Heart of the Country (5 page)

7

M
ARIA HAD ASKED
me repeatedly what was wrong, but I didn’t answer her. I told her to leave me alone, I had something to handle. The problem was, I didn’t know what, exactly, I was handling.

I didn’t even know where the jail was.

The voices had cut in and out through the wind, but I knew what I
did
hear.
“You are under arrest.”

I returned to the apartment, then literally walked in circles and chewed through every nail I had. My fingers, bloody to the quick, raced through our Rolodex for our lawyer, but I didn’t even know his name. Luke handled all of that. Everything.

Should I call his work?

What would I say?

I’d just explain it was a mistake.

Except his voice sounded so . . . guilty.

Hours ticked by. I sat on the sofa and stared at my phone. Maria called, but I didn’t answer. Maybe they hadn’t let him call anybody yet.

The sun was silky orange in the late-afternoon sky. I’d wandered to the window, stared blankly, unaware of time.

I’ve got to do something.

I got on the computer to try to figure out where the jail was. After making some phone calls, I found out he was at central booking, in the basement of the courthouse.

“He hasn’t been arraigned,” the lady said over the phone. “Check back tomorrow after 1 p.m.”

“Tomorrow?” I gasped.

“No visitors until then. It’s a long process, lots of people here. Call back.” She hung up.

I spent a sleepless night avoiding Maria’s phone calls and trying to figure out what to do. I couldn’t call Jake, could I? Or Austin? I’d never known anyone who got arrested. I wished I knew what Luke would want.

This had to be some terrible mistake, some misunderstanding. Our last conversation played over and over in my head. . . . Why had he asked me what I’d told the police? He sounded so angry.

As the morning dragged, the furious angst in my soul built. I decided to call a lawyer out of the phone book for
some advice. “Once he’s arraigned, bail will be set,” said the man, Juan Torres. He went on to recommend a bail bondsman and his own services. “He’ll need representation when he enters a plea.”

I thanked the man and hung up.

I got into our safe and took the thousand dollars. I stopped by the ATM and withdrew the largest amount it would let me, five hundred dollars. I hailed a cab from the bank to central booking. By then it was afternoon.

The cab dropped me at the curb of the courthouse. I drew in a breath, trying to feel steady like Luke.

He’ll know what to do
.

I’d barely left the curb when I looked up and saw him trotting down the steps. My heart soared. But right behind him were Jake and a man I’d never seen before, both in dark suits.

I hurried toward him. “Luke!” I said, waving my hand. His eyes were so startled when he saw me that I wondered if he was looking at some catastrophic weather event behind me. He whispered something to Jake, who gave him and then me a long, drawn-out look. He, in turn, whispered to the other man and they started walking the opposite direction.

I rushed into his arms and cried. He held me tightly, but there was something reserved about how he did. I touched his face, searched his eyes. “Are you okay? I’ve been so worried!”

“I’m fine.”

“I thought you were supposed to get a phone call from jail?” A thousand questions were lined up, one after the other, halting right at the tip of my tongue.

“I . . . I called Jake.”

I looked down the sidewalk. Jake was stepping into a car with the other man. He glanced back at me once and then disappeared inside it.

“I knew he’d know what to do,” Luke added.

I nodded, trying to understand it all. “He’ll get this straightened out, won’t he? I mean, this is some big mistake.”

Luke let go of me, took a small step back, which on any ordinary day would’ve meant nothing to me. But today it meant everything.

A blink.

A breath.

“Luke? It’s a mistake, right?”

“I didn’t do anything illegal,” he said.

And then I stepped back.

We took a cab home in complete silence. My breath kept catching in my throat. Six inches separated us, but it felt like an endless chasm.

At home, he went to the fridge, took out a beer, sat down. He did not seem to be inviting questions.

“Are you hungry?”

“I guess,” he said, answering with a vague hollowness to his voice indicative of not even hearing the question.

