They’d never returned to Ohio after the girls were born. Will had asked many times, but Maria had always found an excuse to get out of it. She’d been so selfish. It would have meant so much to him to take his daughters to see the gravestone of his mother and sister, the grandmother and aunt they would never get to meet. She’d add it to the list of deeds she’d promise to keep when she made it back to them.
The entrance to the trailer park was different now. It greeted Maria with a scattering of sad, faded tulips, remnants of years gone by, when a manager once considered sprucing up the place. Row upon row of trailers, distinguishable only by the extent of their dilapidation, lined the litter-filled dead-end streets. Maria eased the car to a stop beside a block of mailboxes, her mind spinning through plans and strategies. Twelve hours and eight hundred miles had brought her to that moment, but there she sat, exhausted, helpless, and out of ideas. How could she find her husband if she didn’t even know where to look?
3:24 P.M.
She’d been sitting by the mailboxes for over an hour when a pack of after-school kids started making its way across the parking lot. With backpacks slung over their shoulders and jackets dragging the ground, they passed by her car like a swarm of bees, far too busy to notice the strange girl with slouched shoulders sitting in the driver’s seat. They were a sea of unfamiliar faces, and while she’d never even seen a photo of her husband in his youth, she knew he was not among them.
The crowd thinned to a trickle as one or two lone students crossed her path, and by the time she could see the last boy approaching, her confidence was waning. There was something familiar about that last boy, though, and while she couldn’t see his face from the distance, there was no doubt in her mind it was Will. It was something about the way he walked. The way his shoulders were pulled back and his head held high, the unmistakable confidence he carried, which was reserved for so few teenagers, Maria couldn’t remember any from her own childhood.
Will had once described himself as a loner in high school, but she’d never really understood the meaning of his words before that moment. He wasn’t the picture of the awkward, ostracized kid his words had painted for her. He was the independent, self-assured teenager who would transition seamlessly into adulthood well before his time. Maria watched her husband in awe, grateful to have been given this gift, never before understanding the boy that had made him into the man she loved.
Her pulse quickened as he neared, her grip on the door handle slipping from the moisture of her palm as she sat in restless anticipation. He didn’t notice her as he walked in front of the car. He didn’t smile or wave or even nod in her direction. In one swift movement, he unlocked his mailbox, removed the contents, and turned to pass by her again, not an ounce of recognition on his face.
Maria’s fingers trembled as she slid them from the handle and watched her husband walk away from the car and toward a fate that would bring him back to her. She’d come all this way to see him, but the devil on her shoulder wouldn’t allow her to move. It held her to the seat, knowing her weaknesses and whispering into her ear that she didn’t have to do it. She didn’t have to face her husband today, because he didn’t have to know whether she’d made the trip or not. All she had to do was drive away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“WILL.”
The name passed over her lips with an aching familiarity as Maria pulled herself from the car. The boy standing before her had the same cobalt blue eyes she’d spent the past fifteen years gazing into, but when he smiled, it was the cordial smile of a stranger.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” she said, but Will only laughed. It was an uncomfortable, on-the-spot laugh that she’d never been audience to, and as they watched each other through the silence, it was clear that he wasn’t expecting her.
“Do we go to school together?” he said, but Maria just shook her head, unable to speak, for fear her words would reduce her to tears.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” she finally said, and Will hesitated before pointing to a row of trailers behind them.
“I have to take the mail home and drop off my backpack, but you can come with me if you want.”
Over the background noise of dribbling basketballs and screaming children, Maria walked by Will’s side, the urge to take his hand and touch his skin so great that she had to force her own hands into her pockets. She’d never imagined her husband as the boy who walked beside her now. He’d never told her about the earring that was poking out from his earlobe or the mop of hair that fell to his shoulders or the gold chain that hung around his neck. They were immaterial things, but pieces of a history she’d never been a part of. Was this what he wanted her to see? This version of him?
“So how do I know you if you’re not from here?” When he sneaked a sideways glance in Maria’s direction, she blushed under his gaze.
“We used to go to school together.”
Her words drifted away as they arrived at a weed-lined walkway that led to the front door of a run-down trailer. With tentative steps, she followed him past a lawn of thistles, where neglected and rusted-out toys from seasons past lay scattered like the bones of half-buried skeletons. They both ducked their heads beneath the shredded awning over the porch, where a pair of mismatched and corroded chairs were balanced beside each other. Maria was overwhelmed with guilt as she thought of the azaleas in her mother’s garden, and of the beautiful home she’d left just that morning, and of all the luxuries she’d been afforded in life. She’d never imagined her husband had grown up in a home with so few.
“You can come in,” he said, easing the front door open and casting a hesitant glance back at her before stepping through the doorway. “I don’t think anyone’s home.”
It was a cavernous box of a house, the inside blanketed by a darkness so thick that her movements were arduous and slow. It was no place for a child.
“Shut the damn door.”
