“Yes,” she whispers. Her gaze clings to mine. “But…can I hold your arm?”
I hold my arm out to her, fucking glad to be of use in some way. “Hold on all you want. We’ll make this fast.” With my left arm, I start to steer us down the long, half-mile drive, along to the mountainside, toward the slightly sloping, twenty-acre valley that’s mine now.
“Can…we go inside?” she whispers as we drive between the aspens, with their thin, pale trunks and small, round, orange leaves.
“I don’t think we should. We’ll see,” I say as I watch her looking out the passenger’s side window.
I don’t know for sure, but I bet she doesn’t recognize the landscape. I didn’t either, when I came for the auction.
My fear is that, even though I had the house redecorated on the inside, she’ll remember it too well.
Her fingers stay locked around my arm as the driveway levels out, and the house comes into sight. I’ve changed some things on the outside, mostly due to maintenance issues, but it’s still a stone base, with lots of windows and some wood beams incorporated into its vast, two-story layout. Two peaks rise around it, making it look almost cottage-sized, despite its eight-thousand square feet.
I watch her wide eyes take it in, and press the brakes, despite us being about a football field away from the house. “Do you want to turn around? It’s okay if you do.”
She shakes her head.
I wonder what she’s thinking as she looks out at the house and squeezes my arm.
The ivory sky above us seems to sink down low. I roll slowly down the narrow, dirt road, and I can feel the thinness of the air up here. The pressure on my chest.
I slow to park beside some firs. It’s the same place I always park. The same place Mother parked when she brought me here that first day.
Call it masochism. Call it OCD. I don’t know what the fuck it is, but I have never parked anywhere else.
I park the car and look at Leah, beautiful Leah, older now but still herself. Even now, with her skin so pale and her eyes so big, my Leah is a fairy tale. A princess, like I used to tell her.
I know I’m not the prince. I’m not the happy ending for her. Christ, I know. But I have plans. I have plans to make her feel the way she should. To show her, if only for a few hours, how much I love her.
I have plans to get this part over with as fast as I can, and drive away as fast as I can. I imagine it will feel much better than it does when I leave here myself. Taking Leah with me…fucking perfect.
In Denver, I can take her to this donut place I think she’d like, and then I’ll park my car in an airport lot and walk her to her gate.
She won’t know much of me—just these few hours, on this single day—but I will do my duty. I will show her Mother’s house and get her back to hers, in Georgia.
It’s not much, but it’s all I can do.
The goal is not to keep my princess. I brought her here to set her free.
Right now, she looks frozen, so I take her hands in mine and turn her body gently toward mine.
“Leah? Let’s just go.” My fingers stroke hers. “You don’t need to see the inside. This is it. It’s mine now,” I say, stroking the top of her hand with my thumb. “Nothing happens here. It’s boring, this place. It’s not what it was when we were here. Look around us,” I tell her. “Look at the trees and the sky. That’s what’s real. This house is bullshit. If you want me to, I’ll tear it down.”
Her vacant eyes meet mine. She shakes her head slowly, and my chest tightens. My fear and worry congeal into daggers. I can feel the stabbing just under my throat.
“Leah, this is wrong. I’m sorry.”
I’m not sure why the fuck I brought her here. I wanted to make her better, but she’s clearly worse.
I let go of her hands and start to put the Rover in “reverse.” “You don’t need to see this shit.”
She throws her door open. I press the brakes.
“I’m sorry, but I have to go inside. I just have to see my room. When I’m finished,” she says, looking over her shoulder as she perches in the doorway, “we can leave. You will be my hero,” she says, smiling palely. “All I need to do is go inside.”
I watch her inhale deeply, and she looks okay.
“C’mon. I mean it,” she says strongly. “Put it in park and escort me inside. We’ll pretend it’s our place. Maybe it’s magic. Maybe it’s a castle. You never know.” She smiles a little, alluding, I’m sure, to the stories that I used to tell her when we lived in prison here.
Leah gets out, and it’s the first thing that slips out of my control.