I delivered the turkey and avocado on rye, his favorite, and then sat across from him. His sandwich went untouched.

I gathered the nerve. “Are you going to tell me what happened?” I tried a small, white-flag-waving smile.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t think that’s an option.”

His eyes, tired with dark circles under them, darted upward, his gaze boring through the thick heaviness between us.

“There must be,” I said evenly, “a reasonable explanation.”

His hands tore through his hair. He stood. “It’s complicated, Faith. Okay? It’s not as simple as an explanation. I can’t explain this to you.”

“Too much for a simple country girl to understand?”

He looked at me. “That’s not what I said. Or meant.”

“Then you better tell me what’s going on.”

He looked at me resentfully. My presence was no comfort to him. He turned his back and looked out the window. The dim light of the late sun cast a golden glow against him.

“They’re going to say that I knew something.”

“Who?”

He didn’t answer.

“Did you know something?” I finally asked.

His shoulders slumped and his hands plunged deep into his pockets. “You won’t understand . . .”

He was right. I walked to the bedroom and pulled my suitcase from beneath the bed. I could barely see as I threw clothes and toiletries into the bag. What was I doing? Even as I went from the bathroom to the closet to the suitcase, it felt surreal. Every few seconds, I’d glance to the door, expecting his shadow to be crossing the threshold.

In fifteen minutes I’d finished. The zipper sounded ominously final. The suitcase was so heavy I barely got it off the bed. It thumped to the ground, landing on the tip of my big
toe. I cried out in pain, but I don’t think it was my toe that hurt that badly.

I rolled it out into the hallway and to the front door. I turned the knob and pulled it slowly open. Was this what I wanted? But how could I trust him? I didn’t even know who he was anymore.

I didn’t dare look back, but I knew.

He wasn’t coming after me.

8

S
HE PROBABLY WOULD’VE
never guessed that every time I came into a room, I looked for her. She was the first thing I looked for. She was the last thing I saw when I closed my eyes at night. But I doubted she would believe that now.

I stared out my apartment window at Central Park. I’d lived my whole life here, in the heart of New York City, the Upper West Side. I was raised by nannies who walked me to school, then walked my dog for me while I was away. Still, I never got tired of the view. My father had once told me that I should never take this view for granted. That most people would never get a chance to stare down on this shining city, this beautiful park.

As beautiful as this fall morning was, with the orange, yellow, and brown leaves rocking gently through the air, I couldn’t admire it. I barely noticed it. Instead I watched a little boy in a bright-yellow slicker walk with his mom below.

Yellow. I turned to stare at the painting, which we’d moved back to our living room.

“Senor Luke?”

I blinked. The little boy in the raincoat was gone, but the city moved without pause and I was back to my grim reality.

“Yes, Rosa?”

“Would you like me to take your clothes to the dry cleaner’s?”

I smiled because the words stung and I didn’t want Rosa to see it. But we both knew that Faith normally took care of that. She loved doing it. She said it reminded her of her mother, how she always took great care to make sure her father’s laundry was properly done.

“That would be terrific. Thank you, Rosa.”

“Will Senora Faith be returning for the weekend?”

I stepped forward, away from the window and the sounds of the city. “You know what, Rosa? Why don’t you take the weekend off.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, yes, take the weekend off with pay, okay?”

“Senor Luke, thank you. And thank Senora Faith as well.”

I nodded and watched Rosa gather her things and leave. The apartment was so quiet, I heard it creaking against the wind that always blew harder this high up.

Nearby, from a shelf I hardly ever regarded, I picked up the framed picture of Catherine. It had sat there for years, unobserved most of the time, quietly watching over me.

I didn’t know much about her. Not her middle name. Not her favorite food. But what I did know was that she looked so much like Faith, it was eerie. Her eyes danced like Faith’s, sparkling with life and love. Her smile looked generous, as though she never had a complaint.

Faith hardly talked about her, but when she would, there was a certain reverence in her voice and deep emotion that I rarely saw.

