The Road Home

by Susan Crandall

  It quickly became a routine, their private after-school meetings in the park. At school, their paths seldom crossed. Except at lunch, where of course he ate with Luke and his senior buddies and Lily ate with the freshmen. She didn’t really think much of it, but she should have heeded those first warnings her instincts had given her.

  One day, as she and Tad sat side by side on top of a picnic table near the woods, he’d kissed her. It was nice, but nothing like the kisses she’d read about in books. And she certainly didn’t get the same chilly ripple on her skin that she had with Clay’s almost-kiss in the fire tower. But that was different. She and Clay were friends and he would never see her any other way. She’d sworn to herself that she wouldn’t ruin things by letting him know how she felt. Tad was treating her like a guy treated a girlfriend.

  The day after the kiss, there had been a pep rally at school. As the student body filed into the gym, Lily had spotted Tad talking to Karen Kimball and some of her cheerleader friends. She walked over to him, a stupid smile plastered on her face. Fool that she was, she assumed she and Tad were “together.”

  When she touched him on the arm and said hi, he barely turned her way, muttered something that more resembled a grunt than a greeting, and went back to his conversation with the girls in short pleated skirts and red and white pompoms.

  As Lily had walked away, feeling like she’d been gut-punched, she heard Amy ask, “What’s with her?” Tad said he didn’t have a clue, maybe he’d looked at her in the hall and now she thought they were friends.

  All of the wonderful things Tad had said to her, all of the dreams Lily had foolishly shared with him, shattered like blown glass against brick. She spent the pep rally locked in a stall in the girls’ bathroom and waited there until she was certain that everyone had left the school.

  Later that night, Lily was surprised when Tad called. She told him she didn’t want to talk to him if he could only speak to her when no one was looking.

  She sat silently while he explained away his behavior, apologized profusely, promised it would never happen again. And like a fool, she believed him. He was, after all, very charming.

  She stopped believing him after the third time.

  Then things got ugly.

  Quite often Tad followed her in his car, but now kept a block away, never pulling alongside as he’d done before.

  Then one afternoon, needing time alone, Lily went to The Place after school. She’d just settled down with a book when she heard a twig snap and a rustle in the nearby bushes. She shot to her feet and saw Tad step into the clearing.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, her fright adding a sharp edge to her words.

  He stopped and looked down at his shoes. “I just wanted to talk to you. You won’t take my calls.” Then he looked up from under his brows with an innocent smile on his lips and said, “That little sister of yours is impossible to bribe.”

  “Let’s just say she’s smarter than I am.”

  “But she’s not as pretty.” He took a step closer.

  “She’s ten years old.” Lily crossed her arms over her chest and shot him a disgusted look.

  He inched nearer. “I can tell she’s not going to be as beautiful as you.” He reached out with a finger and brushed her cheek.

  “Save it, Tad.”

  “Come on, Lil! Don’t be mad. I know I screwed up. I just want things back the way they were.”

  Anger burst red and hot inside Lily. “Like they were? You mean, you sneaking around with me, then treating me like I’m invisible when other people are around? Kissing me in secret, telling me… things… then making fun of me with your friends?” Now she leaned closer to him and said, just short of a shout, “Is that what you mean, Tad?”

  He grabbed her shoulders so quickly she didn’t have time to jump back. He jerked her against him and said, “This is what I mean.” And he kissed her.

  Lily clamped her lips together and was as unresponsive as a person could be.

  Tad tried to force his tongue inside her mouth. While Lily was concentrating on fending off that invasion, he shoved her backward against a tree. Her mouth came open with a gasp and his tongue took advantage.

  Lily’s anger quickly turned in the direction of fear when he pinned her against the tree with his body and pulled her blouse from the waist of her jeans. Then his hands were on her skin.

  Anger gave her strength. A growl started in her throat. She bit down on his tongue. He jumped backward, holding his mouth.

  “You keep your hands off of me!”

