A Harvest of Thorns

by Corban Addison

  “I thought you were coming tomorrow,” she said, stepping back and taking his hand.

  “I wanted it to be a surprise,” he replied as he led her toward his car. “Your grandmother is getting the horses ready. I thought you might like to go for a ride.”

  “Yay!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been practicing my jumps. Did you bring me a present?”

  He chuckled. “It’s in the passenger seat.”

  She dashed to the car and threw open the door, squealing with girlish pleasure. The gift was a stuffed Arabian camel with an outsize head and plush fur. He had seen it in Amman and bought it on the spot, knowing it would fit perfectly in Lily’s menagerie of “friends.”

  “I love it!” she said, squeezing the camel to her chest. “Thank you.”

  He slid into the seat. “You’re welcome. Now buckle up. Betsy and Tommy are waiting.”

  In the springtime, the drive out to Painted Hill Farm was one of the most scenic in Virginia, the rolling hills carpeted with new grass and budding trees, the fences and barns sparkling in the sun, and the winding road stretching into the distance. Josh cracked the windows and let in ribbons of wind. He drove in a leisurely manner, enjoying the bucolic landscape, until Lily put her window all the way down and said, “Faster, Daddy!”

  He laughed and hit the gas, accelerating until her hair began to dance. After ten glorious minutes, he slowed down and turned into a pebbled drive with a boxwood gate and a wrought iron sign that read PAINTED HILL, 1878, the year Madison’s great-great-great-grandfather—a lawyer, land speculator, and Virginia assemblyman—had bought it on the courthouse steps and converted it from a bankrupt plantation into the elegant estate it was today.

  The drive meandered up the hill between rows of maples, then wrapped around past the barn and springhouse (repurposed into a chicken coop) and the servants’ kitchen (now a guest quarters) before ending at a turnaround outside the manor house. Josh saw only one car in front of the steps, an Audi driven by Madison’s mother, Caroline. That meant that Lewis was still at the office, as Josh had hoped. Ever since his affair had become public, he had been persona non grata in the Ames household. His banishment, handed down by Lewis in a painful exchange, extended to everything but the barn and the horses, and that solely for Lily’s benefit.

  Josh parked in the shade of a massive oak tree, its bottom limbs as thick as poplar trunks, and trailed Lily into the shadows of the barn.

  “Grandma!” she cried, her voice echoing through the stalls. “Daddy’s home!”

  Josh heard Caroline before he saw her. “I know,” she said, her cultivated southern drawl as smooth as silk and brightened by a lilt that sounded unfeigned. “Isn’t it exciting?”

  Madison’s mother emerged from the tack room and met him in the soft dirt of the center aisle, a silhouette against the rectangle of light at the far end of the barn. A nervous tremor coursed through him. Their last meeting had been barely cordial.

  “Joshua,” she said hesitantly. “It’s good to see you again.”

  Caroline was tall and long-limbed like her daughter, with a countenance that had aged gracefully, her skin opalescent and gently blushed in the cheeks, her eyes round and dark.

  “That’s kind of you to say,” Josh replied, standing awkwardly.

  She stopped three feet away and smiled, though her eyes were flecked with pain. “Lily wants you to wear the outfit she got you. I put it in the riding lounge.”

  He nodded. “I’ve been looking forward to it.”

  She was silent for a moment. “You know, we all make mistakes. But life goes on.” She winced, revealing her discomfort. “What I’m trying to say is that I haven’t given up on you and Madison. I just thought you should know.”

  Her words, while not quite an absolution, went further to heal the rift between them than Josh could have imagined. “Thank you,” he said quietly, moved but not sure how to express it. Then something came to him. “It’s good to be home.”

  Caroline touched his shoulder. “Go get ready. I’ll saddle up the horses.”

  The path curved away through the understory of the forest, the ridgeline hidden behind a veil of trees. Caroline was in the lead on Lexi, a gray Lipizzaner and Madison’s favorite mare. Lily was behind her on Betsy, a palomino pony with a white mane and golden coat. And Josh was bringing up the rear on Tommy. The quarter horse had welcomed him warily, pawing the ground and huffing when he climbed on. As a result, Josh was treating him with deference, holding the reins loosely and letting the horse set the pace.

