Re: hannah and david: woods
It was okay. Fear rode on her shoulder, just like devils and angels did in stories, and she was accustomed to it. It had been with her since she'd first seen the bent-neck lady, back when Mom and Dad said she wasn't real, and it had never left her. She walked hand in hand in hand with it, and her marriage had just made it evermore her bosom companion, and it didn't trip her up badly now. She bounced back, she recovered, she was adaptable, and there wasn't really another option for her. So her smile, when she turned it toward him, was warm and fond and fairylights in the darkness. She knew her family thought David remiss, absent, but Hannah loved him. He was Molly. He was an extension of Molly's love for him, and she would always think him family. Even if Mars ousted her, he would still be family. Maybe they were both outcasts, and maybe that explained it a little bit.
"I did," she said of living at the lakehouse. "Hugh and I were together, and I think it was a handful of months. I didn't count," she admitted, and time was like sand through a sieve at times. But her smile was bright, and she was unfocused in her usual way. "I don't mean I forgot. I just mean I didn't count the days before it went bad. I think maybe because I wasn't expecting it to collapse, but it did," she told him, and she walked beside him. Step, step, small steps. "Lonely at the party. Aren't you ever in a place with a lot of people, and it makes you realize just how alone you really are?" she asked. "I felt like that."
She veered a little, further toward the trees, but she walked slow, slow, not trying to get away. "I did that at first. I stood outside and watched." A beat, a pause, a breath. "How have you been, David? It's been months and months, since Christmas trees and bright strings of lights."