Never Let You Go

by Erin Healy

  “What can love do against men like Ward and Grant?”

  “Against them?”

  “Love your enemies, right?”

  “I guess bludgeoning your enemies with love could work in some instances. But that’s not what I meant.”

  She waited for him to explain.

  “Your love for your daughter will show you the best way to protect her.”

  “That’s a nice thought, Angelo, but it’s not something I can grab hold of, you know? It’s not money I can take to Ward or use to buy a plane ticket out of Riverbend.”

  “You’re right. But look at all the emotions competing for your mind right now: you have anger and resentment and confusion and—”

  “And hatred,” she supplied.

  “And love,” he said. He spread his hands, palms up, a gesture inviting her to listen carefully. “Let that one inform you. Not the others. Hatred is especially dangerous.”

  She stared at his large hands, doubting. “I can’t make it go away.”

  “Maybe not right away, but while you’re working on it, you can consult any of the emotions you want for advice.”

  “Can’t I consult flesh and blood like you, Dr. Angelo?”

  “Flesh and blood is soaked with imperfection.”

  “And my emotions aren’t.”

  “Only love isn’t.”

  “I don’t know about that. I fell in love with Grant, didn’t I?”

  He lowered his voice and smiled like a wise older brother. “Falling in love isn’t Love with a capital L.”

  “Okay. This conversation is getting a bit woo-hoo for this hour of the morning.” She waggled her fingers. The gesture didn’t tickle his funny bone as planned.

  “Go with flesh and blood then, if you dare. Who are you going to talk to?”

  That silenced her. If not Angelo, then who?

  “Where do you think love comes from, Lexi?”

  She couldn’t think of a bright answer.

  “C’mon. You know. Every good and perfect gift comes from above,” he said.

  “You mean God.”

  “I do.”

  “You and Gina speak each other’s language,” Lexi said.

  “You speak it too.”

  “Are you suggesting I need to pray more?” Defensiveness crept into her voice.

  “I’m suggesting you need to consult love on this one. That’s all.”

  “I’m going to have to agree with you about being a better listener than adviser,” Lexi said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t be. I’m tired. It might make more sense to me in the morning. Later in the morning.”

  Angelo smiled his understanding. “Daylight does wonders,” he said. He rose and took a piece of paper out of his breast pocket. She noticed, after all this time, that he was actually wearing flannel. Her lumberjack. If she wasn’t so drained she would have teased him about it.

  “Someone called while you were at work,” he said. “Asked you to call back.”

  There were two seven-digit numbers on the paper. “Who?”

  Angelo was reaching for his own jacket, slung across one of the kitchen chairs. “Love,” he said, grinning.

  “Very funny. Who was it?”

  “Just call.” He shrugged into the sleeves and his arms spanned the hall from kitchen to living room. “Maybe he can give you clearer advice than I can.”

  “He.”

  “The number on the bottom is mine. In case you need anything.”

  She wasn’t ready for Angelo to go.

  His bright truck had exited the parking lot before she realized she’d forgotten to ask him, the kindest man she’d ever met, why he’d been so cold toward Ward.

  The sunny window by Barrett’s chair was being spray painted with black targets while Molly placed hundred-dollar bills into a skillet that Ward then lassoed with his keychain. The money caught on fire. Angelo’s incredible arm span cast a shadow that looked like eagles’ wings over the lawn. The shadows pulsated and fanned Ward’s flames into an inferno. Grant walked through the fire toward Lexi like the dark man in Nebuchadnezzar’s extrahot furnace, invincible.

  Lexi reached out for Grant and woke up sweating.

  At the end of such oppressive nightmares, she was surprised and grateful to open her eyes and see at the back of her mind a much more beautiful memory. One that involved Tara.

