He studies me. ‘So you laid low that first night, so he would think that Cletus did the job, and you were dead.’
‘Exactly. I was here, at the lodge, the night I was supposed to be killed. I drove up while Carl was busy establishing his alibi, moving boxes with his good friend, George. It took me almost four hours to get here. It was a dark drive, once I got off the Interstate, and there was nowhere it looked safe to stop and ask for directions. I’d been here before, but it had been years, and I couldn’t remember all the turnoffs. By the time I made it to the lodge that night, it was already after midnight.
‘There was no one behind the desk when I walked in the lobby. It was the middle of the week, the off-season, fall heading into winter. There were only three other cars in the lot. I remember thinking about the last time Carl and I had been up here. Joey was only eighteen months old, and we took a long weekend in early June.
‘When the desk clerk finally showed up, he apologized for keeping me waiting and said if I wanted to pay a little extra he could get me a room with a view. I gave him cash and registered under the name Cindy Farmer – a girl in my kindergarten class, my best friend. Her name just popped into my head. Because I was afraid that if the story Cletus told me really was true, and Carl was coming, he might ask for a room. I didn’t want the clerk asking him if he was with the other Miller who had registered the night before, or noticing that we were using the same credit card account.
‘The next morning I hid my car in a parking lot at the bottom of the mountain. My plan was to hide somewhere up near the bridge, where I could watch and see if Carl actually came. I wasn’t going to say anything or try and confront him. I just wanted to know if Purcell’s story was true.
‘Carl was never a punctual person, but I figured if he was meeting someone like a hit man, he might actually be on time. I left the lodge at five p.m. and started up the trail. I’d forgotten how steep it was. I hadn’t been hiking in years, and my knees were aching halfway through the climb. And I didn’t have any socks. I meant to bring some, but I was a mess that night I left the house. I didn’t even have a jacket. Just my good blazer, the one that went with the skirt I’d worn the night before.
‘When I got to the top of the bridge, I hid behind that boulder where you were standing tonight, on the other side. It’s a perfect place to wait, as I’m sure you already know. By the time I got settled, it was already starting to get dark. I looked out over the mountain watching the sun go down, just like I did tonight.
‘I heard him before I saw him, the slide of stones on the path, footsteps on the rocks. I was huddled down low, looking out from behind the boulder, and the first thing I saw was Carl’s boots. I recognized them. And that’s when I knew for sure it was true. He’d really wanted to have me killed. He was carrying a backpack. He’d brought the money.
‘He kept looking over his shoulder, and from side to side, sometimes even in my direction. A couple of times I thought he’d seen me, then I realized he was just scared. He looked down over the trail behind him a couple of times, then started to come across the bridge.’
I exhale a long slow breath. It is so dark I can barely make out the edges of Harvey’s face. Leo is sitting now, but I can feel his tension and his warmth at my back.
‘All day, alone in my room, I thought that if I actually saw Carl up here, and knew without a shred of doubt that he’d hired someone to kill me, I would fall completely apart.’
‘It wasn’t like that, though, was it?’ Harvey says.
‘Just the opposite. Not knowing for sure was the worst of it. Once there was no doubt at all that Carl had actually done it, that he’d set me and our son up to die, that life as I knew it was over – it was powerful, in a weird kind of way.
‘So I watched him. Wondering how long it would take him to realize that Purcell wasn’t coming. I had this overwhelming urge to talk to him. I just wanted to know if he’d ever really loved me. To know how it could come to this. To know why.’
‘You talked to him?’ Harvey says. ‘That was a mistake.’
‘A big one. I should have waited until he left. I should never have let him know I was there. He was a few feet away from my hiding place, still out on the bridge, when I stood up. He sees me immediately, of course, and freezes.
‘“No, Carl,” I said. “I’m not a ghost.”
‘It was so mundane. I’m dusting off the seat of my jeans, and he’s just standing there, with his mouth open. So I walk toward him, out on to the bridge.
