If it had been earlier, and if she’d been in a more solid frame of mind, she might have driven to the dam instead, and taken the trail to The Place. She wondered if it had changed over the years. Was the trail even still there? Had the vegetation masked the spot she had been willing to go to war over? Would she be able to find it again? Those were questions that she would leave for another day—or another lifetime.
The afternoon easily slid into early evening by the time she got back home. In the purpling light of the waning day, Lily walked around the deserted first floor of the cottage. Riley’s duffel no longer sat just inside the front door. The early evening stillness seemed intensified by the echoey interior and long shadows. The house seemed more empty than when they’d first arrived.
A horrible thought seized her. Had Riley taken off? She pushed down the panic and finished her search of the house. On the kitchen counter were the crumbs and dirty knife from a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a half-full glass of milk. She wrapped her hand around the glass—warm. Then she looked out the window at the dock and boathouse. No sign of Riley.
Her heartbeat seemed to resonate in her ears as she climbed the stairs. The door to Peter’s old room was closed, but not latched. She slowly pushed it open. The second she saw Riley sprawled asleep on his father’s old plaid bedspread, she breathed a sigh of relief. In that instant she realized how desperate things had truly become, by what a fragile string her control over her son was held. She truly felt this was her last chance to pull him back. If she failed here, she feared she would lose him forever.
She lingered near his bed for a long moment, listening to his breathing. He seemed so calm now. If only he could find that same peace in his waking moments. With one finger, she brushed the hair off his forehead. Then she took the quilt that was thrown over the footboard of the bed and laid it gently over him.
He didn’t stir, so she decided to leave him sleeping. She went out to the dock. The weathered boards creaked under her weight as she walked to the end. The sun was no more than a memory behind the tree line, the surface of the lake smooth and black. The tree frogs had begun their evening song and an owl hooted in the treetops.
She stood at the end of the dock, closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. The scents were the same as she remembered—blossoming lilacs, fresh-cut grass and the moist fragrance of lakeside woodlands. Slipping her shoes off, she sat down and dangled her feet in the water. The season was early, the water still cold, making an ache shoot up from her ankles to her knees. But she welcomed the sensation, recalling all of the years when she, Luke, Peter and Clay had come out of the water with blue lips, insisting to Peter’s mother it wasn’t too early to swim.
God, could it really be fourteen years since she’d spent a night in Henderson County? Now she was settling on the “other side” of the lake—the money side. She wasn’t sure she liked it.
Everyone thought she’d married Peter Holt for his money. But that wasn’t it at all. She’d married him in spite of his money. At the time, however, she didn’t know he’d married her, at least in part, to spite his parents. What had begun as a complicated web of emotions had quickly unraveled to reveal there was nothing of substance holding the two of them together.
Staring out upon the still, black surface of the lake, she heard a fish jump. Lily allowed herself to be lulled into memory by the smells and sounds around her in the gathering darkness. The years dropped away like wilted petals from a rose. For the briefest moment she was a girl again, a girl whose only real worry was how to run a couple of intruders away from The Place.
Not for the first time in the past months, she wondered how different her life would have been if she just hadn’t found that cigarette butt.
At the time, it seemed the most important event in their limited lives. Someone had invaded their territory. Worse yet, it had been summer kids. But their war ended on the Fourth of July, during the same summer in which it began. Short-lived as wars go, even for children. The truce didn’t come in small measures, in peace summits and negotiations. It came of necessity, in a moment of absolute terror.
Lily now thought it was a bizarre irony that their conflict had begun with a cigarette butt and ended with fire. Maybe she should have paid more heed to the symbolism of ember to flame—but, of course, she was only eleven. What had she known of symbolism?
After several minutes, she tore her gaze from the dark surface of the lake, where the past played like a movie on a screen. She pushed her shorts higher on her leg and laid her hand on the puckered scar on her upper thigh. It was no longer pink, but had blended with her skin as old scars do. It may have happened long ago, in another lifetime, but every time she touched it, it made her feel connected to Clay. It was as if, no matter where he was, even though he’d erased her from his mind, when she touched that scar, she touched him.
From the day of the accident, they’d been close. Clay had always said, as they compared their scars, his palm and her thigh, that they were linked forever by the brand of that rocket. And it was true.
For years she’d not allowed herself to even look at it. She’d managed to change the focus of her entire life, everything around and about her. But no matter how much time passed, how much things changed, that scar would always be his.
The next morning, as Lily prepared lunch, she rubbed her aching temples. Two nights in this place filled with secrets and memories had only made her sleeplessness worse. She hadn’t expected to rest well away from her own bed; never had she captured a good night’s sleep away from home. But in this house, fragmented dreams cut even into that twilight place where she lingered between wakefulness and sleep, robbing her of any rest.
She drew in a deep breath, rotating her tense shoulders, and looked out the window toward the lake. Riley was lying in the sun on the end of the dock. His shirt was off, his hands were folded behind his head. She relaxed a bit. A little sunshine had to be good for him—a break from angry music and mind-blurring video games. A step in the right direction. Time alone with nature always helped her sort through her problems. Maybe Riley would discover the same elixir.
