“Jesus, how did you survive? Did you have any internet at all?”
“My mother used a phone and computer with internet to order supplies we needed. I was only allowed to use the computer for school assignments.”
“Did you ever sneak and do some surfing?”
“She checked the computer history after I used it.”
“Shit, that’s messed up.”
“It’s smart. She said to give kids phones, internet, and video games when they’re little is like giving them addictive drugs.”
“Yeah, well, they give those to little kids, too.”
“The father of a friend of mine was killed by someone who was reading a text while driving.”
“That sucks. So you had friends out there?”
“I have friends out there.”
“Do you know when you’re going back?”
She shook her head. “My aunt and your father are in control of that, and no one tells me what’s going on. All my aunt tells Ellis is the estate is still unsettled and I need to hide from reporters.”
“She’s hiding you to protect her own interests,” he said.
“I know. But I agree with what she’s doing. I don’t want my mother to become a big news story and have people say bad things about her. I’ll stay here for a while to stop that from happening.”
He bit into a piece of buttered bread. “Is that the only reason you stay here? Aren’t you at all glad you met your family?”
“I didn’t know about any of you until a month and a half ago.”
“Yeah, but now you do. Don’t we mean anything to you?”
She tried to think of an answer that wouldn’t sound too harsh. “A person can’t suddenly feel close to people out of nothing. And none of you has made that easy for me.” She wouldn’t tell him that Maxine, unrelated to her, was the person she felt closest to since she’d come out east.
He smiled in his droll way. “I guess we aren’t the most lovable family.” He looked serious all of a sudden. “But there’s a reason for that.”
“I refuse to take the blame for everything that’s wrong with your family.”
“Of course you shouldn’t. But you know who’s to blame.”
“You can’t pin it all on my mother either. You heard what Zane said today. Ellis had problems in her family all the way back before she was born. I bet Jonah did, too. I saw what his mother is like.”
“Yeah, Gram is a piece of work. To her, my mother is only slightly less evil than the Devil himself. My grandfather hated my mother, too.”
“That was all there before I left your family.”
“Yeah, but still. What Audrey Lind did forced our family skeletons out of the closet and turned them into flesh-eating zombies.”
More and more, he reminded her of Reece. But maybe only because she missed Reece so much. Reece didn’t have a drop of meanness in him, and River had plenty.
“Too bad you’re a video virgin,” he said. “I thought that was a pretty cool metaphor.”
“I know what zombies are,” she said. “They can’t be skeletons.”
“If you can have earth spirits in your world, I can have skeleton zombies in mine.”
His second whiskey arrived. He drank it fast while they ate their salads, then ordered a third.
“I thought you said your drunk side wasn’t asking me to dinner?” she said.
“I’m a big guy. It takes more than a little whiskey to get me drunk.”
“Will you be able to drive us home?”
“I’m eating a full dinner. That will absorb it. I’ll be fine.”
She hoped so. He already seemed affected by the alcohol. As they ate, he talked animatedly about why he didn’t believe in going to an expensive college like his brother. His bitter outlook on modern society and where it was headed reminded her of Mama. He even used the word machine to describe it once.
When they left the dark restaurant, he complained that the sun was still out. He wanted to go to a bar but said it was too early.
“I’m sixteen. I can’t do that anyway.”
“Oh, right.”
That he’d forgotten she was underage worried her. He’d drunk three whiskeys and a glass of brandy.
“Let’s do something else,” he said. “I don’t want to go back.”
“We have to. They might be wondering where we are.”
“They know where we are. Jasper sent me a bunch of texts asking why I went to dinner without him.”
“Did you answer?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Because Jasper is a pain in the ass.”
Raven couldn’t imagine Jackie and Huck acting like that toward each other.
In the car, River opened a small paper envelope. “Want to try some of this?”
“What is that?”
“Coke—cocaine.”
The food she’d eaten seemed to rise up her throat. She had never seen anyone use cocaine.
“Want to try some?” he asked.
“No. And I don’t think you should do that before you drive.”
“I need to counterbalance the whiskey.”
“You said it didn’t make you drunk.”
“It didn’t. I just need a little pick-me-up.” He had a tube in his hand.
“River . . . I don’t want you to.”
“Calm down. It’s no big deal. Everyone does this.”
He inhaled two lines of the white powder, and his eyes turned bright.
“Are you sure you don’t want to try it? It feels really good.”
“Stop asking,” she said. “Are you sure you can drive?”
“Yep. I just need the perfect song . . .”
He took a long time choosing a song from his phone. He turned the volume on the car stereo too loud, but she said nothing.
Raven kept her attention on the road and his driving as he manically explained more about his reasons for hating the world. As they sped into the openness of the Paynes Prairie wetlands, he was looking at his phone to change the song. He glanced up at the cars parked along the highway.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“People come here to watch the sunset. Ellis told me it’s a ritual around here.”
