Close to the Broken Hearted (12 page)

My mother took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm herself. “I'm gonna go now, Addison. I'll call you back when I've had a chance to digest this.”

“Thank you, Leah. I appreciate you even considering it. You're a very nice person.”

My mother put the receiver back in its cradle. She was white as a cotton sheet hung out to dry on a spring day. Her hands were still trembling. Turning, she slid her back down the cupboards until she was sitting on the floor staring straight ahead, looking way off into the distance the same way Preacher Eli had done that day we'd shown up at his house in Blackberry Springs.

“You okay?” I asked quietly.

“I'm not sure,” she said. “You have grandparents alive on your pa's side. They want to see you.”

I'd already heard, but hearing it again sent lightning bolts from the bottom of my feet surging up through my body. I had
new family.
Family I hadn't even
known
about.

“We gonna go?” I asked, trying to keep my excitement contained, although I'm certain my mother saw it in my eyes and heard it in my voice. It's hard to wrestle back that kind of energy.

“I dunno yet.”

“Oh,” I said.

Two houseflies were buzzing around the room, zigging and zagging, making complex patterns through the air. I stood and watched them. My mother kept staring at something way past that kitchen wall.

“Anythin' I can do for you?” I asked.

“Nothin'.” Whatever she was fixated on was far, far away. “If this is all true, my daddy lied to me the last four years of his life.” She turned toward me with the weirdest look in her eyes. “First I find out
your
pa lied to me, now I find out
my
pa lied to me. Has
anyone
told me the truth my entire life? Nothing makes any sense anymore, Abe.”

“I tell you the truth,” I said.

“I certainly hope you do.”

“I do. I always do.”

“Let's try to always keep it that way, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “How 'bout we pinky swear on it?”

But it turned out she didn't feel much like pinky swearing on anything.

L
eah showed up at work and gave a light rap on the office door of Police Chief Ethan Montgomery. She had already said hello to Chris and made a pit stop at the coffee machine to fill up her mug.

“Come in!” Ethan called out.

She opened the door and popped her head inside. “Got a sec?” Ethan was sitting, as usual, in his large padded chair behind his big oak desk. He had his own cup of coffee, freshly poured, on the desktop in front of him. He motioned to the chair on the other side of his desk. “Sure. Come on in. What's on your mind?”

Leah closed the office door and took a seat.

“Well, as you know, that woman showed up and told Abe she was his ‘aunt' and all.” She took a sip of her coffee.

“I thought we straightened all that out with the background check on Billy. He had a sister. Her story's good.” Ethan didn't touch his mug. It just sat there, pretty much dead center between his hands, steam rising from the top.

“Well . . . just cuz Billy had a sister don't mean this woman is her. This woman could be anyone.”

Ethan Montgomery rolled his eyes, or came as close to it as Leah figured he dared do in front of her. He knew she had a temper. “Come on, Leah, you aren't that dumb. Now why would this woman show up on your doorstep claimin' to be Billy's sister? 'Specially after all this time? Ain't like there's any sort of inheritance or nothin' to be had. Least none that I know of.”

Leah laughed. “None that I know of either.” She held her mug in her lap with both hands. It was hot and she kept having to shift it from one hand to the other.

“Well . . . there ya go.”

“It's just that—”

“It's just that you don't like anything drumming up memories of the past. I know. I've known you since you were just a bean sprout. You've always been the same way. Got that from your momma.” Now Ethan grabbed his coffee and drank some. He put his mug right back down where it had been.

Leah took a few deep breaths. Suddenly, she wasn't sure why she was even in Ethan's office. She felt stupid for coming to him, like a little kid coming to her father for advice on something he couldn't possibly help her with, like when she first started liking boys in school. She glanced nervously around the room: at the law books stuffed along the shelves on the walls, at Ethan's big oak desk that barely fit width-wise in the room, at the floor, at the blinds hanging down the windows that looked out into the large room (they were always closed)—anywhere and everywhere but at him.

“What's really on your mind?” he finally asked, his chair squeaking as he leaned back, coffee cup in hand.

That chair had squeaked for as long as Leah could remember. Now it annoyed her that he hadn't bothered to fix it, or oil it, or do anything about it. Then she realized it was just her mind finding something to fill itself with other than answering the question he had just directed her way.

“Abe wants to meet this new family of his that's suddenly popped up out of nowhere.” The windows behind Leah looked out on to the street. Through those windows, the sun peeked out from behind a cloud, its light breaking through the boughs of the fig tree that stood outside.

