Redemption Lake

by Susan Clayton-Goldner

  When Matt returned, Travis sat on the floor in his mother’s bedroom, taping boxes together. He stared up at Matt in silence, studying him intently as if trying to see into his brain. “You’re hiding something.”

  For a moment, Matt wondered if the secrets sitting in the pit of his stomach had a smell, if Travis could detect them each time Matt entered the room. He glanced at Crystal’s bed and imagined her and his dad nestled together, naked and spent. He shook his head fast and hard.

  “Is there something you want to tell me?” Travis asked.

  Matt braced himself. “Like what?”

  “Like why you have trouble looking me in the face.”

  “It’s the church. You spend way more time there than you do with me.”

  “I’ve been spending time with Jennifer for months.”

  Matt swallowed.

  Travis’s gaze darted over Matt’s face, then quickly flicked away. “Haven’t you ever had the urge to start over? Be a better person?”

  His questions seemed to swim in front of Matt’s eyes. There’d been so many times he’d wished he could start over, erase the past and be the person he’d planned to be. He hadn’t intended to have sex with Crystal and he hadn’t intended to push his cousin to his death. Maybe we make mistakes that eventually define us. Maybe we don’t get to choose the people we ultimately become. “You’ve always been a good person,” Matt said.

  Travis looked at the floor. “I hurt Crystal. I said something awful, and I don’t even know if it was true, man. I told her I’d choose the church over her. She was my mother and…”

  Matt thought about his father—all the mixed-up emotions. He wondered how he’d feel if he came home and found his father dead. He wanted to listen to Travis now, wanted to track what he said, but the words had too many meanings and traveled in too many directions. He turned his head toward the bedroom window where an image of Crystal’s face appeared for an instant, then disappeared like haze on a bathroom mirror, first the edges, then all of her.

  There was a long, empty moment before Travis spoke again. “Jen says I should have tried harder to get Crystal saved.”

  Matt tried to imagine Crystal in the strict confines of Narrow Way. “She wouldn’t have fit in. And she would have hated all the rules.”

  Travis locked gazes with Matt. “You don’t know that. Being part of something important—something bigger than we are—it sets you free, man.” He smiled, and for a moment he looked like the old Travis.

  Matt thought about all the sleepovers he’d had at Travis’s house when they were younger. The way Crystal had ordered pizza and ate it with them inside the tent they’d pitched in the backyard. He tucked the poem deeper into his shirt pocket. It no longer felt like something he could share.

  Travis reached over and pulled it out. “So, that’s what you’ve been hiding. You wrote another one.” He unfolded the paper and read out loud.

  The Circus Tent

  Leaning on a vast shadow, it crouches,

  Yellow and white and I enter its cathedral, born anew.

  While in another world, my body tosses and perspires.

  With gathered peals, laughter turns back on the mouths

  That made it and I scream: “Step into the light and

  Mourn the mirror’s mock of your painted life.”

  When Travis paused, Matt reached out and grabbed the poem. It had been a mistake to bring it.

  “Since when do you have secrets from me?”

  Matt tried to hold Travis’s gaze, but looking straight into his eyes was a weight Matt could only carry for a few seconds. He looked away.

  “It’s good, man. One of your best. I want to read the rest of it.” Travis jerked the poem from Matt’s hand. The top corner tore. Travis apologized, then read on.

  A windowpane clings to the face of stolen moonlight

  And it soothes me with its purifying brightness.

  While in its glass, I am captured, grotesque and ashamed.

  I stare at myself, pressing my red rubber nose to the pane.

  As I struggle to pry the smile from my painted lips

  I weep out loud for the man I no longer am.

  Travis scanned the poem again, then handed it back. “I read something about poems being like dreams. They’re filled with stuff we don’t realize we know. Seems you’re ragging on yourself not to pass judgment on the clown before you’ve worn the rubber nose. Maybe something else about masks and wearing them to hide.” Travis stared at Matt for a long moment. “You got more masks on your walls than anyone I’ve ever known. You were just a kid, goofing around on that cliff the way kids do. It wasn’t your fault, man.”

