Page 24 of Leave No Trace
He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. He won’t come out. The Boundary Waters... it’s part of him... he couldn’t survive in this world anymore. Whatever’s killing him is nothing compared to making him leave, and that’s what all those other people would do, right? No, we have to go alone.’
‘Why me? Why did you come here when you could have been halfway to Canada by now?’
I let Jasper pull me back a step and looked Lucas directly in the eye, trapping his gaze in a way I’d never done with another patient. I always gave them a way out, room to be comfortable, the space they needed to grapple with their own voice. This, though, was way past the point of comfort. I wasn’t asking him for a fluent, compound sentence; we weren’t working through aphasia or a stutter. An escaped psychiatric patient was asking me to reunite him with his potential-murderer father somewhere in the wilderness, with a Minnesota winter bearing down fast.
Lucas stood up and walked over, ignoring Jasper’s warning growl. He stopped a few feet away and reached out to take my free hand. ‘I heard you talking to Dr Mehta yesterday.’
‘Jesus, don’t you sleep at all?’
He laughed once. ‘Not really. There’s too much noise here.’ Then, growing serious again. ‘You didn’t tell her about the body. She asked if anything made me run and you lied to her.’
‘Yeah.’ I didn’t try to explain, even though he seemed to be waiting for me to do just that.
Eventually he took a step closer. ‘You told me I could trust you before, but I didn’t believe it. Not until now. So I’m trusting you, Maya. I’m trusting you with my father’s life.’
The directness in him – the openness, after so many sessions of careful avoidance – was stunning. I forgot about danger. I forgot about psychology and my job and the relationship we were supposed to have and what was possible and impossible. I had a flash of stumbling through the Congdon grounds on a sprained ankle, thinking of nothing except the trail of blood spreading underneath Lucas’s body and getting to the hospital as fast as possible. The desperation had consumed me beyond all reason and only now was I beginning to understand it. I was the girl who didn’t need anyone and made sure things stayed that way – no matter how many therapy students had tried to befriend me or occasional, brave-hearted guys asked me out. I turned them all down and I was relieved when Dad went out on the lake and left me with only the dog for company. My life was lonely, but there was something vital in the loneliness, an imperative that I keep the space around me empty and weightless. The only time I let myself get close to people was at Congdon and even though I loved helping my patients beat down their barriers, it was always so they could stand on their own someday, not near me. My work didn’t build relationships; it created more Mayas.
Somehow Lucas had changed everything. If it was possible, he was even more fiercely independent than me, yet he’d broken out of a guarded hospital room and traveled halfway across the city to find me, because he needed me. Not a random therapist doing their job. Not anyone else they’d tried to send to him. Me. And for the first time since my mother left, I wanted to be needed.
I realized I hadn’t said anything for a good minute, standing in the middle of the living room with Lucas staring at me, yet he didn’t seem bothered by the silence. He wasn’t fidgeting or pressing me for a reply like most people would and it occurred to me that his life up until now must have been one decade-long conversation with his father, where a pause could fill a breath, an hour, or several sky-bleeding sunsets.
‘Lucas, I—’
Jasper’s sudden bark cut off the words in my throat. Hair raised, he broke out of my grip and ran toward the front door. Limping after him, I peered through the peephole and saw a police cruiser pulled up at the curb with its lights flashing. Lucas shadowed me, his eyes darting from window to window.
‘What is it?’
‘The police.’ I didn’t stop to assess the situation, to rationalize. All I knew was that I wanted more time. I grabbed him by the arm and lunged toward the back door. ‘Let’s go.’
11
We dartedthroughthe house as Jasper’s barks echoed behind us. At the back door, I took a deep breath andmotioned for Lucas to be quiet, then unlocked it and stepped into the night. The wind had picked up, battering us as we crept across the lawn. Each crunch of grass echoed in my ankle as I negotiated the roots and twigs, praying I didn’t trip over any of them and give us away. Why were the police at my house? Either Dr Mehta was worried that I hadn’t answered my phone or someone had seen Lucas in the neighborhood. I felt the weight of a thousand neighbors’ stares on our backs. Charges raced through my head:aiding and abetting,accessory,repeat offender. The last one found its mark and sent a shot of adrenaline through my system, bracing me, numbing me better than any drug as I acknowledged the full implications of what I was doing.
Behind us a flashlight beam arced across the neighbor’s lawn. They’d be turning the corner any second.
We ducked into the shadows of the garage and raced to the side door. There were no windows in here. We could wait out the cops and decide what to do next. With shaking fingers, I eased the creaky knob open and pushed against the wood. Lucas was a millisecond behind me as we rushed inside, then both of us staggered to a halt.
Dad stood next to his truck holding a tire iron.
His arm relaxed when he saw me, but he stared at Lucas, obviously trying to figure out what was going on.
‘Dad.’ I checked behind us to see the lawn was still empty. ‘This is...’
A few different lies zipped through my head, none of them really plausible with Lucas standing there in hospital scrubs and one arm bound in a sling. Before I could pick one, he cleared his throat and finished the sentence for me.
‘Lucas Blackthorn.’
Lucas glanced at me, apparently as unsure as I was about how to proceed.
‘Your picture’s been all over the news tonight.’ The surprise on Dad’s face melted into suspicion and even though he kept his eyes on Lucas, I knew the next question was for me.
‘What the hell’s going on here?’
‘Dad—’
‘Sir—’
We spoke at the same time, both of us stepping forward right as a policeman walked through the main garage door. He surveyed the scene and homed in on Lucas, easily identifying him in the light from the workbench. Without acknowledging any of us, he pulled his gun and radioed his coordinates in, asking for backup. It was over.
