The Best Revenge

by Justine Davis

  The two most important things came last. His great-grandfather’s cap; just looking at it brought back a vivid, shining image of the man who’d worn it so often.

  And lastly, most important, came the most unlikely; a keychain fob made of fired clay, in the tiny, slightly lopsided but eminently recognizable shape of Kula. Important, because Jessa had made it for him, as she’d made the bookmark for her father. Important, because she’d explained, with the kind of seriousness only a very smart, achingly kind ten-year-old could maintain, that Kula could comfort the way no human could, unquestioningly, unstintingly, and this way the dog could stay with him always.

  And he had, St. John thought. He carried that keychain to this day, although it was put safely away out of sight for now. And in the end, the small talisman had had much more power than the stone. Power, because it reminded him someone had cared. Power, because it had steadied him in the worst times merely by touching it.

  Power, because one day he’d quit carrying the horse-shaped stone along with it because he was afraid it might break the little figure. The lopsided dog was more important.

  Only later did he see that day as the turning point, the point when he’d decided not to let his father continue to control him as if he were still there. He wasn’t much on symbolism, but that one seemed lit up in neon.

  And he knew the fact that the dog had come from Jessa had been the most powerful thing about it.

  Something leaped in the water, leaving ripples on the surface that was moving gently, almost languidly today. There had been nothing languid about it that night, it had been all rumble and fury and rush as the rain that was still coming upstream poured in even more volume.

  And when he’d slipped on the slick edge of the rock, he’d nearly made his plan more than a stratagem. The rap to the side of his head made it spin, and he’d thought, in the moment when the water closed over his head, that instead of a faked accident it was going to be real. He’d wash up downstream eventually, finally beyond his father’s reach.

  And he didn’t really care. It would be over, one way or another. That had been the goal tonight, and if it happened this way instead, so be it.

  And then a tree downed by the storm had caught him, blasting what breath he’d been able to hold out of him. The gulp of water he took in sent him into an instinctive paroxysm of coughing, grabbing, scrambling. And without knowing quite how, he was out of the water, clinging to the downed tree, and back to plan A.

  It wasn’t until he’d managed to work his way to shore that he realized the tree was the big Madrona he and Jessa often sat under.

  It seemed another of those symbols he didn’t believe in, and he sent the girl one last, silent, aching goodbye before he stood, somewhat shakily after his dunking, and turned his back on Cedar forever.

  Or so he’d thought.

  “Damn.”

  He spat out the word, furious at himself for being unable to control the memories flooding him as surely as the river had flooded the town that night. He’d spent years building walls around this part of his life, and he didn’t understand why the hell they chose now not to hold. Just because he was here, where it had all happened? Was he that weak, that just being here could destroy better than half a lifetime of putting it behind him?

  Muttering another, fiercer curse, he turned and nearly ran back to the rental car. He got in, slamming the driver’s door shut with far more force than necessary. He let his head fall back against the headrest and shut his eyes. Gradually the quietness seeped into him.

  After a few moments he opened his eyes. And found himself looking at his own reflection in the rearview mirror. Odd, he thought. He’d had this face now longer than he’d had the old one, the face that had made people who’d known him say he looked just like his grandfather.

  But it was his great-grandfather he’d known. Known, and wanted to be like. And Clark Alden would never have countenanced him hiding here in the odd cocoon of this car, dodging old memories. No, Pops would have told him to get back in there and face them, that no good came of hiding.

  “All the denial in the world never changes what is,” he’d told him repeatedly. “Face it, then beat it or walk away if you have to. Because you will have to face it, someday.”

  He’d thought he had.

  Clearly he hadn’t.

  He started the car and headed back into Cedar.

  The rally had cleared out, nothing but the seemingly inevitable debris large groups of people generated left behind. There were perhaps a few more people on the street, but the throng had for the most part departed.

  His brow furrowed when he saw the feed store was still closed. She’d said she would reopen after the rally ended.

  Even as he thought it, he saw her. She was coming out of the grocery store down the block carrying not bags, but a large bouquet of flowers. And instead of heading back to the store, she got into the big, blue pickup with the store’s logo on the door and drove in the other direction. Curious, he followed.

  When she turned into the cemetery at the edge of town, he understood. He thought about simply leaving her in peace, to visit her father’s too-fresh grave in privacy. But Jesse Hill had always been, if not nice as his wife had been, at least fair with him. He’d never treated him as if he believed some of the wilder stories, stories St. John had only later realized had likely been started by his own father, as excuse for the stern measures he had to take with his incorrigible son.

  He should pay his respects, he thought. To one of the few men in his past life who deserved it.

  He felt a bit like a voyeur, following her as she made her way between the various headstones, from simple plaques to elaborate, angel-dressed sculptures. For the Hills, he knew, the family resting place had always been a delicate balance between the elaborate tribute the town wanted, starting with her grandfather’s memorial, and the simplicity they themselves preferred.