  “Jeeshus!” He looked at his hand for blood and saw some. “You bith me.”

  “I didn’t bite hard. But I’m warning you, you get near me again, and I’ll do worse.”

  A change came over him then. He switched from macho man to wounded little boy. He sat down on the ground and stared at his bloody hand. A thick rope of red-stained saliva ran from his lip. “Don’t tell Luk—”

  “Save your breath.” She tucked in her shirt and picked up her book.

  Tad pretty much disappeared from her life after that moment. But occasionally she caught the look, or him staring out his car window when he passed.

  She’d never told anyone about her encounters with Tad. She’d been too ashamed—not to mention if Luke found out he’d have kicked Tad’s ass to Kalamazoo and back. Wouldn’t that have fanned those remaining embers of gossip back into full flame? It had taken years for the last Boudreau family scandal to disappear from the lips of the gossipmongers. Lily had had no desire to start it up again.

  Mildred came to their booth and both Riley and Lily ordered pancakes, even though Lily’s appetite had taken a nosedive since she saw Tad. But she’d plow through them, she wouldn’t let him win, not this time.

  Before their food arrived, Tad and Mickey got up. He paused as he passed Lily’s table. Instead of behaving as she had in school, she looked at him and held his gaze. Tad was the first to look away.

  He put a hand on Mickey’s arm and said, “Aren’t you going to tell your friend goodbye?”

  Lily didn’t miss the way the girl flinched when he touched her.

  “ ’Bye, Riley.” She looked at Lily. “Mrs. Holt.”

  Riley grunted and didn’t look up.

  Lily smiled. “Good to see you again, Mickey.”

  Tad said, “See you real soon, Lily.”

  “Goodbye, Tad.” Her words carried enough frost that he should get the idea.

  They left the café.

  Lily said, “Riley Holt, where are your manners? How could you be so rude to such a nice girl?”

  “I didn’t mean to be rude—to her.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? You wanted to be rude to Mr. Fulton?” Not that Lily didn’t want to do the same.

  He shrugged and Lily could see there was a real struggle going on inside her son.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I didn’t want to look at him.”

  “Mickey’s dad?”

  He nodded and Lily’s heart started to race. “Has something happened between you and Mr. Fulton?”

  “No.” Riley wasn’t looking at her at the moment either.

  “So—why?”

  “I was afraid I’d say something I shouldn’t—do something…”

  “What’s going on, Riley?”

  “It’s just, Mickey is nice—and her parents… her parents aren’t.”

  Lily had already seen how Karen bowled over her daughter, but what did Riley know about Tad? Lily had first-hand experience about how close Tad could come to violence. But he’d been just a kid then.

  “Do they hurt her?”

  “Mom, don’t say anything! It’ll make it worse for Mickey.”

  Lily was going to ask how he happened to know so much about Mickey, but there were more important issues at the moment. “Her mom seems…”

  “Blind and bossy.” Riley finished for her. “She makes Mickey feel like she’s nothing.”

  For a second
, Lily was so taken aback by her son’s adult insight that she couldn’t say anything. Then she said, “I’m sure she just wants Mickey—”

  “To be just like her! And Mickey’s so much better than her.”

  Lily was beginning to see Mickey meant something to Riley, more than a passing acquaintance. “What about her dad?”

  Riley shrugged.

  Reaching across the table, she put a hand on his. “Tell me.”

  He closed his eyes and shifted in his seat. “She says he doesn’t hit her very often.”

  “That’s what she said?”

  He nodded.

  Lily fought the urge to run out the door and hunt that bastard down. But good sense grabbed hold. There were all sorts of ways to interpret a statement like that. Lily didn’t approve of any hitting, but a child’s interpretation could be anything.

  She moistened her lips and said, “The best thing you can do for Mickey is listen. If she says anything else like that, I want you to tell me.”

  Riley pulled his hand away and put it in his lap.

  “Riley, I mean it. I promise not to make things worse for Mickey.”

  Keeping his gaze focused on his hands, he nodded.

