Wasp Canyon Read online

  Copyright © 2021 Danielle McCrory

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-7377043-1-7 (pbk)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-7377043-0-0 (ebook)

  Cover design by: Ryan McCrory

  In Loving Memory of

  Larry Dufour

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  PART II

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  PART III

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Push it. A little harder. A little further. A little faster. Be stronger. Be better. Be more. Past the boulder with the crust of lichen on its southern face. Past the century plant whose stalk is beginning to list to the side. Past the two saguaros shaped like a man caressing a woman. And past the towering, golden cliff faces that stand at the edge of the desert, marking the entrance to a canyon cut deep into the sun-baked mountains. The unforgiving desert heat is left behind as she enters the canyon, replaced by a cool breeze that caresses her sweat-streaked face and gently tugs at her long hair.

  Miles: 4.3

  Speed: 4.8 mph

  Time: 1 hour, 7 minutes

  Heart rate: 134 bpm

  This is where she goes to feel the fresh air and to escape from everything—both past and present. This is where she goes to listen to her breath as she pushes herself up and down the rises and falls of the trail. This is where she goes to be alone and to prove to herself that she can get better—that she can make progress. As she runs along the trail she forgets about the pain, and she forgets about what she is fighting to overcome. On the trail it is just to run a little harder, a little further, a little faster. She can be stronger on the trail. She can be better. And she can be more.

  Miles: 6.4

  Speed: 4.7 mph

  Time: 1 hour, 49 minutes

  Heart rate: 137 bpm

  Something up ahead is blocking the trail—something that doesn’t belong. She has come to know this trail like a person comes to know the body of their long-time lover—every curve, every mole, every scar. She knows when she must swerve to the left to avoid the sweeping branches of an aging mesquite tree. She knows when she must slow her pace to conserve her energy for the steep incline that lies ahead. And she knows when she must watch her footing to avoid tripping on the jagged stones jutting out of the hard, desert soil.

  But now there is something stretched across the trail—something unfamiliar and wrong. Like finding a fresh wound on the landscape of that lover’s flesh that you thought you knew better than your own. Something is lying across the trail, blocking her passage to the desert beyond—and to her car, her home, and to the life she is struggling to enjoy living again. Something up ahead doesn't seem right—doesn't seem safe—and an overwhelming sense of danger sweeps over her. It pulls her from her reverie of happy moments long since passed. She slows too late, her eyes fixed on what's ahead and not what is directly in front of her. Her foot strikes a rock with violent force—another surprise on the trail she thought she knew so well. She is sent careening to the canyon floor with little ability to slow her descent. She lay in the dirt, looking at what was now sprawled across the trail. Her trail, one she has run every day for months. But now, not too far from where she lay injured, something foreign was blocking her path. Something that wasn’t there before. She sits up, her ankle already beginning to swell, and stares at what lies ahead. That same sense of danger sweeps over her again, stronger this time. She knows she is no longer safe here. She knows this isn’t her trail anymore. She needs to get out of here—she needs to escape. But the only way out is to go forward. Whatever she does, she needs to hurry. Time is running out.

  Miles: 6.5

  Speed: 0.0 mph

  Time: 1 hour, 51 minutes

  Heart rate: 179 bpm

  Part I

  GRIEF

  Chapter 1

  “I just don’t understand,” Jessica Cleary muttered. She sat in an overstuffed armchair in the center of the office, curled into a defensive position with her legs pulled up to her chest. She was a petite woman, her small frame even further dwarfed by the large, beige chair. Lines of stress had already begun to etch into her young face. At the tender age of twenty-four, she had already been dealt a great deal more pain and heartache than those many years her senior. The pain in her eyes was unwavering and complete—the defeated stare of someone that has already given up.

  “No matter how much time passes I just can’t seem to understand,” Jessica continued. “It’s like he was here every day—all day, every day—for my entire life. And now he’s not.” She sighed and continued to fiddle with a strand of blonde hair, a sign of nervousness that Dr. Cynthia Wyatt picked up on many sessions ago.

  “Everyone was saying how sad it is and how sorry they are,” Jessica said with mock-sympathy, “but really they just want to move on.” Her voice hardened, taking on a bitter tone. “No one wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about something that is depressing. It will just bring them down and ruin their day. So they rather pretend it never happened at all. If it didn’t happen to them, then they don’t give a shit. They don’t really care about how you feel, they care about you keeping your mouth shut and not bumming them out. So when they ask how you are doing, they expect you to say you’re doing just fine. They don’t want to hear you say the truth—that you’re dying inside—because that’s depressing. And they may feign sympathy if you do say you’re sad, but really they are just thinking ‘Why the hell have you not gotten over it already?’ Deep down they just want you to move on and shut up about it,” Jessica said, and fell silent. It was the most she h
ad spoken since her therapy sessions began two months ago.

