by AJ Powers
The whole thing was emotionally tolling on Kelsey, and she nearly lost it when she saw a picture of a little girl, not much older than Dakota, pasted onto a piece of paper. A note below the picture dated two years after the eruptions simply read:
My dearest Julia,
I will never forget you. I will never stop loving you. For you made me a better person. Rest in peace, my child.
Love always,
Mom
The tears poured from Kelsey’s eyes, and she tried to catch her breath. She struggled to keep herself from falling apart. Clay walked by her as if she wasn’t even there, further adding to her distress. By the time Clay had reached the front, Megan and the kids had already sat down, filling most of the front row of chairs, leaving the two back rows vacant.
He walked up some steps on the side of the stage and moved to be centered with the chairs on the floor. He looked terrible. He looked frail, like he hadn’t eaten in weeks, and his eyes screamed of defeat. He glanced over at Kelsey and cleared his throat, an invitation of sorts for her to take a seat.
Kelsey sat in the back row, putting distance between her and the grieving family. She looked up at Clay and mouthed, “Thank you.” She wasn’t sure why she was thanking him. Perhaps, it was because Clay gave her time to settle into her chair, or maybe it was because Clay loved her…or at least, he had loved her. She wasn’t sure anymore. The thought exacerbated her grief.
“I have been thinking the past few days on what I would say to you all about Charlie,” Clay said as he struggled to maintain eye contact with his audience. “The fact is, I don’t have any words of my own.”
He stopped for a moment and looked down. His lip quivered as he wrestled with his emotions. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. Holding it up, Clay said, “I don’t have any words of my own because I have a letter from my father that contains every word I need to describe Charlie.”
Clay clumsily opened the envelope and reached for the paper inside. His hands were shaking profusely, turning a simple task into a challenge. Success followed, and he unfolded the single page, handwritten letter and skimmed over it.
The letter was written to Clay on his 13th birthday, only three months before the Cascadia fault line ripped. His dad had to work a double, but when Clay woke up, he saw a rifle leaning up next to his door with a red bow tied to the barrel. Taped to the side of the receiver was the letter he was preparing to read now.
Clay skipped over the personal salutation and got straight to the heart of it two paragraphs down:
“It is my deepest desire that you would become a great man. Not a man defined by our culture or by other men, but by our Creator. A man who is not remembered for his might, but,” Clay paused for a moment as his eyes welled up, “by his sacrificial love.”
Clay cleared his throat and continued, his voice stronger and deeper than before. “A righteous man is not remembered for the clothes he wore, but by how he wore himself. A righteous man is not remembered for his temper, but by his patience. A righteous man is not remembered for the woman he married, but by the husband he was. A righteous man is not remembered for his possessions, but by his charity.
“My son, each day the world grows darker. Things once called evil are now considered good, and things once good, now evil. We are told every day that we should live for ourselves; do what makes us happy. We are to be worshipers of self. Do not fall for these lies. A good man will put others first. A good man will give more than he takes.”
Clay slowly lowered his arm down by his side, the piece of paper dangled between his finger and thumb. He continued from memory, “We live in perilous times, but I fear the storm is yet to come. I pray in earnest that you would hold firm, even in your darkest hour. That you would not be discouraged or dismayed. I am proud of the man you are becoming, and I have no doubts about the man you will become.”
Clay raised his arm, placing the letter above his head, “This letter was written to me, but it was written about Charlie.” He folded the letter back up but kept it out of the envelope. “Even at such a young age, Charlie was a man. A good man. He lived to serve others. He desired to protect his family, and that’s what he did. It’s what he gave his life doing.”
Cries echoed around the large room as Clay hopped down from the stage and walked over to a specific section of the wall. He stopped when he spotted a picture of his mother holding Emily right after she was born. There were pictures and other mementoes all around from the Whitaker family, both blood and adopted. A painful reminder of the storm his father had warned him about—a storm they were still enduring.
Clay tacked the letter to the wall just beneath a picture of Colleen. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a top. It was the only thing that got Charlie to laugh after Clay found him. Charlie would spin it on the kitchen table and let it drop to the floor. It was his favorite toy for many years, and even as recently as last month, Clay watched him spin it in his room.
Clay knelt down and placed the top amongst the other tokens the family had brought over the years to immortalize the departed. He stood up and stepped aside as the others followed suit. Some brought toys; others brought drawings they had made. They each whispered some sort of goodbye and moved out of the way for the next.
All eyes looked to Kelsey who was at the end of the line. She walked up and observed the little slice of the wall that made up the family memorial. “Goodbye, Charlie,” she said with her head lowered. She walked past the family and stood next to Clay.
They left the rec center and returned home. Nobody spoke a word the entire walk. It was almost painfully awkward. Kelsey wanted nothing more than to embrace Clay, to comfort him and hold him all day. Yet, she still couldn’t even get him to talk to her. Her heart was breaking in more ways than one.
