“Departures” is a supernatural thriller and love story published as a serial novel with new episodes dropping every Tuesday morning. Anyone can read or listen for free. Paid subscribers gain early access to new episodes. Watch the trailer or visit the table of contents to browse all the published episodes.
Previously…
In the last episode, Raina couldn’t stand the tension mounting between Millie and Wild and forced them to have a conversation. Millie, feeling judged about her position in the family business and afraid of Wild’s veiled suggestion that she should make some radical changes had a breakdown. As Wild made his apologies and comforted her, Millie’s father called and demanded she come home immediately to do a top-line review of the business, the trust, and his will.
June woke up early and thought she might still be dreaming. In the gray morning light outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, snowflakes like down feathers were falling from the sky and piling onto the sloped boughs of towering Ponderosa pines. The previous night, on the way to the airport in Atlanta, she had been wearing a tank top. The news of March and springtime hadn’t made it to Colorado. For all her resistance to Wild’s pushing to get them out here, watching the snow fall, deep and silent, filled her with wonder.
When they first met, she would never have pegged him as a planner, but he was. No sooner had they caught their breath from one trip or outing or event, then he was already negotiating dates for the next thing. She had been enjoying her work and really didn’t want to take more time off, but he had been so insistent they make a ski trip happen this year and Christmas holidays were off the table because of family obligations.
She rolled onto her side and watched him sleep. He looked a little better, at least more rested. It had been more than six months since she had the come-to-Jesus fight with him about his drinking. He had even agreed to start doing some therapy which she believed was helping a little. She understood there would always be something with him. Like anyone with mental health challenges, he needed something to focus on that would keep him out of the ditch. If planning vacations and lavish experiences for them was his new obsession, she figured things could be worse.
But still, he needed something else in his life besides her. She had hoped the therapist would help him come around to this. She hated herself for keeping a checklist in the back of her mind of things she wanted to fix about him, but it was her nature. At the top of that list was his absolute stance against them having kids. Her desire to have a child had crept up on her so slowly from so far away, but now it was all she could see. It was a longing that couldn’t be reasoned away no matter how much he tried. He was so afraid he would turn into his parents, like it was some genetic disorder. She knew he would be a wonderful dad but seeing him suffer as he had to stand by and watch Eileen’s little boy die, she understood what his real fear was. That was a fear there was no talking down.
She got up and walked to the window to take in the full view that had been hidden when they got in late the night before. It was just like she had pictured it in her mind. When she was a girl, they never had the money to come out West to ski, so she had never learned. For all the other kids at their prep school, the annual ski trip to a luxurious chalet on the slopes was routine. When she mentioned this to Wild last year, he immediately started making calls. Now, here they were.
“Good morning, you. How’s it look out there?”
She turned and he was propped up on his elbows. His face was scrunched up in a squint while his eyes adjusted to morning.
“It’s gorgeous. You were right, we needed to do this.”
That day June learned a couple of things. First, one doesn’t just pick up skiing at the age of thirty-five the way one might at ten years old and second, Wild was a terrible teacher. They spent the morning on the bunny slope and despite her looking like a pigeon-toed baby giraffe and falling repeatedly, he convinced her to take the lift with him up the mountain after lunch. The ride up through the snow-blanketed trees and the cold stillness was simultaneously the most spectacular and harrowing experience of her life. Her heart had been racing and her head swimming with vertigo until Wild put his arm around her, pulled her to him and said, “Look out, don’t look down. Listen.”
When she did as instructed, everything changed and she thought of flying, not falling– flying like a hawk that effortlessly glides on the thermals. When she glanced at Wild, he looked peaceful, and unafraid and that made her unafraid. She fell when they were getting off the lift at the top of the mountain and he had to quickly pull her to the side so the fast-moving chair wouldn’t whack her in the head. From there it had been an arduous journey down. Wild was patient, but none of his instructions were helpful. Inevitably she would start going too fast, then sit down on her skis causing them to cross and then pitch her, headfirst into the snow. By the third fall, she was angry he hadn’t allowed her to get lessons. By the fifth fall, she swore she would never put on skis again. At the bottom of the mountain, they agreed to call it a day and reevaluate tomorrow.
