by Nancy Rue
“You said I probably haven’t been where you were, ready to slit my wrists,” Sully said, “but I almost ran myself off a bridge. It took that for me to get the kind of help I was offering everyone else.”
“Which now makes you an even more incredible minister than you were before,” Kyle said.
“I don’t know. I took a three-month leave of absence, and when I did test the waters again, I was scared spitless. That’s when I did the podcasts.”
“But since then you’ve been incredibly productive. I mean, the speaking tour.” Kyle folded his hands behind his head. “I caught your act in Little Rock, which was where I was living at the time, and I bought the DVD Healing Choice produced when you spoke in Oklahoma City.”
Sully rearranged his silverware on the plate Zoe had yet to remove. Should he tell Kyle the underlying motive for doing those particular cities, and Amarillo? That he’d chosen them because they were places Belinda Cox had lighted before she wound up in Las Cruces?
“So are you ever going to go public with this?” Kyle asked. “Not that you necessarily should, but if people knew, I mean, think of the impact it could have.”
“The story’s not over yet.” Sully gave Kyle one more search for mere curiosity. He saw only his own former self, grasping for understanding wherever he could get it. That, and the pain he knew Kyle would never be rid of.
“I’m looking for Belinda Cox, Lynn’s so-called therapist,” he said. “She’s apparently somewhere in Mesilla, still practicing— something. I’m struggling with whether I should find her and stop her. If I even can. I’m questioning my motivation.”
Kyle pushed his untouched plate of flan aside and leaned forward, hands flat on the table. “You have to do this,” he said. “Not just for your own grief work, but for the people this woman could be keeping from getting real help. You owe them that. And Lynn and Hannah.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” Sully put his fist to his chest. “It’s what I’m feeling, what I keep hearing from God. But I get frustrated, and I wonder if I’m getting it wrong—if I’m not just supposed to let it go.”
“I don’t think so. You probably feel that way because you’re going it alone. I’d help you, man. I’ll go to Mesilla with you and knock on doors or whatever it takes. It’s not that big a place.” Kyle sank back against the booth. “I guess I’m coming on pretty strong, but I know what you’re feeling. If there was anything I could do to make Hayley’s death mean something, I’d do it in a heartbeat. You have that chance.”
“Who wants this?” Zoe was once again at tableside, biting her lower lip at Kyle and holding up the check.
“Me,” Sully said.
She looked startled when Sully took it from her hand, as if she truly had never noticed he was there.
“Um, you can take it up front,” she said.
Sully pushed his plate away and extricated himself from the booth where, it seemed, he’d just spent several years. In spite of the ancient pain thudding dully in his chest, he had to grin to himself when he looked at the check. Zoe had written a phone number across the bottom.
Kyle had that effect on people. He made you want to trust him.
Sully could see where she was coming from.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Alex had a game on Saturday, which I wouldn’t have missed if I’d been having a heart transplant. I felt so estranged from him again, as if all the ground we’d gained in September was lost when October blew in. I had to be there to cheer him on and smuggle him a Coke and somehow reconnect.
Jake, however, was not enthused. I had dragged him out every morning at dawn for the week he’d been with me, after he hadn’t slept well to begin with. When I sat on the edge of his bed to wake him up Saturday morning, he groaned like a bear being rousted from hibernation.
“I wish I could just leave you here to sleep in,” I said.
“Why can’t you?”
I pulled the pillow from over his face. “You know why.”
Jake grabbed it back and clamped it to his chest. “No, I don’t. I’m not gonna go anywhere. I don’t want to go back to jail.”
It was the first time he’d mentioned it, but I hadn’t forgotten the condition he’d been in after just one night in that place. He peeked at me now through the slits he made with his eyelids.
“Would you just stay in bed the whole time?” I said.
“No doubt.”
“Don’t answer the door if anybody comes. I’ll take my phone with me so you don’t have to worry about that. Nobody ever calls on the land line.”
“Nail the door shut from the outside, I don’t care . . . No, don’t do that.”
“Wasn’t planning on it. Okay, I’m trusting you because I know I can.”
As I pulled the covers up around his shoulders, I felt them soften and give.
“Speaking of phones,” I said, “what happened to your cell?”
“Never had one,” Jake mumbled as he churned to his side. “We’re the only kids in the United States that don’t have them.”
I stood up so I wouldn’t ask the question that tore at my lips. At the door, I stopped and turned to look at his back again, already rising and falling in even breaths. I couldn’t let it pass altogether.
“You weren’t in that alley alone, Jake,” I said. “Whenever you’re ready to tell me who was with you, we can start to beat this thing.”
He didn’t answer.
The soccer game was another winner, on almost every level. Without Jake, I could sit with the soccer moms, who picked up right where we’d left off a week before. Poco basically didn’t let go of my hand the entire time. J.P. wanted to know every detail of what was happening with Jake. Victoria smiled one long smile at me, though she did toss her hair out of her face long enough to inform me that Ginger was being evicted from her apartment that day. I tried not to let that distract me from watching every move Alex made on the field. I didn’t want to think about where Ginger was going to live now; I hadn’t gotten full-blown angry for several days, and I wanted to keep it that way.