Clay opened the door to the garage, and Megan stopped at the door as the kids went inside. “I’ll see you up there in a little bit,” she said as she glanced over at Kelsey who was standing a few feet away.
He shut his eyes and sighed. He dropped his shoulders and nodded. “Okay.”
The door clicked shut; Clay turned around to look at Kelsey. He folded his arms and leaned against the door. His mouth opened a couple of times in an attempt to start the conversation, but he couldn’t find his voice.
Kelsey walked over to him, her eyes locked to his. She could see it now. Betrayal. When she reached him, she put an arm on his waist and the other on his shoulder. She looked longingly into his eyes and gave him a gentle kiss. Clay wanted to fight it, he tried to fight it, but her compassionate touch disarmed him. He was worried perhaps it had disarmed him too much.
Wanting to respect his distance after the short embrace, she took a few steps back. “What happened?” she asked hoping this time he would tell her the whole story.
Clay took a deep breath and sluggishly exhaled. The kiss calmed him down enough that he was no longer angry. Now, he just wanted to know if it was her. He needed to know the truth. Her kiss reminded him that he still loved her, and even if she had told Watson, he could forgive her with time. At least, he wanted to believe he could.
“Does the name Silas ring a bell?” he asked.
She grimaced and looked down at the ground. Just mentioning his name was enough for her to know what happened. It also explained all the fuss around Doc’s office the week before. She just figured a trading party got attacked during their travels.
“Well?” Clay said with a little edge in his voice.
She nodded her head. “Yeah. It does. He’s one of Watson’s men. A mercenary or something, I suppose.”
“A mercenary?”
“Jeremy’s made some vague comments about him in the past. From what I gather, he and his men live on the other side of the ranch, and most days just go out scavenging, giving Watson some of the cut as payment for living on his property.”
“That doesn’t sound like a merc. That sounds like pretty much every person living within a community nowadays,” Clay retorted.<
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“Well,” she went on, “I know of at least one incident in the past where a group Watson was involved with had started scamming him. I don’t know all the details, but apparently it had been going on for the better part of a year. So, once Watson found out…” she trailed off.
“Watson sent Silas and his men?” Clay finished her sentence.
“That’s what Jeremy told me, but he had been drinking so I didn’t pay much attention to it,” she added.
Clay wasn’t sure why, but the fact she brought up Jeremy made him uncomfortable. Perhaps the discomfort was more from the next question that he had to ask. “Did you tell anyone? Jeremy?”
“Did I tell anyone what?” she replied.
“Where we live! Did you tell anyone where we live?” Clay shouted, causing Kelsey to cower. His anger had returned tenfold, but it was against his wishes. One minute, he loved her; the next, he was so mad he couldn’t see straight. He was an emotional wreck.
“No!” she fired back, “Of course not, Clay. I would never do that to you! I know how important it is that the less people know about you, the better. I would never tell anyone where you lived.” She tried to shake off the verbal lashing Clay had just dished out and keep her composure. She reached for his hand, but he quickly withdrew.
As soon as his hand had withdrawn, Clay reached back out and grabbed her arm, pulling her over to him. His tight embrace was both comforting and devastating at the same time. He sobbed inconsolably while they stood just outside the garage door. Charlie’s death, the emotional toll it was having on the family, the prospect of moving out of the tower, not to mention the everyday worries he faced—the burdens had finally become too much for him to bear. He broke down.
Kelsey had never heard a man weep so loudly before. It grieved her deeply, and she would have done anything to take his pain away. All she could do, however, was to be there for him. Despite everything going on, she couldn’t help but feel delighted to actually have somebody to be there for. Which is why it was all the more crushing when she heard Clay say, “I can’t do this. I-I just can’t be around you right now.”
She looked up at him, pain shot across her expression. “What? What do you mean?”
“It’s just too hard right now,” he said clearly and stepped back, making himself cold and uninviting to her. “I want to believe you had nothing to do with this. The fact is, I think I do believe you, but you are, and forever will be, connected to Watson. I just can’t deal with that right now.” He stopped for a second as he wrestled with himself. He didn’t want to say it, but he did. “So please, just leave.”
“Clay, please! Let me be there for you.” She grabbed his hand, but he aggressively broke her grip, sending her arm swinging back towards her. “Please!” she said reaching for his hand again, this time successfully.
He gently squeezed her hand, then pulled away. “Just go.” With his back still to the door, he reached behind and turned the handle. The door popped open an inch, and he moved out of the way as he opened it up. “I want you to know, Kelsey, that I did truly love you. I would have died for you…”
Did. It was amazing the devastation that could be caused by changing the tense of a single word.
“Take care, Kelsey.”
The door closed.
Chapter 28
Kelsey arrived home late that evening. The trip back home took much longer than the journey there earlier that morning. The trip there was filled with excitement, hope, and a fervent heart. But grief, anger, and despair had accompanied her home.
