by Brent, Cora
He rubs a hand over his face. He’s struggling not to cry. “I asked you about him, remember? You shrugged and said you thought he was creepy but you didn’t seem distraught.”
I do remember that. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my father and eating pizza a few weeks after he brought me home from Arcana. It was soon after my mother’s discharge from the hospital and she was tired. She slept upstairs while we ate dinner and he asked me questions as his pizza sat untouched in front of him. His voice sounded strange and his eyes were bloodshot but that was understandable after everything our family had been through.
“Did Gary come around the house often? Did he bother you? You can tell me, sweetheart.”
And I had swallowed a bite of my pizza before saying, “He’s just a weirdo. I didn’t really talk to him.” I saw no point in bringing up the fact that my aunt’s boyfriend frightened me. My father would have been troubled. Instead he visibly relaxed. After that I forgot all about the conversation. Until now.
A sob rips out of my father and he drops his head into his hands. “I swear I would have killed him myself if he’d done to you what he did to your mother.”
A girl about my own age wearing pink nursing scrubs walks briskly past. She glances at us with curiosity but keeps moving into the building. Sobbing relatives probably aren’t an uncommon sight around here.
“Gary raped her.” I feel the need to say it out loud and it sounds even more terrible than it did inside my head.
He raises his head and nods. “Her senior year of high school. She never told me. She carried that pain alone. My beautiful Suzanne. For so many years I never knew.”
“Did Aunt Vay know?”
“No. She loves your mother more than anything. And she loves you too. She had no idea about Gary. Not until that day.”
I assume he means the day Aunt Vay was attacked. Presumably by Rafe Hempstead.
I finally manage to swallow the lump in my throat. “Dad, you need to tell me what happened.”
He gathers his thoughts for a moment and when he begins talking his voice is clear. Maybe he’s relieved to be releasing this burden.
“After your mother told me about what Gary had done to her I got suspicious about Varina’s attack. I called the police in Arcana but they were so sure the Hempstead boy was responsible. And they already had him in jail awaiting trial so they dismissed any other possibility. So I went there and confronted him myself. For backup I flew out a couple of tough guys from my old Brooklyn neighborhood. Good friends, though. The kind who will stand by your side when your family is threatened.”
This shocks me. My father has always been a man who avoids conflict. But I suppose when it comes to protecting the people you love, all bets are off.
“We didn’t have to work on him for long.” My father looks off into the distance, remembering the details. “He broke down and cried. He said Varina had found him in your bedroom. He was stealing your underwear from the piles of freshly washed laundry she’d placed on your bed. Of course Varina was irate. Whatever she said to him was enough to send him into a rage. He struck her in the face repeatedly and she fell, hitting her head on the corner of the dresser.”
“My god.” I cover my mouth, thinking about poor Aunt Vay. And then I think about Rafe, about what I’d told the police.
“Dad, the cops picked up Rafe because I told them he was hanging around the yard that day and that Aunt Vay had yelled at him. I told them he’d broken into the house before. It’s because of me that they thought he was Aunt Vay’s attacker.”
“You only told the truth, Caris. After all the awful history between the Chapels and the Hempsteads, they believed Rafe was responsible because it made sense. And they didn’t investigate too carefully.”
“Is Gary in prison?”
“No. He killed himself in his cell a few weeks after he was arrested.”
I’m glad to hear that he’s not alive.
And I’m sad about everything else.
“What about Rafe?”
I think of the tall, strong boy with the cold eyes who was scary as hell at age sixteen. By now he’s likely to be a terrifying and far stronger man.
My father nods. “We hauled Gary down to the police station and Rafe Hempstead was released only hours after Gary confessed. Rafe’s mother and brother had already left the state. She was called but she didn’t have much interest in retrieving her troubled son. I really don’t know what happened to him after that, to any of them.”
It’s almost too much to take in at once.
How much of this does Jay know?
Some of it, obviously.
He was likely still living with his mother when she got the call from the Arcana police that Rafe had been released. She was almost certainly told why. Jay knew all along that Rafe didn’t attack Aunt Vay. Until the other night he must have assumed that I knew it too.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I ask.
There’s a touch of bitterness in the question.
Secrets.
Why do families keep them from each other?
Even though I was a child I was old enough to be told the truth.
He doesn’t make excuses. “I should have. I’m sorry.”
We share a long moment of silence. The courtyard fountain continues its steady music as the water recycles itself and keeps flowing.
When I look at my father his face wears a miserable expression.
“Daddy?” I haven’t called him that in a long time.
He smiles a little. “Yeah, honey?”
“You said you didn’t know what happened to any of the Hempsteads.”
“That’s right.”
“I know what happened to one of them.”
He listens as I tell him about Jay. At first I can see his skepticism, like he’s wondering if Jay, formerly Jonathan Hempstead, is seeking revenge or something. But the more I talk the more accepting he seems. Especially when I tell him that Mom already knows.
“We should go get lunch before Mom sends out a search party.” I rise from the bench and reach out to help him up because he has bad knees and sometimes they cause him pain.
