by Deborah Camp
Now what? “Something else wrong?” Trudy asked, warily.
He swung around to her and she was surprised that his blue eyes were like a calm, gentle sea. She’d expected turbulence. He shook his head and started the car.
“You can quit looking at me like that, Tru. I’m not going to foam at the mouth and shove my head through the windshield.”
She blew out a long breath. “What the hell happened back there?” She turned sideways in the car seat to look squarely at him. “Did he tell the FBI to question you? Why would he do that? And why in the world would the FBI actually waste their time patronizing him?”
He chuckled to himself and ran a hand down his face. “Did you see the look on his face when I told him that I’d kept in touch with some of his paid sufferers? I think he pissed his pants.”
She failed to see the humor in it. “Is this what you do? You take potshots at each other?”
“Huh?” He glanced at her and frowned. “He does. Not me. He lies in ambush. He’s always trying to find a way to bring me down. I just called him out today, that’s all. I’ve ignored him – or tried to – for years, thinking he’d give it up and leave me the hell alone. But after what he did today . . .” His frown deepened.
“What? The FBI thing?”
“Yes.” He put the car in gear and pulled out into the street.
She forced herself not to bombard him with questions. He’d tell her – eventually. He’d fill her in, she assured herself. Maybe not on her timetable, but on his. When they reached Tony’s Tune-up, he parked the car and reached for her hand. He brushed his thumb across her knuckles over and over again before he finally lifted his dark blue gaze to hers.
“Dr. McLain has said I should tell you about the child, but I was afraid.”
A child? His child? “What are you talking about? What child?” she demanded, pulling her hand from his because she couldn’t stand the thought of him keeping such a secret from her. Who did he have a child with? Oh, God. Not Lizzie! Her stomach clenched and she bit down on her lower lip, afraid she might retch.
“When I tell you about this, I’m afraid that you’ll never look at me the same way again.” He swallowed hard. “I’m afraid that you’ll leave me.”
Another woman had given him a child. If not Lizzie, his first girlfriend, then who? Someone he hadn’t even told her about yet? The pain that birthed in her stole her breath for a moment. “Levi, tell me! I deserve to know.”
Sadness shimmered in his eyes before he closed them and faced away from her. “I know you do. And I sure as hell don’t deserve you.” He stared at the RV. “Not out here. Let’s take this confessional inside.”
“No!” She grabbed his arm. “Do you have a child?”
He rocked his head back and his serious eyes widened. “Me? No! No, Trudy.”
She went limp and her head dropped forward with utter relief.
“Oh, Tru, I’m sorry.” He captured her hands in his. “I didn’t realize that you’d think that I had . . . no! God, no.” He brushed her hair back off her forehead and angled her head up to look into her eyes. “Come inside and I’ll tell you the whole fucked up story.”
She nodded, wearily, but also anxious to better understand the complexity of Levi and John’s tumultuous relationship. They left the car and trudged inside. Mouse leaped for joy, demanding attention, and Trudy took her outside, giving Levi some alone time. She knew he needed it and so did she. Just a few minutes to take inventory of her feelings now that it was clear he wasn’t someone’s baby’s daddy. The statements that had been thrown around between father and son rattled around in her mind like unpinned grenades.
When she entered the RV again, she found Levi sitting on the sofa, one elbow propped on the back of it as he gazed out the window. Without even looking at her, he patted the cushion next to him and she knew it was an invitation for her and not for Mouse. The little dog, however, didn’t see it that way and jumped up to sit next to him. She fixed her adoring gray eyes on him as her tail did double-time. Trudy scooped her up, grabbed a rawhide chew from the doggy biscuit container on the counter, and dropped it on the bed, knowing that Mouse would follow and happily stay there chowing down.
“We need some alone time,” she muttered as she returned to sit beside Levi. She pulled her legs up, got comfortable, and waited. She knew he was struggling with an inner demon or a horrible memory . . . or both.
After a few minutes, he scratched at the stubble on his chin and inhaled deeply. “I don’t recall exactly when spirits began visiting me. I must have been around four or five. They didn’t just pop into my head back then. I could see them – like you see Ethel. Have you seen her lately?”
She regarded him with surprise. Why was he bringing up Ethel, her matronly spirit guide, who showed up at the oddest times? Was this a stall tactic? “What about the child, Levi?”
“Yes, I’m getting to that.” He frowned and looked out the window again.
Taking pity on him, Trudy sighed. “I see Ethel every so often. But she’s mostly in my head now. I hardly ever see her in spirit form.”
“I certainly understood why you were upset when you first saw her at that RV park in Florida. That’s why I tried to help you accept her and know that she meant you no harm.” He smiled tenderly at her. “I was terrified when it happened to me and I hid under the bed. When I was about six, my grandfather visited me. My mother’s father. I’d never met him, but he told me who he was and, for some reason, I wasn’t scared of him. Maybe because he was a relative.”
Trudy leaned her head into her palm, resigned to his circuitous explanation and telling herself to appreciate small favors. It was rare that he offered up anything about his early life. This was a window into his soul that he kept firmly closed unless she managed to pry it open a crack for a little peek every now and then.
