by R. K. Ryals
My gaze went to River’s. “I’m sorry.”
He was right. Mom wouldn’t have wanted this.
We stared at each other. Something in his gaze had changed, something about the way he looked at me. It was too strong a look to have happened suddenly, but somehow I’d missed when it changed. Sometime during my grief, I’d missed the transition.
“It’s okay,” he answered finally. “Sometimes we lose our way and just need someone to help us find our way back.”
I was pretty sure we weren’t talking about me anymore.
Someone was talking to me then. A hand was on my shoulder, one of my family members pulling me back toward the viewing room.
I glanced back at River, watching as his brother came into the funeral home and dragged him out of it.
I went home that night, walking into the empty trailer, the Cadillac keys falling to the brown carpet. Grief still wrapped my heart with pain, but I was stronger now. I would carry the grief. I wouldn’t let the grief carry me. I was stronger than that.
I changed, brushing my teeth before pulling on my over-sized Beatles shirt. I wanted to sleep, but couldn’t. I stood in the living room instead, my back against the front door.
“Oh, Mom,” I whispered, my eyes on the red recliner. “I promise, I won’t let life rob me of who I am.”
I didn’t expect the knock on the door behind me, but I knew who it was when it came. I knew who it was even before I pulled the door open, knew who it was before I even saw his face.
My eyes widened.
“Don’t ever stop doing that,” River said, his hands going to my face.
“What?” I whispered.
Kicking the door shut, he pushed me up against the wall. “Looking at me like that before I kiss you,” he answered, his lips swooping to mine, his hands rough against my skin.
His fingers pulled up the hem of my shirt, his palm skimming my ribs before closing over my breast.
His eyes met mine. “Tell me to stop, and I will.”
I didn’t tell him to stop. There is something about finding comfort in pain, about tearing down walls between two worlds, about holding onto memories while making new ones. I was River’s escape, and tonight he was mine.
Chapter 30
River
Two weeks passed. For two weeks, I watched my brother struggle with secrets, with hope for justice. I watched him change, watched him fight his addiction for pain pills, his quest much larger than his need for peace. My brother was stronger than he thought he was, braver than he believed he could be.
For two weeks, I drove to the dairy bar during the day and took a seat at the booth under a strange painting. For two weeks, I stared at that painting, my gaze going between it and the sandy-haired waitress behind the bar at the front. There were rumors, discreet glances from both Frieda and Poppy, whispers as people took a seat near mine. I ignored them.
Instead, I continued to stare at the painting.
“It’s a forest,” Poppy said once when she delivered a butterscotch milkshake to my table.
I shook my head. “No,” I answered, “it’s a river.”
She’d given me a funny look, but walked away, her head shaking. I knew people wondered why I came. Outside of the dairy bar, I hadn’t seen Haven since the night at her trailer. Neither one of us had said good-bye that evening, neither one of us had walked away from it thinking it was the end. But somehow we’d stayed apart, our lives separate except when she was working, and then only because I needed to know she was going to be okay, that her heart was healing.
For two weeks, I watched as her wan face began to take on its glow again. I know she struggled. I know she fought to pay her bills, to keep the trailer where she’d made a home with her mother. She’d used the rest of her mom’s life insurance to replace the air conditioning in her home with window units before paying off a few bills.
She had college in the fall. I’d learned through Poppy that her grant forms had been accepted. She’d be working two jobs to stay ahead. It was going to be hard, but she’d do it. She’d do it because she was Haven, because she was the daughter of Susan Ambrose, because she was stronger than I’d ever be even at her weakest. Because she had her pride.
It was the last day of that two weeks when I stood for the final time, my gaze going to the river painting above the booth before I moved to the door. It would be the last time I heard the jingle as I exited.
Marissa was waiting on me when I got home, her hands wringing.
“Your brother is going to do something crazy!” she cried.
I grabbed her by the shoulders, my heart racing. “What do you mean?”
She sobbed. “Your father was cheating on me, River.”
I froze. “What?”
Her shoulders shook. “Before he was murdered, he was seeing someone else. Marcia Hinkley. She was working with your father on some business ventures …”
My hands tightened on Marissa’s arms. “Where’s Roman?”
She inhaled. “He’s gone after Greg Hinkley. I don’t know why. I don’t know what he’s found out. River, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, but I loved you boys so much. I had no plans to leave your father. None, and I didn’t want his death to be any harder on you—”
“Later, Marissa,” I said, my hands gripping my keys as I ran for the door.
It didn’t take long to find out where the Hinkley’s lived. After a quick call to Rick at the police department, I not only had an address, I had a police escort.
The house was in an older part of town where the homes were all built to look identical, the bricks faded with age. Three cars sat in the driveway, but it wasn’t the vehicles that caught my attention, it was Roman. His face was red with rage; tears on his cheek as he held a gun pointed at someone under the carport. In his free hand, a piece of paper dangled.
I threw my car door open and stepped clear of it.
“Roman,” I said carefully.
He didn’t lower the gun.