  When Lexi was nine and her sister thirteen, Tara was selected by the dance instructor at their ballet studio to be photographed for promotional materials the school was having produced. Tara’s limber, svelte figure was so different from Lexi’s more husky form. Lexi was built for gymnastics, but being in awe of her big sister, she wanted nothing more than to follow her every step, which was nuts. Two years later Tara would have the role of Clara in The Nutcracker and Lexi would have dropped out, too old for the beginning classes and too unskilled to advance. At the time, though, their parents allowed Lexi’s copycat behavior and Tara tolerated it, because everyone thought she’d eventually outgrow her foolish yearning.

  But when Tara was selected to dance in front of a camera, Lexi insisted that she be included and was denied. Rather than be happy for Tara, Lexi felt the rejection personally. Tara was talented, and she was a klutz. Tara was grown up, and she was still a child. Tara was pretty, and she was not. As a nine-year-old who was not merely young but also immature for her age, Lexi was overtaken by jealousy.

  The night before the photographs were scheduled to be taken, Lexi sneaked into Tara’s room with dull safety scissors and patiently severed every wisp of the shiny fawn-colored hair that spilled across her forehead and pillow.

  What surprised Lexi most about her plot to bring her sister down from that high cloud was that Tara’s horror did not make her happy. Instead, they both were miserable.

  Lexi’s misery lasted longer than Tara’s. That morning, after ignoring Lexi entirely, Mom rushed Tara to her own hairstylist instead of the usual kiddie barber shop. Tara emerged with an adorable pixie cut that wowed the photographer and became the trendsetter style for every girl in her eighthgrade class. Tara never wore her hair long again.

  What was beautiful about this memory was what happened three days afterward. Lexi sat on the concrete driveway of their home, her legs sprawled out in front of her, heavy with roller skates that anchored her feet to the earth—except when she wanted to stand upright. Her tailbone ached.

  Sitting on the porch, Tara had pretended not to notice Lexi’s fall. Tara hadn’t spoken to her little sister since “the vandalism,” as the family came to call it, and Lexi missed her terribly. Usually Tara held her up on her skates. At the moment, Lexi doubted Tara would ever hold her hands again. She bowed her head and tried to work up the courage to apologize for real, and not begrudgingly, as she had when their dad required it.

  While Lexi still stared at the sandpapery surface of the driveway, Tara left the porch and sat down next to her.

  “I’m sorry for being so angry at you,” she said. “I miss you and I hope you’ll forgive me. Can I help you back up?”

  Even today, as an adult, it was hard for Lexi to comprehend the magnificent size of Tara’s heart at an age when hearts seem prone to selfish shrinking.

  Lexi remembered leaning into Tara’s arms and hugging her shoulders, too overcome to look her sister in the eye.

  The memory was beautiful and devastating.

  The door of the bedroom Molly and Lexi shared was closed, and the room was gray with the morning light filtered by a cheap window shade. The radio mumbled low in the living room and the scent of cinnamon Pop Tarts drifted over the bed. Molly only ate Pop Tarts when she was gloomy. At any other time they’d be beneath her. Lexi thought she should go see how her daughter was doing. Check her ankle. See if the swelling was as low as Angelo had suggested.

  First, a few more minutes to doze.

  Her hair and pillow were damp with sweat. She tried to get comfortable again but couldn’t. She flipped the pillow over t
o the cool side, and when she dropped her cheek into the cotton worn thin by a thousand vigorous washings, she encountered a crinkling of paper and a gravelly lump.

  Lexi sat up and ran her fingers over the surface of the pillow case. Something had been shoved inside it. Turning sideways, she dangled her feet off the edge of the bed and lifted the cushion onto her lap, then inserted her hand and retrieved a piece of crumpled paper scrawled in barely legible handwriting.

  Don’t make me call the cops, it said.

  She slipped her hand back into the case. Her fingers touched a small plastic bag. She pulled it out.

  The bag, barely two inches square, was filled with small pinkish chips that looked like plastic rocks.

  Crystal meth.