‘“Joy?” He calls my name out, sounding incredulous. His voice drops off at the end. Just for one quick second I wonder if I hear relief. Maybe once Carl thought that I was really dead he had regrets. But no, I tell myself. That’s called denial. Time for me to be smart. I had Joey to look out for. I couldn’t forget about Joey. Carl would have let him die.
‘“Aren’t you going to say hello?” I ask him.
‘“What are you doing up here? Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you.”
‘“Really, Carl? Did you call the police? Report me missing?”
‘“I called … friends.”
‘“What did you tell them?”
‘“Just that we’d had a fight, and I was worried about you.”
‘“But we didn’t have a fight, Carl. Did we?” He seemed afraid of me. I liked the way that felt.
‘“What are you doing here, Joy?”
‘“The question is what are you doing here, Carl?”
‘He shrugged the backpack off his shoulders and let it rest at his feet.
‘“Eleven thousand three hundred dollars in cash is heavy, isn’t it?” I said.
‘After that we were both quiet. There wasn’t any sound up there but the wind.
‘“How did you find out?” he asked me. His voice was flat and weird.
‘The question took my breath away. There was no pretense, no explanation – he was just curious about how I’d found out. That’s when he took a step toward me. That’s when I started to feel afraid.
‘“I have my spies,” I said.
‘That stopped him. “Really?” he said.
‘“I’ve been having you followed, Carl. I hired a private detective. He’s got pictures of you with some tall dark man in a painter’s cap. Pictures of you and your girlfriend. You’d better hope I make it safe and sound down this mountain tonight, if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in jail.”
‘I’d made all that up, of course, but the way he stopped and regrouped, physically, brought it home. I wondered what he’d been going to do – push me off the bridge?
‘“Why, Carl?” I asked him. “Do you hate me that much?”
‘And he shrugged. Like it was no big deal. And he’s happy to explain.
‘“All those donations,” he says, “coming in by the carload, and you take a pissant little salary and give it all away. So I started helping myself, just a little. And then a little more. It got tedious, having to be so careful, and I knew that sooner or later you were going to find out. And we know what a straight arrow you are, don’t we, Joy? You’d want to ferret out every last cent and put it all back. Make restitution to the all-important Joy Miller Ministries. Who knows, you might even have turned me in.”
‘“What money?” I asked him. It stunned me, that there was more to this, that it wasn’t just the eleven thousand that was missing, that there were still things I didn’t know.
‘He stared at me, and then he smirked. “Don’t play dumb, Joy. All your little hints and jokes about my secret accounts, all your fussing and fuming and wondering where all our money was going.”
‘“I take it then that you didn’t lose the retirement money selling short on the stock market.”
‘“No, dear. And I haven’t paid the mortgage or the car payments or the IRS for the last three months. All those times they called? And I told you there was an account screw up? And you believed me?”
‘And suddenly I became a tornado. I attacked him, punch
ing his stomach, his shoulders, kicking him as hard as I could. He swore and pushed me away. I slapped him and his glasses came off his face.’
I stop for a moment, catch my breath. ‘It’s so stupid, you know, the way these things happen.’
‘Go on.’ Harvey is patient. ‘What happened next?’
‘Carl grabbed for the glasses and lost his balance. He fell. Backwards over the edge of the bridge. And no, before you ask, I didn’t push him.’
‘And then?’
‘I screamed. He screamed too. And then I was the only one screaming. I could hear it echoing down the mountain. And then I stopped screaming and it got very quiet.’
‘Then why all the guilt, Joy? He lost his balance and fell off the bridge and died. He was dead then, right?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know when he died.’ I put a hand on Leo’s head and he licks the inside of my wrist. ‘I felt dizzy and I was afraid I was going to fall too, so I sat down. I didn’t scream anymore. I didn’t cry. I just listened.’ I take a breath. I need a moment. Harvey is quiet, patient, which is just what I need.
‘I’d left my flashlight behind the rocks where I was hiding. So I hung on to the side and peered over the edge. It was dark by then, and even shining my flashlight later I couldn’t find him, couldn’t see where he fell. I didn’t think there was any way he could have survived a fall like that, but there was no way I could be sure.’