Gravel crunched as a patrol car peeled into the yard. I knew without looking it was Rick, his middle-aged, but well built body climbing out of the car, his gun pulled. Rick had been a friend of our family for years.
I stepped toward Roman, my eyes moving between him and a boy standing under the carport. The boy looked to be about nineteen. He was tall with broad shoulders and russet hair. Freckles dotted his face, but it was his eyes that caught my attention. They were cold and glinting, hatred filling them.
“Roman,” I repeated.
My brother didn’t look at me, but he asked, “Do you see him, River? Meet our father’s killer. Meet Greg Hinkley.”
Rick moved up behind me. “How do you know this, Roman?”
My brother dropped the piece of paper he’d been holding, and I caught it as it fluttered to the ground.
“Because I found that when I broke into his home,” Roman answered.
Rick inhaled. “You do realize anything you say here is public record?”
Roman waved his gun. “Read it!”
I opened the letter, my heart racing as I read the words scrawled there. It was better than a confession, it was a letter of hatred written to someone I didn’t know.
Roman laughed, the sound harsh. “He blamed our father for his father’s death, believes Dad seduced his mother, which led to his father’s suicide. Go and do a search. He has a box under his bed. There’s even a piece of Dad’s shirt in it, blood and all.”
Greg Hinkley sneered at us from the porch. “Damn all of you rich bastards! You think you can have anything you want. You’re wrong, you know. You can’t have everything.”
Rick lifted his gun. “Hands above your head, Greg. Now!”
Another patrol car pulled in behind Rick’s.
I touched my brother’s shoulder. “Lower the gun, Roman. Killing him won’t fix anything. It’ll just spread the hatred.”
Roman hissed, “He killed our father. Killed him! Don’t you understand that?”
Roman froze, his hand trembling.
I took the gun. “You did it, Roman. You found the truth. That’s enough.”
As Rick handcuffed Greg, Roman sat on the lawn, his head in his hands. I knew by the way his shoulders shook that he cried. Braydens didn’t cry, but we should. Today, we would. Right now, we’d learn to find our own emotional release. The nightmares wouldn’t go away, but maybe our fear would be less now.
“So much damned prejudice,” Rick grunted as he shoved Greg into his patrol car.
“You saw him,” Greg shouted. “He held a gun on me!”
Rick looked at his fellow officers and shrugged. “Did anyone see that?”
There was a mass collection of “nays”.
I sat on the lawn next to my brother. “Dad can now rest in peace,” I murmured.
An officer stayed with us until we were ready to leave, his arms crossed as he leaned against his car.
Roman stood, his eyes red, his back straight. “Dad was wrong, you know. He wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t deserve to die that way.”
I stood with him, something about his words resonating down my spine.
“No, Dad wasn’t, was he?”
Roman looked at me, confused. “Wasn’t what?”
I grinned, the smile sad but also relieved. “Perfect. Dad wasn’t perfect.”
Chapter 31
Haven
I pulled my green Cadillac to a stop at the cemetery gate, my eyes on the sky. There was a grey tint to the clouds that reminded me of River. He could have told me if it was going to rain. He would have known if the thunder in the distance was the sign of a coming storm. It had been a week since he’d last walked out of Frieda’s Dairy Bar. Poppy had been full of stories. The Brayden murder had been solved, she told me. It warmed my heart to know it, to know both River and Roman could bury their demons.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, my feet carrying me to a small plot with dirt still fresh after three weeks. No grass covered it yet.
I knelt next to it, my cheek going to the soil, the stem of a rose pressed into the dirt next to my eyes. The tears when they came were good tears, full of memories and promises. They fertilized the soil. Mom had once said I was her contribution to the world, that I was the reason she was here on this Earth. I wanted to prove her right. I would prove her right.
“I love you, Mom,” I whispered.
Standing, I walked back to the Cadillac and climbed inside, my eyes going to the rearview mirror as I pulled away. My rose stood in the ground; a lone, red sentinel. Mom had loved roses. I preferred sunflowers, and I would give her those too. In time.
Marley Brayden’s truck was waiting on me when I pulled back into my driveway, and I stepped free of the Cadillac, my eyes wide. River sat in the driver’s seat, his uncle and brother in the back.
The passenger side window rolled down. “Got a trip to make,” River said. “Last one of the summer.”
Placing my hand on the door handle, I grinned at him. “And it’s safe to go with you?”
A pair of handcuffs rattled in the backseat. “As long as you’re not riding with the criminal,” Roman called, his voice full of amusement.
I pulled the door open. “Work,” I said.
River held his hand out. “Just one day,” he said. “I’ve talked to your boss.”
It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
We were barely out of the drive when River glanced at the sky. “It’s going to rain sometime tomorrow.”
I grinned, my hand clutching the leather seat. “And you would know this how?” I asked.
River looked at me. “Because I know the weather the same way you know the river.”
When his fingers enfolded mine, I held on tight, afraid he’d let go, but he didn’t. He didn’t let go until we’d pulled up at the Brayden cabin next to the Pascagoula river.
Afternoon shadows stretched across the area. Marley threw his door open, his tongue clicking in excitement.