  As birds chirped in the branches above him, Josh adjusted himself in the saddle, trying to ameliorate the pinch of his new riding breeches. He wasn’t used to the feel of fabric so close to the skin. He looked toward the crest of Painted Hill and tried to appreciate the scene without seeing every rock on the trail as a cudgel that could crack his skull if Tommy decided to throw him. It was ridicu-lous how fragile he felt on the back of a thousand-pound animal. In the saddle his goal was simple—to make it back in one piece.

  In time, the path opened up on a highland meadow strewn with boulders and patches of early wildflowers. Caroline rode Lexi toward a cluster of rocks that piled up and jutted out just enough to offer a view of the piedmont over the tree line. Madison had christened the rocks “Old Man’s Nose” when she was a child, and the name had stuck. Caroline dismounted and helped Lily and Josh down, then tied the horses’ leads together and gave them carrots to munch on.

  “Why don’t you go on up?” she suggested, giving Josh and Lily some space. “I want to see how the blackberry bushes fared over the winter.”

  When she was gone, Josh took his daughter’s hand and climbed carefully to the pinnacle of Old Man’s Nose. They found a seat and looked out over the forest to the countryside beyond. The green hills and vales of Keswick reminded Josh of the way he had imagined Tolkien’s Shire as a boy. It was a kind of American Eden, a watercolor landscape so easily rhapsodized that it gave definition to the dream of the New World.

  He draped his arm over Lily’s shoulder and drew her close. “I’m sorry I missed your last clinic visit,” he said softly. “I wanted to be there.”

  “It’s okay,” she replied, and he knew from her tone that she had forgiven him. “You can take me this month.” She looked up at him then. “Unless you’re going away again.”

  He shook his head reassuringly. “Not for a while.”

  “What were you doing in all those places?” she asked with the gravitas of a grown-up.

  He thought about how to describe it and then realized that pictures would be better than words. “Here,” he said and took out his iPhone, showing her photos of Ishana in her home in Dhaka; of Ashik and Sonia by their huts in Kalma; of the Bangladeshi workers in their dormitories in Malaysia and Jordan; of Rana dressed in clerical robes as Imam Mehtar’s acolyte; of Ajmal and Jashel at the hotel in Kuala Lumpur; of Saima Begum and her children in Jaymanirgol; and, finally, of Alya and Fazul in Nadia Jalil’s parlor in Dhaka.

  “Some of them we talked to,” he said. “Others we helped. We got Jashel out of a bad situation. And we found Alya a new job.”

  Lily gave him a featherlight smile and nestled her head on his shoulder. “I talked to Mommy. I told her I want you to live with us again. She said she’d think about it. Last night I saw her looking at pictures of you. You need to ask her. I think she’ll say yes.”

  If only it were that simple, Josh thought. Yet Madison’s foray into their photo albums was auspicious. It meant that she was open to remembering what the world looked like before the bridges were burned and the war broke out and the specter of Maria stood between them.

  “I know how hard this has been for you,” he said. “I want to live with you again too. But you need to know something. What happened isn’t your mother’s fault. It’s my fault. When you’re older, you’ll understand. I need you to be patient.”

  “Just promise me you’ll talk to her,” Lily insisted. “Please, Daddy.”

  He looked to
ward the far-off hills. “I’ll talk to her,” he finally said, even as he wondered where he would find the courage.

  Madison’s car was in the driveway when they returned to the barn. Josh couldn’t decide whether to be relieved that he had survived another equine adventure or terrified that he had to face his wife. As he rode toward the hitching post, he imagined her sitting in the riding lounge in her favorite armchair, her mind a jumble of racing thoughts, a thousand questions unasked and feelings un-expressed, trying to piece together a vision of what her future might look like and whether she wanted him to be a part of it.

