“I said sit!” she screamed. Her eyes were the same as Mama’s when the storms thundered, her hand shaking as she pointed at the chair.
River complied.
“Why are you doing this?” Ellis asked, looking at each of them. “Why are you tearing each other apart instead of supporting each other?”
“It’s River,” Jasper said. “That’s what he does.”
“Yeah, it’s what I do,” River said. “And guess who taught me, Mom?”
“I never behaved like you do!”
“But you did a great job of tearing the family apart.”
Ellis looked away from him, stared at the dark front windows.
Raven saw what she wanted. She wanted to be out there in the woods. She looked like a trapped animal. Raven knew how she felt. She supposed Ellis would leave the house.
But Ellis turned back to River. “Okay, let’s talk about it. Is that what you want?”
“Yeah, let’s talk about it,” River mocked.
“What do you want to know?”
“You know what! Why did you leave two little kids who were already traumatized by their baby sister’s abduction?”
His voice, the look in his eyes. And in Ellis’s and Jasper’s eyes. Raven saw some of what Mama had done to them. She felt even sicker than she had in the kitchen. She sank onto the couch.
“I was . . . I thought I was doing you more damage by staying,” Ellis said. “At first your father had to make me take the pills. For the depression and guilt. Every second I was awake, I blamed myself for leaving my baby in the woods. What I’d done was broadcast on the news. All my friends and neighbors knew. Your grandmother never let me forget. Your father was angry with me . . .”
She wiped her fingers under her eyes. “Within a few weeks, I started drinking because the pills weren’t enough. Then I added the pain medications they’d given me for my back. I couldn’t stop. The more I took, the more I needed. I thought I was going to be like my mother. I thought I would be an addict for the rest of my life—and there was no way I’d put you through what I went through when I was little.”
“I didn’t know your mother was an addict,” Jasper said.
Ellis was astonished Mary Carol and Jonah II hadn’t told them. Possibly Jonah had finally drawn a line with them.
“What did she use?” River asked.
“Anything, but she got really bad when she started using heroin.”
“Whoa,” River said.
“What was your father like?” Jasper asked.
“I never knew who he was, and my mother refused to tell me.”
“No stepdad or anything?”
“For a while, there was a man. Zane Waycott. He was like my dad. He was a chef at some of the same restaurants where my mother worked. He and I were really close—at least I thought we were. Then one day he just disappeared.”
“Sounds familiar,” River said.
“He didn’t even say goodbye,” Ellis said.
“If you think that day you said goodbye somehow helped, it didn’t,” River said. “It actually traumatized me pretty bad.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I regretted leaving you,” Ellis said.
“Then why didn’t you come back?”
“So many reasons. The divorce, Irene—”
“Irene only stuck around for about three months,” River said.
“It was a lot more than her and the divorce. Even after I got off the drugs and booze, I was sick with guilt about losing the baby. And by then, I’d been away for a long time. I was afraid coming back into your lives would hurt more than help.”
“You could have come back,” River said.
“Maybe. But something happened . . .”
“What?” Jasper asked.
Ellis looked too fragile to stand. She sat on the couch next to Raven.
“I was . . . attacked by two men in a campground. They stabbed me in the side.”
“Holy shit,” River whispered.
Tears dripped down her cheeks. “I almost let myself die from an infection. At first, I didn’t go to a hospital. I thought maybe I deserved to die. But I was scared, too. I was afraid you and your father would find out.”
“Why would that matter?” Jasper asked.
“I don’t know! I was screwed up! Do you see why I left you? Even when I wasn’t on drugs, I made bad decisions. I could barely keep myself alive, let alone take care of two little children. I loved you boys too much to come anywhere near you. To keep myself from wanting you, I made myself relive the day I left Viola in the woods. Over and over. It was like an actual circle of Hell.”
It always came back to that. To the day Mama found the baby with raven hair and eyes. Her dream daughter. Her miracle.
Jasper had tears in his eyes. River stared forcefully at Raven. As if to say, Do you see what that crazy lady who took you did to us?
Ellis continued her story. “I had bad anxiety after the assault. For a while, I couldn’t drive. I was having panic attacks.”
Like Jackie after his father died.
“That was how I ended up in Gainesville,” she said. “A friend from college lived there. I stayed with her for two years. She was the one who encouraged me to get into plant nursery work.”
“And by then, no way were you coming back,” River said.
“That’s right,” she said. “I felt better. I thought I was healing, and I supposed you two were. To come back to you then, to dredge it all up again, might have been a disaster for all of us. Or so I told myself.”
She clasped her hands and looked down at them. “But it wasn’t like you said before—as if my children were files on a computer I’d deleted.”
“You thought about us?” Jasper asked.
She stared at her knotted hands. “Trees can do this amazing thing called Compartmentalization of Decay. When they get an injury, the cells around the wound change and put up a wall that contains the process of decay. Around that wall, a different kind of change in the cells forms another wall. Then a third wall. And a fourth.”