By the time she had lunch ready, her dad was pulling in the driveway.
Riley was polite, in a strained way, and quiet, all through the meal. He made a hasty exit the second his sandwich was gone. As he headed toward the door, he said he was going to take a walk around the lake.
“Wait,” Lily called after him.
He stopped and looked back at her from the kitchen door.
“Where, exactly, are you going?”
He huffed. “Just around the lake. Jeez, Mom, it’s not like I know anybody around here.”
Lily heard her dad clear his throat softly. He thought she was being overprotective. But he didn’t yet know what had happened. And while she wanted to demand Riley remain in plain sight every minute, she knew that was as unproductive as it was impractical. She had to give him his freedom in small increments. As he proved himself worthy of her trust, she could expand his range. “All right. But stay on the path. And don’t be gone longer than forty-five minutes.”
Riley rolled his eyes and started for the door with a grunt.
“You have your watch?” she called.
Without turning back around, he raised his arm, holding his wrist where she could see it.
The whole purpose of this lunch was to talk to her dad alone. But as soon as Riley walked out the door, the words dried up in her throat.
Her dad spoke first. “The boy’s in trouble.”
For a moment, Lily rearranged her napkin in her lap. She’d planned on working up to what had happened with Riley, laying a foundation that might help explain his recent behavior. But she should have known better. Her dad never did beat around the bush.
“Yes.” She raised her eyes to meet his. “I really can’t blame him for being angry. I just don’t know how to help him get around it.”
“What’s he done?”
Lily searched for the place to begin, the m
oment when Riley had started to change. She sighed and twisted her hands in her lap. “He’s just spiraling out of control. At first I thought this behavior was a passing thing, a response to the divorce. But it’s getting worse. I’m afraid he’ll do something that’ll be completely off the deep end if I don’t figure out how to reach him.”
“You didn’t answer me. What’s he done?” Her dad’s brown eyes held that steady bead on her, in that way that had always drawn confessions from her lips as a kid.
She kept her gaze diverted when she said, “He blew up a toilet in his school with a cherry bomb.”
“And?”
She looked up. “That’s not enough?”
He kept his gaze fixed on her, making her squirm. “That’s not all.”
No sense in drawing this out. If her dad was going to be able to help her, he had to know everything. “Pills. A buddy of his brought them to school. They took them, then blew up the plumbing.”
Benny made a harrumphing sound deep in his throat, but didn’t say anything.
“Dad, he didn’t even know what those pills were—and he took them. They could have killed him.” Fear strangled the last of her words. She drew a deep breath and forced back the threatening tears. “He said it was the only time he’d used drugs of any kind.” She looked into her dad’s eyes, seeking a nod of reassurance that she should believe Riley. She didn’t get one.
“I guess I should be grateful to Peter’s dad,” she said. “Riley could have ended up in jail.” The very thought of her son caged with real criminals made her lunch churn in her stomach. She just couldn’t see that putting him in jail would do anything but exacerbate his self-destruction. She had to find another way.
She went on. “I guess what scares me most is his attitude. None of this is a big deal.” She started to shake so hard her teeth nearly rattled. “He’s blowing this off—my God, he could have died!”
Benny waited a long while before he said anything. Lily was glad for the time to gather her composure.
When he finally spoke, it was with the same pragmatic approach he used for everything. “So there were no police charges, no questioning, no reports filed? Nothing to really send a message to the boy?” He raised one black eyebrow, as if he already knew the answer.
“Of course not. That would look bad for the school. Aside from some strong lecturing, dismissal from the last week of classes—like Riley isn’t happy to be missing final exams—there is no punishment.”
“Then it’s up to you.”
She let out a long breath, and her shoulders sagged. “I know. I want to do the right thing. But I’m a big source of his anger. I’m afraid I’ll just push him further away—so far that I’ll never get him back. Dad, he’s so fragile right now.” Lily buried her face in her hands, so very, very tired.
“That’s just what he wants you to believe. That anything you might do to punish him will result in disaster. But I’ll bet my life, at the same time, inside he’s begging to be stopped. To have someone save him from himself.”
Lily’s eyes stung with unshed tears. “There’s that, too. The saving from himself. Dad, Peter has never dealt with responsibility for his own choices. It’s always some outside influence that’s bent on sabotaging him, nothing is ever the result of his actions. I don’t want Riley to grow up and never be able to face up to the things he’s responsible for.”
As soon as she said this, her hand went to the scar on her leg and rested there. After the Fourth of July accident, Clay had stepped up, taken the blame and dealt with the aftermath. Peter had disappeared.
Benny got up and walked to her side of the table. He put both of his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. “This summer can be a new start. We’ll just have to make him see that everything he does has consequences. Once he sees you mean business, he’ll come around.” He kissed the top of her head. “Hell, maybe just getting him out of that city will be enough.”
Lily put a hand over her father’s where it rested on her shoulders, feeling for the first time in days that she’d found a life raft on a stormy sea. “Maybe you’re right. God, I hope you’re right.”