The voice that rumbled from the man on the couch was coarse and gruff, and the baseball hat that covered his face was stained with sweat and dirt, but it was him. It was the stepfather she’d never met, the man who’d ruined her husband’s life, the man who’d been rotting in prison for almost a decade before she and Will met. Her mind was telling her to run, compelling her to make her escape, but she couldn’t seem to force her legs to move. Instead, she watched with a sick fascination as he slithered from the couch and slicked his grease-caked hair back.
“Well,” he said to Maria, sliding his cap onto his head. “Who do we have here?”
His breath was rancid and stale from the combination of cheap whiskey and cigarettes, and as she waited to be rescued from the man her husband had despised his entire adult life, reality delivered a blow she was ill-prepared to handle.
“Dad, this is…” Will’s words drifted away as he stared at Maria, not even knowing her name, ignorant of the fact that she was once his wife and the mother of his children and that they had once loved more deeply than most couples do in a lifetime.
“Maria,” she whispered. “I’m Maria.”
The sticky warmth of his stepfather’s hand as he pressed it into hers stirred up the memories of a nightmare that was now becoming her reality, and she couldn’t shake the image of the bruises that had covered Beth’s pallid skin. She glanced down at his hands, the same hands that had wrapped themselves around Beth’s neck as they stole her last breath.
“Maria’s a friend from school,” Will said.
“I see,” the man replied, squeezing her hand with a wink. “She’s prettier than the other one you’ve been bringing around.”
His eyes swept over her body like a predator sizing up his prey, and through her nausea, Maria forced herself to smile. She forced herself to pretend that she didn’t know what he was doing to his eight-year-old daughter behind the doors of that wretched trailer.
“It’s not like that, Dad. We’re just friends.” Will set the mail on the kitchen counter and dropped his backpack onto the floor, mo
tioning for Maria to join him as he headed toward the door. “I’ll be back in a little bit.”
The screen door slammed behind them, and the glare of the sun burned into her eyes as they made their way across the porch. The pressure in her chest finally lifted, but nothing could quell the nausea in her gut. There was a monster in the trailer, and Maria would have to rely on him, that child molester and murderer, if she was to return to her husband and children.
“Can you wait for me here?” Will was standing at the edge of the stairs, checking his watch before glancing down the street. “I have to run to the bus stop, but I’ll be back in less than five minutes.”
Maria’s eyes flashed to the door separating her from the man inside, but she turned back just in time to see Will bounding down the stairs, two at a time, and abandoning her beside the rusted chairs on the front porch. His stepfather’s presence burned into her back like a searing flame, and she was almost too afraid to move. She stood motionless, like an awkward statue, her breaths shallow and her eyes unmoving as she struggled to blend in with the scenery around her. The psychiatrist in her yearned to know the hows and whys of that man’s actions, but the mother in her was far too angry to approach him rationally.
It could have been a minute or it could have been an hour before Will finally turned the corner at the end of the street. It took her a moment to recognize the little girl from the faded snapshot, skipping toward the trailer, edging closer to her destiny. Maria had never pictured her so alive. She’d never imagined that Beth would be so real, that her hair would bounce when she ran, or that she wouldn’t bother tying her shoelaces when they came undone. What would Will do if he knew the real danger his little sister was facing? Did he know that stumbling over untied shoelaces couldn’t compare to the horror lurking behind their door?
The stairs creaked as Maria took them one by one, watching the pair approach hand in hand. She met them at the edge of the ragged lawn and knelt down in front of the little girl, oblivious to the gravel that was driving into her knees. The cobalt eyes that stared back at her were more vibrant and alive than she ever could have imagined, and as she wrapped her arms around the little girl’s delicate shoulders, Beth leaned in with a hug that almost knocked her off balance. The scent of bubblegum shampoo wafted through the air around them as Maria pulled her close.
“Beth,” she said. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”
The little girl smiled up at her, her laughter floating through the air around them, and hugged her back as if she’d been waiting for her to show up, as if she’d known all along that Maria would never let her down.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
BETH SPUN OUT OF CONTROL ON the old, rickety roundabout, her hair defying gravity as shrieks of joy hit them like the wails of a siren. They’d done this before, Will and Maria—sat on a park bench and watched a little girl lose herself in fun. It was a beautiful and agonizing memory, and when she looked at Will’s face, she could almost believe he was sharing it with her. He hadn’t questioned her about who she was, or what she was doing there, or why she was so insistent that Beth join them. He just seemed to be enjoying her company.
“There are so many things I’d like to talk to you about, Will.” When she looked over at him, she was thrown off by the smile on his face. It was the same smile he’d worn over the course of their fifteen-year marriage, likely the same one he’d be wearing twenty years from now. “I can tell you’re trying not to laugh about something,” she said. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head and turned away, unable to mask the crooked smile.
“Come on. I know that look. Just tell me.”
“It’s nothing,” he laughed. “I just think it’s funny that you call me Will.”
“What do you mean? That’s your name.”