‘You left him,’ Harvey says flatly.
‘My first instinct was to go down to the lodge and get help. I grabbed the backpack, and it was so heavy. I opened it, I couldn’t stand not to see. And sure enough, it was full of money. And that started me thinking. Because how was I going to explain all this, me being up on that bridge with Carl? Even if I ditched the backpack or hid it in my room, how would I explain being registered under the name Cindy Farmer? And I started to add everything up.
‘I’d told my friend, the one I left Joey with, that I thought Carl was having an affair. Which, as it turns out, he was. My cousin Marsha would tell them about the missing money. What kind of proof did I have that Carl was taking it? What if they thought it was me? If Carl hadn’t paid the bills in three months, that was going to set off all kinds of alarms. Especially since we’d just taken out a big insurance policy, which in hindsight, he was obviously planning to cash in.
‘What was I going to say? That I was warned by a hit man that Carl had hired him to kill me? That the hit man had a change of heart? I wouldn’t have believed it, and I didn’t think Cletus would come forward and say “yes, I’m a hit man, but I’m currently trying to reform.”
‘I’d counseled enough families through domestic crisis to have a certain experience with the police and how their minds work. Stay within the bounds of the norm, do what’s expected, and usually there won’t be any problems. Drive a nice car, live in a nice house, dress well – you get judged by those things. But behavior out of the box like this? Not a chance. And once that legal ball was rolling there would be no stopping it. I wasn’t going to take the fall when I’d been the victim. It was as simple a decision as that. I decided to do the smart thing, instead of the right thing.
‘I left him there. I strapped the pack of money to my back and hiked back down that mountain. Crawled, actually, is more like it. It took hours, in the dark, with just a flashlight. Then I went to my room, packed up my stuff, threw some towels on the floor and rumpled the bed so it would look like I’d spent the night. I’d paid cash in advance so I left the keycard on the dresser.
‘I was home, waiting, when the police came. And they told me that Carl had taken his own life, by jumping off Natural Bridge.’
FORTY-FIVE
I can hear Harvey breathing steadily, though he hasn’t said a word. I reach behind me and stroke Leo’s head.
‘Look, I have something for you, too. Something for you to read.’
I sense his motion rather than see it. He turns on a flashlight and shows me a worn book, four inches by six, stained, baby blue.
‘It’s a diary,’ he says. ‘Did you bring the picture I sent you?’
I nod, take it out of Leo’s saddle pack. Hold it up to the light. ‘Our mothers knew each other,’ I say.
‘Not exactly.’ He points. ‘Me. Mom.’ His fingertip touches the swollen belly of his mother. ‘And you. Yes. She was pregnant with you in this picture.’
I catch my breath. ‘Me?’
‘Her name was Cecily Jenkins and she was my mom. We have different fathers, Joy, but Cecily Jenkins was our mom. Look, she wrote you a letter. I’ve got it right here.’ He opens the diary to a dogeared page and holds it up to the light.
Dear Little Girl, I write this to tell you how much I love you, now that you are gone. And to remind myself that the decision I made was wise. But oh, little baby. I did not know how hard this would be.
I picture you reading this someday, when you’re all grown up and beautiful. If your mother and father choose to tell you the circumstances of your birth.
I was an unwed mother at the age of fifteen. I will say little of Reggie’s father, only these two things. One, he had no desire to marry me. And two, I have no regrets. I could not be sorry for what happened when it gave me my little boy.
Your grandparents did not see it that way, and when I refused to go to a home and give Reggie up, I was no longer welcome in their house. And so I married rather quickly. Rather unwisely as well. Little girl, your father is a dangerous man.
He is more cruel than you can imagine to my little son, and please, I do not want you to imagine it or think of such things. I only want you to know that I have made my plans for the best of reasons – to keep both of my children safe.
I do not think little Reggie and I would be alive today if not for my brother, Henry. You will know him as your father, my dear.
Henry was only seventeen when I was kicked out of the house. We kept in touch, in secret. Henry worked a paper route all year round, and selling Burpee seeds in the summer. He gave me every cent that he earned. And it was Henry who appeared on my doorstep less than one year ago, to take me and Reggie away while my husband worked a long shift laying brick.