She looked at Jasper and River. “Down the hill, there’s a huge live oak that has a big hollow in its trunk, but the tree is thriving. The protective walls allowed the growth of wood to continue around the injury even as it turned hollow.”
“So you’re basically saying you’re a rotten tree?” River said.
“I’m saying that’s a better metaphor for what happened. I didn’t discard you. You’ve always been there, at the core of me. But enclosed in a way that let me survive the pain.”
“Shit, now I’m the rotten tree,” River said.
“Not rotten. Go out there tomorrow and look at how beautiful that oak is.”
He had no joke to follow.
“I’m not saying the walls I put up were good, and I’m not saying they were bad. This is simply how some people survive trauma. Maybe it’s how this whole family got to where we are today.”
“Sounds about right to me,” River said. “A family of hollow trees.” He drained his beer. “At this point, my stomach is so hollow, I’d eat shite-tan.”
“I’d go back to cooking if y’all would stop fighting for five minutes,” Ellis said.
“Oh my god, you say y’all now?” River said.
“Stay here a few more days, and it’ll infect you, too.”
“We need to get out of here,” he said to Jasper.
“Not till we do the gator-wrestling thing,” Jasper said.
Raven wondered what they were talking about. But for a moment, there was peace between them, and that was enough.
6
ELLIS
“Your daughter works as hard as you do,” Tom said.
She did. Raven was very like her in that respect. She enjoyed physical work, especially as a way of managing stress. Raven was always moving—out walking, helping with the nursery plants, or cleaning, doing laundry, or cooking in the house. When she was inactive, she was engaged with schoolwork or a novel. Ellis sensed her
perpetual need to keep active helped her cope with being thrown from one life into another she didn’t want.
When they finished loading the plants into the truck, Max held up her hand for a high five, and Raven slapped it. Then they went off to the greenhouse to fertilize the plants.
“Great kid you have there,” Tom said.
“Yes, she is.”
“Where’s Keith been?” he asked.
“He moved out,” Ellis said.
Tom studied her. “Is that a good or bad thing?”
“It’s just a thing.”
“Want to talk about it over a beer?”
“I don’t.”
“So it’s a bad thing. He’s an ass if he’s the one who left.”
“I really don’t want to talk about this,” Ellis said.
He looked down the hill. “If this is your new guy, I’m feeling really old.”
River was walking over from the barn house. He looked unusually alert for midmorning. He and Jasper had stayed in bed until past noon the previous two mornings since they’d arrived. Ellis suspected River had found a way to get drugs and alcohol in the nearby college town. He and Jasper had free use of the credit cards Jonah had given them.
“Tom, this is my son River,” Ellis said.
They shook hands.
“Are you spending the summer here?” Tom asked him.
“I can’t,” River said. “I haven’t learned how to breathe this much water with my air.”
Tom laughed. “You live up north?”
“New York,” River said. “I think people who live here must be hiding gills if they can survive these summers.”
“The humidity definitely takes some getting used to,” Tom said. “If you stick around and need work, my landscape crew is shorthanded.”
“I can’t imagine why,” River said.
Tom looked as if the sarcasm was wearing on him. “Well, I’d better get going. See you next week, Ellis. Good to meet you, River.”
“As if I’d dig around in the dirt all day,” River scoffed after Tom started his truck.
“Why not? It might do you good.”
“I’d rather swim with the alligators out back.”
“What gets you up so early?” she asked.
“It’s not that early. I was wondering where you were.”
Ellis sensed tension in him.
“Do you need something?”
“Yeah. Maybe breakfast. If that’s okay.”
Since he and Jasper had arrived, River had driven into Gainesville or Ocala to get fast food for most of his meals. Jasper sometimes went with him, but he mostly ate with Ellis and Raven.
“No eggs or meat,” she warned.
“I know.”
He was definitely acting strange. She wondered what was going on.
While she was cooking, Jasper arrived in the kitchen. “Why are you already up?” he asked his brother.
“For the scrambled tofu and veggies, of course.”
“Yeah, right,” Jasper said.
“Want some?” Ellis asked Jasper.
“Sure. Thanks.” He sat at the kitchen table with River.
Ellis made more when Raven came in. She had just enough ingredients for the three of them. She heated leftovers for herself.
She put the four plates on the table and sat down. The boys ate fast; Raven picked at her food as usual.
“Want to check out tubing at that spring?” Jasper asked.
“Maybe later,” River replied.
“Do you want to come with us?” Jasper asked Raven.
“What is tubing?”
“You rent an inner tube and float down a river called the Ichetucknee. Apparently, it’s one of the highlights of living around here.”
“But don’t get too excited,” River said. “Bird-watching at Paynes Prairie was next on the list.”
“Paynes Prairie is gorgeous,” Ellis said.
“I’ll take your word for it,” River said.
His phone buzzed. He looked at it, then cast an odd glance at Ellis.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“River . . . ,” Jasper said.
River looked at him.