  { chapter 18 }

  A man of Norman Von Ruden’s dubious social status need only be stabilized, not healed, before being discharged from a hospital and readmitted to prison. This happened Sunday morning, thanks to his vigorous constitution. Warden was glad for it, because the longer Norm stayed at St. Luke’s, the higher the chances that Craven would retaliate for the whole episode with Mort Weatherby.

  Sunday, Ward showed up as an EMTassigned by the prison to accompany Norman to the facility where he’d await his parole hearing. In other words, Warden would take Norman where he had been destined to go in the first place, before the accident. Getting this gig was a little more difficult than the man-in-a-lab-coat stunt Warden had pulled off on Mort’s behalf, but not impossible. Warden had a gift for making people see what they wanted to see—in this case, a highly competent substitute provided by the state for a coworker who had called in sick. It was very rare that Warden had to force people to see what he wanted them to see. So often, their visions coincided. That was what made his work so easy.

  He and Norman rode alone in the back of the ambulance.

  “Warden,” Norman said, not entirely clouded over by a haze of painkillers. “Imagine seeing you here.”

  “I’m not here. I’m merely one of your Percocet hallucinations,” Warden said, examining the IV bag. These things were fantastic, providing direct access to the blood stream as they did. It used to be that he had to get more creative when he needed to slip somebody a little something.

  Like that bag of goodies he left for Lexi before she and Gigantor showed up at her home the day before. Warden thought it too bad that she wouldn’t actually consume any of it. Maybe someday he’d talk her into trying some. Or finagle a way to get her hooked up to a bag like Norman’s. That would be rewarding—but less rewarding than if she decided she wanted to get high all by herself. Forcing a person’s hand in anything didn’t really do it for Warden. He much preferred to watch people fall down and believe the failure was entirely their own doing.

  As Norman did. All Ward’s bets about Norman Von Ruden had paid off years ago. Warden wouldn’t need him much longer.

  Norman’s eyes were on the bag. “Did you bring me more? Because what they’re giving me now is as worthless as hillbilly heroine.”

  “That’s because they don’t know how much you really need.”

  “Fix me up, then.”

  “Patience, friend. I know what to do.” Without following hygienic procedures, Warden thrust a cannula into Norm’s IV port and loaded it up. “I’ve seen your girlfriend,” he said.

  Norman grunted. “Saw her myself.”

  “No kidding.” Warden was sorry to have missed the encounter. “That must have been a happy reunion.”

  “She brought me roses and passionate kisses. And a death threat.”

  “And to think you parted on such good terms.”

  “Not what I expected from a gal who’s supposed to be talking me up in a week.”

  “You know women. They so rarely mean what they say.”

  “You don’t know squat, Warden.”

  “Tell me, what don’t I know? That you loved her like an insane man? That you were a fool to meet her sister? You would have made a lot more headway if you’d killed her husband instead.”

  Norman swore.

  “C’mon. You’ve got to give me a little room to rib you. You provide me with such good material. It’s what friends are for, right? What’s a man who can’t laugh at himself?”

  Norman tried to take a deep breath, which couldn’t feel good considering the broken ribs and punctured lung. But Warden sensed the morphine taking some effect. Norman’s agitation dropped a notch.

  “What are you going to say to her at the hearing?” Warden nudged.

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s your bruised ego talking.”

  “She turned her back on me after the trial and hasn’t contacted me since.”

  “She couldn’t. You know what it would have looked like. She still has feelings for you. You’ve got to know she does.”

  Norman frowned, a fleeting, doubtful frown. “Even if she didn’t mean what she said, not even a monkey would have heard love in it.”

  “No. No. Listen. Seven years of her never breaking off her relationship with you—”

  “You’re that man women love to hate because you don’t understand the word no, aren’t you?”

  Warden laughed once, a loud bark. “Yes! That’s me. And I’ll tell you why it works. But before that, let’s get the truth straight. There’s no point in talking about these things if we can’t talk about the truth.”

  “Fine words from the boldest liar I ever met.”