“Are you watching over her?” I whispered to the picture. “She won’t let me anymore.”

I turned and sat down in the leather club chair we’d bought a week after our honeymoon. It was once comfortable, but now irritatingly low to the ground. The leather felt too slick. How did it not feel like luxury anymore?

I stared at our home, full of space, full of silence. My eyes rose to that bright-yellow painting that I’d come to adore. She’d been right all along. It was perfect . . . once you got to know it.

I took a good long look at it. If I could take one thing to jail, that would be it.

9

I
NOTICED RIGHT AWAY
that my mind had not drifted to memories, which told me that I could not drive this road anymore without a good deal of concentration. I once could. Probably blindfolded.

This road, like most here, curved. But there were no big hills, no rocks or boulders. Instead, the land was fertile from centuries of leaves and dying animals decaying into the soil, on top of the sand that the retreating ocean had supposedly left. Daddy used to tell us that where we lived had once been the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. “As the crow flies,” he would say, “we’re practically still in the ocean. It’s only about twenty-five miles away!”

The land itself seemed to form gentle waves as rises and ridges alternated with low-lying, sometimes-swampy areas. Houses were built on higher land. Cemeteries too. The other land had been cleared for fields, pastures, and barns. Or, if we were lucky, left wooded as God had created it.

The asphalt was once new, black and smooth, bright-white paint marking the boundaries. Some initiative of the state years ago to bring Columbus County into the right decade. But drought, heat, and years had taken their toll. I watched carefully for the potholes that had already nearly claimed the underside of my SUV. I was kind of regretting not renting a car. The last thing I wanted to do was pull up in the BMW X5 and give the wrong impression. But I had to be honest with myself. It was going to be nearly impossible not to. For many more reasons than the stupid car I was driving.

A lump filled my throat. I knew it would, as soon as I saw the flashing yellow stoplight up ahead, cautioning drivers of a dangerous intersection. The corn was high. It would be hard to see from the cross street. I slowed down and noticed my knuckles were white. I let my hands relax a little. I was incredibly high strung lately, and that was another impression I was going to have to try hard to nix. But who was I kidding? People would think what they would think. Hadn’t I learned that lesson yet?

I accelerated through the intersection, not another car in sight. The road stretched straight now, a postcard snapshot of quintessential North Carolina. The leaves of the maple, oak, gum, and hickory were already turning. The majestic
pecan, taller, bigger and more prevalent, filled places where old houses and shacks used to be. They seemed infinite and immortal. I gazed out, searching for those familiar, dilapidated farmhouses that I loved to find as a kid. You could practically hear them creaking from the car. Dark and hollow, they sparked a sense of imagination inside me. I’d wonder about who lived in them. They were sometimes so small.

My favorite was coming up. I smiled at the thought of it. It was a two-story, abandoned since 1954, according to my father. My friend Amanda’s father owned the field next to it. We’d ride the tractor with him, then hop off and go explore, nearly always making our way to the house. It was nothing more than wood, with nails exposed and broken glass from windows that had been shattered by storms. That made it all the more fun.

We’d pretend, for hours, to be cowgirls or sisters or whatever we wanted to be. I was ten when Amanda’s parents finally banned us from the upstairs. If you drove by, you could see why. The whole thing leaned perilously to the left.

Soon we outgrew it. And then they lost their farm and had to move. By then I was interested in boys anyway.

I shielded my eyes from the glaring sun, trying to find it in the overgrown field. I slowed and pulled to the side, wondering if I’d missed it.

No . . . there was the old iron gate that we used to sit on. I glimpsed the road that led up to the house. I pulled into the short gravel drive and got out.

There it was. Or had been. I stared at the pile of wood,
collapsed in on itself. It looked pathetic. What had finally caused it to fall? Hail? A hurricane? Did it matter?

I turned away and watched the wind snake through the corn, parting it like it was water in a riverbed.

And then I couldn’t help it. I cried.

I pretended it was for the house.

