Page 40 of Poison Wood

“You lost your mother when you were ten.”

“I’m regretting telling you that.”

“It’s an important part of your history.”

“It’s sad. It’s tragic. But that was an aneurysm, not trauma. I know trauma. I see it up close. I talk to people who have lost a loved one in the worst way possible. When your mother is discovered dead and tangled in a fishing net off the coast of Key Biscayne, that’s trauma.”

She clears her throat. I sense her wanting to argue this, but instead she says, “And how does seeing that trauma affect you?”

“It doesn’t.” But even as I say it, the pain in my temple sharpens.

“What about Broken Bayou? It’s been six months. Have you spoken with someone about it, like I recommended?”

“What do you think?” I say.

“Rita.”

“I was unconscious. I don’t remember much about Broken Bayou. I woke up in an ambulance, and even that is hazy.”

“I can promise you your body remembers. Your mind has shut it out to protect you, but sometimes it’s the things we shut out that hurt us the most.”

I glance down at the journals.

“Can we get back on track here?”

She exhales. “Yep. Okay. So the three disorders you mentioned are actually pretty common in all teenage girls. Some therapists would even say theyarein all teenage girls. We just outgrow them.”

“What about the last one?”

“BPD is tricky. Typical of a teenage girl in some ways. You never know what you’re going to get. The sad girl, the happy girl, the angry girl. Everything is a crisis. The roller coaster of emotion is quite exhausting. But like I said, most grow out of it.”

“What if a girl doesn’t grow out of it?”

“It’s not good. She would be the type of woman who would hold a grudge, who would feel betrayed by things that seem unimportant to most people. She could also be quite vindictive. And God help the men who date or marry them. Those men will ultimately pay a price.”

I think of the diary entry about the boy whose glass eye was found under the pillow of a girl at Poison Wood. Then of the skull and of Laura Sanders, tangled in a net and washed up on a beach.

“Could a girl like that kill someone?” I say.

Willa sighs. “Anyone is capable of murder. You of all people know that.”

I run my hand through the soft fur of the Aussie closest to me. He squirms and rolls over, exposing his belly. I think about cases I’ve covered. Willa’s not wrong. Killers come in all shapes and sizes, and I’vecaught myself trying to label this killer just like the school labeled all of us. It’s not going to be that easy.

“Thanks, Willa,” I say. “I may have a few more questions about this later.”

“Call me anytime,” she says.

We hang up, and the two other dogs have found their way up to me. All three are pressing their small bodies against mine.

These items from my past feel like an itch that needs to be scratched. Like a scab I need to pick at. It’s how I felt in Broken Bayou. Like there’s something under the surface here too. This is how I feel when I start on a story, like the truth is close and waiting. But the truth around this story is different. It’s why I’ve left it alone all these years. But it won’t be left alone much longer.

Soon Erin Stockwell will be stomping around it in her functional flats, digging in my past.

But I’m here now, and I can get a jump start.

There’s just one problem. And it’s a big one. My father.

My father’s reputation is about to be put through the ringer. A judge who received one of the nation’s highest judicial honors, a Rehnquist Award, allowed a possibly false confession to be admitted into evidence.