Set Me Free (3 page)

The command came from Owen, who was sitting on the stairs to Claire’s back deck, his muscular forearms resting on his knees. The sixth and, I hoped, final dog leaned against Owen’s leg.

Meanwhile, the dog in front of me, Byron, lifted one giant paw, fixing me with a pleading stare. Cautiously, I leaned forwards and grasped his paw in both hands. Byron gave a happy wriggle. Encouraged, I shook his paw very carefully. When I set his paw back down, he licked my face.

I laughed in spite of myself as I wiped the slobber from my cheek. “How do you get them to listen to you like that?” I asked, glancing at Owen. “It’s amazing.”

He shrugged, but I thought I could make out a hint of a smile.

The gate swung open behind me, and Claire and Jenny walked into the yard. Claire lavished attention on the dogs before heading towards her deck. “Who’d like a glass of wine?” she asked, back to her usual brisk cheerfulness. “Or some coffee, perhaps?”

Before anyone could respond, she went into the house. With an icy frown in Owen’s direction, Jenny followed Claire inside. Owen didn’t move from where he was sitting on the steps, the Great Dane at his knee. Instead, he frowned into the distance, seemingly lost in thought.

“Why do you get death threats?” I blurted out. With a rush of horrified embarrassment, I slapped my hand to my forehead. “I am
so
sorry, that was an incredibly awful thing to ask you—”

“No,” he said softly. “It’s all right.”

“I feel like I know you.” I had to stop myself from slapping my forehead again. What was wrong with me? “I mean, your mum talks about you a lot.” Claire
did
talk about him a lot, but that wasn’t why I felt this pull towards him.

He looked up at me. I wished I were standing a bit closer, so I could see that strange, dark blue again.

“I’ll tell you about it sometime,” Owen said. The black-and-white spotted dog leaning against his knee nosed his hand. He stroked one of the dog’s ears. His broad fingers were crisscrossed with faded scars.

“I got that job at the Widow’s Walk, you know,” I said, trying to distract myself from his hands. “Thank you for the tip.”

His face softened into another almost-smile. “Glad I could help. Andy’s a great guy.”

“He is,” I agreed. “He
might
be the most high-energy person I’ve ever met.”

“You know he does triathlons?”

“I thought it was half-marathons?”

“It’s both,” he assured me. I grinned, my heart pattering.

The sliding door opened, and Jenny stepped into the doorframe. “Your mom is confused about salad dressing.” Since my mother had died sixteen years ago and had been a great cook, salads included, Jenny must have been talking to Owen. But she was scowling directly at me.

“I was just thanking Owen for giving me a tip on getting a job here,” I told Jenny, as if this were a normal lunch with a normal group of people. “At the Widow’s Walk. I’m sure you know it.”

“No, I don’t. What is it?” From her tone, she expected it to be a strip club.

“It’s a pub, downtown?”

“A bar. I never go to bars.”

Message received. Honestly, what did Owen see in this girl?

Owen stood, brushing off his jeans. I stepped back in surprise. I’d forgotten, again, how tall he was.

He walked past Jenny into the kitchen, while she folded her arms across her chest and frowned at the deck. I watched Owen through the glass as he smiled at his mother and checked the oven.

“So, what, you guys are friends or something?” Jenny glared at me from under her shiny bob. “Is that what you think?”

I stared at her, flummoxed. Friends? No.

“He doesn’t like you, you know,” Jenny said. “He doesn’t like anyone.”

She went back inside, leaving me alone on the deck with the dogs.

No offense to Claire, but this was not turning out to be a very good lunch.

I took a deep breath and went inside. Claire was setting the dining room table while Owen uncorked a bottle of wine. Jenny sat at the table with her hands folded in her lap.

After living off fast food and the occasional leftover from the Widow’s Walk for the past couple of weeks, the home-cooked meal, at least, was wonderful. Claire kept up a flurry of chatter as she served us casserole, salad, and fluffy bread. She tried to ask Jenny about her job—Jenny was a piano teacher, and undoubtedly a terrifying one—but when that went nowhere, Claire and I ended up talking about Shakespeare. I wasn’t really qualified to answer her multitude of questions, but I always enjoyed my dad’s favorite topic.