“This is it! I can feel it,” he said.
Roman groaned, a smile on his face. “Bullshit. It’s all bullshit.” He winked at me before following his uncle to the ground below.
River and I didn’t move.
I was the one to break the silence. “I didn’t think you’d come back.”
River looked at me. “Did I disappoint you?”
I shook my head. “No … I just thought I was an escape for you.”
“You were,” he replied. My heart sunk. “But,” he continued, “sometimes escape isn’t temporary. It’s forever.”
My eyes widened. “It won’t work, you know.”
River smiled. “Why?” he asked.
“Because there’s us and then there’s common sense.”
River shrugged. “Maybe. Now ask me why it will work.”
I stared. “Why?”
He leaned toward me. “Because love trumps common sense. Because if this is wrong, why does it feel so right?”
My gaze searched his. “You’re crazy.”
He laughed. “You did it to me.”
“Be serious. This isn’t easy.”
River’s hand went to my face. “I don’t want easy. Things have always come easy to me. I want something hard. Something deep. Something real. Something I could lose rather than something I could pay to keep.”
He let go of me, throwing his door open before coming around to mine. He held something in his hand, and I stared at it as he helped me out of the truck. A clock. He was holding a clock. It wasn’t a small clock or an inexpensive one. River didn’t do things small.
“What—” I began.
River stopped me, his palm going over my mouth.
“Shhhh” he said, his hand lifting, the clock rising with it.
I watched in both horror and awe as he threw it down, the glass front shattering on tree roots and hard-packed dirt. The minute hand froze.
“Now,” River said, “this moment, this exact moment, is frozen forever. No matter what happens after this, we have this moment.”
I stared at him, my eyes searching his.
He leaned toward me, and my eyes widened.
He smiled. “Never quit doing that. Ever. I think I might be falling in love with you, Haven Ambrose.”
My heart stopped, the broken fissures in it healing some before it started pumping again.
“It’s insanity,” I breathed.
He laughed. “I never said my family was sane.” He inclined his head, and I followed his gesture to the river, to a cursing Marley as he walked along the shore, holding a recorder in the air as he pushed up his glasses. Roman was shaking his head behind him.
River held his hand out to me, and I took it, following him down to the river. The wind was stronger there, its warm fingers lifting my hair as I stood on the shore.
“I’m not going back to Harvard,” River said suddenly.
Startled, I looked at him.
His gaze met mine. “I’m hiring someone to run Brayden Enterprises, and I’m studying meteorology.”
The smile I gave him was dazzling. “Are you really?”
He looked at the sky. “You changed my goals, Haven, and in doing so, my life.”
I shook my head even though he couldn’t see it. “No, I didn’t. You changed them yourself.”
There was a rumble of thunder in the distance, even though the sun was still shining.
“Then you taught me to fight,” River said.
I watched the way he looked at the sky, my eyes on his face, on the intensity there.
“And you taught me passion.”
It seemed a corny thing for me to say, but when his gaze moved down to mine, the smoldering glint turning them dark, I knew I was right.
I pushed a lock of hair the wind had blown onto his forehead out of the w
ay. “You taught me it’s okay to lose control. That it’s okay to hold onto things.”
River drew me into him, his arms enfolding me, my back against his chest, his chin on my head. The river seemed calm despite the warning rumbles of thunder. Bugs flew around our head, leaves falling with the wind onto the still water in front of us. It seemed right, this moment, this frozen second in time, stopped by a broken clock shattered next to a Dodge truck.
Silence reigned, the only sound to break it was Marley’s mumbling as he slipped in the loose sand. Otherwise, it was peace. A long moment of peace.
The sun was going down, turning the river orange and gold when it came. Buzzing, loud buzzing that lifted toward the sky like a swarm of bees, circled the dark trees around the river.
I gasped. Marley laughed, the sound hysterical and happy, as if he heard his family in the buzzing. In front of us on the bank, Roman froze, the look of astonishment on his face something I would never forget.
The buzzing intensified, growing so loud it was painful and beautiful, troubling and joyful, sad and ecstatic. It was weakness and pain, strength and pleasure. The death chant. I heard my mother in that chant.
“I’ll be damned,” River murmured.
His arms tightened around me, and I held onto them, my fingers digging into his skin. I didn’t know where he would choose to go to college. I didn’t know if we’d see each other much after today. I didn’t know what was in store for us, but I knew one thing.
“I think I’m falling in love with you, too, River Brayden,” I said.
I didn’t see his smile, but I felt it, felt it in the warm kiss he placed on the side of my temple. We may not know what the future held, but we had this summer. In this summer, I’d learned something. I learned that tragedy often breeds hope, that hope often breeds love. River and I had both been broken. Both of us had needed saving. From the moment our arms had rubbed together in a dairy bar, our eyes meeting as strangers, our souls had known that.
The buzzing rose up, engulfing us. And in that moment, with River’s arm around my waist, I saw an image of an entire Indian tribe sinking beneath the river, letting the dark water engulf them, the story forever entombed in a moment, in a sound.