Page 48 of Cain
The trail I’ve chosen is the Canyon Trail to South Falls—a gentle loop, just under a mile.
The forest wraps around us in every shade of green imaginable, moss climbing the trees like a second skin. Ferns unfurl like secrets, and the air is clean, new. A dense canopy overhead filters sunlight into shafts of gold, spotlighting patches of wildflowers and slick stones. It’s silent, but not empty.
It’s enthralling as only the Oregon wilderness can be.
It doesn’t take long before the trees part, and we’re standing before the tallest single-drop waterfall in Silver Falls State Park.
The view strikes like breath after a long silence.
Water tumbles from a basalt cliff over 170 feet high, crashing into a basin that spits back mist and light. A silvery spray arcs like lace across the rocks. The sound is thunderous but peaceful, like nature is exhaling.
Faith stands beside me, her face tilted toward the falls, letting the view—and whatever’s quietly shifting between us—settle.
We kick off our boots and sit on the blanket I’ve spread across the patch of soft grass. She curls her legs beneath her, arms loosely around her knees, the breeze tugging gently at her hair. I stretch my legs out, lean back against a sun-warmed rock, and face the waterfall.
The roar of the falls fills the silence between us, drowning out the past and making room for the now.
“This is pristine beauty,” she murmurs.
“Yes,” I say, but I’m looking at her.
She notices and blushes. I feel like I won an award.
I’ve packed the world’s simplest picnic: two sandwiches, a thermos of coffee, her favorite kettle chips, two big pieces of Ripley’s double chocolate brownies, which she loves, cold sparkling water, and strawberries.
We eat and talk about books, about Silverton, about the bookstore, about Ripley’s.
We talk like we used to.
“Why did you so easily believe I’d steal?” she asks, casually, just as I pop a strawberry into my mouth.
The question blindsides me. I swallow wrong, and the juice hits the back of my throat, going down the wrong pipe. I startcoughing hard, doubled over, and she leans in, patting my back with a grin.
She’s laughing. My Faith is laughing.
And God, it stops me cold—because it’s been so damn long since I’ve seen that light in her. So long since I’ve heard that sound and felt it reach right into my chest.
If all it takes is choking on fruit to bring her back to life like this, I’d do it again. Every day. For the rest of my life.
“Fine, I won’t ask difficult questions,” she teases when I get my bearings back.
I roll my eyes.
Her ease with me tells me that she’s healing. Her question tells me she needs answers to be whole again.
“I believed Paula because she’s my sister. Because I didn’t, for a moment, think she’d lie to me. I told myself it made sense. That it had to.”
Faith looks away and gazes into the distance, the trees, and the waterfall.
Pristine beauty.
“Then Kyle…the moron, gets in about how you did this in Seattle andI just…” I trail off because I don’t have a good explanation for what I did. I just don’t.
She gives me a long, assessing look. “I understand.”
“You do? Because I fucking don’t. I had no reason to distrust you. I…you work hard, Faith. You have such integrity. I knew you had secrets, and I thought they were the wrong ones.”
She looks at me, confused. “Secrets?”