  He barely noticed when Caroline took the reins from him, barely registered the sound of Lily’s voice when she shouted, “Mommy!” and ran into the barn. All he could see were faces—his face, Madison’s face, Maria’s face. And all he could hear were the words that brought him here. Maria in Rio when he told her the affair was a lie: You can say it isn’t real, but you are wrong. I love you. You can go to the other side of the world, but that will never change. Madison in their farmhouse down the road, the O Globo story dangling from her hand: I hate you. I hate you! Go away. I don’t want you here. Leave me alone.

  He didn’t realize she was standing in front of him until she said his name. “Joshua.” He stopped and stared at her, saw in the span of an instant that she wasn’t mad at him, or troubled by his presence, or nursing hidden pain. She looked like the girl he saw for the first time in Langdell Reading Room at Harvard Law School, standing in a group of 1Ls but alone with her thoughts, reading the inscription from Cicero on the crown molding: LEX EST SUMMA RATIO INSITA IN NATURA. “Law is the highest reason implanted in nature.” How much life stood between then and now. How much he cherished. How much he regretted.

  “I think your mother gave Tommy some Valium,” Josh said, deflecting the moment with humor. “He was unusually sedate.”

  “Or maybe he’s just starting to like you,” she replied with a lopsided grin.

  “After all this time?” he asked sardonically. “I find that hard to believe.”

  Sunlight twinkled in her eyes. “Horses are like people. They can change their minds.”

  He studied her carefully, toying with a cautious optimism. She was dressed in one of the outfits she kept in the lounge—skinny jeans, Frye boots, and a knit shirt that complemented her pale complexion and trim figure. Her thumbs were hooked in the back pockets of her jeans, her weight balanced on one of her boots. He spoke the idea before he could talk himself out of it.

  “Take a walk with me.”

  This time her smile spread to both corners of her mouth. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  They strolled across the grass and down a hill to a pond surrounded by willow trees. A few Canadian geese were floating on the water, taking a rest from the journey to their summer breeding grounds. Beside the pond sat a bench. They sat down and watched the wind stir the water. After a while, Josh began to speak. He started at the beginning and told her where he’d been and what he’d seen and what he’d done. And then he told her why. She listened until he fell silent, his proposition hanging like a trial balloon between them. In time, she touched his hand.

  “You want to work with me,” she said, as much a statement as a question, as if she had never considered it before. “You traveled all that way to build a case.”

  He nodded, watching the geese waddle up onto the far bank. “I did the research before I left. The claims are a stretch, but this could be historic.”

  “You’ll have to convince my father of the merits,” she said, opening the door, but not all the way. “He’s more of a skeptic than I am.”

  “I’ll talk to him if he’ll talk to me,” he replied, trying not to appear too eager.

  “I’ll tell him about the people you helped,” she said. “That will go a long way.”

  He felt her fingers spreading out across his hand, felt the surge of warmth in his stomach, and decided to take the final leap. “This is about more than the case,” he said, speaking the truth plainly. “I want this to work.”

  She turned and looked into his eyes. “I’m not sure I’m ready yet.”

  “Will you think about it, at least?” he asked, brushing a strand of hair over her ear.

  The smile she gave him then was as tender as a kiss. “You’ve been talking to someone.”

  He rubbed his thumb across her fingers. “She wants what I want.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she promised and gently took back her hand.

  CHAPTER SIX

  PAINTED HILL FARM

  KESWICK, VIRGINIA

  APRIL 2, 2015

  8:32 P.M.

  The house stood at the top of the hill like a lantern on the mast of a sailing ship. Around it all was dark, the woods and mountains and fields effaced by the cloak of night. But inside the house lamplight beckoned. The windows of Josh’s car were halfway down, the brisk wind of spring running fingers through his hair as he drove up the pebbled drive, preparing himself for the interrogation that was sure to come. He hadn’t shared a drink with Lewis Ames since his marriage fell apart. That his father-in-law had summoned him meant two things: that Madison had turned on the charm and that the old barrister was intrigued by his proposition, despite his oft-spoken disdain for “men of lackluster will and rebarbative character” who broke their vows.

