Chapter 35 Henry
Chapter 35
Henry
Henry dozed through most of the car ride to the Lower Pond hike, but he jolts awake when the car lurches and they’re sent off the road. Beside him, Cassidy yelps, and his hand comes up to block her from hitting the seat in front of her. Adam and Sienna jerk forward, their screams mingling with the screech of the car’s skid.
When they come to a complete stop, Leo turns to Penny to make sure she’s okay.
Simone is rubbing her shoulder and hollers, “Everyone all right?”
A few cars have pulled up beside them. In the road, a family of deer casually crosses the street. The mother and her twin fawns are blissfully unaware how narrowly they missed a tragic end.
“Just came out of nowhere,” Simone adds, visibly shaken.
Leo leans over and drops his hand on Penny’s shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”
They watch as the deer safely cross the road, and Simone switches the car into gear, resuming the drive at a slower pace. The road winds up and down, switchback after switchback, and Henry listens as Penny and Leo retell a story of a sweltering night. They were staying in Scarsdale at the home of a well-known producer. They’d driven into the city for dinner and a show, returning via dark, winding roads. Penny and Leo were in the back seat, the producer and his wife in the front. A deer shot out in front of them, and there was no time to stop. The unsuspecting animal smashed the hood of their car and ricocheted through the windshield. It was terrifying and gruesome. For weeks, Penny had visions of the deer’s battered face and desperate eyes. It took her almost as long to get in a car again.
She says they were lucky, that it could have been worse. “Maxwell and his wife, Alec, were treated for cuts, a few minor stitches.” Henry can see there’s more that isn’t said, the way Penny stares down at her hands, her eyes glazed. He bets she couldn’t get the visions out of her head—how quickly everything can change, how life can be cut short.
Leo knows too. Henry sees him squeeze Penny’s hand.
The van passes a handful of tennis courts, a pool, and nearby pickleball courts, then turns at the sign that reads Lake Coffey . There they travel down an unpaved, rocky stretch. Even Adam, who usually has something to say, is hushed, and they eventually park at the trailhead.
Henry takes his time getting out of the car. Maybe he shouldn’t have come. Maybe he should have stayed back with Lucy so they could talk, but then he reconsiders. What more is there to discuss? Saying the words out loud provided finality, a bittersweet relief he hadn’t felt the day before. There’s nothing worse than the in-between, the purgatory of not moving in any direction.
Henry overhears Leo whisper to Penny, “It’s going to be okay.”
Anything Leo Shay says sounds convincing. He wishes someone would give him the same reassurance.
He and Lucy should have done a better job. Lucy had tried to reel him in, but he couldn’t find his way. It didn’t take a trained therapist to predict what would happen next. When you push someone away, they have no other choice but to leave.
Simone leads them over a narrow footbridge, cascades of water streaming from both sides, and the sounds bolster him, washing away some of the gloom. He’s never fully immersed himself in the ground beneath his feet; Henry’s usually more interested in the sky. The land is a mystery, uneven and unpredictable, but he can already tell after a few steps that he’s entering a wonderland. They cross natural ponds shaded by a canopy of lush green trees. It’s mystical and damp, and yesterday’s rain turned the docile stream into a roaring river. Every step provides a gorgeous view.
“Take it slowly,” Simone warns. “And avoid the rocks. They’re slippery. Especially the ones that are mossy. Grab on to a tree root or branch for support, and don’t be ashamed to use a stick. That’s what they’re there for.”
Shame. He could tell them a thing or two about shame.
Cassidy’s already raced up ahead, showing off her strength and stamina. Adam’s actually on another business call, and he mentions no less than ten times how much money he stands to make on some deal. It’s better if Henry steers clear of him. He’s not in the mood for an inquisition. Leave that to the women.
There’s a tentativeness to their climb, and Henry does his best to silence the chatter in his brain, the creeping suspicion that there’s something he’s missing. Something Adam knows that he doesn’t. But he files it away. He’s the one with the secret, so he puts one foot in front of the other and enjoys the beauty and solitude.
The trail is narrow and scattered with mud and mulch. Someone’s marked the trees with purple paint splotches that soon become Henry’s guiding lights. He refuses to look down, searching upward as he’s always done. Dark, shadowy holes appear in the surrounding boulders, and he imagines creatures hiding, waiting to pounce. He’s tall, so he’s forced to duck under low branches, but occasionally, he takes a lashing to the forehead. They’re nothing compared to what the last few years have been like.
Simone captures pictures of the scenery, the flowing creek, the six of them in front of the falls, and what should have been an hour-long hike round trip becomes longer. They don’t talk much. That’s what the forest does to you. The greenery cradles you in its hands, leaving you no choice but to slip inside.
At one point, they veer off the path and wind through a thicket of trees until they reach a smooth boulder jutting into the stream. They sit on the rock, and a cascade sprays them with mist as Simone unloads sandwiches and snacks from her backpack.
Henry has no choice but to converse with the others.
“I don’t believe it, Henry. I won’t believe it,” Sienna says in between bites of a turkey sandwich.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Adam asks.
Henry eyes his friend curiously, wrestling with conflicting emotions. His feelings toward Adam have grown increasingly worse. Now his shady smile works Henry’s every last nerve. He can no longer quiet the persistent doubts about his friend.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Leo asks.
Henry shrugs.
“Marriage is tough,” Penny adds. “I’m sure you never heard that before.”
Henry wonders if they’re contemplating their own marriage and whether they should have tried harder too. Adam is unusually quiet. Typically, Adam would pull some stupid prank where he’d hide in the bushes, and as the others approached, he’d shake the tree branches or toss a rock, laughing as he sent them into a panic. This Adam is too quiet.
