.

“You’re doing what you’re supposed to do, Rylee.”

“I think so,” I say.

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