The following Wednesday, Riley was caught sinking the neighbor’s boat.
“All right,” Sheriff Steve Clyde said, “Mr. Willit has agreed not to press charges if you pay for the damages to the boat and follow the rules of your probation.” He looked pointedly at Riley Holt. “And I set those rules.”
The sheriff knew this “probation” was nothing of the sort. He wasn’t a judge and it had no legal binding. But he wanted the kid to know he was on thin ice. Probation was a word they all understood. “From this point forward, consider yourself an ant under a magnifying glass. Everywhere you go, everything you do, I’m gonna know, your mom’s gonna know, and if need be, the prosecutor will know. You screw up, it’s juvenile hall for you. This is no free pass. Here in Henderson County, you take responsibility for what you do. You understand?”
Riley nodded, slumped lower in his seat and folded his hands in his lap. The sheriff could see the defiance rippling under the surface, but the boy managed to keep it in check. He took that as a good sign. With seven kids of his own, he sympathized with Lily. It had to be hard to be dealing with this on her own. He’d never thought much of Peter Holt, typical summer kid—fast cars, fast boats, no responsibility. From what he had gathered, back in the day when they were all teenagers vying for summer territory, Peter was a carefully controlled accessory for his wealthy parents. They barked, Peter jumped through hoops. The guy never went out on a limb for anything. The most defiant thing he’d done, to Steve’s knowledge, was marry Lily. Obviously, that hadn’t worked out too well.
But Steve held hope; Lily had insisted there be some way for Riley to pay for the damages. Not just by dipping into the account fattened by birthday and Christmas checks—really work for it. It was Benny who’d come up with the logical solution.
Benny had raised three kids on his own and managed to keep them out of trouble. Grown up fine. The little one, Molly, was in med school out East. And Luke was off in the Army Rangers.
Deep down, Steve wanted to tell Lily that she should move back here permanently. There wasn’t a better place to raise kids than Glens Crossing. Kids grew up at a normal pace, not shoved into adult situations before they were mature enough to understand the consequences. He just couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to raise their child in a dirty city.
“Okay,” Steve said, “go get your mom.”
He could see how slowly Riley moved, dread hampering his movements. That was good. That meant Lily had a chance. The kid still wanted to please her—or at least not disappoint her.
Lily followed her son back into his office. Her face held the same strained look he’d seen on his own wife occasionally when he got home from work. Tired eyes, tense brow and tight lips. A look that said for half a dollar they’d sell their children and run away with a gypsy caravan. Only his wife had seven kids pulling her strings and pushing her buttons. It looked like Lily had her hands full with just one.
“Have a seat.” He tried to offer her support in his gaze without softening his expression in front of Riley. “Okay, Riley, I want you to explain to your mother what we’ve discussed here this afternoon.”
Riley leaned forward in his chair, rested his elbows on his knees and kept his eyes on his twisting hands when he spoke. “I’m on probation.”
This wasn’t news to Lily. She, Steve and Benny had had a long discussion about the best course of action while they let Riley get a good taste of a jail cell. Up until ten minutes ago, Riley had no idea his mom or his grandpa had arrived at the station.
Steve crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against his desk. “That’s just fine, son, now tell your mother. I think your hands have the idea by now.”
It was a long moment before the boy raised his eyes and turned his head to look at Lily. Steve saw the effort it took to hold his temper. He mentally commended the kid—thirteen was an ugly a
ge, filled with ugly thoughts and unbearable frustration.
“I’m on probation.” Riley said it softly, shame edging his voice.
It was the shame that made Steve give him a break. Had he mouthed off or acted as if it were no big deal, he would have let the kid squirm. But Riley seemed to be owning up to what he’d done. So Steve took the floor and explained the rest of what was expected of Riley as if it were news to Lily, too.
“That’s it,” Steve concluded. “Any trouble and you’re back in jail and will have to go before the judge. Got it?”
Riley nodded, this time looking Steve directly in the eye.
“Mrs. Holt?”
Lily took a minute to respond, as if her mind had been numbed by stress. “Um, yes. Yes, I understand.”
“All right.” He motioned toward the door.
Riley got up and moved quickly, a trapped animal given an avenue of escape. Lily moved a little more slowly. As she passed she silently mouthed the words, Thank you.
Watching from his office window as they got in their car, he sent up a little prayer for Lily—and Riley, too. What Benny had arranged for the boy was, in Steve’s estimation, much harsher than anything the court system could have dredged up. That boy was going to learn the hard way.
Lily slipped her sunglasses on against the glare of the rising sun. Riley sat staring blankly ahead, not completely shed of sleep. She wondered if he’d spent as restless a night as she. They hadn’t talked much about what transpired yesterday afternoon in the sheriff’s office. It didn’t seem to make sense to beat a dead horse. Riley knew he’d screwed up, but she didn’t think the reality of what he was facing had sunk in. She’d wait until he’d spent his first day working before she drove the point home. Maybe she wouldn’t have to, maybe he’d learn something on his own.
The Road Home Page 4