The Man Who Told the World

by Hanna Dare

  For all her toughness, Maggie looked very young. Conor would have liked to put an arm around her, but he suspected she would rip it off, so he waited instead.

  She took a long, shuddering breath. “He came back.”

  “Who?”

  Her voice was barely a whisper. “My dad.”

  Conor felt himself go cold. “But he was in prison; he wasn’t supposed to come back.”

  “They let him out. Parole or something. He came to the house and said he wanted to see us, said Ma couldn’t keep him away from his kids. Derek—Derek went and…”

  Through numb lips, Conor said, “Derek killed him.”

  Maggie shook her head. “He—Dad—got back in his car when Derek came out and started yelling. Derek took a tire iron to the car and then the neighbors called the cops.” Her mouth twisted bitterly. “They’d probably been waiting years to call the cops on Derek. The police came and he—our dad—said he was pressing charges, so they took Derek away.”

  “Fuck,” Conor said, surprising them both. Maggie quirked her mouth even though her face was miserable. “Has your dad tried to come back to the house since? Is he bothering you or your mom?”

  “No, Ma said she’d call the police right away. I think he drove by a few times but—I didn’t even see him that day. Not really. I started crying right away and then Derek yelled at me to go inside and lock the door. I did look through the window. He looked old. Not how I remembered.” She whispered, more to herself than to Conor. “He wasn’t supposed to come back… they all said…”

  “I know.” Conor did put an arm around her, then, and she leaned against him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  After school, Conor went home with Maggie.

  It involved getting on the rattling yellow school bus, which was interesting, in a smelly, uncomfortable way and involved a lot of people staring and whispering about him. Maggie was bristling at them, but Conor just shrugged. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’d start by shoving a few phones down some fucking throats.”

  “Yeah, that’s a great way to avoid attention.” He smiled at the nearest staring girl and she blushed wildly. “It’ll stop.”

  “And if it don’t?”

  “School’s almost over.”

  Conor had been to Derek’s house before, but they’d gone almost immediately to Derek’s basement bedroom, so Conor hadn’t seen much of the rest of the house. Maggie set him up at the kitchen table with a no-name soda while she moved around the old kitchen, maturely efficient in her ripped jeans, getting things ready for dinner.

  She paused with the fridge door open, looking at him. “You’re not on some weird L.A. diet or something? Like you can’t eat bread or meat?”

  “No, but don’t worry. I’m just hanging around to talk to your mom, I’m not staying for dinner.”

  She gave him a dark look.

  “I don’t want to be any trouble,” Conor said.

  The dark look intensified and Conor hurriedly got his phone out to text his dad to stay he’d be at a friend’s for dinner.

  Maggie and Derek’s mother worked at a warehouse about an hour’s drive outside of town. Conor knew that her shifts were long and changed constantly, but also knew that in their town, she was lucky to have the job. Conor stood up as she let herself in the kitchen door. Mrs. Folsom was shorter than both her children, small-boned and almost delicate except that her eyes exuded a sharp fire that would have caused the word “delicate” to shrivel away. She had dark brown hair, streaked with gray, pulled back into a ponytail, and was wearing jeans with a work shirt that smelled of cigarettes. She looked tired; not just the tiredness from the end of a long day, but something deeper.

  “Who’s this?” she asked—unsmiling, but not unfriendly, when she saw Conor.

  “I’m a friend of Derek’s.” He added, when she began to frown, “From school. I was tutoring him in History for a while.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes. “You know who he is, Ma.” Conor looked at her, surprised, and now she was the one to quickly add, “From the TV. Conor.”

  “Oh, yeah! The Gillis boy.” Mrs. Folsom smiled. “I shoulda known with that hair. They’ve been talking about you round town, that’s for sure.”

  “I can’t imagine it’s anything good, Mrs. Folsom.”

  “Call me Barb. And don’t be silly. It’s too bad you didn’t win; town council was gonna have a parade or something if you did. Didn’t your dad tell you?”