“Nobody calls me Will. I go by William.”
It was such a trivial thing, Will or William, but hearing that piece of her husband’s history cut more deeply than seemed possible. What else didn’t she know? What other bits of her husband’s life had she been too busy to learn about him? “I thought you’d always gone by Will.”
“It’s okay. I kind of like it that you call me Will.” He shrugged and kicked at the stones beneath his feet. “So how do you really know me? I have a feeling we never went to school together.”
“Not yet.” Her eyes followed Beth as the little girl ran from the roundabout to the swing set. “But I know a lot of things about you. And your sister.” She hesitated before she continued. “I had a dream about her, not too long ago.”
“A dream?” Will glanced at his sister, who was draped over a swing on her belly, her hair hanging between her dangling arms as she dragged her feet over the gravel. “What do you mean?”
“Do you believe that people visit us in our dreams?”
“Not really,” he mumbled. “But I guess I’ve never really thought about it.”
In all the years she had spent with her husband, she never could have imagined the words that were coming from his mouth. She couldn’t have imagined there was ever a version of him that didn’t believe with every fiber of his being that the people we love visit us in our dreams, and as she thought about the man he would be in twenty years or thirty years, she wondered what he would say to her. If Maria could give him the option, would he let his sister die to keep his family together? Who would he choose?
I know how hard it will be, but I need you to be the strong one.
The words hit her like a wave she hadn’t been expecting, sending her tumbling through the surf, not knowing up from down and wondering if she would ever come up for breath again. Will couldn’t choose. He’d sent Maria to Ohio to see the little girl whose life was in the balance, because she deserved a fair fight, too. But he couldn’t be the one to choose. He would love her either way, she was sure of it, but could she ever love herself again if she let Beth die? Could she even live with herself?
Maria watched her flying through the air and waving from the swings. Beth deserved more than she’d been given in life. She deserved to be a child and to be protected. She deserved the same things that Maria wanted for her own children: safety and laughter and love. And as she thought about all the reasons she wanted to let that little girl go, she knew she could never do it. She knew she was there to save her. On some level, she must have known what she would do when she got to that point. She must have known that she would free her husband from the nightmares that haunted his sleep, that she would allow her children to grow up with a mother who wouldn’t have to leave, and that she would say good-bye.
But how could she do it? There was no amount of finesse that could make it easier to bear. The words she was about to say would change Will’s life forever, and once she voiced them, there was no taking them back. She fidgeted with the sleeve of her shirt, trying to pull it over her scar as she worked up the courage.
“Beth’s father is doing things to her,” she said, blurting out the words before she lost her courage. “Sexual things. And if you don’t stop him, he’s going to end up killing her. Tomorrow.”
And there it was, like falling through the air, like the moment twelve-year-old Maria first jumped off Chimney Rock into the frigid lake below. One minute she’d been standing on the side of the cliff, her stomach churning as she peered over the edge and willed herself to take the plunge. And the next minute she’d been shrouded in weightlessness as time stood still, her decision behind her but the consequences still to come. There was no going back. Once you were falling through the air, it couldn’t be undone.
Maria watched the boy beside her through the silence. It was one of the few times in her life when she couldn’t read his emotions. His eyes were too full of sorrow for it to be anger, but his words, when they finally came out, were venomous.
“Who do you think you are? I don’t even know you, and you show up at my house and accuse my dad of molesting my little sister?”
“He’s not your dad,” Maria said. “He’s
just a guy who moved in with your mom when he was down on his luck and stayed because no one else would take him. And you’ve hated him for it since the moment he showed up. The only good thing he ever did was bring your sister into the world, but there’s a part of you that knows the truth about him and Beth. What he’s been doing to her for the past year.”
“That’s enough.” Will’s hand shot up between them as he sprang from the bench, his patience pushed to the limit. “I think you should go.”
“You have to listen to me,” she pleaded. “I can’t tell you how I know this. I’m not even sure I understand it. But I know things about you and your family that are impossible for anyone to know.”
He stepped over the worn grass in front of the bench, his feet pacing restlessly as he glared back at her. She was about to lose him. She’d had fifteen years to learn every success, every failure, and every secret her husband ever had, yet there she sat, unable to remember even one, and she was about to lose him.
“Wait,” she said, reaching for his arm before he could walk away. “When you were four years old you overheard your mom tell a friend that she wished she’d never had you.” His feet stilled, but the suspicion in his eyes didn’t fade, and as he stood above her, staring at her fingers pressing into the skin of his arm, she could see that her words were reaching him. “She said it would have made her life so much easier if she’d just had an abortion, and you could never forgive her for that.” When he stepped forward, Maria released the grip on his arm and let her hand fall away. “And then, a few years later, when Beth was born and your stepdad didn’t want you around anymore, she sent you to live with your grandmother. But you knew you had to get back to Beth because, in your mind, it had always been your job to protect her. You were only ten.”
She Wouldn't Change a Thing Page 23