Page 75 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
Lucas’s response follows quickly:
I’ll try. Dunno if my parents are gonna be cool with me going out tho.
I’m heading there now. Please try to come.
She slides her phone into the pocket of her jeans as she turns off the paved pathway and onto the dirt trail that leads to the clearing. She switches on her dad’s Maglite, and a cone of warm light illuminates the path ahead. She doubts her father would be too happy to know she’d taken it without asking, but he’d be even less happy to know that she was using it to walk through the woods at night with the hope of meeting up with Lucas. There would certainly be consequences for that.
Christina’s father has never hurt her—at least, not in the physical sense—but then again, she’d never given him a reason to before. For the most part, she was an easy kid. Never gave her parents any trouble. Because she knew what would happen if she did.
Once, when she was five, the ice cream truck had driven down Hawthorne Lane. It was a scorching summer day, and Christina had wanted an ice cream more than anything in the world. She imagined the swirl of vanilla on top of a pointed cone, the bright rainbow sprinkles. She could practically taste the cold treat melting on her tongue. She’d begged her parents to get her one, but her father said no. They hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and he didn’t want her spoiling her appetite. She looked longingly out the window at the colorful truck, listened to the tinny, tinkling music. “Please, Daddy,” she begged.
“The answer is no.”
“But Mommy lets us have it!”
“I said no!” Her father’s response was swift and unmoving.
“You’re the meanest!” she’d cried.
Later that night, as Christina lay in bed, she overheard her parents arguing.
“She’s just a little girl,” her mother said. Her voice, usually so warm and loving, sounded strange, different. Christina sat up, listening closer.
“You’ve spoiled her. Turned her into a little brat. Talking back to her own father like that.”
“Colin, she’s a child. She just wanted an ice cream, she didn’t mean—”
Christina heard the slap, the sharp intake of her mother’s breath.
She squeezed her eyes shut.It’s my fault. I’ve been a bad girl andwhat’s happening to Mommy is all my fault.She promised herself that she was going to be better. She was going to beperfect.
The flashlight in Christina’s hand flickers, momentarily throwing the trail into darkness. Christina doesn’t like being here alone at night. The trees with their knotted eyes and gnarled limbs seem to stare down at her, and every rustle in the brush is a potential threat creeping ever closer. She gives the metal flashlight a shake, hoping the batteries aren’t going.
If her mother were here, she’d probably have backup batteries in her purse for just such an emergency. Christina sighs. She hopes her mom is okay. Maybe she shouldn’t have left her at home with her father. They were arguing when Christina left—it was the only reason she was able to sneak out—and she knows this is going to be a bad one. She saw how angry her father was earlier, heard her mother stand up to him in front of everyone. She’d been so proud of her in that moment.
When she was a child, Christina loved her mother in a clear, singular way. It was simple: Georgina was her mother, and she loved her. But now that Christina is older, her feelings toward her mother have become so much more complicated. She knows how much her mother loves her, has sacrificed for her. She’s seen her bear the brunt of her father’s anger all of her life, but why? Why does she let him treat her that way? Couldn’t she tell that Christina knew the truth, that it was destroying her to have to watch it? Why didn’t she get them out of there, away from him? It’s as if all the things she feels for her mother—love, resentment, disappointment, gratitude, pity—have formed into individual strands, and they’ve become so knotted, so tightly wound, that she can no longer feel one without the others.
All she knows for sure is that she doesn’t want to end up like her mother. Growing up, she almost thought it was normal. That love and fear went hand in hand. It was the only example she had of what love was supposed to look like. But it’s not like that with Lucas. He makes her feel safe. She hopes he can forgive her.
The flashlight flickers again and the light gently dims until none remains. “No,” Christina mutters, rattling the batteries. “Not now.”But the light won’t turn back on.Useless,she thinks. The thing weighs a ton and she carried it all the way out here for nothing. She looks over the trail ahead of her, squinting her eyes as they adjust to the dark. She’s almost at the clearing. Or at least, shethinksshe is. It’s hard to tell without her glasses. And she’s never taken this trail at night before, not without Lucas leading the way. She probably should have been paying attention to the directions instead of watching the back of his head, memorizing the constellations of freckles on his neck.
I’m not lost,she tells herself.I can’t be lost.The tree beside her, the one with the creeping vines, definitely looks familiar. But then again, they kind ofalllook familiar. Christina turns back, retracing her steps. If she could just find her way back to the paved path…
A rustling in the trees gives her pause. She stops. Listens. Christina knows that she and Lucas aren’t the only ones who walk in these woods at night. She remembers the empty cans, the stubbed-out cigarettes they’d found around the clearing. But still, the idea of someone else being out here with her, the sound of heavy feet crunching through the bed of leaves on the forest floor, causes the skin on her arms to prickle.
“Lucas?” she calls, giving the flashlight one more useless shake. “Lucas, is that you?”
Maybe he’d come to meet her. Maybe they’d be laughing over this a few minutes from now. About how she’d been so spooked, lost in the woods on Halloween like something out of a scary movie.
But Lucas doesn’t answer, and the source of the sound seems to be drawing closer. Christina’s pace quickens. She hopes it isn’t a raccoon. They’re pretty cute and all, with their little masks and bushy tails, but she’d prefer not to meet one face-to-face in the wild.
She breaks into a jog, ducking under low-hanging branches and hopping over fallen logs. She hears the sound of her own heavy breathing, the snapping of twigs beneath the soles of her sneakers, and that rustling growing increasingly louder. There’s definitely someone else out here with her. She’s certain of it now. A raccoon wouldn’t be following her.
Her heart pounds in her chest. There’s someone behind her. Shecan feel it, sense the eyes on her back. But she’s too frightened to turn around to see who it might be. She thinks she can hear breathing now, the person gaining on her as she forges through the undergrowth. Up ahead she sees a break in the trees—the jogging path, the smooth asphalt like a silver lake in the light of the full moon. She just needs to get there…
Christina breaks into a run, a full-on sprint, her arms pumping at her sides. She ignores the branches that scrape her face, the detritus that tangles in her shoelaces.
Finally she reaches it, the relief of hard pavement beneath her feet. She knows where she is now. She knows she can make it out of here.