Little girl, your father suspected my pregnancy, no matter how hard I tried to convince him otherwise. I knew that you, and your brother and I would never be safe in this world if he had another child to hold over me.
So when Henry came, we disappeared.
When my labor pains began, the night that you were born, it was Henry who took me to the hospital. I checked in under the name of his wife, Marion. By then Henry had been married for two years.
Oh, little baby girl, Marion is the best sister to me. You went home, perfectly legally, as her child and Henry’s, because it was the only way I could keep you safe. Because he hunts for me, your father. I don’t know what would happen if he found me with you. It is bad enough for me and Reggie. He can never know that you exist.
As much as I want to keep you close to me, it seems this was meant to be. Henry is convinced that the mumps he had at thirteen made him unable to father any children, and it is true that in the time he has been married, Marion has not been able to conceive. And not for a lack of trying, is what Henry always says!
So now, please understand that I love you enough to keep you safe. Please know that I am proud to be your mother, and that you have brought me, and Henry and Marion, nothing but absolute joy.
If I have any doubts, it is this last line that convinces me. Harvey reaches to touch my shoulder, then changes his mind.
‘And that’s why they named me Joy?’ I say.
‘Be grateful they didn’t call you Absolute.’
I am laughing. With hysterical overtones.
Harvey takes the diary and tucks it back in his shirt. ‘I wanted you to know. So you wouldn’t be afraid of me all the time. So you could believe me when I say I would never hurt you.’
‘But why didn’t my father go and get you when your mother was killed? Why didn’t he raise you wit
h me?’
‘You mean Henry? My uncle? Because after your biological father murdered my mother, his parents came and got me. They found him the next day, by the way, with her blood all over his shirt. Drunk. Idiot. But I was legally, if not biologically, his son. At the time, I wasn’t aware of any of this. I don’t remember it, to be honest. I just remember growing up in their house.
‘But they had the diary. Our mother’s diary that she wrote. I found it in a box of her stuff up in the attic. They used to lock me up there all the time, and sometimes I’d get bored and go through all the stuff. I was eleven years old when I found our mother’s diary.
‘It was a dream come true, at first. My father wasn’t my father, and my evil grandparents weren’t my blood. I confronted them. As it turns out, your dad – Henry, I mean – did try to come and get me, but the grandparents wouldn’t allow it. They blackmailed him. They said that his daughter, you, had been born while Mom was married to their son, and that he and his sister and his wife had committed fraud. They said if he didn’t leave me there they’d take you away from him as well. He wasn’t allowed to have any contact with me, or they’d take him to court. And they said they could prove you weren’t really his daughter because they knew he was sterile and could never have fathered a child.’
‘That’s horrible. They were horrible.’
‘Oh, I made them sorry. For the sake of my mother, and for me, and for you. Sorry enough that they dumped me in foster care. They made sure that I could never be adopted and that I got labeled really well. So I went straight to a couple by the name of Herman, who specialized in boys like me.’
‘And that’s how you met Cletus Purcell. You were foster brothers.’
‘That’s right. I knew, of course, that I had a sister somewhere. I read about the car accident that killed your parents. Marion and Henry. You were what, about twenty when they died?’
‘Nineteen. But why didn’t you come to us then? After you got sent to the Hermans’?’
Harvey rubs his forehead. ‘I got told to leave it alone. Same deal as your dad. Then later, when I read about your parents’ accident in the paper, I knew it had to be the Marion and Henry who were my aunt and uncle. That’s when I tracked you down. I used to watch your show, did you know that? I didn’t tell anybody you were my sister, not even Cletus, but I was pretty proud. And then one day Clete comes to me and says there’s rumors of a hit out on evangelist Joy Miller. He’d been with me long enough to know I’d been following your career. My weird obsession, is what he called it. Cletus worked a lot of jobs that were murder for hire. He was a hit man for years. You’d be surprised to know how good certain kinds of bars are for drumming up the hit man kind of business.
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