Because of my fragile health, my best friend, Eva, kept me on a tight leash growing up. She always said the same thing whenever I wanted to try something new: “Leah, you can’t take risks.” For years, I mistook those words for love, right up until I watched her slide my wedding ring onto her finger while my fiancé smiled.
Chapter 3
David expected me home before sunrise.
He later told people he had assumed I would sit in the apartment feeling guilty until he returned.
Instead, he found half the closet empty.
My passport was gone.
My laptop was gone.
So were the shoes Eva had once told me were unsuitable because the heels would “stress my circulation.”
On the vanity, he found the vow journal.
This ends here.
Then he found the medical report.
The final paragraph said there was no physiological reason for the restrictions I had lived under for years.
For the first time, apparently, David began asking questions.
Meanwhile, I was on a train crossing Switzerland.
Snow dusted the mountains.
I drank strong coffee.
Nothing happened.
I climbed a hill to my apartment carrying my own suitcase.
Nothing happened.
The following morning, I walked twenty minutes through cold air to the research institute.
Nothing happened.
I ate cinnamon pastry.
Nothing happened.
Every harmless thing felt like an act of rebellion.
Professor Harlan met me at the institute entrance.
“You made it.”
“I did.”
“You look surprised.”
“I am.”
He smiled.
“Give yourself a month. Then you’ll be surprised you ever doubted it.”
Back in New York, David was discovering that the story of my illness had holes.
He went through old medical files.
Eventually he found the report from the day I collapsed in high school.
I learned about it later from the attorney who contacted me after David turned the documents over to authorities.
The report did not describe heart disease.
It described severe dehydration, heat exhaustion, and a high concentration of an over-the-counter sedating antihistamine.
I had apparently consumed it in a sports drink.
The bottle had been provided by Eva.
There had been an investigation at the time, but because we were minors and I recovered, our families handled much of it quietly.
Eva told everyone it was an accident.
She said she had mixed up supplements.
Then, while I lay frightened in a hospital bed, she invented the rest.
“You have a weak heart,” she told me.
“You can’t take risks.”
David believed her because he had seen me collapse.
I believed her because she was my best friend.
And every year that passed made the lie harder to question.
When David confronted her, she insisted she had only wanted to protect me.
Then he noticed the ring still on her finger.
The heirloom bracelet still on her wrist.
The clothes she had begun borrowing from me.
For once, he looked at the pattern instead of the excuse.
“Take the bracelet off.”
Eva cried.
“Your mother gave it to me.”
“To test for Leah.”
“Leah left.”
“Exactly.”
Then, according to David’s mother, Eva finally said what she had spent years pretending not to want.
“I can take her place.”
David threw her out.
He had the wedding ring cut from her finger.
He returned the bracelet to his mother.
Then he bought a ticket to Switzerland.
By then, I had been there six weeks.
I had hiked mountain trails.
I had learned enough German to order dinner badly and confidently.
I had discovered that I loved espresso.
I had also discovered something stranger.
I did not miss being protected.
My colleague Julian Weber noticed me walking too fast one afternoon as we left the archive.
“For a woman who requested sedentary assignments,” he said, “you attack hills aggressively.”
“I’m making up for lost time.”
“Make it up after dessert.”
We stopped at a café overlooking the village square.
I ordered pear strudel buried in cinnamon and a double coffee.
The air was cold enough to turn my breath white.
I sat outside anyway.
Then I heard my name.
“Leah.”
That voice did not belong among mountains.
I turned.
David stood beside the fountain.
He had lost weight.
His expensive overcoat was wrinkled, his shoes dusty, and his eyes looked as though he had not slept properly in weeks.
Julian glanced at me.
“You know him?”
“Yes.”
I looked at David.
“An old neighbor from New York.”
David flinched.
Julian offered to stay.
I thanked him and asked for five minutes.
When we were alone, David approached my table.
His eyes fell on my coffee.
Then the strudel.
“You’re eating cinnamon.”
“Yes.”
“Eva said you were allergic.”
“I’m not.”
He sat down.
His hands shook as he opened a folder.
Medical reports covered the table.
“I found everything.”
I looked at the papers.
“She drugged the drink before your race. The doctors never said your heart was weak.”
“I know my heart isn’t weak.”
“She lied to us.”
“To me.”
David swallowed.
“Yes.”
He pulled a velvet box from his pocket.
Inside was my wedding band.
Repaired.
Polished.
Only my name remained engraved inside.
“I fixed it.”
I stared at it.
“The wedding is in ten days. We can still do it.”
I actually felt sorry for him.
“David.”
“We’ll cancel the big reception. City hall. Just us. We’ll go to the ocean. Anywhere you want.”
He reached toward my hand.
I lifted my coffee instead.
“I threw Eva out. She’ll never come near you again.”
“David.”
“I know what happened now.”
“No. You know what Eva did.”
He stopped.
“That’s not the same thing.”
His face tightened.
“What do you mean?”
I looked across the square toward the mountains.
“Eva did not build that cage by herself.”