  Conor was incredibly glad his father had not told him. The thought of being paraded through the town was enough to give him nightmares. “I think the best person won.”

  “Really? I’m more a country fan myself, and that Emerson had a sweet smile.”

  “Ma! He’s not here to talk about the TV show. He’s here about Derek.”

  All the light and animation drained from Barb Folsom’s face and the tiredness returned. “What’s to tell? He’s locked away, and I don’t think we’re ever gonna get him out.”

  They ate a meal of meatloaf and mashed potatoes at the kitchen table. Barb drank a beer while Conor and Maggie stuck to soda.

  “This is a small town,” Barb said, her voice faraway, “so even without being friends with Derek, I expect you know all about our troubles. Their father—Steve—he was a real charmer when he was young. Big talker. Big plans.” She waved a hand around the small kitchen, and the small house beyond. “You can see what came of all that. Still, it wasn’t so bad unless he drank. Then it was real bad. But it was mostly towards me, so I thought I could stick it out ’til the kids were older. Then he got the bright idea of selling drugs. He didn’t use; that was his one good quality, but he was with a bad crowd. I mean, the Folsoms usually are the bad crowd, but the people he was in business with were something else altogether. Steve got scared, started drinking more, got angrier more. And by that time, Derek was older, and he started—getting in between us. Trying to protect me.”

  Maggie got up from the table and started fussing with plates and drawers at the kitchen counter, her movements jerky and her back to them. Barb watched her with sad eyes.

  Conor cleared his throat. “That scar, under his tattoo.”

  Barb rubbed at her forehead. “I’ve fucked up in pretty much every way possible as a mother. I’m supposed to protect them, not the other way around.”

  There was a sharp clatter of cutlery in the sink. Maggie whirled around, her eyes glittering and fierce. “He was gone away forever. That’s what you said,” she hissed to her mother. “That’s what you promised.”

  “It was supposed to be true, baby. I didn’t mean to lie.” Barb turned back to Conor. “The police found Steve’s drugs and guns on the property. Everybody told me he’d be in prison for a long time.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how he got parole. I didn’t even know it had happened—he just showed up here a few weeks ago. Like a nightmare.”

  Conor knew that it had been Derek’s worst nightmare, too. “So when he did, Derek went after him.”

  “At first, we were all just stunned. Derek was the one who yelled at Maggie to get in the house. I couldn’t move. Steve kept saying he just wanted to talk, but Derek, well, he has a temper.”

  “Yes,” Conor said softly.

  Barb looked over at her daughter pleadingly. Maggie crossed her arms. “I never divorced him,” Barb said. “There was no money after Steve got locked up; I barely kept the house.” She gave a short laugh. “I barely kept my head above water. I was a mess and Derek was wild, acting out, fighting and stealing. Child Services took him away a couple times. And everyone said—well, divorce papers seemed like something I didn’t need if Steve was never coming back. But now he’s saying he has rights—to the house, to see Maggie, at least, since Derek’s over eighteen. That’s why he won’t drop the charges against Derek—Steve thinks he can fucking bargain over our kids’ lives.” She put her face in her hands.

  Conor found his voice. “Have you talked to anyone about this? A lawyer?”

>   Maggie snorted as she leaned against the kitchen counter. “Derek has a public defender that he saw for all of five minutes. She thinks he should just apologize to dear old Dad and be done with it. Can you guess what Derek said to that?”

  Conor could.

  Barb sighed. “I’m almost glad we can’t afford to bail Derek out because he’d likely just go after his father.”

  “Where is he now? Uh—Steve?”

  “Staying with his brother, Wade. I’ve called Wade a bunch of times. Derek worked with him, y’know, fixing motorcycles and cars. I thought they were close, but he’s siding with his brother. And he says Derek owes him money. Something about Derek borrowing from him to buy some expensive guitar before Christmas. It makes no sense, but…”

  Across the kitchen, Maggie was watching Conor, her eyes bright with warning. Conor couldn’t imagine what his face looked like at that moment, but fortunately, Mrs. Folsom was staring at her hands. Conor took a breath. “I’d like to try and help if you’ll let me.”

