The Deep, Deep Snow

by Brian Freeman

  “Oh, Anna.”

  I thought of this girl nursing her horrible secret day after day as she grew up. I thought of the weight of that one night crushing her for ten years. I took a step toward her, toward Colleen’s grave, but as I did, Anna lifted the pistol in her hand and placed the barrel to her temple. She could barely keep her hand steady.

  “Anna, no. Put down the gun. Please. Put it down, honey. Don’t do this. Do not do this.”

  “I killed her! It’s all my fault. Everything’s my fault. All of it. Mrs. Whalen. Jeremiah. My mom. They sent Mr. Whalen to prison, and I didn’t say anything. I’m being punished, don’t you see that? I don’t deserve to be alive.”

  “That’s not true. That’s not true at all.”

  “It is!”

  All I could see was the gun pressed against her forehead.

  “Anna, listen to me. If Mrs. Whalen were standing here with us, she’d tell you it was an accident. She wouldn’t blame you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I killed her.”

  “You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t throw it away. That’s not what Colleen Whalen would want. That’s not what your mother would want.”

  “Her cancer came back right after. It was because of me. I did it!”

  It didn’t matter what I said. She was determined to believe the worst of herself, and she wouldn’t hear anything else. I didn’t know what to do. In my head, I called for an owl to swoop down and knock the gun away from her hand. Or for the ghosts to rise up and talk to her. I needed help. But it was just the two of us in the cemetery. This was up to me and no one else.

  “Anna, look at me.”

  Her red, lost eyes stared into mine. I could still see the child she’d been so long ago.

  “Anna, give me the gun.”

  “No. I can’t live with this anymore.”

  “I understand. I do. It hurts, it hurts so much. But what made it so hard was living with it all by yourself. You never have to do that again. You told me the truth. I’m here for you, I’ll always be here, I’ll always love you.”

  Anna shook her head.

  I saw her finger slip over the trigger.

  “Don’t you get it, Shelby? I murdered her.”

  “Oh, Anna, honey, listen to me. You were ten years old.”

  She quivered where she was, her knees knocking together. I watched the gun, and I saw her finger twitch. We were at the brink of a cliff from which there was no turning back. She would stop or she would fall. I rushed on, desperate to reach her.

  “You said Jeremiah has been coming to your dreams for years. Why do you think he kept coming back? Why couldn’t he rest in peace? It was because he wanted to save you. You need to listen to what he’s been telling you all this time. You need to forgive yourself.”

  Anna sobbed and gasped for air. “I miss him. I really miss him.”

  “I know you do.”

  “I miss Mom. I miss her so much.”

  “Oh, honey, I know, I know.”

  I took another step forward. Colleen’s grave was under my feet. I reached across the stone and gently put my hand around the gun and pointed it at the ground and separated Anna’s fingers from it. I took it into my own hand, laid it in the grass, and covered it with my foot.

  “I’m so sorry, Shelby.”

  “Don’t talk. Don’t be sorry. It’s over. It’s all over.”

  She wrapped her arms tightly around me and held on. Her head crushed against my cheek. Around us, the gentle mist turned into rain and became a kind of music beating on the trees and the graves. We stood there for a long time. I listened to Anna sobbing as she let go of the past, and I stroked her hair and let her cry.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  We all have to let go of the past. Either that, or it eats us alive.

  I was there when Keith Whalen was released from prison after the judge voided his conviction for murder. So was Anna. I was proud of her for that. She’d already testified in court about the night of November 14, but she wanted to be there when Keith was set free to ask for his forgiveness. Like I expected, Keith gave it to her with no hesitation at all. He embraced her and let go of the ten years he’d lost.

  He said he forgave me, too. I’m not so sure about that. We’ll see what the future holds. He’s moving back to Everywhere to rebuild on his old land. I guess it doesn’t matter if your home treats you badly. It’s still home.

  Setting Keith free was the last chapter in Jeremiah’s story. The ripples that had changed so many lives finally faded away into the lake. I found myself thinking about all the “if only” moments that might have changed what happened.

  If only Paul Nadler hadn’t escaped from the nursing home.

  If only the bus to Martin’s Point had arrived five minutes earlier.

  If only Adam had called for help that night at the resort.

  If only, if only, if only. On and on. Jeremiah would be alive. Breezy would be alive. Adam would be alive. If only. But we all had to let it go.

  Ellen and Violet went back to Washington. I heard rumors that Ellen was planning to run for the Senate and Violet was thinking of pursuing her congressional seat in the next election. I’ll vote for them. Of course, I’ll be pretty busy with my own campaign for sheriff. Yes, I’m going to run.

  The county board voted the money to clean up the ruins at the Mittel Pines Resort once and for all and turn the land into the Jeremiah Sloan County Park. There will be a grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony next summer. I’m sure there will be more tears.

  Dennis Sloan got another DUI. Not everyone lets go in the right way.

  Will Gruder sent me his medal of St. Benedict. I was right that it was actually the medal that had belonged to Keith Whalen. Anna had slipped it around her neck that night in the barn to ward off the Ursulina, and years later, she gave it to Will. He asked me to return it to Keith. I did.

  Given Anna’s age at the time of the shooting, she won’t face any legal consequences. And I knew she had already punished herself enough in the years since it happened. She’s started therapy. She’s got a long way to go, but at least she’s on her way. Yesterday she slept through the night for the first time in a long time, and Jeremiah didn’t come to her in her dreams.

  In all these years of searching, no one has ever found the Ursulina.

  And me? I needed to let go of the past, too. My father’s past. I didn’t know what had happened the night after his mother died, and I had to make peace with the fact that I probably never would. After all, the past had already let go of him, and he had no more answers to give me.

  I confess that in a locked drawer of my office desk, I have a file where I’ve looked at maps and researched the distances someone might have traveled through a blizzard on a bitter night in January thirty-five years ago. It encompasses a universe of hundreds of town, county, and state police officers who might have rescued Sheriff Tom Ginn in a snowy campground. Maybe one of them was my birth mother. Or maybe I just needed to believe she was out there for me to find.

  Last night, I came home late. Monica and Dad were in the great room. Monica was tired and went to bed, but my father and I went outside to the gazebo in our yard, as we often do. I brought my guitar. It was a warm spring night. The moths beat their wings against the screens, and the humid air felt thick. We sat together, and Dad listened to me play. I’d been working on a song off and on for a while now. I finally had it done. I called it “The Deep, Deep Snow,” because it’s about the secrets we keep and the places we hide them.

  The chorus goes like this:

  So we know

  We know

  We always know

  That what we did

  Is under the snow

  And we know

  We know

  That spring will show

  The thing we hid

&n
bsp; Is down below

  I sang it all from start to finish. When I was done, I put down my guitar in my lap and looked at my father with an embarrassed blush. “Well, that’s what it is. I know it’s nothing special, but I like it.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Dad told me.

  “Oh, I know it’s not, but thank you.”

  He shook his head and gave me that same amazing smile that I’d known my whole life. “I mean it. Play the song for me again. I could listen to you sing all night. You have such a pretty voice, young lady.”

  I smiled back at him.

  I pretended not to hear those words. Young lady.

  “Sure, Dad,” I replied, picking up my guitar. “I’ll play it again. You just close your eyes and listen.”