Owen had gone back to being as expressive as a mountain, with, as usual, the only clue to his feelings the slight notch between his golden eyebrows. He looked at me, sometimes, as I spoke. Each time, my heart thrummed in my chest.

“So, in
The Tempest
—” Claire began, just as the harsh jangling chords of my phone split through the room.

“I’m sorry,” I said, digging my phone out of my handbag with shaking hands and silencing the ringer. The name
Annette’s Cafe
flashed across the screen. Why would Annette be calling me? As promised, she’d given me a good recommendation when she’d talked to Andy and the bar’s owner, Bill. I’d figured she wouldn’t want much more to do with me.

“Sorry, I should get this.” I crossed through the kitchen and went outside onto the chilly deck. “Hello?”

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

It was Rhys.

I
knew
Rhys couldn’t hurt me through the phone, but I still trembled at the sound of his voice. I gripped the railing to steady myself, wishing this were only one of my nightmares.

“Why have you been avoiding me, Miranda? You haven’t responded to any of my texts or phone calls. I was afraid you had been kidnapped. I almost called the police over it.”

Talking to him always left me confused, as if I’d just imagined all of the terrible things he’d said and done to me. As if all of our problems could be solved by me having dinner ready when he got home from class.

“Luckily Steph let me use the café phone,” Rhys said. “Or I would never have reached you at all. You never would’ve called me back.”

“I’m—I’m—” I hated the way I changed around him: shrinking into myself, my voice becoming a soft, placating whisper, each word more meaningless than the last.

“What did I do to deserve this?” That edge in his tone—God.

“You didn’t do anything,” I lied. “It’s just—it’s me.” I’d given him this same lie so many times; it was one of the first things he’d taught me to say, and he loved to hear it from me.

“Then when are you coming back?” he asked, as if he were weary, cast down by worry.

I closed my eyes, summoning up a memory of the text he’d sent me last night:
Who the fuck do you think you are?
I knew exactly who I was: that was what Rhys hated about me.

But no matter how clear the words were in my mind—
I am not going back—
I couldn’t say them aloud. My throat had closed like a fist.

“I don’t get you, Mira,” Rhys said. “I try to be what you want me to be. I don’t even
look
at other women. I’m trying to build a nice, stable life for us, which isn’t easy, you know? Law school puts a lot of demands on me, not just on my time, but on me, emotionally.”

Rhys would be a great lawyer someday. He’d have the jury wrapped around his little finger in a matter of minutes.

“I don’t understand what else you want me to do,” Rhys said, and he paused, indicating that it was my turn to speak. To reassure him, the way I always did.

My heartbeat raged inside my ears. I swallowed hard, willing myself to be strong. I would not give in to him. Not this time. I would not.

“You don’t respect me,” I choked out. “You hit me.”

“Oh, come on.” Rhys barked a laugh. “You’re so dramatic, Mira. I barely touched you that time.”

“It wasn’t just one time. And I still have bruises…” My hand went to my thigh, where Rhys had left a bruise the size of my palm. And in my mind, I scrolled back to the text he’d sent me an hour or two after that argument, when he’d left the house for a while to cool off. It had said only:
I’m sorry, my love
.

“You are such a
liar
,” Rhys snapped. “I take perfect care of you.”

“You really—you don’t. You don’t.”

“You know what, Mira? You’re only saying these things because you don’t want to admit that you’re off somewhere, chasing after other guys, sleeping around. You’ve said I’m controlling—well,
if
I am, it’s because I know the way men look at you, and you draw their attention on purpose with those slutty clothes—”

A spark of anger burned at my fear. We’d had this argument before—so many times. It didn’t matter what I wore. He always found fault with it: too slutty, too prim, too much myself.

“You know you have to act better. You can’t keep doing whatever you want, going out and partying all the time. You have to think about the kind of example you will set for our children someday, and our community, as my wife—”

“I will
never
marry you,” I blurted out, my blood racing underneath my skin. “It’s over. Don’t ever call me again, from any number, ever.”

“Mira—” He sounded even more shocked than I felt.

Before he could say anything else, I hung up and turned off my phone.

I took a huge, shuddering breath. I had said it. I should have been proud of myself. But instead fear and adrenaline gave way to numb shock. Over? Truly over? How would I live without him? How long could I sleep in my car and live off leftover French fries?

How long could I last before he convinced me to go back to him?

