Tessa Leoni: Crash And Burn Part 22

Just be happy, the song says. I tried that, too. Especially all those mornings, waking up to find Thomas studying me so intently. Knowing I must have dreamed again, or maybe shouted out, or hit him. He learned quickly not to touch me once the thrashing started. That in fact, I'm stronger than I look.

Meditation, yoga, juice fasts. It's amazing how many tricks are out there. I took up painting. Art therapy, because Thomas and I both knew talking to someone was not an option. Those first few years, Thomas was very good about burning the canvases. The images I created, the color palette . . . These were not pictures to hang on your wall.

Fake it till you make it. So I studied photos of flowers and serene landscapes. I dissected petals and leaves and dandelion fluff. I re-created each image on canvas down to the tiniest detail because maybe if I didn't feel happiness, I could at least copy it. Then it would be mine. I could point to it and say, I made that happiness.

Then November wouldn't make me cry. And I wouldn't spend my free time lying with a yellow quilt talking to the skeleton of a little girl covered in maggots.

Maybe happiness is genetic. Maybe it's something your parents have to gift to you. That would certainly explain a lot.

Or maybe it's contagious. You have to be exposed to it, to catch it yourself, and given my small, isolated world . . .

I want to be happy. I want to not only see my husband's warm smile, but feel it in my chest. I want to hold up my face to a clear summer sky and not already notice the clouds on the horizon. I want to sleep, the way I imagine other people sleep, deep and uneventful, and wake up the next morning feeling refreshed.

But I am none of these things. Only a woman twice returned from the dead.

BY THE TIME I'm done talking to the detectives, I'm exhausted. They ask me more questions, but I can't answer. My eyelids are sagging; I can barely stand without stumbling. You'd think I'd spent the evening drinking, and not just retelling my last drunken misadventure.

Vero.

The name comes and goes from me. I lost her. I found her. I killed her. I know where she lives.

These concepts are too much for me. They overwhelm my battered brain. Each possibility seems more improbable than the last. Vero is my imaginary friend; Thomas told me so. Vero and I sit together and indulge in scotch-laced tea, but only in my concussed head.

Vero is six years old. She is gone. Disappeared.

She never existed.

Except my husband had her picture hidden inside his jacket pocket.

The detectives are trying to help me up the ravine. It's slow going. My legs don't want to work; my feet stumble over twigs, sink deeper into the mud.

I remember this ravine, the blood on my hands, the rain on my face. Pushing myself past the pain, forcing my way through the mud and muck, because I had to save Vero. That's the key to happiness for me, I think. Whether the girl is real or not, it's my duty to save her. So I keep trying, again and again, because even the worst of us wants to be able to sleep at night.

"I don't get it," the younger detective, Kevin, is whispering to the other. "I thought we agreed Vero didn't exist."

"Technically speaking, the husband told us she didn't exist. Doesn't mean we have to agree with him."

"But if Vero's real, doesn't that mean our suspect just confessed to killing her?"

"Only if she's dead. Our suspect has also just claimed to have found the girl alive."

"Remind me never to get a concussion," Kevin says.

"It would be a waste of a great Brain."

I stumble. Both detectives pause, Wyatt bending down to help me up.

"Northledge Investigations," he tells me. "That's the firm you hired, right? I want to talk to them, Nicky, which would happen quicker if you granted permission. Do you think you could help me with that? Give them the okay?"

I stare at him blearily. I don't nod yes and he finally frowns at me.

"I thought you wanted answers." His tone is faintly accusing.

"Shhh," I tell him.

"Nicky-"

"It's not the flying; it's the landing," I inform him soberly.

But he doesn't get it. How can he? He has yet to understand the yellow quilt and the real reason Thomas wouldn't come with us.

He doesn't understand this night isn't over yet.

The detectives pull me up the ravine. They tuck me back into the SUV. They hand me my precious quilt.

I sit in the back of the vehicle. I think these are two good, hardworking men. They deserve better than to get involved in my messed-up life.

I'm sorry.

Then I close my eyes and let it all go.

I'M ON THE bas.e.m.e.nt floor. The concrete is hard against my neck and shoulders. I try to move, sit up, roll over, something. But I can't. There is pain, radiating everywhere, but mostly in the back of my skull.

Distant footsteps, moving quick.

Footsteps down a hall, I think, and feel immediate panic.

No. Stop. Focus. I'm in a bas.e.m.e.nt. Cold floor. Surrounded by discarded clothes. Laundry. That's it. I'm a grown adult, doing laundry in my own home, and then . . .