“I’m sorry it was so terrible today,” he said.
They were sitting in the hot tub on the deck of the chalet watching as the last sliver of sun disappeared behind the jagged peaks of the ridge to the West. It was the third or fourth time he had apologized.
“I told you, it’s okay,” she said. “Everything doesn’t always have to be perfect, does it?”
He was trying so hard, and it was both wearing her out and making her feel bad for him. He was treating her like a princess, and this was something counter to his nature and wholly unnatural to her.
“Look,” she said. “Can we just be? I don’t need a peak experience right now. I just want us to be relaxed together. When did that get so hard to do?”
“I’m sorry, I know I’m being fucking annoying. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just want to make you happy, is all.”
“We’ve been over this. It’s not your job. You can’t make me happy, Wild. I’m either happy or I’m not and that’s my business, my responsibility. How would you feel, if I kept trying to manage your feelings for you?”
“But this is different, I took you up on a mountain and you weren’t ready. I didn’t listen to you.”
“That’s okay. I decided to go. Maybe ask yourself why it was so important to you that I go? What’s the rush? Not just about that, but with everything. It seems like you’re barely able to enjoy a single thing because you’re so focused on the next thing.”
The look on his face told her she had flipped the sign on the door and the therapist was in session. She hated when she caught herself doing this.
“Never mind, fuck that. Kiss me you big dummy and then go fetch me a glass of wine. If you play your cards right, and I can move my hips after today, you might get lucky tonight.”
She understood that “lucky” had different meanings to them. For him, it was sex with extra innings. For her, it was the possibility of a baby– that maybe he would let his guard down and acquiesce. If they conceived on this trip, they would have a Christmas baby. What could be more perfect?
He took a while to return. June closed her eyes and leaned her head back into a pillow of snow that ringed the edge of the hot tub. She had an overwhelming feeling of gratitude to be in this place with Wild. She never, for a minute, forgot about the burden he carried which made his attentiveness to her that much sweeter. While she knew he was careful, June was sure that, at some point in the day on the slopes, he had encountered at least one person for whom death was imminent, but he had kept it to himself. Sometimes it scared her how much she loved him and had come to rely on him. She had never imagined being part of a great love story when she was younger. That kind of love was for other people less serious than her. One thought that continued to gnaw at the edges of her peace was not knowing how much time she had left with Wild. He knew she would live to a ripe old age, but his death, like everyone else in the world, was a mystery. She shivered and pulled her head away from the snow.
From inside, she heard music come on the stereo and then it played outside through speakers tucked up into the eaves of the gorgeous house that was one of dozens of properties around the world the Thornes owned that probably stood vacant most of the year. It was a Counting Crows song and the singer’s aching croon was the perfect accompaniment to this time of day, just before dark on a cold night. In a flicker, hundreds of white, twinkling lights came on, illuminating the railing of the deck and the eaves of the house.
“Here, have some of this,” Wild said, kneeling behind her and offering a cutting board filled with an array of cheeses, cured meats, and olives. In his other hand he held a glass of red that, no doubt, came from a bottle he pulled from the wine cellar. “I thought I’d make us some chili and we could eat by the fire later. How’s that sound?”
“Honey, could you just relax? Please? Get yourself something to drink and sit in this gorgeous spot with me. We can just eat this for dinner, or we can be like rich people and have crab legs from Alaska flown in by helicopter.”
“We are rich people. I was just trying to slum a little with the whole chili thing, make you feel like I’m one with the common man.”
She ate an olive with a hunk of Spanish cheese, savoring the briny pinch in her cheek, before taking a big gulp of the wine.
“You are a lot of things, my love, but common is not one of them.” She held up the glass. “Was this from a bottle that cost more than I made last month?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. I grabbed the first one I found that looked red.”
She pulled his head down to her and kissed him deeply. She tasted hot chocolate on his tongue and smiled.
