Free The Cuckoo's Child by Margaret Thompson Page B

play of white as it encountered an obstacle on its way, the faint susurration it made a steady counterpoint to the whine of tires above.
    I swear I had not thought of suicide up to that point. Not with the leaden weight of memory and guilt, not with the daily reminders of Daniel’s presence in the house, not with the hallucinatory glimpses that teased with appalling hope only to be dashed the next instant, not even with the insomniac hours in the dead watches of the night. But at that moment, by the quiet hurrying water, it seemed the most natural, inevitable thing in the world to walk out and drop into the current and let it carry me away.
    I even took the first step. Your voice stopped the second.
    â€œLivvy, I’m getting married in June. I’ll want you at the wedding, you know.”
    I wrenched myself round to face you. You continued, straining to be light and matter of fact.
    â€œHolly’s got relatives coming out of her ears—her side of the church will be stacked. I’ll have to bribe everybody I know to come, just so it’ll look even.”
    â€œ Holly ?” I managed and burst into tears.
    You caught me in a bear hug. “She can’t help her name, her mother loved Audrey Hepburn.”
    You were silent a moment. Then, “It’s not on, Liv. There’s always a chance he’ll be found, always a chance, as long as we don’t know for sure what happened. You can’t go while there’s that chance.”
    That night, for the first time since Daniel’s disappearance, I wept uncontrollably. After a while, I stopped trying to mop up the tears and let them flow unhindered. They poured down, dripped in a steady rain from my nose and chin; my clothes were soaked; I left little puddles on the tabletop. I would have had to retreat to higher ground if exhaustion had not set in. Mice would have been swimming by, telling tales. But just as the river I had turned from the night before scoured its beds and banks, carrying all the debris away to the hidden sea, so my tears purged something in me. I woke, my face a pulpy, sodden mask, and felt lightness—not happiness, by no means, there’s never any release from the daily wakening to loss—but a lessening, a more supportable burden.
    As we drove north, past Spences Bridge and the herd of mountain sheep almost indistinguishable in their dun coats from the sage they browsed, past Cache Creek and the Hat Creek Ranch, past Clinton and 100 Mile House, into the rolling ocean of the Cariboo and a sparse landscape that had not yet quite forgotten winter, you told me about Holly and your plans. I was startled to learn this was nothing new; you had known her for a year or more, and the wedding day was fixed for June 24. With another pang of guilt, I realized how impervious I had been. What else had I ignored, buried head first in my own misery?
    We said nothing about the river. You’d rescued me as I’d once rescued you, and nothing needed to be said. Just before you left for Prince George, though, after delivering me like a valuable parcel to Mum and Dad, you caught at my hand and spoke urgently, forcing me to look you in the eye.
    â€œGo to the doctor and get something for depression. If he tells you to pull yourself together and it’ll be all right, go somewhere else. Got it? Will you do that?”
    I nodded. You turned to Dad, and I saw the first of a new, authoritative Stephen. “You see she goes,” you said. “She needs treatment, not pep talks,” and Dad, also looking a bit startled, nodded agreement.
    And so I arrived at a watershed of sorts.

EIGHT
    At first, aided and abetted by Mum and Dad, and probably the medication their doctor prescribed, I did nothing but sleep. Lucky timing—a patient ducking out of his sessions just as the doctor referred me—got me in to see a therapist in Prince George. It was only after visiting her for a few weeks that I realized how rare a