Now it’s Sienna’s turn. “You love each other. You’re, like, the best couple we know. Who are we going to travel or spend our birthdays with?” She pauses, a look of horror crossing her smooth cheeks. “What about the kids? They’re going to be devastated.”
Cassidy lifts her head out of the sugar-free Chobani yogurt she’d wrapped in an ice pack. “They’ll be fine. Don’t make this about the kids, please. Kids are resilient.”
Henry finds this amusing considering that she and her own daughter barely speak.
“Kids definitely factor into things,” Penny begins, but Leo signals for her not to get involved.
After a short break, they pack up their leftovers and trash and make their way back to the trail. Henry is acutely aware of the pity stares, and they don’t even know the entire truth.
Sienna finally gives up on her interrogation, and when they reach the end of the path, they turn around for the mostly uphill climb back. From this vantage, the views of the river and falls change. The stream that was previously on their left is now on their right. With the sun directly above, the leaves look greener, the water like glass. An entirely new perspective.
Cassidy has once again fled ahead, paying no mind to the others. The two couples follow, and Henry lags behind a short distance, with Simone bringing up the rear. He watches how Leo assists Penny through a web of tangled roots, offering his hand as he hoists her over a slippery rock. Henry envies the way that, even now, they take care of one another, how they understand that their vines are still connected. He sees in their eyes, in the way they handle each other, that there’s still love. He wants to tell them that tonight is a sturgeon supermoon, a rare occurrence of a spectacular sky when the moon nears its closest point to Earth. Extraordinary things happen during supermoons; Earth’s magnetic field has intense power.
Months ago, when Lucy mentioned the D word, it had been a supermoon. He told her she was being dramatic, blaming it on the sky, which only heightened her anger. “Why doesn’t the supermoon work on you?” she had asked. “Why can’t I get you to open up? To share the brunt of this with me?” And when he simply remained silent, making no effort, she added, “Let me help you.”
It was a legitimate request, one he couldn’t meet.
Maybe it was just too late.
Today, he finds it easier to focus on Leo and Penny. He’ll tell them about the supermoon later. He isn’t some kitschy clairvoyant, but he does understand the Earth and the moon and rotations and gravitational pulls. Penny is the Earth, and Leo, he’s the moon. And there is no better time than now for them to right a wrong, to get back what they need most—each other.
He had needed Lucy for some time.
He was just too stubborn to admit it. Too angry and embarrassed and resentful.
He hears a loud squeal, and he looks up to see Leo lifting Penny. He’s carrying her across the bridge, and they’re laughing. And when he looks away, their happiness magnifies his sadness. Adam stares, questioning him with his eyes. Sienna runs ahead to meet Cassidy, leaving the two men alone.
“You okay, man?”
Henry nods.
Adam’s cheeks are red, and he’s out of breath from the incline. They both are.
“Did something happen between you and Lucy?” he asks. A branch snaps beneath his feet. “This just seems so sudden.”
Henry thinks about his response. He started it. He’s sure of it. He got stuck in his head, in his stifled emotions. He pushed Lucy away. And she tried. She tried so hard, the desperation in her eyes impossible to forget.
But he doesn’t owe Adam shit.
“I don’t know.” It comes out just as they round a narrow, crooked corner and have to steady themselves on the mossy rocks. And something about the cold, slick stone on his palm shocks him, and he finds himself speaking, though he’s not sure where the words come from. “It hasn’t been the same since we were here last summer.”
Adam hunches over to catch his breath, then straightens and takes a swig of water. “I barely remember last summer.”
When they arrived home last year, Henry went on a monthslong drinking hiatus. By then, Lucy had stolen a move out of Henry’s miserable playbook: avoiding him. Closing herself off. She had had enough. They politely danced around the kids and engaged in loud brawls when alone. Eventually, there was silence. The dissolution hissed like a balloon deflating and coasting off into the sky.
He had learned from Lucy and her many patients that indifference can often mean growth. When someone can’t hurt you anymore, when you neither love nor hate, the intense emotions can be spirited away into a place of neutrality. But in this case, indifference signaled a dangerous problem. The emptiness sneaked up on him until it was too late to fix. He was fighting too many battles at once, and he didn’t have the energy for all of them.
Henry feels winded and annoyed all over again. At the situation. At Adam’s inquiries.
“It wasn’t my idea to announce it here.”
“Why’d you bother coming at all?”
All that comes to mind is what a dick . Instead he says, “Lucy loves you guys. This place means a lot to her. She wanted to tell you here. For all of us to be together.”
“Yeah, but it kind of just ruins the whole mood, you know.”
“I knew you’d say something stupid like that.”
Henry knows how to get under Adam’s skin: the fact that he didn’t actually finish college, that he didn’t attend their school but went to the “subpar” university down the street. Adam graduated summa cum laude with a degree of complete and utter bullshit, the gift of gab. Yet people love him for it, as though his words sprinkle them in sunshine.
“You really are a jackass sometimes,” Henry says.
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard.”
“I can’t expect you to understand real-world problems.”
“Dude, my wife sleeps with a night-light. Did you see her freak out during the storm? It just wasn’t the time to drop this news on all of us.”
“It’s always about you, Adam. I don’t know what the hell happened to you.” He knows he should stop. They’ve been friends for years. Adam was once like a brother.
“Whoa. Lighten up.”
But Henry doesn’t want to lighten up. Something in Adam’s eyes has been taunting him for days, maybe longer. He gets in Adam’s face. “Go fuck yourself.”
And the two old friends hike back to the trailhead without speaking another word.