“Let’s do that. Do you want to do that?”
“I think we should go—”
“There’s a pier over there,” River said. “Let’s park there.”
He changed lanes sharply to get to the pier on the other side of the median. He still had his phone clutched in his hand when their car collided with another. He jerked the wheel to the right with one hand to get away from the grinding metal.
Everything turned upside down. Raven squeezed her eyes closed. When she opened them, they were in water. The car had rolled over the concrete ledge at the edge of the wetland. They were right side up again but sinking, her side of the car higher than River’s.
“River! We have to get out! We’re going underwater!”
His head was bloody, his eyes closed. She could tell he was unconscious.
She had to get him out before the car sank. The water wasn’t up to her window yet, but she was afraid it would stop working when the water hit the mechanics. She pressed the button, relieved when it rolled down. Raven unbuckled her seat belt, trying not to panic at the sight of River’s closed window receding under the water. She unbuckled him and pulled. He was dead weight.
“River!” she screamed as the water gushed into her window. “River!”
The water buoyed his body and helped her move him. But they were going under. Somehow she had to get him out through the window. Warm, sulfurous water poured over her. River’s head was about to go under.
Everything vanished into a single thought—keeping him alive. She managed to drag most of his body out the window. But her head went under the water, and River’s face had been under even longer. He was drowning. She had to get him to the air. She heaved her arm around his chest and struggled to get him to the surface. He was weighi
ng her down, and she needed air. But she wouldn’t let him go. She wouldn’t, not ever. He was in Florida because of her. He was in that water because of her. If he died, she wanted to die with him.
Arms wrapped around her. Someone was in the water. But she was afraid they would make her let go of River and he’d sink. She clenched him tighter. As she was dragged to the surface, she sucked in a breath of air. “My brother!” she said. “Help him! He’s hurt!”
“I have him!” a man said. “Let him go!”
Three men had jumped into the marsh. Another slid into the water and passed River up to the people standing at the concrete ledge. His body was completely limp, his face almost blue and streaked with blood.
He looked dead. She hadn’t gotten him out in time.
The men in the water were helping her get out when someone shouted, “He’s not breathing! Does anyone know CPR?”
A man and woman pushed through a large crowd. They knelt on either side of River. The man listened to River’s chest. He said there was a heartbeat. Raven gasped a sob of relief. But when the woman opened River’s slack mouth and breathed into it, nothing happened. He didn’t wake up. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.
Beyond the cluster of cars and horrified faces, the prairie and water were impossibly beautiful. A flock of white egrets slowly flapped across pink clouds and blue sky.
Why had the spirits of that powerful piece of earth done this to one of their own?
Please let him live. Come to him now and make him breathe.
She willed the spirits to help him, but he did not breathe.
8
ELLIS
Jasper didn’t want dinner. He just sulked in the guesthouse, eating snacks and watching TV. He was angry that his brother had taken the car while he was in the shower.
Ellis was surprised when she discovered Raven had gone with River. They hadn’t left a note, and River wasn’t answering Jasper’s texts. As the sun sank lower, Ellis worried. But Jasper was sure they’d just gone to dinner without telling them. He said it was the kind of selfish thing River always did.
What was wrong with her children?
She was what was wrong with them. Her mother was what was wrong with them. And her father, who’d been so hotheaded he’d gotten himself killed over an argument. Her parents had wanted a baby when they clearly couldn’t be responsible for another human being.
Some people shouldn’t have children. Ellis had never thought she should or would. Then Jonah blew into her life and tossed up her plans for the future like so many dead leaves.
Quercus put his paws in her lap and licked her chin. He was the sweetest and most intuitive of the three dogs she’d had. Maybe because Keith had chosen him.
She ruffled his thick, furry mane. “You miss him, don’t you?”
Seeing he had her attention, he ran for his ball. She rarely played with him. Keith had always done that. She got out of the rocking chair and threw the ball into the trees. Quercus fetched it. She threw again. On the fourth throw, the ball got stuck high in the spiky trunk of a cabbage palm. Quercus stared at it longingly.
Keith would get a ladder and bring the ball down, but she was too wiped to do that.
She went inside to get her phone and returned to her rocking chair. One was hers, the other Keith’s.
She pressed his number. She didn’t know why or what she would say. Just like that night in Ohio after she’d buried her phone and family pictures in the Wild Wood river.
“Hey there,” he said when he picked up.
“Hey,” she said.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“The dog’s ball is stuck up in a tree. Way up.” It was a really asinine thing to say.
“That’s too bad.”
“Yeah.”
An awful silence. She was afraid he’d say goodbye and that silence would go on forever.
“I don’t think that’s why you called,” he said.
“It’s not.”
“Why did you?”
“I miss you. I’m wondering if you’ll ever forgive me.”
“I have. Sort of.”
“You have?”