“You mean the aunt? I thought they met already?”

“There's more than just the aunt. There's grandparents, too. Billy's ma and pa. They live just outside of Columbus in Georgia.”

Ethan leaned forward, putting his big forearms on his desk, bringing his hands almost as far forward as the pictures standing along the front. “Now how do you know that?”

Leah looked away again. Above her head, the large wooden ceiling fan slowly turned. “Cuz I called her. The aunt, I mean. Abe made me do it.”

Ethan laughed. “Abe ‘made you' do it? What did he do? Pull out your gun and hold it to your head?”

“No, he played a guilt card I wasn't ready for. Turns out he found a picture of Billy in my closet years ago and has been carryin' it around with him ever since. Never told a soul. Told me it's his good luck charm. Told me since nobody ever wanted to talk about his pa he had to just look at the picture and imagine what he was like.”

Ethan turned sideways in his big chair and crossed one leg over the opposite knee. He looked out the long rectangular window beside the large bookcase. “Wow,” he said. “That kid's good. Gotta give him credit.”

“Made me feel horrible. Like I've hidden his father away from him all these years on purpose.”

Ethan paused, then turned to her. He waited until she looked up and their eyes met. “Well, haven't you, Leah? Isn't that
exactly
what you done?”

Leah felt tears coming. “Oh, don't you go tellin' me stuff like that. I already feel bad enough.” She took another sip of coffee, but barely tasted it. Her senses were all focused on her guilt.

“Well, if you came in here lookin' for sympathy, I think you picked the wrong guy.”

“Actually, I came in here lookin' to make some sense outta things. See, turns out I got a few problems to reconcile.”

Ethan's eyes narrowed. He was interested now. “What sorta problems?”

“Well, for starters, Billy lied to me throughout our entire relationship. Never once mentioned his sister and barely said a word 'bout his ma and pa. You'd think they'd all come up at least in passing.”

“You didn't just assume he had a ma and a pa?”

“Oh, you know what I mean. And when I spoke to Miss Addison—that's the sister—she told me the reason he never talked 'bout her was on account of her bein' the black sheep of the family. But then she said something strange. That it was funny, her bein' the black sheep in a family with someone like Billy in it. She was tryin' to say Billy had to be pretty bad or somethin', I guess.” Leah looked into Ethan's dark eyes. “What do you think she meant by that?”

Ethan took a big gulp of coffee. When he set his mug back down, it seemed almost empty. He slid it across the desk from one hand to the other. “I don't rightly know, to be perfectly honest. I didn't know the boy that well, but from what I did know, he seemed like a fine gentleman to me. Did well by you and those kids. And if there had been anything too bad, it'd shown up on that background check we done.”

“That's what I keep thinkin'. But she made it sound like he was a bona fide hell-raiser. I tried to get something specific out of her, but she wouldn't give me any details. In fact, most of what she told me was vague. Especially when it came to her life and Billy's. She was more open about her folks.”

“Some people are like that. You know that better than anyone.”

“I know.”

“So, what else?” Ethan asked her.

“What do you mean?”

“You said Billy lied to you, for starters. What's the rest?” Another big drink of coffee and this time Leah thought Ethan's mug was completely empty. His hands played with it on his desk, spinning it one way then the other.

She hesitated. This was the part she wasn't sure she wanted to talk about, especially with Ethan Montgomery, because of all the people she knew in Alvin, he might be able to actually tell her the truth. And she wasn't sure she really wanted to know the truth.

Above her that big fan continued to turn, always so slowly.

She let out a sigh.

“You're gonna tell me eventually,” Ethan said. “May as well just get through it.” He gave his mug another spin.

“All right then,” Leah said. “According to this Addison woman, my pa knew her folks for the last four years of his life. She says they was at Billy's funeral, but stayed out of my way on account of they thought Billy would've told me things about them that would've made me not want them there. But they met Pa and he struck up a relationship with them.”

She watched Ethan carefully while she said this, with the eyes she had developed during her dozen or so years working as a detective for the Alvin Police Department. And she was pretty sure in those eyes she saw something. Ethan had shifted in his seat uncomfortably during her little talk. He'd stopped playing with his mug, but he'd covered any other reaction well. Still, she thought she definitely saw something underneath his calm demeanor; she was certain he knew something and was weighing whether or not he was gonna tell her.

“You know anythin' 'bout this?” she asked him straight out.

“Your pa was a good man, Leah,” he said flatly. He moved his chair back slightly from his desk, pushing himself away from her in the process, she noticed.