  Barb immediately began shaking her head. “We can’t take money—”

  Conor smiled. “I wish I had money to give, but I didn’t win, remember?” He had the promise of money to come to be sure, but he didn’t think anyone in the legal system would take that. Conor didn’t even have a credit card yet. “I do know a lawyer,” he said. “Or someone whose mom is a lawyer.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The rest of the week was spent sending emails and texts to first Emerson, then his mother, then a lawyer friend of hers in Chicago, and finally a law firm in Milwaukee. Conor discovered that pro bono wasn’t just something made up on TV legal dramas, but meant that a lawyer—after what Conor suspected was a tremendous amount of arm-twisting from Em’s mom—would give you their time for free.

  It also meant that Conor spent most of his time looking at his phone, completely oblivious to school, which wasn’t a bad thing. Fortunately, his assignments were all caught up and his grades better than expected, so Conor kept his head down. It was how he gone through most of high school, but this time it wasn’t because he didn’t want to be noticed; he simply had more important things to worry about.

  “People are saying you really have gone L.A.,” Megan observed at the end of the week, as they made their way outside to the football bleachers for lunch.

  “Sorry,” he said, and put his phone in his pocket.

  She started to wave it off, then stopped, her eyes sad. “I thought all that stuff we talked about—I thought…” She looked away, staring out over the empty field. “Never mind.”

  “No,” Conor said. “I meant what I said about wanting to tell you everything.” They sat down on the rusty bleachers and Conor took a deep breath. He’d told himself that he couldn’t share secrets that weren’t entirely his, but he knew that Megan would keep them. He’d also told himself that he didn’t want to talk about everything that had started with Derek until he knew how it was going to end, but Conor thought that maybe he’d just been afraid. Secrets were what he was used to; he had to let that go.

  Megan was watching him, her face uncertain, but hopeful.

  Conor began, “It all started at the end of August, when I was playing guitar one day, down by the river—”

  Papers arrived to the Folsom house, courtesy of the new lawyer. One of them had the name of Conor’s dad on it.

  “Oh crap,” Conor said, reading it at the Folsom kitchen table one day after school.

  “What?” Maggie asked.

  “I told the lawyer about how my dad was there the night your dad was arrested. He used to be a volunteer fire fighter, so when your dad’s shed burned down…”

  “Yeah,” Maggie said, “I remember that night real well. Half the town showed up to watch my dad get hauled away.”

  “Derek told me, uh, that your father hit your mom that night. In front of my dad.”

  Maggie’s teeth showed. “And then your dad decked him. That was the best part.”

  “So the lawyer wants my dad to sign this paper, saying that if it comes to court, he’ll testify that he was a witness, you know, to abuse.”

  Maggie raised her dark eyebrows, looking at the paper. “Can you forge his signature?”

  “He’ll sign,” Conor said. “Of course he will. It’s just, what am I supposed to tell him about all this?”

  Conor found his dad sitting in his favorite chair in the living room. He was listening to music, which Conor took as a good sign. Music was one of those things he’d put away when Conor’s mom had died, deeming it too painful. Lately, though, he’d taken to pulling out the old CDs Conor had saved, and had turned the radio station in the car away from all sports all the time. It made Conor happy to see his dad there, listening to the old songs rather than sitting in silence.

  Still, Conor was nervous as he put the document and a pen on the coffee table.

  His dad frowned at the paper and stood up to angle it better into the light. Finally, he pulled reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and put them on. “What’s all this?”