“What are you doing? You’re acting weird.”
“Which is typical, isn’t it?” He got up and put his empty plate in the sink.
Outside, Quercus started barking.
Ellis went to the living room windows and watched a car drive slowly down the gravel road.
“Did one of you leave the gate open last night?” Ellis called.
They joined at the window and peered out at the car.
“I opened it,” River said. “This morning.”
Now she understood why he’d been tense. “Who is it? Jonah? Did you tell him to come here?”
River snorted. “If you think Dad drives a car like that, you really don’t remember him well.”
He was right. It was an old sedan.
She walked out onto the porch, and the kids followed. The man in the car was afraid to get out because Quercus was standing next to the driver’s door, barking.
Ellis called Quercus to her side. He was much more obedient than his two predecessors.
The man got out of the car. He was probably in his sixties, balding and a little overweight. His face looked familiar. He stared at Ellis intently.
“Oh my god,” Ellis said.
“Who is it?” Jasper asked.
“It’s Zane.”
“What the hell did you do?” Jasper whispered to River.
“I told him Ellis Abbey wanted to see him.”
“How did you find him?” Ellis asked.
“Facebook. He was the only Zane Waycott. He doesn’t live that far, in North Carolina. And he’s still a chef.”
“Why would you do this?” she asked.
“The way you talked about him, I assumed you needed closure.” His smile was spiteful. “It feels pretty weird to see someone who ghosted you a long time ago, doesn’t it?”
“You asshole!” Jasper hissed.
“If the sphincter fits . . . ,” River said. He stepped back on the porch, smiling, arms crossed over his chest as he watched Zane’s approach.
Zane walked as if in pain after the long drive. Age had made his face look harsher. Ellis remembered a softer look about him.
He stared at Raven as he came down the flagstone path. No doubt he saw Ellis’s youth in her face. “Ellis . . . ,” he said with apparent confusion. “I was told . . .” He looked at River. “Your son said you were dying and wanted to see me.”
“Zane . . . ,” Ellis said, walking to him. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too,” he said distractedly.
“I’m not dying,” she said.
“I see that.” He shot a look at River. “I was told you had only hours to live. He said you were desperate to see me.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ellis said. “My son is . . . having some problems.”
Zane strode toward River, his limp mostly gone. “What the hell is wrong with you? I’ve been driving all night!”
“You see?” River said to Ellis. “Now you know he really cares.”
Zane balled a fist. “If you weren’t her son . . .”
River looked about to go at it with him.
“Zane,” Ellis said, “please come inside.”
Zane and River continued to glower at each other.
“Come into the air-conditioning,” Ellis said. “Do you like iced tea?”
“Yeah, sounds good,” he said, averting his eyes from River.
Raven joined them, but Jasper dragged River away by his arm.
Ellis brought Zane iced tea in the living room.
“I’m truly sorry about what my son did,” Ellis said. “I had no idea he contacted you.”
“I can tell,” he said.
“Our family is going through some problems.”
“Is your husband here?”
“We’re divorced.”
/> He looked around. “This is nice. I imagined you living in a place like this. You used to go in that forest behind your mom’s place.”
“You called it the Wild Wood,” she said.
“I remember,” he said, smiling.
“I named my plant nursery Wild Wood after that place.”
He sat in the stuffed chair, studying Ellis. “You and I could always cut through the bullshit, right? What’s going on? Why did your son do this? There must be a reason.”
“The long answer would be way too much information. The short answer is, I mentioned you during a conversation a few days ago.”
“And . . . ?”
“He seemed to think I needed closure. At least that’s what he said.”
He gave Raven a look that indicated he’d rather not talk in front of her. But Raven stayed put. “I’m sorry I never came back,” he said to Ellis. “I always thought I would. Your mother was like an addiction. Bad for me, but I couldn’t stop.”
“I know.”
“When I finally broke free that last time, I knew I couldn’t go back or I’d get sucked in again. Somehow, I finally got the willpower to stay away.”
His words opened all the old wounds. He’d not once said anything about missing her.
“To make sure I never went back, I moved away,” he said.
“I know. Mom heard from someone.”
“I heard she died a few years later of an overdose.”
Ellis nodded.
“Where did you go?”
He didn’t know? He hadn’t cared enough to find out if she had a safe place to live?
“I went to live with her father in Youngstown.”
“Really? Him?”
“He wasn’t the evil person she’d made him out to be. She hated him because he cut her off when she got out of control. He was a really nice guy.”
“Figures. She always did exaggerate everything.”
“Are you married?” Ellis asked.
“For eighteen years.”
“Kids?”
“My wife had two kids from her first husband and didn’t want more. That was okay with me.” He picked up the iced tea and drank. “Is that other boy out there yours, too?”
“Yes.”
He looked at Raven. “And I don’t need to ask if this pretty lady is yours. You sure look like your mama. What’s your name, darlin’?”
“Raven,” she said.
The Light Through the Leaves Page 33