Later, after they ate the chili he made along with some fresh cornbread, they lay among a pile of blankets in front of a massive fireplace of stacked river rocks that were smooth and round. She had finished most of the bottle of wine herself and was feeling heavy as the snowpack on the ground outside and light as the smoke that curled up the chimney.
“Where did you learn how to cook?” she asked. “Didn’t your family have servants for that?”
“We had Ms. Judy. She took care of me for as long as I can remember. She taught me everything I know about cooking.”
“Your mom wanted you to learn how to cook?”
“My mama didn’t care one way or another. Judy cared. I loved her food and when I was about eleven, I started hanging around in the kitchen.”
“She wanted to teach you?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. It’s weird when someone’s paid to parent you. I really don’t know what Judy wanted.”
“I’m assuming Judy was a black woman?”
“She still is. I visited her a couple of years ago. What? What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. Your life is just so different from mine. Did you miss her when she was gone? I mean, it sounds like you loved her.”
“I did love her, and it was very confusing any time they gave her the weekend or a holiday off and my mom and dad would play the role of parents, like actors stepping onto a movie set to shoot a scene.”
June pushed her cheek into his chest and watched the fire. She had made a promise to herself not to broach the subject of kids while they were on vacation because she didn’t want to have the same fight and ruin something he had spent so much energy planning. It might have been the wine or the exhaustion from trying to stay up on skis all day, but she began to feel a deep sorrow. He had grown up in such a cold household. No amount of ski trips could equate to the love and attention her parents had flooded her with as a child. Before she could stop herself, the words were out of her mouth.
“You wouldn’t be anything like your parents, you know. You would be such a great dad.”
She felt him stiffen and shift beneath her, but she held on tightly, not allowing him to get up and move away.
“Please don’t therapize me tonight.” He was quiet for a moment then gave a long sigh of resignation. “We can talk about it, but could you please just listen like you’re my wife and not a trained clinician?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand why you want to risk having a child with me. Forget my fucked-up childhood for a minute and the fact that the primary parenting skill I learned from watching my parents is delegation. What if I pass on this horrible curse to a child? Have you thought about that?”
“But there’s no guarantee I don’t have some genetic disorder that will get passed on to a child. There’s always a risk. That’s life.”
“Look, I’m not saying no. I just need some more time. Maybe we try in a couple of years…”
“I’m going to be thirty-six soon. We don’t have years to think about it.”
Her words hung like heavy snow clouds above them for a full minute. She could feel the chill on her skin, settling into her bones and they lay like ice sculptures, touching, but not touching. She had the cold feeling of certainty that this would be what ended them. She wouldn’t stop wanting a child and he would never be able to give her this. They lay in silence for a long time, listening to the crackle and pop of the fire.
She had no idea how long she had drifted off, but she woke to the warmth of his lips against her neck and collarbone, then her cheeks and lips. At first, she felt he was just trying to make peace and that made her bristle, but he wasn’t pretending. There was a heat and an urgency to his touch and her body responded. There was none of his measured approach, no foreplay, no getting up to retrieve a condom from the bathroom. He pulled her panties to the side and pushed himself inside her. The simultaneous shock and pleasure made her gasp and dig her nails into his back. Then she stopped and pushed his head from her neck so she could look into his eyes.
“What are you doing? This isn’t what you want.”
He smiled. The firelight flickered in his eyes, glassy with tears. When he spoke, his voice was thick and raspy with emotion. “I’ve never wanted anything more.”
She held his face and peered into his eyes, searching for the truth even as her body willed it to be true. He pushed against her with no barrier between them and she pushed back. Her eyes would not let him go. She pulled him deeper, wrapping her ankles around his calves and they performed this act of tug-a-war only now they were on the same side.
It was everything she ever wanted and just as they reached their destination and he cried out, she was terrified.
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If you’re enjoying “Departures,” chances are you will also like my two previously published novels. I’ve made the first two episodes of each free for you to preview. If you prefer reading the old fashioned way, you’re in luck because “The Memory of My Shadow” is now available in print, ebook, and audiobook anywhere you purchase books. I give you all the details in this announcement post.
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