  Matt refolded the poem and tucked it back into his pocket.

  Travis looked around the room, his gaze landing on a photo of himself with Crystal. “What’s really got me freaked is the more I lose her, the more she still has me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Matt watched Travis remove a stack of nightgowns from a shelf in Crystal’s closet, his hands thick and heavy against the flimsy fabrics.

  When he piled them on the bed, Matt recognized a pale blue gown with a lace-covered top identical to one his dad had given his mom. That asshole bought one for Crystal, too.

  Travis abruptly turned to Matt. “I can’t do this, man. I’m sorry. But I can’t. I’ll go pack my room.” He hurried out of Crystal’s bedroom.

  Matt jerked a large box from the floor, unfolded it, taped the bottom and set it on the bed. He picked up the blue nightgown, studied the label for a moment in which he saw his mother untie the big red bow and open the gift. She’d smiled at his father and held the nightgown against her body—the last Christmas his family had spent together.

  Matt ripped Crystal’s nightgown down the center—the sound was like an adhesive bandage being torn away from skin. He stuffed the nightgown into the bottom of the box, crammed the other gowns on top, closed the lid and sealed it with tape.

  When he looked up, Detective Radhauser stood in the doorway, holding his Stetson on his index finger. For a moment, he didn’t say anything, just stood watching. “I heard a ripping sound,” he said, stepping into the room. “Was there something about that particular nightgown pissed you off?”

  Should he protect his father and hide the truth from Radhauser? His father said Radhauser would find out. Matt had already lied about too many things. “I’m pretty sure my dad bought it for Crystal. But please…please don’t tell Travis.”

  Radhauser looked skeptical, but said nothing.

  “It’s the Lord and Taylor label,” Matt said. “We don’t have that store in Tucson.”

  “Are you saying your father and Ms. Reynolds were more than friends?”

  “My father said you’d find out and he wanted me to hear it from him first.” Matt could taste his own bitterness.

  Radhauser’s dark blue eyes bored into Matt with a level of invasion he’d never experienced from anyone besides his mother.

  Matt looked away. After what had happened with Justin, Matt knew better than anyone you could do a horrible thing, lie about it, then spend years trying to atone for it.

  “I’m here to speak with Travis,” Radhauser said.

  “He’s packing up his bedroom. You aren’t going to tell him about my father, are you?”

  “No,” Radhauser said. “But eventually these things have a way of coming out.” He left without saying another word, had probably stopped outside Travis’s door to make notes in that damn book of his. Matt had made another mistake. He should have been more protective of his dad.

  Matt stuffed the remainder of Crystal’s clothes into cardboard boxes. As he piled them into the corner, he heard the reckless sound of her laughter, exactly like when they’d danced. As if laughter were a set of arms she allowed herself to fall into. But he’d been the one to fall. He wondered if his father might be right. If everyone on Earth walked around with at least one unbearable secret. Maybe it was part of growing up. Maybe if he went to his
mom and confessed everything she’d say, “Don’t be silly, Matt. Everyone has hurt someone else. Each of us has pushed a button that could drive someone they love over the edge.”

  The front door opened, then closed again. Noises that brought back the memory of the sounds he’d heard the night Crystal died. Matt stood at the window for a moment and watched Detective Radhauser put on his Stetson, then head down the street toward the house next door.

  Matt found Travis sitting on his bedroom floor in front of his bookcase, surrounded by books, honor society plaques, and sports trophies. He’d stopped packing, and studied a five-by-seven piece of yellow construction paper. He handed it to Matt. “Remember this?”

  Matt settled on the floor beside him and stared at the drawing of a baseball player swinging a bat, obviously made by a child. He read the words he’d printed beneath it. My wish is for Travis Reynolds to be a famous baseball player who beats Hank Aaron’s homerun record.