The gate to the ranch opened up. It was guarded by a young man wearing a cowboy hat and chewing on a piece of hay. “Howdy, ma’am,” he said tipping his hat with a finger. His name was Toby, he was 15 and was born in Cincinnati, a far cry from a Texas farmer before ending up on Watson’s ranch. Yet, there he was, fitting every aspect of the stereotype.
“Thank you,” Kelsey said, as she passed through the gate.
The young man promptly shut and locked the entrance and returned to his post a few feet away.
Kelsey started walking home when a persistent nag convinced her to take a detour by Jeremy’s house. It was Tuesday night, which meant it was poker night and that he would be home. She prayed that Watson, who on occasion would partake in the gambling, wouldn’t be there.
She tried to convince herself to just go home. She thought about a hot cup of tea and a warm bed to crawl into. She envisioned Dakota’s sincere smile followed by a series of hugs and kisses as she walked through the door. Though her head was telling her to turn around, her feet kept moving forward.
The muffled sounds of a half dozen men playing poker, and likely drinking anything fermented, grew louder as she approached the house. She stepped onto the rickety porch and knocked on the door.
For a moment the laughter and noise continued, but then then she heard footsteps approach. Jeremy opened the door, snickering at a joke one of the men had made moments before.
“Kelsey?” Jeremy said with a surprised expression. “What are you doing here?”
Kelsey had the appearance of an orphan begging for food. She had her hands in her jacket pockets and was barely able to make eye contact with him. Her eyes were slightly swollen: the streaks of tears were evident by the lighter shades of skin on her cheeks where the dirt had washed away.
“Can we talk?” she asked.
Jeremy turned around and looked back inside and then back out at Kelsey. “Uhhh, yeah sure,” he said turning around again. “Hey guys, deal me out for a couple of hands. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Grumbles and groans erupted from crass men who all looked like they had started working before dawn. Jeremy waved his hand at the rowdy group and walked out the door.
They headed towards a pond a few hundred yards away, no houses around, and except for the occasional fishermen pulling in a couple of perch for the store to sell, there was usually nobody around.
Neither one had spoken a word since they left Jeremy’s porch. The silence was uncomfortable for both. As they approached the pond, Jeremy finally broke the silence. “What’s wrong, Kelsey?”
Kelsey didn’t respond at first, she just looked out over the water and watched as the wind blew ripples across the surface, disrupting the indistinct glow of the moon. It was mesmerizing.
“I saw Clay today.”
“Oh,” he said. His expression was guilt-ridden. “How’s the kid doing?”
Kelsey glared at him. “How did you know?”
“Well, Clay came here looking for medicine, and he mentioned one of the kids had been hurt pretty badly,” he said, his voice unsteady.
Her glare evolved into a look of spite. She clenched her jaw and sighed deeply through her nose. “Do you know what happened?” she asked pointedly.
Jeremy nodded. “Yeah.”
Her eyes remained locked on him, though he avoided her scowl. She shook her head and in one swift motion raised her hand and slapped Jeremy’s cheek with such a force she was certain she heard it echo off the distant trees.
Jeremy rocked his jaw side to side in an effort to shake off the surprisingly powerful blow. He brought his hand to his face and tried to rub the throb away. “I know you think I had some part in this, but I want you to know that I did not,” he said.
She raised her hand again. “Liar!” she hissed and swung again, this time Jeremy dodged her attack.
“Kelsey!” he said firmly, but quietly, “Watson didn’t tell me a thing until after it happened.”
Kelsey wasn’t buying it.
“Look, I know you don’t believe me,” he said as if he was reading her mind, “but I swear to you, I had no idea that Watson was going to send Silas out there. If I had, I never would have told him where Clay lived.” He instantly wished he could have put the words back into his mouth.
“How did you know where he lived?” she asked, anger surging through her voice.
“Well, uh,” he stumbled over his words. He took a step back to avoid another attac
k. “A few weeks ago, Clay came here looking to trade for some food. The whole deal went south, so Clay left. That’s when he ran into you and invited you over to his place. I heard the whole conversation, so I followed you two back.” Jeremy sighed with regret. “I’m sorry, Kelsey, I let my feelings for you cloud my judgment.”
“So you told Watson?”
“It’s my job,” he said with genuine remorse.
Kelsey was writhing with ire, but she did not raise her hand. She was worried if she tried to strike him again, she would not be able to control her rage and would likely end up on the losing side of the skirmish. Her head was muddled with so many emotions she could only think of one response. Flee.
She turned and started to walk away when Jeremy grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “Wait!” he said.
She tugged her arm to try and break his grip but was unable to. “Get your hands off of me,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Not until you know something,” he said as he eased his grip, but not enough to free herself. “I know you think that I am some crazy, obsessive creep that saw Clay as a threat.”
She shot him a scornful look confirming that was exactly what she thought.
“The truth of the matter is, I did see him as a threat. Every time I saw you two together, I just wanted to go up and slug the guy. He had stolen you away from me, and there are few better reasons to hate a man than that.”
Kelsey shook her head. “I thought you were trying to convince me that you weren’t involved with the attack.”