  “Which is why you can trust me. You know what I’m about. So here it is: you are still, after all these years, crazy in love with Lexi Grüggen.”

  “Solomon. She never divorced him.”

  “Aha! So you don’t deny it!”

  “Me setting you straight about her name doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It’s you that needs to be set straight. She’s a Grüggen. She can’t help herself. She wants to live without that beast of a husband.”

  “Yeah. Whatever. If all this works out, you and I will get our revenge and she’ll get what she wants. Grant, dead. Everyone, happy.”

  “She could also have you back.”

  “I’m telling you, she doesn’t want me back.”

  Warden leaned over Norm, commanded his eye contact. “You have to tell her.”

  “Tell her what?”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Norman.”

  He turned his face away.

  “The death of Lexi’s sister was not your fault. She has the right to know it.”

  Norman yanked on the straps that kept him anchored to this hospital bed. “What do you care, Warden? What are we really talking about? Because my case is not up for appeal, and there isn’t any new evidence in the works, and it was my bloody knife that killed that woman. There’s no need to rehash all this.”

  “It was Grant’s fault. It was his fault for giving you those placebos. He used you to make a buck. If you’d got what you needed to get better—if you’d got what I sold to him—”

  “Shut up.”

  Warden leaned back against the bouncing ambulance seat. “You need to tell her that everything that happened is Grant’s fault.”

  “Why?”

  “Why protect her? Why keep up the charade? You protected her and her lousy husband through the trial. You could have brought him down if you’d had the guts to point your finger at Grant and name him.”

  “What would that have gained me? Nothing—no reduced sentence, no co-conspirator—”

  “Have you no imagination, man?” Warden smacked the addict on the head. “You could have nailed him as a low-down dealer, a jealous husband, a mastermind who framed you—”

  “That would have killed her.”

  “She deserves to know the truth.”

  “The truth is that I killed her sister.”

  “NO! Grant did it! Don’t you see! Grant is wholly responsible, regardless of who held the knife.”

  Norman shook his head.

  “You’re an idiot in love,” Warden said. “How much more are you willing to
give up for her? All these years!”

  “I thought if I protected her from being connected to the murder through Grant, she might . . . come around.”

  “Brilliant. You have the patience of a saint, apparently.” Warden sputtered his disgust. “You should have told her how Grant completely messed you up. How you weren’t in your right mind when you agreed to meet Tara. That if you’d had the medication he promised you, nothing would have happened. Then maybe she would have actually divorced him.”

  Norman seemed to chew on this new way of seeing. Warden gave him some space to ponder.

  “You’re right,” he mumbled.

  “Yes, I’m right. I’m always right. I was right the day I told you to cut Grant out and work straight with me. The middleman killed you, Norman. He’s still killing you, seven years after he’s forgotten your name.”

  The road noise of the ambulance sounded like a hypnotic hum.

  “Lexi can still be yours,” Warden said. “You can keep her for yourself and keep her out of Grant’s reach.”

  “You still don’t know what you’re talking about.” But Norman’s heart rate on the monitor picked up a few beats per minute.

  “Ask her to meet you.”

  “What?”

  “Tell Lexi you want to speak to her before the hearing.”

  “So she can scream at me some more?”

  “No, no. For something much bigger than that.”

  After a contemplative silence he said, “For what, then?”

  “Ask her to forgive you.”

  The ambulance hit a pothole and caused Norm to cringe. Or maybe it was Warden’s suggestion. But then he started laughing, a cynic’s laugh borne by weariness. He placed a hand over his wounded lung.

  “If it’s not my fault, then there’s nothing to forgive, is there?”

  “Now, don’t get cynical on me. You’re a man of vision, Norman. You can understand what I’m getting at here. Ask her to forgive you.”

  “She won’t.”

  “She might. And if in her forgiving you she learns to love you, you win. But even if she won’t forgive you, you win. The moment she refuses, you own her.”

  “How is that winning? That’s not love.”