Overnight a box is left on the front porch. I bring it unceremoniously to the kitchen and open it there. I look inside and then close the lid again and pick the box up. I head down the kitchen steps and out the side door, across the driveway and up the steps on the other side. I walk down the side of the boathouse to the front door and knock on the glass. Caleb opens the door. He looks tired too. He looks relieved that I'm not someone else and I thrust out the box, letting him know he can't buy my forgiveness any more than he can torture it out of me.
I don't need presents, Caleb.
How are you?
I survived. You?
I'm so sorry, Bridget.
Don't be. I came to you, remember?
I know but I still overstepped my boundaries again. He takes the box from me. How long do I have before the angry mob with pitchforks arrives?
I don't know. They are resigned to my whims, foolish as those might be.
Bridget, they won't let me get away with this. No one should.
Cole got away with it. What difference does it make anymore?
Cole paid with his life.
You think? Do you really think God killed him because he hurt me?
God wouldn't do that. But the devil would. You really should know that by now, Bridget. His eyes grow huge and black until they are empty holes in his face and he smiles until that hole joins with the first two and I am falling into his face, into darkness again. I wake up with a jolt and a cry. I jump up, falling, stumbling out of his bed and outside in the dark, naked and exposed. I run for the house in the pouring rain. He does not stop me. He doesn't even wake up.
***
Ben sent for the doctor (who isn't a doctor at all, I don't think), who came to the house and put five stitches in my shoulder, asking if I knew if my immunizations were up to date. I was given antibiotics to take. He said it would have been better if I had been bitten by a bear, that the human bite is the most likely kind of bite to become infected.
He stared at Ben the entire time he was talking and Ben stared at me. When the doctor was ready to leave he hesitated before shaking Ben's hand. Ben said that he didn't do it and the doctor looked back at me.
She is yours? He is talking to Ben, staring at me.
Yes. Mine. Ben said. He is exhausted and barely speaking, hands curled into fists.
***
I managed to avoid Lochlan for most of yesterday as he was up working late into the night and then slept the whole day away. Last night I had already gone to bed when he turned on the light beside the bed and pulled me up to see for himself. He put his hands on my head, smoothing my hair down to where it ends, just at my chin. He frowned. His fingers flitted over my now-bandaged shoulder and he pulled me in against him, rocking me so gently we weren't actually moving.
He kisses the top of my head until he wears a divot in my skull. He is tense, coiled to spring, barely holding it together but trying to be gentle for me.
This is not part of the deal, peanut. He doesn't change. Oh my God. Why do you go to him if he won't change?
Turn off the light, brother. Ben's voice from the other side of the bed. Ben reaches out and takes me right out of Lochlan's arms and tucks me in against his chest and is back asleep in seconds.
I don't have the same luck. I lie there for hours after Lochlan leaves. I don't know where he's going and I am wide awake.