My father is relieved that I’m not angry with him. We buy a ton of food and bring it back to Aunt Vay’s room. The rest of the visit is pleasant and Aunt Vay even expresses a little bit of curiosity about me. When I hug her goodbye she hugs me back and asks me to visit again. Perhaps she remembers me sometimes after all.
At home my father is the one who cooks my birthday dinner; chicken parmesan, a family favorite that his long dead grandmother used to make for him.
I find a few minutes to give Lana a call. She’s glad to talk to me on my birthday but she’s also preoccupied. She and Jay will be bringing Shane to rehab this evening. This will be tough for all of them. I’m glad I will be back tomorrow. They need me.
After dinner my mom asks me what I want to do for the rest of the evening and I decide I want to take a walk by the duck pond they used to bring me to as a child. It’s not far from our house and I have lovely memories of strolling along the shore and watching the birds splash in the water while my parents walk hand in hand right behind me.
I’m still reeling a bit from all the news that was dropped in my lap this afternoon but I’m not at all sorry that I know the truth. I’ll tell Jay everything tomorrow. Some of it he surely knows. And some of it he likely doesn’t.
“Look, Caris,” my mother calls from behind me. “A swan!”
The beautiful birds glides with confidence on the surface of the water, like it’s aware of being admired.
This visit has been nice. But later on as I fall asleep in my old bed with my birthday necklace under my pillow once more I’m already looking forward to leaving.
I’m eager to get home.
To him.
And to the life I’m hoping we’ll share together from now on.
Jay
Lana is good at putting on a cheerful face for Shane’s sake but once we
leave Reflections, the facility where Shane will be staying, she’s uncharacteristically silent.
“He’ll be okay,” I assure her because she’s just sitting there miserably in my passenger seat. “He can do this.”
She bobs her head. “I know he can.” She discreetly wipes a tear from her cheek. “It’s just that I feel as if I left my heart behind when I had to kiss him goodbye.”
There was a time not too long when I wouldn’t have had the slightest understanding about how she feels. Now I do. I would be crushed if I had to watch Caris struggle the way Lana sees Shane fighting an intense battle with himself.
“Do you mind if I sleep in his room?” she asks. “I mean it’s really your side of the house so I don’t want to seem strange but I feel closer to him in there.”
“Won’t bother me a bit.”
The house is rather depressing with both Shane and Caris missing. Lana announces she’s going to retreat to Shane’s room and go to sleep early so I’m left on my own to sit beside the pool and think about all kinds of things.
Rafe has been on my mind.
A few weeks after we landed in Phoenix, my mother got a call from the Arcana PD. Rafe, who’d been arrested for the violent attack on Varina Chapel and was going to be charged as an adult, had been released. He was innocent of the crime. The real culprit was Varina’s shady boyfriend, Gary. The one Caris would complain about, saying he used to stand outside her bedroom door and watch her as she slept. Caris’s father was the one who traveled to Arcana and wrestled a confession out of Gary.
It never occurred to me that Caris was unaware of the circumstances surrounding her aunt’s attack. She was still under the assumption that Rafe was to blame.
I have a longstanding habit of refusing to examine the past. It’s difficult to break. There was a time when I needed that buffer in order to get through each day without losing my mind.
I still think you can’t move forward if you’re always looking behind you. But finding Caris again made me realize that you also can’t forge ahead if you refuse to acknowledge where you’ve been.
I’m ready to try to find out what became of my brother.
There’s an old boss of mine whose wife used to be in the bail bonds business. About a year ago they both left their jobs and opened up a private investigation company.
He answers my call but when I explain what I’m looking for he gives me the number for his wife since she’s better suited to the search. Her name is Amy Blunt and this seems very fitting. She speaks quickly, asks pointed questions and then declares that she’ll likely be giving me a call within the next day or two with some answers.
I’m stunned over how easy it is. I hope I’m ready to hear whatever Amy Blunt finds.
It’s still not very late but I’ve run out of things to do and besides, I need to get up earlier than usual to go to the bakery since I’ll only have Delia to help me handle everything tomorrow.
In order to tire myself out I take a shower and jerk off like a madman while I pretend I’m fucking Caris rough and hard, the way she sometimes likes it. After that I’m ready to collapse into bed and once I close my eyes I don’t open them again until my alarm starts howling.
After spending two hours mixing and baking, Delia arrives in time for the doors to open for the day. And bless her heart, she’s brought her sister along to help out while we’re so short handed.
I feel my phone go off in my pocket but after I check it and see that it’s not Caris I just stuff it back in there without answering. When I’m this busy anyone other than Caris can wait.
The customers thin out after noon and I finally get a chance to breathe and check my phone. There’s a voicemail from Amy Blunt.
The office is the size of a small closet and the only one who really goes in there is Caris to take care of bookkeeping tasks but it’s a good place to make a private phone call. Amy answers her phone right away and gets right down to business.
“Your brother is currently living in Houston. He’s required to supply his parole officer with current contact information. I have his cell phone number.”
This has moved faster than I thought possible. I wouldn’t have believed I’d have Rafe’s direct line in hand just like that. I jot down the number on the back of an invoice and thank Amy for her quick response.
