Mad Honey: A Novel by Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan

the middle of the night. To get away from him.”
    “Did he—hurt your mom?”
    “No,” I tell him. “He hurt me.”
    “See, that’s what I’m afraid of,” Asher says. “That someday—I could hurt you, too.”
    “You wouldn’t.”
    “I’ve already hurt you,” says Asher, and we both remember that day in the car. You don’t know everything, Lily, he’d snarled. There’s some shit that’s so dark you can’t possibly imagine it, ever!
    “That was an accident,” I reply. “You didn’t mean to.”
    He looks haunted. “ That, ” he murmurs, “is what I remember about my father, when I was little. It’s what my mother used to say to him.”
    I take his hand and squeeze it, hard . “You’re the most gentle boy I’ve ever known.” I lean forward and kiss him. I fall into him, until the only air I’m breathing is what he’s giving me.
    “If you wanted”—he says softly—“I could be gentle—some more.”
    He starts to unbutton my shirt. The whole time he’s looking me in the eye, like we are the only two people in the world. Up here in the tree house, it’s easy to believe this is true.
    I remember how on Sunday it made me sad that I’d never get to be in the tree house again until spring—but here we are, and the warm spell continues.
    My shirt flutters onto the floor.
    Asher watches it fall, then he looks up at the rafters. “Wait,” he says, and then he goes over to the side of the tree house where the hammock is, and opens a wooden box that lies beside a pile of board games. He roots around in the box, and when he comes back to me, he is holding a knife.
    For a second my heart stops. My wrists throb.
    “Lily,” he says, handing me the blade. “Carve your initials.”
    I clear my throat. “You know…they don’t call it a Swiss Army knife…in Switzerland.”
    I go over to the rafter where Asher’s initials are carved, and chip by chip cut out my own. It takes longer than I thought it would. But he waits, patient, this tortured boy who thinks he has a hurricane brewing under his skin.
    When I’m finally finished, Asher traps me in the circle of his arms. The knife drops out of my hand and lands on the floor with a clunk.
    “So where does the name come from?” he asks.
    “It was American”—Asher kisses me—“soldiers who”—he kisses me again—“couldn’t pronounce”—and again. This one goes on and on—“ Offiziersmesser ”—and on—“which is the German word for—”
    I never do finish that sentence.
    When Asher is braced above me, when his hips are flush to mine, I wish I could make him understand that there’s nothing inside him I would not welcome inside me. How even if there are broken parts of him and broken parts of me, together we still make a whole.
    After, we lie on the blanket, keeping each other warm. We’ve accidentally scattered the bones from our meal. My bra is hanging off the ship’s wheel. “Happy Fieldsgiving, Lily,” Asher says, stroking my hair away from my face. He nuzzles that space between my jaw and my shoulder. “Mine,” he murmurs.
    Being known, I think. This is what I am thankful for .

OLIVIA3
    DECEMBER 13, 2018
    Six days after
    In my nightmare, I am hiding.
    I can taste my own heartbeat, even as I tell myself that staying overnight at my parents’ house was the right thing. I’d come to take care of the bees, but heavy rainstorms blew in, and I couldn’t risk my toddler’s safety by driving home. There were news reports of cars hydroplaning on highways, of fatal accidents. But now that we are back in Massachusetts, Braden thinks this is just a flimsy excuse. He hammers at the door I’ve locked between us. You were leaving me, he says.
    I wouldn’t, I tell him. Ever.
    That’s funny. Because I’m pretty damn sure you weren’t here last night.
    He keeps banging, and I sit down on the edge of our bed. Is he right? On some subconscious level is that why I’d stayed the extra night? Because I knew coming home would be