  Conor began to explain, in a way he’d rehearsed like any performance. This story started a lot later than the one he’d told Megan—Conor told the circumstances of how Derek ended up in jail, and what Mrs. Folsom and Maggie were facing, and what the lawyer had said. It was a much shorter story that way, without unnecessary details, like feelings or sex; things Conor didn’t think his dad would want to hear and Conor definitely didn’t want to tell him. But as he listened to Conor talk, his father’s frown only deepened.

  “I just don’t understand why you’re involved in all this, Conor. I suppose it’s nice that you’re helping this family out, but it doesn’t seem like any of your business. You have a lot to get done before school finishes and then—”

  “I was tutoring Derek, remember? In History.”

  “That hardly seems like a reason—” His dad stopped abruptly, staring at Conor.

  Conor kept his face blank and his voice light. “We’re friends.”

  His dad sat back down heavily in his chair, passing a hand over his face. “Oh, Conor.”

  Conor felt anger begin to bristle within him. “What happened to all that talk about how proud you are of me?”

  He looked at Conor sharply. “I am, always. But it’s safe to say that in this town, no parent wants to find out their child—son or daughter—is involved with someone like Derek Folsom.”

  “You don’t know him, Dad. No one does. He’s not—” Conor stopped because Derek was, for the most part, what everyone thought he was, except— “There’s more to him than that. I know there is.” Conor lifted his chin. “And even if there wasn’t, even if he was just the guy who used to bully me, he still doesn’t deserve to go to prison for trying to protect his family from his father. And his mom and sister definitely don’t deserve to have to have that man in their lives.”

  His father studied Conor for a long moment and then he leaned over for the pen, signing his name to the bottom of the document.

  “Thank you,” Conor said.

  His dad took off his reading glasses and rubbed at his eyes. “You’re right, everything you said. What’s more than that, I trust your judgment. If you see something in this boy, then of course it’s there. It’s just—” He stared up at Conor, more puzzled than anything else. “It seemed like there were so many nice young men on that show. Are you sure one of them wouldn’t be—”

  “Dad.”

  He handed Conor the paper. “I’m proud of you for doing this, too. It’s the right thing.” He leaned back in his chair. “I just really hope your sister doesn’t start dating for a long while. This is all very stressful.”

  Conor sat in his bedroom, all the legal documents in front of him, the lawyer’s helpful stickies affixed to the places awaiting signatures. He listened to “Helter Skelter” three times to work himself up; then “Working Class Hero” two times to strengthen his resolve; and finally, “Don’t Let Me Down” just once, to see if it would answer the question
in his heart. He wasn’t sure if it did, but he couldn’t think of any other songs to play and he was starting to think he was just putting off what he really didn’t want to do. It was time to go before he lost all his nerve. Conor gathered up the papers and left.

  Telling all of his secrets was going to be easy compared to this.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  One of the benefits of his dad treating him more like a grownup was that Conor was now able to borrow the car without the usual questions and safety lectures he’d had to endure in the past. Which was, Conor realized, completely backwards—he hadn’t driven once in all the months in L.A. and he was out of practice, hands tight on the wheel, brakes feeling jerky. Fortunately, there was very little traffic as he took the car outside of the town, to where the farmlands and forests began. Checking the directions again, Conor turned onto the dusty road that led to Wade Folsom’s place.

  It was an old farmhouse, with the farmland gone back to the woods or sold off. There was an old, low barn at the end of the drive, cars up on blocks in front of it, but not in the familiar left-to-rust way—these cars were being worked on; one of them by a tall, lean man in a dirty t-shirt and jeans. He straightened up at Conor’s approach, eyes already sweeping over the car, assessing it.

  “What can I do you for?” he asked as soon as Conor got out. He had shaggy dark hair and a scruffy beard. Conor couldn’t see any resemblance to Derek or Maggie, except maybe the blue eyes, surrounded by tanned skin. It was a tan that would have been the envy of many people in Los Angeles for its naturalness, though Conor thought they would object to the weathered lines that went along with it. He realized, too, that the tan meant he wasn’t dealing with someone lately released from prison.