Long Black Veil (21 page)

“Gammy didn’t try to stop you from seeing Deacon?” That didn’t sound like the Gammy she knew.

Her mother shook her head. “Oh, she tried. But I was determined to do what I wanted. I thought I was invincible, that I knew best.” She gave Devon a knowing look, but didn’t say anything else. “And there was Jackson to consider.”

Devon cleared her throat, feeling guilty. “But you married Dad. Wouldn’t the ghost have tried to stop that?”

“I’m coming to it.” Lorelei’s face crumpled a little. Her voice got even lower. “After graduation, Deacon asked me to marry him. His mother was horrified, of course. I didn’t say yes right away. You see, I liked Deacon. I knew I could build a life with him. But I’d pinned my heart to Jackson Duvall.”

Devon’s eyes were wide. Hadn’t Jessamy said those very words? “You could build a life with him?” she repeated, feeling an eerie sense of déjà vu.

“I tried, Devon, I did.” Tears stood in the corners of her mother’s eyes. “Before I said yes to Deacon, I went to Jackson. He knew that Deacon had always loved me and so he’d stepped aside.” She shrugged. “He thought I loved Deacon, and he wanted his friend to be happy. That’s why he started dating another girl. He didn’t want to hurt his friend. Of course, I found all of this out much later, when it was already too late.”

“I told him about the proposal. He said I was lucky to have someone like Deacon and he congratulated me. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I thought he didn’t want me, so I stormed back to Deacon and told him yes.” A tear spilled down her cheek. “That was a moment I will regret until the very day I die.”

“You married Deacon. Knowing you loved another man.” Devon couldn’t keep the accusation from her voice.

“Yes.” Lorelei bowed her head.

“Did he know?”

“Yes, I think he always knew.” Lorelei’s voice was all sadness. “That was only the beginning of the ghost’s curse.”

“The murder?” Devon kept her voice to a whisper.

“I’m coming to that.” Lorelei wiped the tear tracks from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Jackson went away after the wedding. I was heartsick, but glad in a way. I thought without him around, Deacon and I stood a chance at happiness. And we were happy as newlyweds. Deacon was applying to colleges so he could go to medical school and I was keeping up the house.” She smiled fondly. “It was like we were kids, playing at being adults.

“Until Jackson came back.” Lorelei’s eyes met Devon’s, holding her in place with the intensity of her gaze. “And I was lost.”

Devon leaned forward, completely captivated by her mother’s story. Lorelei wouldn’t look at her as she continued. “It was early autumn. I had gone to visit Gammy and I was coming back down when my car got a flat. It was near the old chapel—is that still there?”

Devon nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Her mother continued. “Jackson was also visiting his relatives. I was walking back up to call Deacon from Gammy’s house, when he pulled up. I was surprised to see him—I hadn’t heard he was back in town.

“We were very formal with each other, the awkwardness was almost painful. Then the sky opened up in one of those flash rains we got in the fall in the mountains and we ran to the chapel to try and stay dry.” Her mother’s eyes had that faraway look again. “I don’t know if it was the sudden privacy, but we couldn’t stop ourselves. I don’t know who kissed who first, but once we started, we couldn’t stop. The affair went on all through the fall and winter. We both felt horrible about it for what we were doing to Deacon, but we couldn’t stop ourselves. I snuck away every chance I got to be with Jackson.

“I don’t think Deacon ever knew. We tried to be cautious, but it’s a small town and people will talk. It made Jackson and me more careful. We only met at the church, that was our secret place. It would have stayed that way forever, except for…”

“The shooting,” Devon finished when her mother just trailed off.

Lorelei nodded, looking at her daughter earnestly. “It wasn’t Jackson—it couldn’t have been him. He was with me that night.”

Devon stared in shock at her mother—she had let an innocent man go to jail! “Then why didn’t you say anything?”

“He wouldn’t let me. He swore me to never saying a word about where we were, he said it would hurt Deacon far too much and he couldn’t bear it. He said this was his punishment for betraying his dearest friend.”