Alex scored a goal. So did Cade. Bryan blocked several of the other team’s attempts. And little Felipe ran around like an eager terrier, missing the ball half the time and still getting hoorahs from his teammates and his coach.
I watched Dan too. He seemed gaunt and tired, but he put the same energy into high-fiving and cheering and coaxing that he always did. I wondered if that was holding him together the way my picture making and bizarre therapy sessions and tangled nights of God-talks were keeping me from flying apart.
I left the bleachers in time to buy Alex the customary contraband soft drink and met him at the end of the game. As he gulped, eyes dancing, I said, “What do you say you come to my house and we practice in my yard today? I think I’ve forgotten everything I’ve learned.”
“Mom,” Alex said, “you haven’t even learned that much yet.”
“Hey, cut me some slack!” I nudged the bottom of his cup. “So what about it?”
He pushed the straw up and down.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“I kind of already told Felipe I’d go over to his house.”
“Oh.”
“I didn’t know if, you know, because of Jake . . .”
“It’s okay, Alex. Don’t ditch Felipe. I’ll catch you next time.”
“You sure it’s okay?”
“Absolutely. And look, this thing with Jake is going to be over soon, and things will get back to normal—whatever that is.”
Alex sucked down some more carbonation and looked at me. His brown eyes were no longer dancing. “Is it really gonna be over soon?”
“When I find out what happened, Jake will be cleared, and we can look for our normal.”
He stared at his straw. “What if you can’t?”
“If the court says he’s guilty, he’ll get some kind of punishment. It might just be like what he’s doing now.”
“Which is nothing. Is he going nuts?”
I laughed. “No. He’s doing pretty well, actually.”
“I’d be going nuts.”
“I know you would.”
He sucked the cup dry, complete with the obnoxious boy-noise, without looking at me. “If they say he has to go to jail, will you tell me?”
“Uh, I think you’ll know, Alex.”
“I just want to know right away.”
“Then you’ll be the first.”
“Hey, Alex!” another boy-voice yelled.
“Go,” I said.
I hitched my bag up on my shoulder and watched him tear toward Felipe and grab him in a headlock.
“Where’s Jake?”
I turned to find Dan at my side, shaking out his hair and repositioning his ball cap on top of it.
“Asleep,” I said. “I’m on my way back to him right now.”
“Do you have time for breakfast?”
I tried not to let my chin drop.
“I just need to talk to you,” he said. “And we both look like we could use a decent meal.”
“Okay,” I said.
After ten minutes of preparing myself in the car as I followed Dan, we pulled up to an adobe dive that proclaimed it had the best huevos rancheros north of the border, and I was no closer to knowing what I was supposed to do with this. Pre-Crisp, I would have gone in armed to the teeth with invective. But my last talk with Sullivan made me doubt that was the way to go. We just hadn’t gotten far enough for me to know which was the right direction.
Dan looked even more drawn and worn close up. He had what resembled carry-on luggage under his eyes, and their golden brown was shot with road maps of red. But it was his mouth that exposed him completely. There had always been something peaceful about Dan’s lips—even in repose they formed a small smile, as if he knew of the joy that lay beneath almost anything.
That expression had driven me to slam cabinet doors when he’d continued to wear it despite near bankruptcy. I’d have given anything to see it there now.
With the waitress off to shout out our order in Spanish, Dan turned his worn-out face to me.
“How is Jake? You probably think I’m being a coward not seeing him. What was it you used to say . . . I’m avoidant?”
I rubbed uncomfortably at my chin.
“I’m falling apart over this,” Dan said, “and Jake doesn’t need to see me losing it. He needs to be with somebody who can tough this out with him. And that’s you.”
It’s about time you saw that, something in me wanted to say. Smugly. With a smirk and a side of If you’d figured that out a long time ago, maybe . . .
Maybe what? a different something in me said. Maybe we’d still be right where we are?
“I actually don’t think you’re being a coward or avoidant or passive-aggressive.” I almost smiled. “Remember that one?”
He almost smiled back.
“It’s killing me not to be able to say that I yelled and screamed and shook Jake, and he finally told me everything.” I put up my palm. “I didn’t—I couldn’t—not the way he was when he came out of jail.”
Dan’s eyes filled.
“He’s doing better now,” I said quickly. “I did find out he has a gift for photography.” I told Dan about Jake’s pictures, and he seemed to bask in it.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “He fools around with some stuff when he’s out in the studio with me, but it’s hard for him to admit it’s good. I guess I was like that.” He gave a small shrug. “Until you came along.”
The food came along, too, and I only half listened as the señora and Dan exchanged a concoction of Spanish and English while the huevos and hot sauce were distributed. My mind flipped back to my conversation with Jake and further to what I’d told Sullivan Crisp. Now God was dangling it in front of me with a vague image of me pushing and pulling at a wad of clay.
Dan motioned his fork toward my plate. “Is your breakfast okay?”
“It’s fine.” I took a breath. “I was just thinking how ironic it is.”