  Wyatt sat quietly with her hands clasped in her lap. The executive office chair she sat in was currently situated in front of her large, mahogany desk. Wyatt had brought it out from behind the desk prior to the start of Jessica’s appointment—something she did for every treatment session. She didn’t like having anything between her and her patients when she was trying to connect with them. It was too formal to sit behind a desk—too impersonal. She wanted to be available to her patients with no barriers in the way—both figuratively and literally.

  Wyatt waited another moment, wanting to give her patient the opportunity to continue speaking, if she chose to do so. Jessica hugged her knees, one hand continuing to tug at a strand of hair. She stared blankly out the picture window to her right, her face turned away.

  Wyatt watched her, looking for any indication that Jessica may further voice her thoughts pertaining to her father’s death. It had taken many sessions for Jessica to speak so freely, and Wyatt wanted to allow her a few more seconds to speak her mind if she wished to continue. Her troubled young patient appeared to be through, though. Jessica sat in silence in the beige chair that Wyatt had painstakingly picked out—a chair that was already beginning to show signs of wear.

  The treatment office was a spacious one, each item inside carefully selected by Wyatt herself. The plush chair sat in the center of the room, facing Wyatt’s large, uncluttered desk. Multiple plaques hung above the desk, awards from Wyatt’s many years of being voted “Best in the Southwest” for her achievements in psychology. Bookshelves lined the opposite wall, filled with textbooks on psychology and pathological disorders. A picture window took up the bulk of the northeast-facing wall, offering a generous view of the mountain range.

  The chair Jessica was now seated in was the first item Wyatt had selected when she decided to start her own practice. After spending many years working in a group practice setting, Wyatt decided that self-employment was a much more desirable option. She bid farewell to the agency, stepped into the land of private practice, and never looked back.

  Wyatt selected a perfectly suitable office building on the northwest side of town with a treatment office that overlooked the Santa Catalina mountain range. She took great care in selecting the correct furnishings for her waiting room and treatment office, believing everything mattered right down to the light fixtures and coffee table. She wanted a soothing environment where her patients would feel comfortable opening up and confiding in her. Wyatt believed the chair she selected for her patients was of utmost importance. This would be where her patients would sit, would think, and would grow. Lying on an uncomfortable leather couch staring at the ceiling seemed absurd, so she made sure to steer clear of such clichés. She wanted a chair that would be comforting and safe—something large and cushioned to make her patients feel protected. The oversized arm chair had the desired effect, the chair seeming to have a womb-like comfort that allowed her patients to feel safe talking about their innermost thoughts and feelings. Once one of these chairs began to wear out she would promptly order another of the exact same make and color. She had now been through eleven chairs since beginning her private practice.

  Jessica was sitting in chair number twelve, staring out the window and absentmindedly yanking on the same strand of hair. After a long silence she said, “I can’t move on. I can’t just wake up one day and say ‘Ok, I’m better now.’ My dad is dead. I don’t understand how I am supposed to just live my life like normal knowing that my dad is dead. It all feels like a lie. Being normal feels like a lie. Smiling feels like a lie. I go to work and smile like an idiot all day, and then cry all the way home. It’s all just one big lie.” Jessica shifted her weight in the chair, turning her body away from Wyatt and toward the picture window. Wyatt could almost hear the girl shut down.

  “Jessica, what you need is a way to channel it,” Wyatt said, hoping to pull her patient’s attention away from the window and back to the subject at hand.

  “Channel it?” Jessica asked, turning her vacant stare away from the mountains. Her eyes cleared and she focused on Wyatt. “Channel what exactly?”

  “Your anger,” Wyatt said. “The anger you feel towards your friends because they want you to get over it. The anger you feel towards your mother for making you come here. And the anger you feel towards your father, for dying.”

  “I am not mad at my father!” Jessica exclaimed.

  Wyatt lifted her hands a few inches from her lap, quieting Jessica before she could make further protest. “Maybe not directly,” Wyatt said. “Maybe not in the same way you are mad at your friends and your family. But you are mad that your father has died—you are mad that he has left you, even if that was never his intention.”

  Jessica let out an exaggerated sigh and returned her gaze to the picture window. “You can’t be mad at someone who is dead,” she whispered.

  “Sure you can,” Wyatt said. “We can get mad at anyone we want to, living or dead. And we do, believe me.”