Devon thought he sounded like a bit of a drama queen, but clearly her mother still loved Jackson, even if he made questionable life choices. “You didn’t have to listen to him!”

Lorelei seemed to shrink into herself, her body growing smaller. “I know. But I did because I was afraid. Afraid of what people would say, of what Deacon would do. I didn’t want to see the look on his face when he realized his friend and his wife both betrayed him.” Her voice was almost nonexistent when she said, “I was a coward.”

Devon said nothing. What was there to say, really? She gave her mother a few moments to collect herself, then prompted her. “Then what happened?”

“Deacon tried to find a way to get Jackson out of it—he didn’t believe he could ever kill anyone. And in the middle of this mess, I found out I was pregnant. Deacon was over the moon, he was so happy. I didn’t have the heart to tell Jackson about it. What good would it have done?” She wouldn’t look at Devon.

“What about the ghost?”

Lorelei raised her head, as if surprised Devon was still there. “I would see her sometimes, especially if I was visiting Mom. She didn’t appear nearly as much as she had when I was meeting Jackson.” She sighed. “I finally told Mom about what had happened and how I was still seeing the ghost. I’ve never seen her look so disappointed in me before.” She shuddered. “She said if I had just listened to her, none of this would have happened.”

“I talked Deacon into leaving town. He was all for it after everything that happened with Jackson. I figured the ghost had done her worst. So we packed up—you were only a baby—and headed out. He’d gotten into college so we got an apartment there.” Her eyes were wistful. “We were happy there. For a little while.

“Then we got the news that Jackson had been killed while he was in prison. I couldn’t bear the guilt of it. I started drinking. Deacon wouldn’t look at me. We fought, but what was worse was when we’d go days without talking. We moved again, thinking a change might help. It didn’t, it just made things worse. I think I was punishing myself, and by doing so, I punished Deacon. None of it was fair to him.”

“I remember the night he died,” Devon said softly, her own thoughts turning to the man who’d had a hand in raising her. “You guys had had a fight. He left. It was snowing.”

Tears spilled down Lorelei’s cheeks. She didn’t try to stop them. “The weather was bad. He shouldn’t have been out driving in it.” She took a shaky breath. “He went down an embankment. It was a few days before they found him.” Lorelei looked at Devon, an almost fond smile on her face. “You are so much like him, you know? So smart, so driven. He would have been proud of you.”

“But he’s not my father. Jackson is.” Devon’s voice could have frozen skin off the bone.

Lorelei nodded. “I never knew for certain. I didn’t want to know.”

Devon had a thought. “You said Dad was in pre-med, right?” The unfairness of it all struck her and she wanted to hurt someone. Her mother was the only one available. “He knew.”

Lorelei bowed her head. She didn’t say a word. Devon sucked in her breath. “You knew that he knew.” She waited for her mother to deny it. When she didn’t, Devon continued. “He figured it out the same way I did: the blood types.”

Devon just stared at her mother. She had no idea what expression she wore on her face; maybe shock, or disgust, or anger, but she knew she felt all three of them and many more. She looked hard at her mother, trying to understand the choices she made, and found that she couldn’t. She didn’t understand why she’d done what she’d done. She wondered if she ever would.

But there was one thing she understood now: why her mother was in here. “It’s punishment,” Devon whispered. “You were punishing yourself with the drugs and the men. And now you’re punishing yourself by being in here.”

Her mother shook her head. “Not punishment. Well, not anymore anyway. And the drugs were about escaping my guilt too. But now, I’d say it’s more about atonement.”

When Devon spoke, her voice sounded higher and more strained than she expected. “What about me?”

Lorelei looked at her, regret in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Devon. I tried.”

Devon gritted her teeth. She didn’t believe her mother had tried, not enough to really matter anyway. She’d thought the hurt over her mother’s abandonment was long past, but now it burned in her chest. She struggled not to cave in to tears of anger; she didn’t want her mother to misconstrue them and think she was sad or that she felt pity for Lorelei.