“My question was one with a ‘yes' or ‘no' answer, Ethan. I gotta know if my pa lied to me the entire four years before he died.”

Ethan held up his hand. “You're startin' to get all riled up. Don't. And 'fore I answer your question—and I
will
answer it, I promise—I want to discuss your interpretation of the word
lying
. You have already convicted Billy of lying to you when really all he did was avoid tellin' you somethin'. Those are two different things.” He pointed a thick forefinger at her.

“Ethan, come on. Failure to disclose is lyin'. You know that better than anyone, probably more so, to use your words right back at you.” She was getting upset now. “Don't you read any of these law books you have on these shelves? If Billy didn't tell me 'bout his sister after five years of marriage, he
lied
to me. I don't care what you say. And if my pa was carryin' on a relationship with Billy's folks knowin' damn well I didn't know they even existed or anythin' 'bout 'em then he lied to me, too. And if you're gonna try to defend that position in any way then you're a goddamn liar yourself!” Her hands were trembling as she lifted her mug to her lips and finished her own coffee. It wasn't nearly so hot anymore.

Both Ethan's palms came up now. “Whoa, Leah, slow down. Seriously. Relax.”

“Answer the question, Ethan!” she said, nearly shouting. Her mug swung down at her side. There was no question Chris sitting at his desk in the room outside the office could hear her yelling.

“Okay, okay,” Ethan said. “Yes, your pa knew Billy's folks. He did meet them at Billy's funeral.” He went back to sliding his mug from one hand to the other across the top of his desk.

“And
you
knew this, too? And you didn't tell me either?”

“Go ahead. Call me a liar. Might as well. Everyone's a liar. There's a reason you weren't told, Leah.”

“Oh, yeah? And what's that?”

“Because,” Ethan said. “Because you had enough on your plate with Billy's death. You had two kids to look after and you was refusin' to let anyone help you. You was still reeling from the Ruby Mae case, which nearly cost you your sanity. The last thing we all thought you needed was to have Billy's folks pop into your life.”

Once again, he raised his forearm and pointed at her.

“Within a week of him dyin',” he said, “you took every picture of Billy down from the walls of your house. You basically packed your memories of him away. You didn't want anythin' to do with him no more. We was worried havin' his folks in your life would push you too far. As it was, we were all worried you was close to the edge.” He picked up his mug and set it down hard on his desk with a thump. “And that's the God's honest truth.”

Leah fell silent. Had she been that crazy after Billy's death? It was true, every photograph of him had been taken down and put away. To this day, she still hadn't looked at any of them. They were all in her closet. Her wedding ring came off the day after the funeral and was still in the shoe box with all the pictures Abe found. Every present and little gift Billy had ever given her she had taken out of sight and tucked away inside her closet. Some things she even threw away.

“Oh my God,” she said quietly. “You're right. I packed Billy right up and tossed him out of my life the moment he died.”

Ethan nodded. “Only you didn't really. You've never let him go inside of you. You've never gotten over his death. Part of you even hates him for what you think he did: You think he purposely left you to raise two young children on your own.”

Her hand came to her mouth. “I'm . . . I'm an awful person. No wonder his folks didn't want to meet me.”

“Oh, they wanted to meet you. They wanted to be part of your life so bad they was crazy 'bout it. They offered to support you and the kids. They wanted to be real grandparents to Abe and Carry, but Joe knew that couldn't happen, so he made them a deal and told them they had to settle for letters and photos that he'd send them on a regular basis.”

“Apparently, he took Abe to visit them once.”

“Is that so? Joe never told me about that. Good on him, I reckon. Does Abe remember?”

Leah shook her head. “No. He was too young.”

“But at least they got to meet their grandson. What about Carry?”

“They only know her from pictures.”

Putting his hands behind his head, Ethan interlaced his fingers and leaned back in his chair. It made another loud creak. “So I guess you got a decision to make.”

“What's that?”

“Whether or not you try to make up for some lost time now and let these fine folks get a chance to play Grandma and Grandpa after all these years.”

“I don't think I have much choice in the matter.”

“Oh, it's entirely your choice.”

Leah smiled. “You
have
met my son, right? He has his heart set on meeting them. When Abe sets his heart on somethin', it usually happens, one way or 'nother.”

“Yes, I've had some experience with that myself,” Ethan said. “I know his momma. Anyway, if it's any consolation, I think it's the right decision. As long as you can handle it.”

Leah looked down at the floor. “ 'Bout time I stopped runnin' away from ghosts.”