“What is?”
“That I was the one who pushed you to pursue your art, and I was the one who made you miserable when you did.”
Dan stared down into his plate. “We don’t need to get into that.” “We don’t. I do. Just call it part of my therapy work.”
He looked up at me, eyes startled.
“Jake and I drove past your work on the campus, and I saw what it was you were always trying to do. Only, I think you couldn’t do it because you couldn’t be all that you were with me.”
“Look, Ryan . . .”
“Just hear me out—I’m on a roll.”
He put his fork down.
“I’m not trying to pass the buck,” I said, “but I think when I tried to get you to be who I thought I wanted you to be, I was taking out on you what my father did to me. And I just want to say—I’m sorry.”
I pushed a hunk of egg around in a puddle of salsa and wished Dan would say something and hoped he would say nothing. Whichever he did, I couldn’t respond with anger anymore, but I didn’t know what else to do.
“It wasn’t all you, Ryan.” Dan’s voice was husky. “I let you and the boys down. I can’t make it up to you, but I’m trying to make it up to them.”
I nodded at my breakfast. He breathed a sigh so long and so full, it was as if he hadn’t breathed in a long time. I’d set him free. I was left wrapped up in sadness.
“They’re no good cold.” He tapped his fork on my plate.
“So—is Ginger moving in today?” I said.
“I’m sorry—what?”
“Ginger,” I said. “I assumed she’d be moving into your place now.”
Dan looked genuinely offended. “In the first place, I’m not going to have any woman I’m not married to live in my house with me. Especially not with two boys under my roof.”
“She just said some things to me that led me to believe . . .” I trailed off and wished I hadn’t said it.
Dan frowned. “What she led you to believe is what she wants to believe,” he said. “Let’s just say she’s more liberal in her interpretation of the term extramarital.”
“That’s way too much information,” I said.
“I want you to know I’m not setting a bad example for Jake and Alex. Ginger never spends the night at my place, and I don’t sleep over at hers. We haven’t even—”
“Okay, Dan, got it.” I was seeing images I knew weren’t coming from God. I took a bite of egg.
Dan’s phone rang. When he looked at it, his face colored at the tops of both cheeks. That was Dan for I’m in an awkward position right now, and I wish somebody would get me out of it.
As he put his hand over the mouthpiece, I pushed my chair back and held up the check. “You want me to take care of this?” I whispered.
Dan shook his head, looking absolutely adolescent. The warm fuzzies I’d started to feel bristled like porcupine quills at the back of my neck. Ginger might not be able to get the man into bed, but she still had him in every other place.
I was halfway home and still chastising myself for whatever it was I’d started to feel when my own cell phone rang. A garbled voice said, “Mom?”
I swerved involuntarily. “Jake? Are you okay?”
“No.”
At least, that was what I thought he said. It was less a word than a sob, which turned into two and three, raspy and young and terrified.
“Son—what’s wrong?” I was already speeding up and jerking my head over my shoulder to get into the fast lane.
“Miguel’s dead!” he said. “Mom, he’s dead!”
I jammed my foot on the accelerator and cut in front of an SUV.
“Jake—did you have a bad dream?”
“It’s real! That lawyer called. She said Miguel’s dead!”
After that I understood nothing else that he said. He sobbed into the phone while I took every turn on two squealing wheels and left the door hanging open as I jumped out in my driveway and to
re into the house.
Jake was on the couch in a fetal position, rocking himself and still clutching the phone. I peeled it out of his hand, threw both it and mine to the floor, and took him in my arms.
“He’s dead!” he wailed over and over. “He’s dead!”
“I have to call the lawyer, Jake,” I said. “I have to find out what’s going on. Can you hold on just for a minute?”
I pulled my cell phone to me with my foot, and with angry, twitching fingers I fumbled for Uriel Cohen’s number. She picked up on the first ring.
“Ryan,” she said. “I am so sorry. When Jake answered I thought he was you, and I just started talking.”
“Then you did call.”
“I thought it was your cell phone.”
“What did you tell him?” I was gritting my teeth, but I could hear my rage slipping between them.
“It’s not good,” she said.
“Did you tell him Miguel Sanchez is dead?”
“Like I said, Jake didn’t say hello, so I just started talking.”
“I don’t care about that! Tell me!”
Uriel sighed heavily. “Miguel died a few hours ago. Detective Baranovic called me.”
“Why you?”
“He has to re-arrest Jake, and he wanted to give you the opportunity to bring him in. It’s customary to do that through the attorney.”
I slipped out from under Jake and somehow got myself into the kitchen before I exploded into the phone with a violent whisper. “Re-arrest him?”
“They have to book him for murder. And, just so you can be prepared, the judge isn’t going to release him to you or his father this time. He may set bail.”
“You didn’t tell Jake that, did you? ”
“No, I didn’t tell him that. I wouldn’t have told him anything if I’d known it was him and not you.”
I sucked in air and couldn’t seem to get enough. I grabbed onto the sink to keep myself from hurling the phone through the window. “All right,” I said. “What do I do?”