  Just then, Mildred brought the pancakes. Lily went through the motions of spreading butter and topping them with maple syrup, but she couldn’t shove down a single bite.

  The need for confrontation had gnawed Clay’s bones until, in the middle of the night, he finally climbed on his motorcycle and headed north.

  He now sat in the brown recliner in the small room at the rehab facility, rubbing his sleep-deprived eyes. The only other furniture was a twin-sized bed, a tiny bedside table made of wood-grain-covered particle board and a lamp that appeared to be a garage sale cast-off. There was no television, no telephone, no carpet. Off-white steel miniblinds covered the window that overlooked an asphalt parking lot with faded yellow space markings. The Sheldon Center was not at all the type of rehab facility in which he’d expect to find Peter Holt, heir to the Holt millions.

  When he’d first pulled up to the place, he’d thought Samantha Holt had given him the name of the wrong treatment center. But a telephone call posing as Peter’s father had confirmed that Peter was, in fact, a patient here.

  As Clay sat there mulling the disparity of economic levels between the hospital and the man, something Lily had said came back to him. She and Peter had to sell the house when they divorced. He’d thought that it was simply to divide up the property, but perhaps it had been from financial need. Why else would the ex-wife of a Holt be driving something as ordinary as a used Toyota?

  Peter worked for his father, and there was no doubt his father had controlled Peter’s finances when they were in college. Perhaps he held the purse strings to the family fortune close to his own chest. Peter would be dependent upon whatever salary his father deemed appropriate. And the divorce settlement would have been peanuts.

  There was another thing of which Clay had no doubt; Bill and Samantha Holt would never, never subject their only child to alcohol rehab. They would bail him out, cover his tracks and make excuses until they were blue in the face. But they would never outwardly admit that Peter had a problem.

  Clay was getting a clearer picture of Lily’s current circumstances by the minute.

  Footsteps stopped outside the door. The doorknob rattled, and Clay got to his feet. He put on a neutral expression and stood with his hands folded before him.

  The door opened.

  “Hello, Peter.”

  Peter, who was halfway through the door, literally jumped backward several inches. “Christ Almighty! Where in the hell did you come from?”

  Clay considered it a rhetorical question. “It’s been a long time.”

  Peter closed the door behind him and put on a nervous smile. His gaze shifted from place to place, looking everywhere but at Clay. Edginess tensed the muscles of his face. It was the same look Clay remembered from childhood when he’d been caught in a lie and was frantically looking for a way to slip out of it.

  He finally said, “I’m not allowed to have visitors.”

  Clay gave him a chilly smile. “I won’t be here long.”

  Peter’s gray gaze slid like a drop of mercury around the room. “How’d you get in here?”

  “I just put a few of my old talents to work. There aren’t many places I can’t get inside—if I have a mind to.”

  “Ah”—Peter nodded knowingly—“Luke said you were in some sort of special operations.” Now he seemed to be regaining his footing. He continued on as if they’d run into each other on the street. “God, it has been years. Still in the service?”

  “No.”

  The short answer seemed to make Peter more nervous. He stuck his hands in his pants pockets and rocked back on his heels. “What are you up to now, then? Where are you living?”

  Clay didn’t say anything for a long moment. Very quietly, and with clear meaning, he said, “I’m living in Glens Crossing.”

  Peter reacted as if Clay had slugged him in the stomach with a sandbag. He actually bent slightly at the middle. When Clay didn’t say anything further, Peter’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times. Then he recovered a bit. “You must have seen Lily, then.”

  Clay nodded. “Lily—and the boy.”

  It appeared as if someone had sucked all of the air out of Peter. He folded in on himself, skin against skin, leaving nothing but a wrinkled, one-dimensional husk. “Oh.” He paused and staggered slightly to the side. Then he swallowed dryly. “I see.”

  Clay shut out the part of him that felt pity for Peter, his lifelong friend, a man whose weakness had been inbred. Clay had driven all night so he could ask the question face to face. “Why? Why did you do it, Peter?”

