The Man He Never Was

by James L. Rubart

  “Hey.”

  “I’m sorry I’m late. I was held up on a phone call.”

  “No worries.”

  “Are you okay, Toren?”

  “Why?”

  “You look spooked.”

  “Nah, I just . . . I’m fine.”

  “Good.” Eden motioned to a winding trail that led to the river. “Let’s walk.”

  They strolled down the path, maple tree branches thick with new green leaves providing a canopy, silent for more than a few paces.

  “What happened to you, Toren?”

  “What happened to me?” Toren gave his head a shake. “Isn’t that what we’re going to find out?”

  “I’m not asking what happened to you physically, but emotionally, spiritually, however you want to describe it. Are you different now? Have you noticed any changes in your outlook, your personality?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I’m guessing you’ve read up on me. The NFL suspending me because of my temper. And then the Hawks cutting me loose because I couldn’t get a handle on it.”

  “True.”

  “It’s gone. Whatever happened to me while I was away flipped a switch. That part of me doesn’t exist anymore.”

  Eden nodded as if that were the exact answer she’d expected. Silence again settled on them.

  “Why did you want to meet here? Outside?”

  “Because I pulled up old videos of you online. Studied them.

  Compared them to the man I met yesterday. I saw a difference. I see it in your eyes right now. And I know that finding out where you were and what was done to you is about far more than facts and figures. It’s about connecting to the unseen, enabling you to connect to the unremembered inside your mind. I believe the memories of what happened are there, but we have to trigger them somehow. And I believe that trigger will come more easily in this kind of setting, created by God, than inside a sterile box like a coffee shop, created by man.”

  “Wow.” Toren snorted a laugh. “I thought you were a detective, not a guru.”

  Eden smiled. “I can’t be both?”

  “No, I think there’s a law against that.”

  Eden’s smile faded. “Let’s lay out our plan of attack. First, I’m going to talk to the management at the hotel, see if we can get anything out of them, a clue to who sent the package. Second, I’m going to tap a few friends and ask them to search for any retreat centers, educational centers, training programs that deal with personality issues like anger. Third, I want you to do research on memory loss. See if you can figure out any strategies that help with recall.”

  “All right,” Toren said. “Anything else?”

  “Yes.”

  Three joggers approached and Eden waited to speak till they passed.

  “I’d like you to tell me about your friend Letto.”

  “What does he have to do with this?”

  “When you talked to him in the parking lot, there was an intensity in your eyes. Not anger. But a fierceness. I want to know about that fierceness. I want to know everything. The more I know about you, the more I can put together a picture in my mind of where you were and why you would have gone there. I want to know about Letto and Quinn and Sloane, and your truncated NFL career, and anything and anyone else that’s currently in your life.”

  “Letto is not in my life.”

  “No?”

  “No, not at all. That was a chance meeting.”

  “Yes, of course it was. I could certainly tell by the way you reacted when you saw him.” Eden drilled Toren with her eyes. “I have an idea. If we’re going to do this, I’m thinking the fewer secrets between us, the more effective both of us can be at getting to the truth. What do you say?”

  It wasn’t truly a question. She wanted in, and even though he’d only known her a short time, he found it difficult not to trust her.

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  Toren rubbed his eyes and began speaking. He told her the story of being beaten by his dad, and how he had met Letto a few days later and had vowed on that day to get stronger than his dad and someday take the belt out of his father’s hand.

  “Did you?”

  Toren nodded.

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “Someday.”

  “But you and Letto went different directions.”

  “There was always something twisted about Letto. It wasn’t just the cigs and the pot, the drinking, the dirty jokes. It was deeper, darker.” Toren chuckled. “My mom said kids like Letto were like eggs that didn’t smell quite right when you cracked them open.”

  “Your mom met him?”

  “No, Dad didn’t like me bringing friends home. But I told her about him, what he was like, things he said, things he did.”

  “I see.”

  “We hung out all the time in seventh and eighth grade. We worked out together, talked about how we were going to take down our dads, how we were going to save our moms. And how I’d take care of my brother, and Letto would take care of his sister. But by my freshman year I was consumed with football year-round, and Letto didn’t play, and he kept getting closer and closer to the edge. We had a pretty brutal falling-out.”

  “What happened?”

  “God got ahold of me the summer of my sophomore year, and that drove a pretty big wedge into our relationship. I stopped drinking and just didn’t want the friendship any longer. Didn’t need it. So we drifted apart. I’d see him around school, but I was getting closer to God, and when I tried to talk to Letto about it, he didn’t want anything to do with me. And then one day he kind of lost it.”

  Letto’s words echoed in his mind as if they’d been spoken yesterday.

  “I made you! Don’t you get that?” Letto’s eyes had narrowed into dark slits as he shoved Toren into a wall in the gym one fall day during their junior year. “You’re getting all this attention from colleges, going to get a scholarship, go be a big football star, huh! How? Me, that’s how. I’m the one who gave you the idea to get strong. I pushed you in the weight room, I taught you how to fight, I put the idea in your head when we were just kids. And now you go and get religion and dump our friendship? Don’t need me anymore, huh? Toss me away like I’m rotting garbage?”