  In third grade, Mrs. Zeeb had asked the class to make a wish and illustrate it. Matt did the math. “You saved this for nine years?”

  Travis kept his head down, the roots of his hair soaked with sweat. “I wished for a Big Wheel. Half the other kids did, too. Or a house with a swimming pool.”

  Matt handed the drawing back to him. “I was such a dork. I should have wished for a million dollars.” He punched Travis lightly on the shoulder. “Instead of bet on a sure thing.”

  Travis tucked the drawing into the front of a book, then carefully placed it in the box. “Mrs. Zeeb tacked the wishes on her bulletin board. I slipped this one off when no one was looking. I don’t know why. Or at least, I didn’t back then.”

  “And now you do?”

  Travis shrugged. “I was a little jealous. You had the Big Wheel and the swimming pool. But you also had real parents, grownups, and you never had to worry about the rent or getting evicted.” Travis paused for a moment and stared into space. “I don’t know, man. Your making a wish for me…it made me feel, well…like I mattered.”

  Words tumbled around inside Matt’s head, but nothing felt right. Everything that had gone before, what now felt like the best times in their life together, seemed precariously balanced. Happiness was a kind of arrogance, a gift he’d taken for granted.

  Travis taped the box closed. “Radhauser wanted to know if I’d come across the missing bathroom towels.”

  “Did you?”

  He shook his head. “I found the two other washcloths that matched, but no towels.” He nodded toward the dark and light green washcloths folded neatly on his bed. “Oh yeah, and he wanted to know if you ever drank beer with Crystal.”

  Matt’s toes curled in his shoes. “Why would he ask that?”

  A silence fell between them.

  “I suspect he found your fingerprints on some of the bottles he took from the garage.” Travis’s tone was neutral, but his eyes held a question.

  A little chill went through Matt and he felt himself flush. “What did you tell him?”

  “That we both did. Every chance we got. Did you want me to lie for you?” He held Matt with his gaze.

  “Of course not.” Matt looked away. “I think I’ll grab a soda. You want one?”

  Travis shook his head.

  Matt stood and headed for the kitchen. Crystal’s calendar still hung on the bulletin board above the telephone—a record of the last few months of her life. Matt stared at it for a moment, then removed the pushpin and took it down. The square of cork where the calendar had hung was a lighter brown than the rest of the bulletin board—a visible sign of something missing.

  He sat at her kitchen table and wondered if she’d recorded the days she’d seen his father, marked them with a star or a heart.

  Radhauser opened the sliding glass door and stepped into the kitchen.

  Matt started. He stood so quickly his chair wobbled on its back legs for a moment. He tried to replace the calendar on the corkboard, but his hands shook too hard to hold the pushpin in place.

  “Find anything interesting?”

  “No,” Matt said. “I was just—”

  “Looking for evidence of your father’s affair with Crystal.”

  * * *

  After they’d loaded everything left in the house into the Goodwill truck, Matt stood in the driveway, in the perfect stillness that fell when the truck disappeared around the corner. It was as if everything happy and bright about the childhood days he’d spent here with Travis disappeared, too.

  Matt waited beside his Mustang as Travis pulled Crystal’s loaded Escort out of the carport for the last time.

  Travis rolled down the passenger window. He looked different—more lines and shadows on his face, as if the events of the past week had aged him. He gave a quick wave as he pulled out of the driveway.

  Heat rose behind Matt’s eyes. After the Escort turned onto Oracle Road and disappeared, he walked out into the desert behind the house, to the wash where they’d built their boyhood campfires. Matt studied the circle of rocks, picked them up, one by one. It was difficult to choose. After five minutes, he finally decided on a flat, round, bluish-gray stone with veins of turquoise and coral. Closing his eyes, he held it in his palm for a moment to feel the heat, to make sure it was the one to hold his memories, then he slipped it into his pocket.

