Page 78 of The Autumn We Fell in Love

I manage a wan grin. “I’m going to head out,” I say. “Good night, and sweet dreams.”

The corners of her mouth turn up, but that film of confusion has slid over her eyes. The Mrs. Ingersole that I know is not quite present at the moment. With a sigh, I turn away while Tristan and Mr. Ingersole step close.

I have the luxury of leaving. They never do. I mourn this for them at the same time I breathe a secret sigh of relief that I don’t have to do the same.

I don’t know that I’d manage it anywhere as gracefully as these two men do.

Feeling both grateful and guilty, I slip away while Tristan helps his mother to her feet, guiding her with small steps toward her nightly rest. Mr. Ingersole stays where he is, nodding at me in an absent farewell.

Heading around the exterior of the house, I make for the waiting woods with quick steps, needing to feel the cool canopy of changing leaves arching over my head.

Isla

When I enter the forest surrounding my parents’ home, feet finding the familiar paths with ease, I feel like I could breathe literal fire.

But it doesn’t take many bends and twists of the path through the sentinel trees for the anger to fade and the crisp autumn air to soothe the flames of my inner turmoil.

Being back here — or, hell, even when I was at home with Guin justthinkingof coming back here — it’s easy to remember how painful it was to be a pregnant teen mom in this tiny Massachusetts town. It’s easy to fall back into feeling like the victim even though I’d chosen to carry the child that my then-boyfriend Gunner had impregnated me with.

To feeling put upon from all sides — Gunner and basically everyone in my high school urging me to abort, then turning on me when I refused.

To the sense of being devastatingly alone at the same time my body filled with a life not my own.

To putting no one before myself and my daughter because that’s what I was forced to do to survive.

All this makes me want to dismiss my brother’s accusations. He has no idea what it was like for me.

Still, his words niggle at me in a way that tells me that they bear some truth. Sure, he might not know what it was like for me, a teen mom in small town Massachusetts. But I also don’t know what it’s been like for him, watching the slow yet horrifyingly incomplete demise of the woman that gave him life.

He’s right. I haven’t been here. I don’t know what it’s been like to watch Mom lose herself. To try to help when there’s nothing that can.

My family was there for me when no one else was.

And when they needed me, where was I?

Gone. Absent. Unavailable.

These facts sit like lead in my gut. I can’t deny it, Tristan is right.

It takes me nearly a mile on the woodsy trail to admit this to myself, the scent of fallen autumn leaves a comforting musk pervading every breath.

I halt, feeling my heels press against the damp earth while I straighten myself to my full height.

Taking a deep draught of air that steadies me. I raise my eyes to the evening sky. Bare tree branches etch jagged patterns across the gray clouds that lay beyond. I take in their stark angles and promise myself that I will no longer stay away from Edgewood because of fears born and resting in the past. My mother needs me now. My father and brother do as well. I refuse to fail them.

One more deep breath, spiced with the smoke from a distant hearth fire, and I resume my walk along the path.

Only my foot does not find traction. Instead, one foot is sliding on slick leaves, and the other follows, scrambling, both of them suddenly out of my control. I’m slipping toward a steep drop-off into a gulch, and all the desperate arm-flailing in the world doesn’t gain me an inch of solid ground.

There are two choices: keep trying to stay on my feet only to tumble down the incline into the gulch, or throw my body to the ground now and hope that the full bulk of my weight is enough to keep me on high ground.

I choose the latter, and lurch my torso toward the earth, bracing for soggy impact.

My right shoulder hits the ground first. The blow radiates through my skeleton. Even my teeth seem to chatter. Then my elbow and hip hit hard earth and I’m totally prone. My elbow must come down on a rock because sharp pain blossoms there.

That’s the least of my worries though. Because somehow I’m still sliding toward the gulch.Shit. I flail my arms, grasping at anything that might stop me, but find no purchase.

It’s my right foot that halts my slide. And by foot, I meant ankle. Because the sole of my shoe makes contact with one of the thin trees lining the edge of the hill and promptly turns.

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