  “You’re a freak, Letto.”

  “I’m a freak? I’m a freak!”

  Letto’s voice grew till he screeched, and Toren glanced around the weight room to see if anyone was paying attention.

  “Yeah, you are. So am I. Or I was. I went with you on that path, Letto. Yeah, a lot of good came out of it, but a lot of darkness too. Now I’m asking you to think about getting on a new path with me. You need it as bad as I do.”

  “I’m going to make you a promise.” Letto bounced on his toes and pointed a finger of each hand at Toren. “Someday I’m coming for you, Toro. I’m going to take you down. Going to destroy you—light you on fire and watch you burn. I promise.”

  Letto backed away with the same smile Toren had seen in the parking lot after his press conference.

  “After that, he must have moved away. I never saw him again till last week.”

  Eden stayed quiet for at least a minute after Toren finished.

  “Will he come after Sloane and your kids, or just you?”

  “He’s mentioned them, but everything inside tells me this is personal, just between us, that he’ll only come after me. But how in the world can I know that for certain?”

  “Have you talked to Sloane about it?”

  “I tried.”

  Eden turned around, and they strolled back down the path toward the park. “I have to go out of town for a week. Sorry, but it’s been scheduled for a while now, so work on the things we talked about and hang tight till I get back.”

  “I’m not good at hanging tight.”

  “Too bad. Work on it.”

  “Got it.”

  “And find something to do to take your mind off Letto.”

  “I’m going to find a hous
e to rent, work out, and put together a surprise gift for my daughter.”

  “Good. And text me if your buddy shows up again.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Text me anyway.”

  “Why? You think I need quick access to law enforcement?”

  Eden raised her eyebrows. “Something like that.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Six days later, early on Saturday night, Toren stepped into the garage of his rental house to put the finishing touches on his gift for Callie. It had turned out even better than he’d expected. A half day more and he’d be finished. He strolled toward the far side of the garage where he’d set up a work area and examined his simple creation.

  A nightstand. A bookcase. Three shelves. And a dresser. All made from reclaimed wood that hadn’t been put to any use in at least forty years. He’d found the wood in the middle of a deserted field the morning after his meeting with Eden in the park, during a long walk out in Duvall.

  The wood was covered by years of growing and dying grass, not visible until he was almost right on top of it. A third of it was rotted, but the two-thirds on top? After a quick inspection Toren suspected he could turn the wood into something special.

  He dug through online records till he found the owner of the field and fired off an e-mail, asking if he could purchase the wood. The owner replied forty-five minutes later and said he didn’t know the wood was there, so he wouldn’t miss it if Toren took it, and he could have the whole batch if he’d get rid of the rotted pieces too.

  During the sanding process Toren got down to fresh wood in places, but he left the evidence of the years in the sun and rain and occasional snow swirling through each piece of wood. Heavy sandpaper, medium, fine, finer. Then a clear stain that would bring out the highlights and take the darker streaks darker. He decided on a semigloss stain to give the pieces that almost wet look, but not so glossy they would look overdone. The bedroom furniture was almost perfect, and he smiled at his creation.

  The door from the garage to the house opened and broke Toren out of his musings. He spun to find Callie standing in the doorframe.

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  “Callie, what are you doing here?”

  “I hope it’s okay that I used the key you gave Mommy a few days ago. I knocked, but you must not have heard it.”

  “That’s why I gave it to you.” He smiled as he meandered over to her. “You’re a wonderful surprise.”

  “Thanks.” She stepped the rest of the way into the garage and let the door shut softly behind her. “I wanted to come see you, so Mommy dropped me off.”

  “She didn’t want to come in?”

  Callie shook her head. “She’s running a quick errand and said I could come see you while she’s doing that.”

  He nodded his understanding.

  “I did ask her to come say hello, but she said another time maybe.”

  “Thanks, pumpkin.” The endearment slipped out before Toren could stop it. Pumpkin was his nickname for her when she was younger, in the days before losing his temper had become a semi-regular occurrence. Before he’d lost it eighteen months ago and she screamed, “You never ever get to call me that ever, ever again!”

  He’d never called her pumpkin again, until now. They looked at each other across the garage floor for a few seconds before he said, “I’m sorry, Callie. That slipped out before I could—”

  “It’s okay.”

  Another few seconds passed before he tried to smile and motioned her toward him. “Come in, come in. I want to show you what I’m working on.”

  He could tell by the look on her face that she’d spotted the furniture.

  “What’re you making?”

  “It’s a bookcase, or whatever the owner wants it to be. And a dresser, and a nightstand.”

  “They’re really, really pretty.”

  “They’re turning out okay, I think.”

  “Okay?” Callie smiled, a genuine smile that yanked on his heart. “Way more than okay. They’re really super pretty.”

  “Thanks.”

  Callie stepped up to the bookcase and ran her fingers along its surface, then moved to the nightstand and finally to the set of drawers. “I bet you’re going to get a lot of money from whoever you’re making these for.”

