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Chapter 1
When Bonnie was twelve, she fell off the dock of her grandparents’ farm and plummeted into the pond. The water was deep, cold, and murky, and it all happened so fast she was underwater before she realized she’d fallen. It was her fault; her espadrilles were wet, and her grandmother had warned her not to run on the dock at least four times that morning. But Bonnie’s cousin had spotted a turtle, and she wanted to see the animal before it retreated into the dark water.
The moment she slipped was smooth. Her shoes glided across the slick wood easily, and if she’d been frozen somehow, she might have dropped into the water feet-first with a clean plunge. But she wasn’t frozen; she was flailing. Her arms windmilled, and her whole torso locked up from her shoulders to her hips. The momentum of her fall sent her tumbling headfirst into the water. She was still stiff when her cousin jumped in after her and dragged her to the surface, the turtle long forgotten.
Back on the dock, she’d vomited pond water through her mouth and nose. There was algae in her hair, and she smelled like the pond long after she’d showered. Either that or the scent of all the mud and plants lingered in her nose, mingling with the metallic taste of fear in the back of her throat. For days, Bonnie had avoided the dock, terrified of another fall, flinching every time she saw the sun glint off the pond’s surface.
All these years later, she could still remember exactly how it felt. On the phone with Charles, she relived it in startling detail, from the long slide to the sharp splash. He kept talking, but there might as well have been pond water in her ears. He was muffled and distorted by the persistent, accelerating whooshing noise in her head.
There wasn’t time for dread or anxiety.
It was an immediate plunge into desperate fear.
Selling the house was Bonnie’s best option—her only option. If she couldn’t sell the house in Albany, she didn’t know how she would come up with the money she needed to pay off Peter’s debts, let alone manage anything.
“Bonnie? Are you still there?” Charles sounded concerned, but she wondered how sincere it was, considering the earth-shattering news he’d given her.
“Sorry, I’m afraid I didn’t catch that.” She fought to maintain composure, afraid she’d lose her grip on sanity right there on the call with her husband’s lawyer. “It sounded like you told me I can’t sell my house. But that can’t be right.”