“I told him. Yesterday. I told him.” I thought about the stormy confrontation of the day before and decided to leave it at that.
My dad stared at me, shock and disbelief all over his face. He wiped at his mouth and I shredded another piece of toast, and we listened to my mom worry about Moses Wright being back and the stress it was going to put on the entire community.
“How?” My dad protested. “How did he take it? I thought he was long gone. Suddenly he’s back and he’s all up to date?” My dad’s voice rose and my mom looked over at him sharply.
“Martin. Calm down,” she soothed, pulling the phone away from her mouth to spare Sheriff Dawson the sideline drama.
“Mauna. I had a little bit of cancer cut out. I didn’t have my balls cut off, so quit treating me like a quivering invalid!” he shot back, and my mother’s lips tightened.
He looked back at me and sighed. “I knew this day would come. I knew it. I wish you would have let me be with you when you told him. It couldn’t have been an easy conversation.” He swore and then laughed without mirth. “You are the toughest girl I know, George. The toughest girl I know. But that couldn’t have been easy.”
His compassion made me teary and I pushed my plate away, making the tower of bread teeter and topple. I didn’t want to start crying so early in the day. If I started this early I would be laid out before noon, and I didn’t have time for an emotional hangover.
“No. It wasn’t. Not for me. And not for him.”
My dad raised a brow derisively and sat back in his chair so he could meet my gaze. “I wasn’t worried about Moses. You’re the only one I care about in this discussion.”
I nodded and headed for the door. My dad had a right to his anger. I guess we all did. I pushed through the screen door and paused on the porch to appreciate the cool bite in the air. It cleared my head immediately.
“How did he take it, George?” My dad had followed me to the door and was standing in the frame. “When you told him, how did he take it?” I could see that he was still angry, and he wasn’t ready to stop fanning the flames. Anger was taxing, and whether or not I had a right to it, whether or not Dad had a right to it, suddenly I wasn’t so sure it was a right I wanted to continue exercising.
I concentrated on filling my lungs once, twice, and then again before I answered him. “He cried.” I stepped off the porch and headed for the barn. “He cried.”
Moses
“SO YOU’RE JUST GONNA GO,” Tag said, throwing up his hands.
“Painting’s done. Carpet’s coming. I even have a buyer. No reason to stay.” I stacked the unused gallons of paint in my truck and continued back inside, making a mental list of what still needed to be done before I could get the hell out of Dodge.
“You found out you had a son. With a girl you say you weren’t in love with but who you can’t get over. You also found out your son, her son, was killed in a terrible accident.”
I ignored Tag and folded up the last of the drop cloths. Carpet would be here in an hour. Once that was installed, the woman I’d hired to come in and clean the place could start. In fact, I should call her and see if she could start on the kitchen and the bathrooms today, just to hurry the process along.
“You found all of this out yesterday. Today you’re over it. Tomorrow you’re leaving.”
“I would leave today if I could,” I replied firmly. I hadn’t seen Eli in twenty-four hours. Not since he’d shown me how he died.
“Does Georgia know you’re going?”
“She told me to leave her alone. Plus, she doesn’t believe me.”
That shut Tag up and his step faltered. He’d spent the night before coaxing details out of me, but that was one thing I’d failed to mention. I hadn’t told him how we’d lain in the field, both of us emotionally drained, lying on our backs, looking at the sky because we couldn’t look at each other. I hadn’t told Tag what Georgia had said to me when I’d told her Eli had brought me back.
“The only thing that kept me from breaking when Eli died was the truth,” she’d said.
And I stayed silent, not understanding, but waiting for her to make me see.
“People said things like, ‘He’s in a better place and you’ll see him again. He’s in heaven.’ Stuff like that. But that just hurt me. That made me feel like I hadn’t been good for him. Like he was better off without me. And it played on what I always suspected. I wasn’t good for Eli. I was young and stupid and I wasn’t careful enough with him. Obviously, I wasn’t careful enough with him.”
Her pain was so heavy it filled the air around us, and when I tried to breathe, it filled my lungs and made my throat close and my chest scream for oxygen. But she didn’t stop.
“After the accident, the only truth I was sure of was that Eli was dead. I’d killed him. And that was something I was going to have to live with.”
Georgia looked at me fiercely, her old fire lighting up her eyes as if expecting me to argue with her. But arguing was something I rarely did. I’d learned long ago that people were going to think what they thought, believe whatever they were going to believe, and speaking up wouldn’t change their minds. So I met Georgia’s gaze and waited.
“He’s dead, Moses. That’s the truth. I’m alive. That’s also the truth. I didn’t mean to kill him. Another truth. I would give him my life if I could. I would trade places if I could. I would do anything to have him back. Give anything. Sacrifice anything. Anyone. That’s the truth too.” Georgia stopped abruptly and inhaled deeply, her breath shuddering and skipping like her throat was too tight to draw it in all at once. She broke eye contact, turning her head as if my seeming acceptance of her truths rattled her a bit.