  The Ames family was a paradox. They came from old money, as old as the Old Dominion itself, yet none of it, as far as Josh could tell, had come from slaveholding. In Lewis’s line, there were politicians and judges and speculators and merchant entrepreneurs, men whose portraits adorned courthouses and capitols and whose names had christened philanthropic projects across time—the Millard Ames Library in Richmond, the John Jacob Ames Performing Arts Center in Washington, the Shelby Ames Museum of Virginia History in Charlottesville. His ancestors had dined with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, anchored the Southern Unionist block in the US Senate before the Civil War, and voted against secession at the convention in Richmond in 1861. In its three centuries of prominence and public service, the family’s greatest transgression was also its most glaring—the reluctant decision of George Lewis Ames, a two-term US senator, to support Virginia in the Confederacy despite deep personal reservations. The memory of that decision had motivated Lewis’s father, Robert Ames, to lead the charge at the Justice Department in enforcing the Civil Rights Act, and to name his son after a man he considered a traitor to humanity. Lewis’s name was both a curse and a call—a reminder of the sins of the past and a profession of faith in the redemptive possibilities of the future.

  Josh left his keys in the car and walked up the steps, past planters where marigolds and zinnias would soon bloom, across the flagstone portico, and through double doors hewn from oak as heavy as iron. Madison was waiting for him in the foyer, dressed casually in jeans, flats, and a cardigan sweater unbuttoned just enough to reveal an enticing hint of what lay beneath it. She smiled at him delicately, the light of the chandelier above her glistening on her lips and in the diamonds on her ears and around her neck, gifts he had given her on her fortieth birthday. He hadn’t seen her wear them since the separation.

  “He’s waiting for you in the drawing room,” she said.

  Josh nodded. “Any advice?”

  Her gentle laugh sounded like wind chimes. “Would it help?”

  He followed her down the oak planks of the hallway, past the living room, dining room, and kitchen, and through a molded archway into the one room in the house that Caroline’s penchant for modern style had hardly touched. The drawing room still looked like it belonged in the nineteenth century. The furniture was all dark wood and brass, much of it original. There were heavy curtains on the windows, lamps with painted shades, a couch and Queen Anne chairs in red velvet, and an enormous Oriental rug that spanned the length and breadth of the floor. Lewis stood before the hearth, moving logs with a poker. He was as dapper as he was imposing, his tall frame clad in a blue Harris tweed suit that brought out the glow
in his white-whiskered chin and silver hair. He turned toward them and fixed his gaze on Josh. His iceberg-blue eyes were what people most remembered—and what Josh most feared. They seemed to look through a person. Before them, Josh had never been able to hide.

  “Will you join me in a glass of gin?” he began, moving toward the wet bar. “Or would you prefer something else? A Heineken, perhaps?”

  His first sentence a challenge, Josh thought. “Gin is fine,” he replied.

  Lewis took his bottle of Burrough’s Reserve off the shelf, plunked cubes of ice into two old-fashioned glasses, and poured the golden liquid generously. He handed one of the glasses to Josh and poured a glass of wine for Madison. Then he took a seat on one of the Queen Anne chairs, and Josh and Madison sat on opposite ends of the couch. Josh took a sip of the gin and found it more tolerable than he remembered.

  “I read your memo,” Lewis said with a trace of irony. “I found it surprisingly well crafted. I had to remind myself that in another life you attended my alma mater.”

  Josh kept his expression blank, not allowing the blow to land. That he had graduated near the top of his class at Harvard Law and then taken a job as a Metro reporter for the Post was as much a scandal to Lewis as his decision to drag Madison around the globe chasing stories and prizes. In Lewis’s mind, the media was a kangaroo court, and journalists were its self-appointed jesters. Time, however, had tempered his scorn, as had Josh’s zeal for the poor. By the time he wrote The End of Childhood, Josh had managed to gain his father-in-law’s grudging respect. Then the news of the affair broke and all of Josh’s gains were suddenly erased.