After the call ends I stare at the number that will presumably connect me to my brother. I don’t spend any time thinking about what I should do next. I punch the numbers in and wait for the line on the other end to begin ringing.
Chances are he won’t answer. He won’t recognize the number and it’s the middle of the day.
Then I hear a click and a voice says, “Yeah, what?”
It’s shocking the way his voice is slightly deeper but pretty much the same.
“Rafe,” I croak.
He’s annoyed. “The fuck you want, asshole? Who are you?”
I exhale slowly. “It’s Jonathan.”
There’s a moment of stunned silence. Then a cough. Then some more silence.
“Limp Dick,” he finally says in a tone of sheer disbelief. “Is that really you?”
“It’s me.”
“Well I’ll be fucked. Never thought I’d hear from you again. How the hell are you?”
“I’m good.”
“And what about that crazy old bat who calls herself our mother?”
“Don’t know. She took off not long after we moved to Phoenix. Haven’t seen her since.”
He chuckles. “Not surprised.”
“What about you, Rafe? Are you all right?”
He thinks the question is funny. “Sure. I’ve got plenty of cash in my pocket and ten minutes ago I had a pretty mouth on my cock. I think I’m doing okay.”
Amy Blunt had said he’s been in and out of prison a few times. Robbery. Multiple counts of assault. To me, that’s not okay at all but then again I’m not Rafe.
“Hey, where are you living now?” he asks. “I could come crash with you next time I get bored. We’ll raise hell together, live up to our name.”
I’m not interested in raising Rafe’s version of hell. And I don’t want to tell him the truth about how to find me. Rafe was always a powder keg. It doesn’t sound as if he’s changed. He might even be worse than what I remember. I can’t take that risk, especially not now that I have Caris.
“I’m in Phoenix,” I lie. “Got a tiny apartment in a really shitty neighborhood.”
“Huh.” The way he grunts out the sound confirms that he knows I’m lying.
“I’m glad you’re doing okay,” I tell him.
“Why’d you call?” he asks, not sounding hostile. Simply curious.
“I just got to thinking about you. And I was worried.”
He snorts. “Just not worried enough to give out your address, eh?”
There’s no point in lying again. “No.”
“Don’t blame you. But keep checking your rearview mirror, kid. Maybe one of these days I’ll be right there behind you.”
An ominous thought.
“You take care of yourself, Rafe.”
“You do the same, Jonathan.”
He ends the call before I can. I’m unsure if I just made a mistake by placing myself back on his radar. I hope not. I hope somewhere deep in Rafe there lurks a heart and that his heart is satisfied to hear that his only brother is alive and well.
I check my watch. There are only a few hours left until the bakery closes and then I can go get my girl. Caris plans to take a car home from the airport. She has no idea that I plan to meet her there. I’ll buy her some flowers to make up for the fact that I didn’t get to see her for her birthday. I’m convinced there’s only one girl in the whole wide world who has the power to turn me into a romantic fool.
How lucky I am to have found her again.
Jay
I’ve heard that there was a time when it was possible to meet someone at the airport gate but I’ll have to settle for hanging out beyond the security clearan
ce line with a handful of yellow daisies and a smile on my face.
I probably look like a fucking goofball.
I don’t even care.
She’s staring at her phone when she appears, squinting behind her glasses, and I unleash a loud whistle to get her attention. A few of the airport staff shoot me some side eye for the disturbance.
Caris looks up and her face changes. It’s a common expression to say that someone ‘lights up’ but Caris really does. She’s the most alive thing in this entire freaking terminal. She’s the still point in my world. She’s the sunshine.
“Jay!” she squeals and runs the last few steps, dropping her overnight bag and jumping into my arms. I’m in love.
When I kiss her I’m not bashful about it. The hand not holding the flowers twists all up in her hair and she gets all the tongue she can handle. I can’t wait to get her alone and peel off that hot little sundress she’s wearing.
But first thing’s first.
After we’re done kissing to the point of being obscene I hand over the flowers, pick up her overnight bag and hold her free hand all the way to my truck.
I hold the door for her and toss her bag in the back before coming around to the driver’s side. She hasn’t stopped smiling since she caught sight of me in the terminal and I’m pretty sure the grin on my face looks like it was tattooed there as well.
“I can’t believe how much I missed you.” She takes my hand and places it in her lap, stroking my palm.
“I missed you too.”
That summer dress is doing things to my dick. Her bare legs tease me and I have a crazy fleeting thought about what we ought to do right here in the front seat behind the truck’s tinted windows. I want to talk to her in the worst way but I also want to get between her legs and wear her out until she begs to come.
It’s a fantastic dilemma to have.
Since there might be some kind of federal law about fucking in the parking garage beside an airport I start up the truck and suggest going out for some food instead.
On the drive back to Hutton, Caris gives Lana a call. From what I can gather via Caris’s side of the conversation, Lana remains understandably emotional about Shane’s rehab stay but she’s determined to be positive. Caris says all the right things that one friend ought to say to another in this situation. She offers to grab some takeout for Lana on the way home but it sounds like Lana declines and chooses to test out her cooking skills in the kitchen instead.