I wiped the tears. Up ahead, the wooden sign still stood, welcoming anyone who might be interested into Columbus County.

I got back into my shiny SUV and continued my journey. It was almost over, and that was the part I dreaded. We all have something we fear. A flash in our minds. An image that haunts the empty corridors of our hearts.

There was one moment that I had worked so hard to make never happen. It was the thing that I had run from for years.

And now it was here.

So I rolled down my window and let the wind tear through my carefully styled hair. I let the lingering tears wash back against my cheeks. I didn’t look at how fast I was going. I didn’t care.

My mind was being flooded with a million regrets, and I couldn’t be bothered by anything else. The wind stung my face but didn’t block the images that forced themselves into my mind’s eye. There was nothing I wanted to think about less, yet there he was, filling my mind.

I noticed I’d slowed my acceleration unintentionally. I decided that it was because I wanted to admire this beautiful country. Tidy farmhouses popped against the lush fields
in which they sat. Trailers held their ground, too, anchored to soil that had most likely been in the family for decades. A little boy waved at me, his dirty shirt hanging against his sweaty skin. No shoes. Matted hair.

I tried to wave back, but my hand wouldn’t release the steering wheel. It didn’t matter. My windshield was tinted, a way to shield me from peering eyes. I’d never noticed before, but it was my safe place. I always retreated to my car when I needed time, space, restoration.

This time, though, I felt no relief. I had no future to dream about, so my thoughts turned to better times, which I guess is what thoughts do when they have nowhere else to go.

“Cow!”
My car came to a screeching halt as I jammed my foot on the brake. I stopped inches from the animal, and that burning rubber smell instantly cleared my mind. “Cow . . . ,” I whimpered. The animal just looked at me from the side, as cows do, blinking nonchalantly as it moseyed across the road. If a heart could break out in a sweat, mine would be soaked. Instead it thumped hard against my chest, causing pain that on any ordinary day might strike me as a possible heart attack. A little young for that, but with the life experience of a fifty-year-old, it was a maybe. I waited to see if I dropped dead, but I didn’t.

Suddenly a pickup truck, old and dented, pulled next to me, its motor rumbling like it might be ready for the old folks’ home. An old man in denim overalls reached over and cranked the passenger-side window down. “Little lady, you got awfully lucky there. Didn’t you see that cow?”

I wanted to reply that no, I had not seen the cow thanks to the fact that my mind was doing anything to keep me from thinking about what was in front of me. Or behind me . . . But this guy didn’t strike me as the kind who wanted to listen to personal problems.

“I, uh, was admiring the beauty of these parts.” I threw in
these parts
, hoping I sounded like I might fit in. I could tell I wasn’t doing a good job. He was eyeing the car. Then me.

“You all right?”

If by
all right
he meant unharmed by the cow, then yes. But I was crying at torn-down farmhouses, so
all right
needed a stronger definition.

“You’re not from round here?”

“That’s a hard question to answer.” I tried a short, polite smile . . . the kind that worked in the city to shut people up.

“Noticed your tags. New York.”

“We don’t have a lot of cows crossing the street.”

“I can think of a few choice words for what you do have crossing the street.”

Oh, boy. “Is that your bull or someone else’s?”

He smirked. Tobacco bulged from beneath his lip. “Tim Dibble’s. Fence came down in the storm last night. Be on the lookout. He’s got twenty or so cattle that he can’t account for yet.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

The cow finally made his way to the other side. Pickup Man pulled to the shoulder and whipped out his cell phone. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get used to cowboys and farmers with
their cell phones. Even in this technologically saturated world, it seemed Columbus County was frozen in time. It was a snapshot of what America was at its core. Lovely and rich with heritage.

I slowly continued on. Ahead the blood-orange sun settled toward the horizon. Haziness hovered over the countryside, ushering in memories of long summer evenings spent carelessly enjoying life.

I was less than five minutes away now, and with each passing second I was losing what little nerve I’d had.