  He stood in front of the empty house for another moment, listened to the harsh char, char sounds of cactus wrens calling from the mesquite trees.

  An era had just ended.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  At the sound of the back door opening, Matt’s mother glanced up from her chopping board. “So, how’d it go?” She met his eyes briefly, then brought her attention back to the mound of sliced carrots she’d chopped. She scraped them into the round, wooden salad bowl. She wore a pair of white slacks and a black T-shirt with a red dragonfly on the front.

  “It was hard for Travis to pack her clothes and stuff.”

  She looked up at him again and smiled. “So, like a good friend, you did it for him.”

  “Love is action. Never just words.”

  She laughed, then faked a look of total shock, throwing her hands into the air, her mouth forming an O. “I don’t believe it. You actually listened to me.” She glanced toward the back door as if waiting for Travis to appear.

  Matt told her about Travis’s plans to spend the evening with Jennifer at a church potluck.

  She shook her head, looked worried. “After the boys from the church left last night, Travis cried for two hours. I heard him through the door, but he didn’t want comfort. When he finally came out, I asked him if he was okay and he said it felt as if an abscess had been drained from his body.”

  Matt remembered what Travis had told him about starting over and being a better person. “Maybe they were good tears.” He stopped and gave his mother a wicked grin, moved his eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marx and pretended to hold a cigar. “Maybe this whole church thing is a way of getting closer to Jennifer. If you know what I mean.”

  She laughed and slapped at his arm. “Did you happen to find the cufflinks?”

  “No,” he said, unable to meet her gaze.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll pay for them. They were hardly fourteen carat.”

  He shook his head. “Cheap silver. Can I ask you something hard, Mom?”

  Outside the kitchen window, the porch wind chimes rang.

  “Don’t look so worried,” she said. “I’m sure people lose them all the time.”

  “It’s not about the cufflinks.”

  “What then?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me Dad had an affair with Crystal?”

  An uncomfortable silence hung in the kitchen for a minute, as if every molecule of air had been broken.

  “You shouldn’t pay attention to gossip.” She kept her gaze on the cutting board where she’d set out a cucumber, some scallions, and four radishes. “It’s evil.”

  “I heard it from a reliable source.”

  She bit
her lip and looked away. “Sedona has read so many mystery books she thinks she’s a detective.”

  “I didn’t hear it from Sedona.”

  Karina’s hands gripped the sides of the salad bowl. Her voice was tight and cautious as she asked, “Who then?”

  “Dad told me.”

  Her eyes softened. She lifted her hands slowly, then dropped them to her sides as if the strings had been snapped. “Neither your father nor I wanted you or Travis to have to choose between a parent and your friendship. It wasn’t fair.”

  “Travis doesn’t know, but even if he finds out, we’ll be okay. What wasn’t fair is I made a choice without all the facts,” Matt said. “I chose to live with my father and I regret it.”

  “Your father messed up. And it hurt me deeply. But it doesn’t have anything to do with his love for you and Sedona.”

  Matt decided not to tell her about Crystal’s pregnancy. Maybe she’d never have to find out. His own hypocrisy didn’t escape him as he wrapped his arms around her, the first hug he’d initiated in more than two years. Matt knew she would say or do anything to help him, and he treasured the safety of that, like a child falling asleep in the back seat of a car, believing his parents would remain awake, keeping watch through the dark.

  He heard the sound of her swallowing, drew away from her then and looked directly into her eyes. “I understand why you didn’t tell me.”

  She touched his cheek with the back of her fingertips—something she’d done for as long as he could remember. “I love you, Matt. You’re my son. Nothing can ever change that.”

  “I don’t deserve it. I behaved like a complete spoiled brat at your wedding, and I’m sorry. I really am. I can see you and Nate are happy together.”

  “I won’t argue with your self-analysis. But what I said still goes.”

  “What’s for dinner?”

  “Pork roast and red potatoes. That mushroom wine sauce you used to like and a salad.”