Floorboards, creaking above me. "Nicky?" a man's voice calls. "Nicky? You all right?"

I wonder who Nicky is. Is this her home?

"Honey, where are you? I thought I heard a car in the drive. Nicky?"

My brain throbs. I have to squeeze my eyes shut against the pain caused by the overhead lights. I try to turn my head, but that makes my head groan. I should say something. Cry out, call for help. But I merely lick my lips helplessly.

I don't know what to cry out. I don't know who to ask for. Where am I again? Who is that upstairs?

Nicky, Nicky, Nicky, he says.

But Vero is all I think.

Footsteps sounding closer. A man's form appears above me, silhouetted at the top of the stairs.

"Nicky, is that you?" Then: "Oh my G.o.d! What happened? Nicky!"

The man hammers down the stairs. He drops to his knees beside me. Thomas, I think, but then frown, because I'd swear that name isn't quite right. Tim. Tyler. Travis. Todd. A man with a hundred names, I find myself thinking. Which makes perfect sense, as I'm a woman with a hundred ghosts.

He's touching me. My shoulders, my knees, my hips. His touch is light and feathery, trying to check me out, afraid to land too hard.

"Nicky, talk to me."

"The light," I whisper, or maybe groan, my eyes going overhead.

"I think you hit your head. I see some blood. Did you fall down the stairs? I think you may have cracked your skull against the floor."

"The light," I moan again.

He scrambles up, hits the overhead switch, casting me into blessed darkness. He throws on a different light, somewhere behind me, probably in the laundry room, ambient glow for him to see by.

"Honey, can you move?"

I manage to wiggle my toes, lift an arm, a leg; the rest is too much.

"How did I get down here?" I ask.

But he doesn't answer.

"Tell me your name," he demands.

"Natalie Shudt."

He blinks. Maybe it's my imagination, but he appears nervous.

"How did I get down here?" I try again.

"Can you count to ten?"

"Of course, Theo."

That strange look again. I count. I like counting. It actually soothes the hurt. I count up to ten, down to one and then . . .

"Toby, your name is Toby."

"Thomas-"

"Tobias."

"Shhhh. Just, shhh. I gotta think for a minute."

I'm on the bas.e.m.e.nt floor. The concrete is hard against my neck and shoulders. I should call out, get some help.

Oh look, there's a man here. Tyler.

"Your name is Nicole Frank," he tells me.

"Natasha Anderson," I reply.

"I'm your husband, Thomas. We've been married twenty-two years."

"Trenton," I singsong.

"We just moved to this area. We're very happy together. And"-he stares at me hard-"we have no children."

"Ted, Teddy, Tim, Tommy. Ta-da!"

"I think I have to take you to the hospital." He's clearly worried about this. "Nicole-"

"Nancy!"

"Nicole, I need you to do something for me. Just . . . be quiet, okay? Let the doctors do their thing. You concentrate on feeling better. I'll answer all their questions, handle everything else."

"Vero!" I call out.

He closes his eyes. "Not now. Please." Then: "Honey, why were you down here anyway? It's not laundry day."

I stare up at him. I don't say anything. Who is this man? I think suddenly. Then, even more poignantly, who am I? Nicole Natalie Nancy Natasha Nan Nia Nannette. I am everyone. I am no one at all.

I am November, I think. The saddest month of the year.

"It's going to be okay," Thomas Tyler Theo Tim Trenton tells me. "I'll take care of you. I promise. I just need to know one thing. When I was out in my workshop, I swore I heard a car. Did someone come to visit, Nicole? Did you let someone into the house?"

Then, when I don't answer: "Oh my G.o.d, it was the investigator, wasn't it? After I asked you not to."

I still don't say anything. I don't have to.

This man I love. This man I hate. What is his name, what is his name, what is his name? Ted Tom Tim Tod Tyler Taylor Tobias . . .

This man sighs heavily and whispers, "Oh, Nicky. What have you done?"

WE SMELL IT before we see it. The acrid smoke wafting into the SUV's ventilation system. I can't help myself. I reach out my hand. But of course Thomas isn't here. Instead, I clutch my quilt. And I will myself forcefully to be in this moment.

I must be in this moment.

Because the smell of smoke, the smell of smoke . . .

These poor two officers, I can't help but think. They haven't even begun to see crazy yet.

We had been driving steadily since leaving the crash site, sixty, seventy minutes of winding our way along dark ribbons of country roads, Wyatt driving, Kevin checking his phone, me. Now, as the smell intensifies and a dizzying array of lights starts to come into view . . .

Wyatt hits the gas, both men on high alert.