He shrugged. “Anyway, I chatted with my grandfather until I drifted off to sleep. The next day I was excited to tell my mother about meeting my grandfather, but she didn’t share my enthusiasm. She told me that it had been a dream. I knew it wasn’t, but I’d been taught never to argue with adults, so I shut up.”
“That happens a lot with children,” Trudy said. “The grown-ups tell them they’re dreaming or making stuff up.”
“Right, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel good. I thought my mother would be happy and want to know everything her father said to me. Instead, she shut me down. But that evening at dinner she told my father about the dream I’d had. He asked what my grandfather said to me in my dream and I told him.” He paused, tracing a beam of sunlight on the windowsill with his fingertip. “They both were very quiet and they looked at me as if I’d done something wrong. My father gave me a sermon right there at the dinner table about lying and the pain it causes. He led me in prayer and asked God to forgive me for being a liar and my mother cried. I was so confused, but I was clear on one thing.” His gaze slid to her. “I was never going to make my mother cry like that again. I’d never speak about the spirits visiting me to her or to my father ever again.”
“You were a very sensitive boy,” she said, not asking him because she knew in her heart that he had been. He’d been the kind of child who couldn’t bear to witness suffering of any kind, who wanted to be good and make his parents proud of him. He hadn’t been a rebel. Not then. That had come later.
He tapped his index finger against his lips as if he were considering her comment. Sunlight made his beautiful eyes sparkle and his eyelashes looked incredibly long in profile. A minute ticked by and then another. Finally, he blinked and drew in a quick breath.
“One night the spirit of a little girl came to me,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “I knew her. I’d seen her picture at school when she’d gone missing. My parents had prayed for her and her family.” He closed his eyes again. “She was sad and she begged me to do her a favor. She wanted to show me where her body was hidden. She said her parents were sad and crying all the time and she wanted them to know where s
he was so they could bury her.”
Trudy shook her head, trying to imagine what that must have been like for an eight-year-old boy. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her no.” He looked at her and his eyes were wide and full of regret. “I wasn’t supposed to be talking to spirits. But she came back, night after night for a whole week. I was scared. She kept begging me to help her and her parents find peace. Finally, I told her to show me and she did.” He tapped his temple. “In my mind.”
“Was she buried somewhere?”
“No. She was in a toolshed behind a house. I walked past that house every day on the way to school and back home.”
Trudy pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them in a defensive posture. His memories stirred up her own – of nights when she couldn’t sleep because she was terrified of dreaming and of days when she walked the floor with the belief that she was losing her mind.
“So the next day after school I went to the toolshed and found her there.”
With her heart suddenly in her throat, Trudy waited, holding her breath until he spoke again.
“She was wrapped in clear plastic and shoved in a corner with the rakes and hoes and shovels.” He stared out the window, giving a little shake of his head. “I’ll never forget that, but I wish I could.”
“How old was she?”
“Six. She was in first grade.”
“Did you tell her parents?”
“No.” He ran a hand through his hair and shoved up from the couch, pacing restlessly to the kitchen for a glass of water. “I ran and then I saw a police car. I waved frantically and he stopped to see what the hell was wrong with me. I told him I knew where he could find Becky Landers.”
“Becky Landers,” she repeated, recalling that name during his confrontation with his father.
“Yes.” He drank the whole glass of water and then set the glass down with more force than was necessary. “Becky. The cop went with me to the toolshed and that was the end of my childhood.”
She noted the tense set of his lips and the way he stared at the counter, but she knew that’s not what he was seeing. He was in the toolshed with little Becky’s body . . . a place from where he couldn’t completely escape.
“I remember being at the police station in a small room. I sat in a big chair and an officer was there . . . and my father.” He planted both hands on the edge of the counter and hunched his shoulders. “The police detective asked me how I knew that Becky was in the toolshed and I couldn’t . . . didn’t know how to tell him. Not with my father there.” He drew in a deep, shaky breath. “I can remember the panic. I wanted to run out of the room and keep on running until I got home. Then I’d hide under my bed and never come out again.” A sad smile twisted his lips. “But the detective kept on and on . . . did I see the man put Becky in there . . . did I know the man . . . did I know Becky . . . was I there with Becky and the man who put her in the shed?”
“They arrested a man?”
He blinked as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Yes. They arrested the guy who lived in the house. I learned later that they questioned him and he confessed. He also told them he didn’t know me. That he’d never seen me before.”
She watched emotions play across his handsome face. It seemed that he was on a precipice of truth and that he needed to find his balance so that he could stand tall and not back away from it this time.
“I was crying. I remember sobbing.” He swallowed hard. “Finally, I told the detective how I knew. That she’d come to me as a spirit and showed me where she’d been hidden.” He looked at her. “Becky was the last spirit I saw outside my mind. I don’t know why. I never know why any of it happens the way it does.”
“Same here.” She attempted a smile.
He straightened and ran a hand through his hair, then flung his head back and stared at the skylight vent for a few moments before swinging around to her and coming to sit in one of the armchairs. He looked so tired, so wrung out! Trudy’s heart constricted. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hug him close to her heart, but she stayed put on the couch. Her intuition told her to give him space and give him time. That’s what he needed from her.