  Suddenly Peter sprang back to his true form, his cheeks flooded with color. He took a step closer and pointed a finger at Clay’s chest. “I suppose I could ask you the same question!”

  Clay had been prepared for a litany of excuses, for profuse apologies, but not this counterattack. “What are you talking about?”

  Peter’s jaw set with a determination that Clay didn’t recall ever seeing in his friend. “You knew I had feelings for Lily. A whole year before…. But you had to be the one. You had to show me up just one more time.”

  “What feelings? You neve—”

  “Bullshit! Don’t try to make me believe you hooked up with Lily that summer just out of the blue. And you snuck around about it! You were afraid I’d win, that she’d love me more. You always treated her like she was your special property.”

  Clay struggled to get some kind of bearing on this conversation. He felt like he’d charged up a hill with an automatic rifle to face an enemy and discovered it armed with pinwheels and peashooters. He was fully ready to take on a man, for a man’s deceptions, only to find that Peter had reverted to adolescence. “Afraid she’d love you…” He pointed to the chair. “Sit down and explain to me exactly what you’re talking about.”

  Peter stared at Clay for a moment, then sat down. Clay sat on the bed and clasped his hands, resting his elbows on his knees.

  It took a few seconds, but Peter finally began to talk. “The day Luke left for the army we drove him to the airport, remember?”

  Clay nodded.

  “And Lily cried all of the way back to Glens Crossing. Everything was changing.” He waved a hand in the air to emphasize the point. “And I told you that while you were inside the house and she and I were alone on the dock, I kissed her.” Now his gaze honed sharply on Clay. “And you told me I should back off. She was too young. It might ruin a friendship she really needed right then. I had a girl in Chicago… you came up with a million reasons.”

  Clay thought back to that night. He did remember Peter telling him that he’d kissed Lily—and he also remembered how vehemently he’d gone after him for it. At the time, he believed all of those reasons he’d laid out to Peter. It was only later that he realized that underneath all of those logical reason
s, he was jealous. Lily was his to protect, his to comfort—his to love.

  Clay said, “Don’t try and tell me you were in love with Lily. You never mentioned anything about it again. And you did have three girls at Northwestern. You could never keep yourself to one at a time. You think that’s what I wanted for Lily?”

  “Ahh! There it is!” Peter jumped to his feet. “What you wanted for Lily! You always had to play the hero.” He raised his hands in the air. “Well, that time you finally screwed up, buddy. I”—he thumped his chest—“was there for her.” Then he stuck a finger right in Clay’s face and said, “You knocked her up, then left her alone! I was the hero when it counted! While you were off playing spy, I was raising your kid.”

  The room rocked to the side. Clay’s heart shot into orbit. He couldn’t seem to pull any air into his lungs. “Riley is mine?”

  Peter once again looked like a cornered animal. He tried to back away, but Clay shot off the bed and grabbed the front of his shirt.

  “Is he?” Clay’s voice sounded more animal than human through his clenched teeth.

  Peter licked his lips and closed his eyes. “Oh, God. She didn’t tell you….”

  Chapter 18

  Clay let go of Peter’s shirt as if it were suddenly contaminated with the plague. In doing so, he shoved Peter backward and Peter landed in the recliner.

  Clay stood there, chest heaving, heart racing, staring at Peter for a long moment. He wanted to hit him. He wanted to rant and scream. He wanted to pull out his own hair. But he reined in his fury and finally asked, “You knew from the beginning?”

  Peter nodded. “She called looking for you—after you’d… you were…” He shook his head. “I knew something was up, so I went down to Glens Crossing the next weekend.”

  “And she told you?”

  Peter nodded again.

  There was such a hurricane of emotions battering Clay’s good sense, he didn’t know if he could continue to contain himself. After making two complete circles around the room, he turned on Peter again. “You son of a bitch! You knew where I was—why didn’t you tell her?”