“Sort of. I can see why you didn’t tell me about your kids. Feeling responsible for your child’s abduction must be about as bad as it gets for a parent. Now I understand why you lived in campgrounds when I first met you. You were suffering from so much more than a divorce.”
After a pause, he said, “But it’s still tough for me, Ellis. I keep asking myself why you didn’t trust me. Even when I trusted you enough to ask you to marry me and have our baby.”
Tears dripped down her cheeks.
“Do you see how much that would hurt?” he asked.
“Yes.”
After a silence, he said, “You’re crying.”
She tried to say yes, but it came out as a sob.
“Is everything okay over there?”
“Something happened today.”
“What?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Try.”
“There was a man who was like my father when I was little. He came here today.”
“What happened?”
“I found out the truth about some things I’d never understood.”
He waited, but she didn’t know what more to say.
“The truth hurt?” he asked.
“More than I’d have thought after all these years.”
“But aren’t you glad you know?”
She was glad she knew who her father was, but discovering Zane hadn’t really loved her or missed her still hurt.
“I think some truths are better left unsaid,” she said.
“Not between people who truly care about each other,” he said.
Ellis had cared; Zane hadn’t. The love had been one sided. He hadn’t cared enough to tell her about her father. Or even to say goodbye when he left. There had been no truth between them, and that hurt much more than the truths Zane had divulged.
She realized then why she’d called him.
“I love you, Keith.”
There was no sound, but somehow she knew he was crying.
“Any chance you’d come over? I want to tell you about what happened today.”
“This is good, Ellis.”
“What is?”
“That you want to share the pain.”
“I’ve got quite a bit, if you can stand it.”
“I could have handled it, you know. All of it.”
“I know.”
“I’ll be over in twenty minutes.”
“Where are you?”
“I’ve been staying in Ben’s guest room.”
Ben was another park ranger who lived in nearby Ocala.
“You’d better hurry if you want to see the sunset. It looks like it’ll be good.”
“On my way.”
He arrived before the sun went down. He hadn’t yet closed his car door when they sank into each other’s arms. Quercus butted and pawed at Keith until he pulled his attention away from Ellis. He knelt and hugged the dog. “I’ve missed you, too, you big, hairy old oak.”
“How is your mom?” Ellis asked.
His mother had been depressed since Keith’s father died a little over a year ago.
“She’s better,” he said. “She joined a senior club and made some new friends. I went up to see her last week.”
“You went to Pennsylvania? Did you see your sister and the kids?”
“Of course.”
“Did you talk about what happened with us?”
He nodded.
She’d known he would. Keith was close with his sister and mother, as he’d been with his father. And his sister’s husband was like a true brother. Ellis had never seen such a harmonious family. She hadn’t even believed such a thing existed.
“Do the kids know?” she asked.
“I think the abduction story might have been a bit much for them.”
“What did the rest of the family think
about it?”
“They remembered Senator Bauhammer. They were as shocked as I was to find out you were in that family.”
“I guess they all hate me now?”
“How could you say that?”
“I lied to you all those years. Of course they hate me.”
“Ellis, my sister started crying when she heard what you’ve been through.”
Ellis could picture her doing that. She was the kind of compassionate, genuine person Ellis had always wanted to be. And she was a strong but tender mother, the parent Ellis had dreamed of when she was little.
“She told me I shouldn’t have walked out on you,” he said. “She said I couldn’t imagine what it was like to lose a child and I should give you another chance.”
Ellis blinked at the wetness in her eyes.
“And you know what my mom said?”
“What?”
“She said I was a fool to walk away from love.” Now he fought tears. “My family said everything I needed to hear. Everything I wanted to hear. So here I am.”
Was he saying he’d come back for good? She was too afraid to ask.
They walked hand in hand to the rocking chairs. She sat in hers, he in his. Quercus lay across Keith’s feet to make sure he didn’t go anywhere.
They watched the sky color behind the moss-tressed oaks, and she told him about her sons showing up unexpectedly, the fighting among the children, and River lying to Zane. She told him what Zane had said. The story about how her father had died. Why her mother had hated her.
“You really believe she hated you?” he asked.
“Well, she couldn’t love me. Zane pretty much verified that.”
He drew her out of her chair, tucked her against his chest. “And yet you have this great capacity to love. It’s a testament to your strength, Ellis.”
She drew back and looked in his eyes. “Why do you say I have a great capacity to love when I obviously fail at it?”
He smiled. “You love deeply, Ellis. It’s trusting love that you fail at.”
“Can I trust this? Will you stay?”
“I will. I’ve felt crazy missing you.”
“Me too. Crazier than usual.”
They kissed into the fall of darkness. Normally, they would have gone inside and made love, but everything felt new, and kissing better fit the mood of a fresh beginning. This time she wasn’t a witch luring him into her dark wood. He knew everything, yet he said he would stay. She didn’t need a spell anymore.
The Light Through the Leaves Page 35