It came to her that her mother was incredibly selfish. Lorelei only thought about what she wanted. Her desires came first. Even when Devon had been a small child, it had been about Lorelei escaping her guilt and grief, never about what was best for her daughter. Even now, with this atonement rot she was trying to sell, Lorelei only thought of her own feelings. She had a daughter that she could be a mother to, and all she wanted to do was sit in jail and obsess over her lost loves.

Devon felt like she was going to throw up. She swallowed hard. Her mother spoke again, taking Devon’s hand “Believe me when I say, you need to heed the ghost. She ruined my life—she ruined all our lives. She’ll ruin yours too.”

Devon pulled her hand back. She’d gotten all of the information she’d come for. More, in fact, than she ever thought possible. But she was done now; with this place, with her mother, and with the excuses. There was nothing tying her to the town or to her past. It was as exhilarating as it was frightening.

She spoke softly, but her words carried the weight of a judge’s decree. “No, the ghost had nothing to do with this. Your bad choices ruined your life. ”
Many lives
, Devon thought. “You had a choice! You ALWAYS had a choice. But you just chose wrong. You can’t blame your bad decision making on a ghost!”

Devon stood up. She looked at her mother again, as if she was trying to memorize her in this moment. Lorelei was in good shape, probably the best that Devon remembered seeing her. She was clean, sober, and well-cared for. Devon was reminded of Guinevere in the Arthurian legends who became a nun after Camelot went down in flames. That’s who her mother was: a penitent praying for forgiveness for the choices she made.

“Thanks for the talk.” At her words, her mother stood up, uncertainty in her eyes. Devon made no move to hug her. “Bye, Mom.” She turned around and walked away from the table without ever looking back.

Devon had discovered something important, something fundamental to who she was as a person: she wasn’t defined or bound by her mother’s choices. She still had her own choices to make. She only hoped they would be better ones.

Chapter Twenty-Two

There was a soft knock on Devon’s door. She rolled over to check her clock. It was only 8:16 in the morning. It was a Saturday—the first since she’d seen her mother in jail; she could sleep as late as she wanted to. She pulled the covers over her head, trying to go back to sleep, but the knocking came again. Devon called, “Come in,” her irritation only slightly masked by the comforter currently covering her face.

The door creaked open and Gammy stepped inside. She’d been giving Devon a lot of space and time to herself recently, ever since she’d come back from seeing her mother in prison. Devon hadn’t spoken to her about it yet, and she wasn’t even sure that she wanted to. Right now, it was too raw.

Gammy crossed the room to perch on Devon’s bed. She pulled down the covers so she could see her granddaughter’s face. Devon groaned and flung and arm over her eyes. “There can’t be anything worth doing before nine in the morning,” she muttered.

“I’m going up to the Larkin’s place in a bit. They’ve got a sick goat they say I should take a look at.”

“Happy goating,” Devon said, rolling onto her stomach. “I’ll be fine.” When her grandmother didn’t leave after a few minutes, she rolled back over. “Gammy?”

The old woman sighed. “I don’t know what you got into with your mama, and I ain’t one to pry. I just want you to know that I love you.”

Devon pushed herself up onto her elbows, blinking owlishly. What was this all about? “I know you do, Gammy. I love you too.” She frowned in confusion. “Is everything okay?”

Gammy brushed the stray wild hairs out of Devon’s face. “I’m fine, my girl. Just fine.” She paused. “I know your mama may be a disappointment to you, but she loves you too.”

Just not more than herself. But she didn’t say the words aloud; it would hurt Gammy. Instead she said, “Did you know about Jackson?”

Gammy looked away, which was answer enough. “Did you know he was my father?” Devon pressed.

“I suspected.” She sighed. “But that was your mother’s business, not mine. I said my piece about it a long time ago.”

Devon came bolt upright. “Grandmother Mackson!” She had loathed Lorelei, and made no secret that she felt the same about her granddaughter. “Did she know?” Is that why she can’t stand to be in the same room with me?

Gammy’s mouth hardened into a thin line. “That woman thought the worst of Lorelei since the day Deacon befriended her. It wouldn’t have mattered if your mama came from Heaven itself with wings and a harp. That woman would have still thought she was the devil.” She shook her head. “Charlotte Mackson was always too proud for her own good.”