Claire’s deck came slowly into focus. Byron the Great Dane was watching me anxiously from a dog bed the size of a sofa.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that, Byron,” I said. He got up and walked over to me, bumping his big head into my leg and wagging his skinny tail. I petted his ear with shivering fingers, my breathing ebbing almost back to normal. I closed my eyes, thinking about the long drive to Maine. The Widow’s Walk. Suzanna White.

The sliding door opened. Fear lurched through me again, though I knew, this time, it could not be Rhys.

Owen stepped outside, drawing the door shut behind him. I gazed up at his expressionless face, wondering how much he’d heard. What he thought of me. I didn’t know why I cared.

He handed me my jacket. I hadn’t realized he’d been holding it. I stared at it, wondering why he had brought it with him. Did he want me to leave?

“Cold out here,” he said gruffly.

I licked my lips, a painful gratefulness dawning inside me. “Thank you,” I murmured, slipping my jacket on and feeling, at once, a little stronger. “It’s been…kind of an awkward lunch, hasn’t it?”

“Guess so.”

“So…you guys heard all of that?”

“It was pretty loud in the kitchen.” His full mouth curved into a wry smile. “I put the dishwasher on the pots and pans cycle.”

I laughed, but something about his small kindness made me want to cry, too.

Owen took a step closer, filling the space around me. “You okay?”

It was sweet of him to ask, but no, I was not okay. I’d thought leaving would be enough, but it wasn’t. Now I knew it’d be a long time before I was okay again.

I glanced up at Owen with the strangest urge to confide in him. He shouldn’t have looked approachable, but he was so still, so steady, as if he’d listen to my painful stories, if only I could stand to share them.

A flicker of movement came from behind him. I peered around Owen’s arm and saw Jenny standing in the kitchen, her hands on her hips, glaring at us through the glass.

“I think Jenny wants you.”

“What?” He sighed. “Oh. Right.”

We stepped away from each other. I stuffed my hands into my jacket pockets.

Claire rolled open the glass sliding door. Jenny lingered behind her, frowning. I felt a twinge of sympathy for her, as much as I didn’t like her. She seemed so unhappy—as if she was jealous of me for talking to Owen. She really shouldn’t have worried about it.

“Leaving already, Miranda?” Claire asked, concern shadowing her smile.

“Afraid so. Thanks so much for lunch. It was delicious.”

“I almost forgot the pie! You have to take a slice with you.”

At Claire’s insistence, I followed her back inside, while Jenny slipped past me onto the deck. With a worried glance at Jenny and Owen, Claire took my arm and led me into the dining room. The giant pie sat out on the table, untouched and deflated.

“I’m sorry about the phone call,” I said. “I shouldn’t have answered it during lunch.”

She heaved a slice of the pie onto a paper plate and systematically wrapped the entire plate in plastic wrap. “Don’t be sorry. Although it doesn’t seem like it went well?”

“It didn’t,” I admitted.

Claire examined her handiwork with the plastic wrap. “You know, if you ever want to talk about anything…”

“No,” I said quickly. “Thank you. But I’m fine.”

She nodded. “Well, here you go, then.”

“Thanks, Claire.”

I took a step, expecting her to follow me. Instead, she toyed with a stray piece of piecrust that had fallen onto the table.

“Miranda…”

“Yeah?”

She ran her hands through her dirty-blonde hair with a tight sigh. “Please don’t mention the death threats to anyone. We’ll take it to the police and deal with it ourselves.”

I wanted to tell her I’d do anything to help her, because she had been kind to me when I’d needed it most and I would never forget that. But I knew she’d turn down my offer of help, just like I’d turned down hers.

“I won’t say anything. I promise.”

I thanked her for the pie and snuck out the front door to avoid Owen and Jenny. Bravery was not my strong point.

I
sat
down on a park bench across the street from a restaurant called The Dancing Lobstah. Its neon sign—of a mustachioed lobster, dancing, naturally—was turned off. Like everything else in town, the Dancing Lobstah was closed, and would stay closed for almost two more months, until the tourists took over the island for the summer.

I huddled deeper into my jacket, wishing I had someone to talk to. I didn’t usually burden my dad with my problems, even if I would’ve been willing to interrupt what would be, for him, dinnertime.