  Jessa had discussed it, back then, with all the ease of a child who has no real concept of death, no true understanding of forever.

  “Can you imagine, digging up old aunts and uncles, just to move them all into one place? Gross!”

  He remembered it so vividly, that innocent distaste, the wrinkling of her nose as she grimaced.

  And if I don’t get out of here, I’m going to end up here, next to my mother in that gargoyle-infested crypt, waiting for my father to join us for eternity….

  Odd, how clearly he remembered exactly what he’d been thinking that day. Mostly, he’d been yelling silently at himself, for lacking the guts to do what he had to do. He’d been preparing for more than a year, yet still he lingered, sometimes more frightened of what he might find out in the world than he was of what he knew he would find at home.

  He watched as she knelt beside the grave closest to the gate in the hip-high fence that enclosed the plot, the compromise that had finally been reached, setting the exalted family apart, yet completely lacking the ostentation of the Alden family crypt some sixty feet away. His great-grandfather had stood fast against the thing until the day he died, and had made his wishes so public it was impossible for Albert Alden to go against them; Clark Alden was buried under a simple headstone much like these here, in a spot with a view of the river.

  St. John glanced that way, remembered the devastation he’d felt as the one person in his family, the one bastion that had stood between him and his father, had been lowered into the ground.

  It was the last time he’d cried. The last time he’d really felt anything beyond a creeping, numbing cold. Because somehow, even that young, he’d instinctively known it would get worse after that, without the sole governor left on his father’s actions.

  He’d been right.

  He shook his head sharply, focusing once more on where he was now. The Hill plot was shaded by a huge cedar tree, and in the summer the rustle of the branches sounded, Jessa had once said fancifully, like the voices of all those who’d gone whispering to you.

  She rose much more quic
kly than he’d expected. He guessed she did this often enough that a long meditative session wasn’t necessary.

  He noticed as she got up that the flowers hadn’t been one big bouquet after all, but two smaller ones. Who else in the Hill plot earned her attention? Her grandfather’s memorial here was merely that; at his wish his body lay across the country, buried at Arlington after he’d served his country with no small amount of heroics in two wars.

  She left through the gate, and he drew back slightly, behind the low-slung branches of the big cedar. He wasn’t exactly sure why, told himself he didn’t want to intrude on this private time for her, but at the same time he felt compelled to follow as she began to walk across the well-tended grass.

  She paused to gently touch an angel on a child’s stone. The action was so like her it tightened the knot already in his chest. He was still dealing with his response when he realized, with no small shock, that she was headed for that white-marble monstrosity with the name Alden chiseled in grand letters.

  She laid the second bunch of flowers at the base, on the far side, and stood for a moment with her head bowed. It wasn’t where his mother’s name was etched, that was on this side. The front, of course, was reserved for his father, and if he knew the old man he already had a majestic epitaph composed.

  Beyond curious, he walked around, still keeping enough distance so as not to disturb her. But when he saw what was there, he was the one disturbed. An elaborate bronze plaque, with raised, polished letters.

  “Adam Albert Alden

  Beloved Son

  Tragically lost too soon.

  A grieving father’s heart that never heals.”

  Sourness rose in his gut as he stared at the words. And at the dates beneath them, separated by a hyphen, the second date the day he’d escaped. The day he now considered his true birthday, the date by which he marked the passage of years. And then it hit him.

  Today was his birthday.

  The legal one, anyway. He stared at the date on the plaque, wondering if he’d found the reason why he’d been so unsettled, without even realizing.

  Son of a bitch, he thought.

  He read the words again. Grieving heart. Like hell. The only thing that old man grieved was the loss of convenience. Nice to have your punching bag and sexual plaything all neatly combined in one package that was completely within your control. “I’m sorry.”

  The whisper was barely audible, but it snapped him back to the present. His gaze shot to Jessa’s face, in time to see her take a quick swipe at her eyes.

  “I should have told, no matter what.”

  She blamed herself? A shudder went through him. She’d wanted to tell her father, had sworn, with all the passion of her ten-year-old innocence, that her father could fix it, could make things right. He’d known better, but had been moved beyond what he’d thought himself still capable of. He wasn’t sure what he felt at the realization that even now, nearly twenty-one years after his “death,” she still blamed herself, enough to shed tears.

  She spun around, as if she couldn’t bear it any longer. The quick movement caught him off guard, and he instinctively pulled back into the shadow of the big tree. But the movement caught her eye, and her head snapped around.

  She seemed to relax at the sight of someone she knew. Odd, since she could hardly expect a stranger here. But as he gave in to the inevitable and stepped toward her to explain his presence—although he wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to say—she went strangely taut again.

  “Why here?” he asked with a gesture at the miniature Greek temple, knowing he sounded gruff, but having some vague idea of the best defense being a good offense.

  “It’s his birthday,” she said, not seeming put off by his tone. “Adam’s.”