“Of course, the detective didn’t know what to think of me. I was either a liar or I had a huge imagination.” He smiled, but it was fleeting. “I knew he wouldn’t believe me, but I also felt that I should be truthful. I kind of remember feeling relieved after I told him because I thought he’d stop asking questions and let me go home.” He rubbed his hands up and down his jeaned thighs. “But then they put me in a room with a woman who asked me even more questions. I guess she was a counselor or therapist. She asked me if I showed Becky my penis. But she called it my ‘little pecker.’”
“What?” Trudy sat up and felt her eyes grow wide. “Why in the hell would she ask you that?”
He shrugged. “Because they couldn’t understand how I knew Becky was in the shed. They thought that I must have seen something . . . done something to her . . . known something about her abduction and murder.”
“Oh, my God.” She fell back against the couch cushions. “Where was your mother when this was all happening?”
“I-I don’t know.” He blinked at her. “I don’t remember seeing her at the police station.”
“She must have been there,” Trudy said. “How could she stay away?”
“Maybe she was . . . maybe not.” He wiped a hand down his face. “The lady asked me more questions that embarrassed me. I squirmed and looked at the door and wished someone would burst in and end this.”
Someone. Trudy chewed on her lower lip as pressure built in her chest. He wanted his father to save him. Or his mother. Did he know that? Could he admit that to himself? She crossed her arms, holding herself tightly as the man across from her struggled with dark, painful memories. Sweat beaded on his forehead, although it wasn’t warm in the RV. If anything, it was a little chilly. But Levi was perspiring, wincing, breathing hard, tapping one foot nervously, and staring wide-eyed at nothing.
“The woman ran out of questions or maybe I didn’t give her the answers she wanted. Anyway, I was taken back to the small room where the detective and my father sat chatting. They stopped talking, though, when I walked in and they both stared at me like I’d grown horns or something.” One corner of his mouth tried to rise, but what might have been a smile became a grimace. “I suppose to them, I had.”
Trudy shook her head. Oh, it was so hard to let him go on like this! She wanted to scream and rail against the adults who had tormented a young boy, a scared boy, a boy who should have been praised for his bravery, for doing the right thing.
“They finally let me go home, but nothing was the same after that.” He pursed his lips and turned his head to look out the window, throwing half of his face in shadow. “Like The Scarlet Letter.”
She tilted her head, trying to see his face better. “What about The Scarlet Letter?”
“Hmmm?” He glanced at her. “Oh. I was marked.”
“Marked? What do you mean? What kind of mark?”
“Nothing. Forget it. There you have it. The ugly story of my delinquent childhood. I was sent away to school after that.”
Trudy let silence settle around them, but she could feel his shields rising, protecting a particularly vulnerable place in him. It’s what he does. It’s what he’s done since then so that he won’t feel the pain. She bit her bottom lip, wondering what to do, how far she could push him without sending him over the edge. Or maybe that’s what he needed. Maybe he needed to take that final step to discover that he wouldn’t crash, but would grow wings that would take him out of his dark place and toward the light.
“Levi,” she ventured, keeping her voice soft. “When you went back into the room where your father and the detective were talking, did the detective or your father ask you more questions?”
“I suppose.” He propped his elbow on the window sill and placed his chin in his hand, staring moodil
y outside. “I don’t remember. We went home shortly after that.”
That didn’t sound right. He was leaving out a chunk of the story. “How did you get the mark, Levi?” she asked, returning to the odd comment he’d made. “Who marked you? Your father?” She saw his face tighten and he started tapping his foot again. “What did he say? You remember, don’t you? You haven’t really forgotten. Did he . . .” She screwed up her courage. “Did he betray you? Did he throw you to the wolves?”
“Throw me to the wolves and I’ll return leading the pack,” he whispered, but there was a savagery in his tone and his eyes glinted in the sunlight.
She nodded, sensing him teetering on the edge. She gave him the push he needed. “He didn’t save you. He turned his back on you.”
A shudder coursed down his body and he released his breath in a whoosh. His jaw hardened and he rammed his fisted hands against his thighs. “I don’t remember!” A groan worked up his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut . . . tight, tight, tight.
“What did he say to the detective?” Trudy leaned toward him. “You were his little boy. He was there to protect you. But he didn’t. He made it worse. How, Levi?”
His eyes opened and he lifted his pain-filled gaze to her. “The detective asked me again about how I knew where to find Becky. I told him. She came to me. Night after night. Begging me to help people find her so that her parents could bury her.”
Trudy realized she was holding her breath and she let it out in a sigh that relieved none of the tension coiling in her chest and tightening the muscles in her neck and shoulders.
“Then the detective asked my father some questions. I don’t remember much after that.” He sat back, gripping the chair arms, and his eyes took on that stony glint that Trudy had once thought was arrogance but now she knew it was defiance – a stark refusal to remember that which had cut his heart to ribbons.
“You remember,” she said. “You looked to your father for help. You wanted him to take you home to your mother where you’d be safe again. The detective asked him . . ?”