I’d always been able to talk to my friend Rosa about anything—but Rhys had changed that. It had been almost a year since I’d spoken to her, even to say hello. She wouldn’t want to hear from me after all this time. Nobody wanted to hear from me. Except one man.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned it back on. Rhys had called me back and left me a voicemail, just as I’d known he would. He always did.

I met Rhys while Rosa and I were having a smoke on a sunny Florida boardwalk. He’d been a shameless flirt. Impeccably gorgeous, with his shining auburn hair and clever eyes. Looking back at it now, I still didn’t understand how I’d ended up moving to Connecticut with him after only a month. Or how much my life had changed afterwards. I’d wanted to continue bartending after the move, but he’d insisted men would flirt with me. It would be too many late nights, anyway. The hours at Annette’s cafe were less demanding, which would give me more time to learn how to run our new household.

And I’d had a lot to learn.

I pressed play on the recording, bracing myself.

“Hey, I just want to say I’m sorry for whatever I did.” He was calm now, and he sounded as lonely as I felt. “Come home, Miranda. I miss you.”

The recording stopped, and the screen reverted to rows of dates and timestamps, all marked by his name. Each line of text was a bubble universe of memories: apologies and threats and demands and promises of love. I knew them all by heart; whenever my resolve had faded, I’d listened to them again and reminded myself exactly why I needed to escape.

With restless, jittery energy running through my limbs, I stuffed my phone back into my purse and crossed the street to stare into the dark windows of the Dancing Lobstah. My own solemn reflection stared back at me. I moved away, repressing a shudder.

The next building was made of big slabs of gray stone, with a recessed front door made of dark wood. It was like a tiny medieval castle on Main Street. A sign on the door said GRAVESIDE GALLERY and listed local artists, including, in the biggest font, Suzanna White.

I wished I could go inside, but the somber windows were as opaque as the Dancing Lobstah’s. Was there nowhere for me to go in this town apart from my car and Claire’s? Nowhere I could just
be
?

Frustrated, I turned down Church Street. The small Protestant church in this town held no appeal for me, a lapsed Catholic, but there was somewhere else where I knew I could go.

I walked up to the graveyard’s low, wrought-iron fence and let the scent of pine trees and decaying roses drift over me. After my mom passed away, my dad used to read Shakespeare to her headstone, and then he always gave her a little update about our lives:
Miranda got an A on her English quiz
. When I was old enough to take the bus there myself, I did it, too:
Dad’s sick, still, but he’s getting better, so you don’t need to worry about him, okay?
Or, later,
I met a new guy, and I think he’s the one.

Unlike the flat green lawns of my mom’s Florida cemetery, this graveyard was small and cramped, with faded, lichen-spotted headstones slanting in the snow and dead grass under the pine trees. The same family names repeated across all the stones: Doyle, Lacroix, Whittaker, Murphy. I didn’t see any Larsens.

In the center of the graveyard, towering pine trees encircled a statue of an angel. I slipped between the trees towards her, curious. She had been expertly carved out of white marble, from her cherubic face to the intricate spirals of her curls, and stood on a pedestal almost as high as my waist. Between her prayerful hands, she held a paintbrush with each fine bristle delineated in stone.

Standing beneath her, my tense muscles softened, my blood calmed. Despite the bite to the air, the snow on my boots, the dull weight of the phone in my handbag, I felt at peace. I didn’t belong anywhere anymore—not Florida, not Connecticut, not even this town. But for this moment, in this place, I belonged.

My gaze dropped to the inscription on the pedestal.

I blinked and read it again. This was Suzanna White’s gravesite? Or was this statue supposed to be her?

After the Artist’s Lodge, I had imagined her as a spry old woman with paint-stained fingers and a floppy sun hat, with years of work and passion underpinning each painting. Instead, she’d been a beautiful young woman, two years younger than I was now.

Her name and art touched every inch of this town—from the paintings on a rack by the grocery store counter to the banner in her honor at the post office—but I hadn’t seen anything about her death, or how she’d died, seven years ago. She had seemed more alive than I was.

Even now, so many years later, pristine white calla lilies lay on the thin snow in front of her pedestal. I crouched down to examine them, searching for a card. A deep red ribbon, stark against the snow and white petals, held the lilies together, but nothing revealed who they were from.

As I left the graveyard, I wondered if the love for Suzanna was still so great, and so commonplace, no one needed to say it aloud.