  “You…commemorate that?”

  “No one else will. And it’s partly my fault.”

  “No.”

  His voice had gone tight, harsh, but she didn’t seem to notice. She simply looked at him, steadily, intently, that tension humming through her almost visibly.

  And then, suddenly, her entire demeanor changed. Her eyes widened. She took a deep breath. And said, very softly, “Let me tell you about my friend, Adam.”

  Chapter 8

  Jessa had rarely felt so stupid.

  How could she not have realized? Yes, his face was very changed from soft adolescence. His jaw—with the scar that hadn’t been there before—was wider, and roughened with stubble again today.

  But it wasn’t just natural maturation, either; the nose that had been broken so many times was straight now, the slight dent below his left eye, where the cheekbone had been broken and hadn’t healed right was gone. A couple of the scars she remembered were also gone, which made her wonder all the more about the one that remained, the one he hadn’t had the last time she’d seen him.

  But it was also the contours of his face that had changed, and she guessed that when he’d had the scars of his childhood repaired, he’d had them change other things, as well, erasing all traces of the past. His voice had the deep, rough timbre of a man, so different from the boy’s. And he was taller, more solid, not the skinny, gangly boy he’d been.

  But his eyes hadn’t changed. They were the same vivid blue, and while he’d clearly grown better at masking them, the shadows were still there. How many hours had she stared into them, willing him to change his mind and let her tell someone about what he was enduring?

  He hadn’t given in then. And he obviously had good reason to not want to be recognized here in Cedar now. The very least she could do was honor that. But at the same time she wanted him to know he—or at least Adam—had not been forgotten.

  “He was very smart,” she said now, continuing her story. The man who now called himself St. John listened silently. Every line of his body as he sat on the stone bench beside her screamed resistance, but he was listening.

  She went on in the most even tone she could manage with all these emotions rocketing through her, coupled with the memories of the girlish fantasies she’d once had about the boy he’d been.

  “He never got much credit for that, because everybody always focused on his wildness. Or his supposed wildness. I’ve always thought most of that was made up, so his father had an excuse for the way he…treated him.” He gave her a quick sideways glance. “I know some of it was,” she added, “because he was with me when some of the things he was accused of happened.”

  His eyes closed for a moment, and she wondered if the simple fact of someone believing in his innocence could have an effect even all these years later. With an effort, she went on evenly, as if telling a story to someone uninvolved.

  “Sometimes he’d go for days with no new bruises. But then he’d turn up with a hideous black eye, or his nose would be broken again, or an arm. I think he had some broken ribs, once, too. He always said he was clumsy, but I knew he wasn’t.”

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He stared down at his hands, as if that were easier than looking at her. Perhaps it was, she thought. She kept going, softly.

  “Then he disappeared for a while. He didn’t come to school, didn’t come to our meeting place for days. I was so worried. When I finally saw him again, he had changed so much so it was…shocking. I sensed things had gotten worse, so much worse.”

  He made a sound then, but it never coalesced into words. Not surprising, she thought. She hadn’t realized, had been too young, too innocent to even comprehend, until much later. It had only been looking back, years later, with some unwanted but necessary education under her belt, that she had realized this was the time when the abuse had likely become sexual.

  “I tried then, harder than I ever had, to get him to let me tell. I was so afraid for him. I promised him my father could help. He didn’t believe me.”

  “Anyone.” He didn’t look up as he corrected her without giving himself away.

  “I suppose he didn’t believe anyone. When the people you should be able to trust most b
etray you, how can you trust anyone else? I don’t blame him.”

  He still kept his eyes on his hands. After a moment of silence, he asked, “Why bother?”

  She couldn’t follow that leap. “You’re going to have to get more specific on that one,” she said. “Why bother with what?”

  There was the slightest pause before he said flatly, “Him.”

  “He was my friend,” she said simply.

  “Older.”

  “Yes, he was. Almost five years. It didn’t matter. He listened to me. He never laughed at me, even if I said things that probably seemed helplessly naive.”

  “Crazy. Could have hurt you.”

  “Oh, I know all the stats. I know how many abused kids be come abusers themselves. But I also know that not all do. And Adam never would have.”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Yes, I do. He would have cut himself off from the world altogether before he’d let himself hurt someone the way he’d been hurt.”

  His head snapped up. He still didn’t look at her, but he was as alert as Maui when he scented a predator.

  “Naive?” He echoed her own word in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “Maybe. But I don’t think so.”

  “Never know.”

  She didn’t know how to answer that without giving away what she’d realized, and for as long as he clearly wanted it to be a secret, she would keep her knowledge to herself. She owed him that much, for never having had the courage to do what she should have back then.

  Let me tell my dad. He’ll help.

  No one can help. He can!

  No, Jess. Please.

  But—

  Don’t you get it? If you tell, if your dad so much as talks to him…I’m dead. He will kill me.