Dark Rivers to Cross sensitively explores inherited trauma and the stories we tell the ones we love. It’s about what one mother is willing to sacrifice for her children.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Dark Rivers To Cross by Lynne Reeves, which releases on November 8th 2022.
For two decades, Lena Blackwell has kept her sons at her side, teaching them everything she knows about running their successful river lodge in Northern Maine. But what she really wants is to keep her boys in the dark about their tragic past.
Her son Luke is right where he belongs, working at the family inn sheltered by acres of pine forest that stretch along the Penobscot River. So when his adopted brother, Jonah, threatens to upend their peaceful life by searching for his biological parents, Luke refuses to help.
Lena is determined to thwart Jonah’s search to uncover his own history. But the unexpected arrival of old friends at the inn for a weekend off the grid throws her plans into disarray. Little does she know, Jonah has already gleaned enough information to set in motion a deadly reckoning.
Luke may not want to know anything about his family, but he’s caught between the hard truths his brother is determined to expose and the devastating secret his mother is desperate to keep—at any cost.
Chapter One
Boston—1993
It happens in November. You are walking down Beacon Street when you feel a chill settle deep within you. It’s the kind of feeling you know won’t let go till the warmest spring day arrives with plans to linger. Or perhaps you are being followed. You tell yourself, “No, don’t be paranoid.” Still you look left, then right, scanning streets and scrutinizing intersections. Tentatively you relax, because sidewalks are dotted with the usual Brahmins and their designer dogs and BU students taking the shortcut to the Charles River Esplanade. All harmless, these people. You recognize the look on the faces of women just like you, eager to head home and fill a wineglass to the brim, the night’s companion.
Despite your uneasiness, you tell yourself he is not lurking behind a column, a lamppost, an elegant tree. He is not inside a neighbor’s vestibule or hiding on the far side of that unfamiliar van with no identifying logo. You haven’t seen him in one hundred and eighty-two days. Let go. Move on.
You open and close the door to the brownstone. Quickly. When all three locks are firmly set in place, you lean against dark oak, taking in the rambling place left over from your marriage. It always felt too big for two, and now, six months into living alone, its echoes and shadows make being there harder than you thought it would be. It should be a relief, shouldn’t it? This place planted in the Back Bay nearly two hundred years ago, with its Italian influence, should suit you. It is stable, solid; it has stood the test of time. Unlike anything else you have known.
With your husband gone, you should finally be able to draw a deep breath. Yet your lungs won’t fill, and you wonder if perhaps your body senses traces of him clinging to the drapes, worked into the fabric of the sofa. His scent still hangs on the air. Sometimes, like now, you think you can smell him as if he were standing right there.
Flick, walk, flick, walk. You turn on lights as you go room to room; your high heels sound out a path to the only other entrance. The back door is locked. Double-bolted. See? Nothing but fatigue playing tricks with your mind. It’s the cold gothic spaces that have you down, that’s all. Or something to do with changing seasons. Oriel windows that like to hug the outside, beckoning in Boston’s humidity during summer, and today, as the leaves finish their fall, allowing winter wind to take its place right on schedule.
Within seconds of turning up the heat, the pipes whine and moan, as if they’re annoyed to be roused from their slumber. You can almost hear your lover, Nic, whisper softly, “Relax, cara mia—a hot bath is all you need. Everything is fine.”
Moving on to someone new was never what you had in mind. It isn’t your style to rebound. You wanted your marriage to work, to be wonderful like that of your dearest friend, who is married to your husband’s brother. Was it so foolish to expect that things would turn out the same for you? No one can say you didn’t try to make it work. When it didn’t, you swore off men—all of them suspect to you after Davis. None to be trusted. Until you met Niccolò Conti.
With the faucet all the way up, you watch the steam climb its way out of the clawfoot tub. As much as you care for Nic—and you truly do—sometimes you wish you could vanish as easily as the vapor does. It is all too complicated, your story, your life. As you trade your sweater dress for a plush robe, you think, Yes, the wine will help. It often does. Why not light the sweet honeysuckle candle? Erase the smell memory of one man while luxuriating in the recollections of being with another. Make the best of this night to yourself, for as hard as it is to be here, it is increasingly difficult to stay at Nic’s. As much as you take pleasure in his touch, he longs for things you are not yet able to give. May never again be able to give.
Hurry to pour the wine. Check the tub. With the glass down on the vanity, beside the candle casting a delicate glow on the noble floor and ceramic tile, you drop your robe and ease your weary body into the bath; your arms and legs create known rivers as you sink into calm.
You should not have closed your eyes.
You should have come home earlier, later, not at all. If only you had invited Marli to dinner, he would not be slamming your head against the porcelain tub. Promising to hurt you like you have hurt him. Why didn’t you stop at the Lenox for a drink? Go shopping for things you do not need. You could’ve stayed at Nic’s, and accepted his generous offer to move in. But you—you weren’t ready. You were trying to make things work on your own.
You think you will fight. Claw, bite, scratch, beat your way out of the inevitable. But he has always been strong in body. And the mere presence of you has been known to push him over the edge. He is frightening enough on the brink, the permanent place where he lives now. It doesn’t help to remember he wasn’t always this way.
You think you will feel something. Fury. Hatred. Fear. At the very least, the pain of it, your body splitting in two from the force of him. Instead, you watch a lonely maple leaf attach itself to the transom. At first it grips the glass, trying to hold on against nature. And then the wind and rain come. The sky is shedding tears for you. Still you feel absolutely nothing. The leaf lets go; it slides down the glass, urging you to do the same. Surrender, it says as it falls. You think, Yes, letting go is an option, a good idea. It’s the right thing to do. You slip under the water, slowly, an inch at a time. Staying quiet so he won’t notice what you are plotting. You needn’t worry. He has become preoccupied, intimate with his own cruelty.
You think you will struggle. That the lack of air is as much your enemy as he is. But you don’t need to breathe. Even that is unimportant now.
The last thing you remember before losing consciousness is being thankful you never had children with him.
Copyright © 2022 by Lynne Reeves