  Wyatt saw a trace of a smile touch Jessica’s lips. “So what did you mean about channeling it?” she asked.

  “I mean channeling everything you are feeling into a productive activity. The anger, the sadness, the hopelessness. Channel those things into something you can actively do to get your mind off of it. Or hell, use that activity to get your mind on those feelings. Everything you are feeling is as normal as it is debilitating. If you dedicated a part of each day into allowing yourself to feel those emotions, and channeled them into something productive, maybe they will become less overwhelming to you. And maybe, with time, they will also become less negative.”

  Jessica turned away from the window. Her hand dropped from her hair and she clasped it loosely in her lap. “Losing a parent is always negative.”

  “Of course it is. But your life doesn’t have to be negative forever,” Wyatt said. She glanced down at her lap, and to the elegant, golden watch she had strapped to her left wrist. The Rolex’s minute hand was nearing the top of the hour, indicating that Jessica Cleary’s session was about to come to an end. “Just give it a try, Jessica. Try channeling those feelings into a productive activity and see how you feel.”

  “What activity?” Jessica asked. She uncurled from the fetal position and placed her feet on the floor. She looked at Wyatt with genuine interest.

  Wyatt considered the question. Finally she said, “Something that gets you out of the house. Something that gets you away from the friends, family, or coworkers that are making you feel negative right now. And,” Wyatt smiled, “something that provides you with some much needed endorphins.”

  Jessica leaned forward in the carefully-selected beige chair, eyebrows raised.

  “Exercise!” Wyatt declared.

  Jessica made a face like she just smelled sour milk. She looked at Wyatt incredulously. “Exercise? Like Pilates?”

  Wyatt put up her hands. “Here me out,” she said. “I don’t mean watching Buns of Steel videos in your living room or running on a treadmill in a smelly gym. I mean exercise outdoors—in the fresh air—out in nature. Arizona is known for its hiking trails and breathtaking scenery. Take advantage of it. It could be hiking, running, cycling . . .”

  “I fell off a bike when I was a kid and broke my arm,” Jessica said. “I haven’t been on a bike since. And hiking sounds boring.”

  “Running then. Go out, in nature, and start running.”

  “Running . . .” Jessica said, her brow furrowed. Then: “But I don’t know how to run.”

  Wyatt smiled. “Luckily, it’s something all us humans can pick up pretty quickly. If you have any trouble, just pretend something is chasing you.”

  Chapter 2

  Jessica stood in the electronics section of Target, looking over the selection of fitness watches. Per Dr. Wyatt’s suggestion, she had stopped after her therapy session to pick out a fitness tracker for her new running project. Running. God, this is going to be stupid. Or painful. Or both.
>
  Jessica had never been one for physical fitness. She detested team sports, and never felt much drive to incorporate exercise into her daily routine. She had always been slim, her eating habits never catching up with her waistline. Her best friend, Claire Barnett, would often comment on the unfairness of life: Jessica getting to eat whatever her heart desired while Claire always saw the proof of that slice of pizza on her hips the following morning. Not that Jessica was much of a junk food eater. Before her father’s passing she had kept to a fairly healthy diet. Now she ate little, and not often. Her weight loss in the past nine months had not gone unnoticed by her mother, or, more recently, Dr. Wyatt.

  Jessica stood at five foot six inches tall. Before this whole mess started, she weighed in at one hundred and thirty pounds—now she guessed she was around one hundred and ten, although she hadn’t bothered to weigh herself in quite some time. Taking care of herself had slowly become less and less of a priority as she spent more and more time caring for her father during his final months. Once he finally passed, caring for herself ceased all together, which was part of the reason her mother insisted on Jessica beginning her sessions with Dr. Wyatt.

  Her mother had discovered Dr. Cynthia Wyatt on a Google search. Jessica found the whole idea of seeing a shrink as silly and unnecessary, but her mother insisted. And after all her mother had been through, Jessica thought she might as well humor her with these stupid therapy sessions. So for the past two months she had faithfully gone to Dr. Wyatt’s office once a week.

  The sessions started generically enough. Where are you from? Tucson. Where do you work? Minstrel’s Steakhouse. Do you have a boyfriend? Screw you. Slowly the sessions became more focused, Dr. Wyatt edging closer and closer to Jessica’s actual purpose for being there: her father’s recent death and her apparent inability to move on. Like this is something you can move on from. Like this is something seeing a stupid shrink was going to fix. Poof! Your dad isn’t dead. Poof! Life is normal again. Poof! Your will to live has been restored.