  “I’m building this collection for free.” He smiled as she raised her eyebrows.

  “Really? You could probably sell this for way a lot of money. Like millions!”

  Toren laughed. “Probably not millions, but yes, for a lot.”

  “So who gets to have it when it’s done?”

  “To answer that, I’d need to tell you a story. That okay?”

  She nodded. Toren shuffled over to the workbench he’d set up, leaned against it, and folded his arms across his sweatshirt.

  “Once upon a time, there was a princess who was the most beautiful princess the world has ever known. Her father, the king, was captivated with her, as was her mother, the queen. But as she grew from a little girl into a young woman, her dad, the king, started to get upset at things that didn’t used to upset him. He let his fierceness in battle with other kingdoms spill over into life in the castle.

  “As time went on, the king realized he had a temper he could not control, and often he would lose this temper in front of the princess. He hated himself for this and promised to change, but he didn’t have the power to do so. Then one day he left his kingdom for a long, long time—no one knew where he had gone—but when he returned, he was different. He had changed. His temper was gone. And it came into his mind that long, long ago, his princess daughter asked him to build her the prettiest set of furniture ever for her room, and he said he would. For he used to tell her she was the prettiest girl in all the land, and the prettiest girl in all the land needed furniture almost as beautiful as she, and she believed him.

  “So the king built a bookcase with shelves, and a nightstand and a set of drawers. And he hoped beyond hope that his princess would forgive him for his anger, and that maybe she and he could be friends again.”

  “I love it.” Callie stared up at Toren as the hint of tears formed in her eyes.

  Toren closed his eyes and dropped his hands to his sides, took the risk, and opened his arms. Two seconds. Three. At seven he opened them to see a look on his daughter’s face that broke his heart—not for him, but for her.

  “I’m not ready for that, Daddy.”

  He answered her in a way that surprised himself. He wasn’t hurt, wasn’t offended as the old him would have been. He was good. Really, really good.

  “That’s okay, sweetheart.” And Toren meant it. “It’s completely okay.”

  The hint of hope came into her eyes, and she stared at him as her top teeth massaged her lower lip.

  “When will you be finished? When can we move all of it up to my room?”

  “Twenty-four hours.”

  “Can’t it be done right now?”

  He laughed. “I’d love it if it could be, but I need to do one more sanding, one more coat of stain, and then give it time to dry all the way.”

  She ran her fingers over the nightstand. “This is so pretty. How did you get the wood to look this way?”

  He looked at her in mock horror. “Are you asking me to reveal my secret sauce, the secret formula that no one else in the world knows—just because you’re my daughter?”

  She smiled that shy smile that had shot to the deep places in his heart ever since she was a toddler.

  “If you want to tell me.” Callie laughed and rubbed her fingers again on the surface of the nightstand.

  “I can teach you if you want. We can work together on something.”

  “Okay.”

  Toren let the silence between them linger. After a time he knelt down and brought his face close to hers.

  “I’m really sorry, Callie.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, not okay.” He took Callie’s hand lightly in his. “And more than anything I wish I could go
back and change what I did to you, and take away the words and the countless times I yelled at you for no good reason . . . But the past has withered away like flowers in the hot sun, and I can’t do anything to help them. But I can say there are new flowers, and those flowers I can water.”

  “You sound like a storybook.”

  “Yeah, a lame version of one maybe.” He chuckled.

  Callie released his hand and once again placed her fingers on the golden surface of the nightstand, then looked back at him.

  “I’m going to be a good daddy from now on.”

  “Really?”

  Toren put two fingers between her hands on the nightstand, bent close to her ear, and whispered, “Really.”

  She stared up at him for an eternity, her eyes shifting from hesitancy to hope. Then she slipped around the edge of the nightstand and barreled into him, and Toren wrapped his arms around her. After far too short a time she pulled away, her eyes damp as his had become.

  A shuffle of feet near the door leading into the house whipped his gaze from his daughter to Sloane, who stood in the frame just as Callie had ten minutes earlier. The message in Sloane’s eyes—the eyes he thought he knew so well—was hidden from him, but it was okay.

  “Hi,” Toren said and took a few hesitant steps toward her.

  She glanced at him and bounced her eyebrows once, then turned her gaze to Callie. “We have to go.”

  “Okay,” Callie said to Sloane, then turned and looked up at him, her brown eyes full of anticipation. “We’ll really work on something together? Soon?”

  “Yes. Very.” He took her hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “Is tomorrow too soon?”

  “No, that’s perfect.” For the second time, she released his hand, but this time she gave a return squeeze before she let go.

  Callie eased over to her mom, who gave her a quick sideways hug. She looked up at Sloane and said, “Daddy’s going to teach me how to do woodworking like he does.”

  “That’s great, honey.” Sloane gave Callie a fake smile. “Can you go wait inside the house for a few minutes, sweetheart?”

  Callie glanced back and forth between the two of them and finally gave Toren a tiny wave, turned, and walked through the garage door into the house. Sloane watched the doorknob for a moment, then turned back toward him and strode to the middle of the garage floor.