Delicate Rain
Page 34
The trials of Vin and Joe lasted over a year. Vin was sure to hire the best defense attorneys money could buy for the both of them. But even then they couldn’t stand up against the prosecution's star witness. Ben had given the police everything in the testimony they needed, and the evidence to back it all up. When the verdicts were handed down, the hard built empire of Vin Reese crumbled in an instant.
The prosecutors were quick to write books about Rain’s story, but Ben didn’t want any piece of it. To him it was sick, profiting anything more than that pride he felt watching Vin be found guilty was the most immoral thing in the world.
For all he had offered Ben was given complete immunity. At first he was happy, but as time went on, he felt he’d gotten off far too easy for his liking. He tried to convince the authorities to take away the immunity, but nobody took him in the least bit seriously. And so, Ben walked away from the court system a free man. He’d helped put one of the nation’s biggest drug traffickers behind bars, and effectively killed off Delicate Rain in its infancy, but he didn’t feel free, he knew he never would. Ben knew he’d always be haunted by the recollection of his time with Rain. That was his punishment, never-ending guilt.
Even after he was able to walk the streets a free man, Ben needed several months before he gathered the courage to do what he knew he needed to do. And he wasn’t sure those months had gathered him up enough when the time came. But, apprehensions be damned, he knew it had to be done.
Knees shaking and pulse pounding, Ben knocked lightly on the large, eloquent front door of the Phillipa home. He didn’t say a word or move an inch when the door opened, revealing the unsuspecting faces of Charles and Marilyn.
“You son of a bitch,” Charles snarled in pure spite, instantly recognizing the man on his doorstep. Without another thought he reached into a drawer of a small table by the door. He quickly pulled a small pistol from the drawer and aimed at Ben. Ben didn’t move, didn’t grimace, he only closed his eyes and waited. This lack of fear was enough to throw Charles off kilter. “We should have you arrested for coming here,” he sneered, trying to hide his confusion.
“What the hell do you want?” Marilyn asked distraughtly. “Haven’t you taken enough from us?”
“Please, just let me explain,” Ben begged in a soft mumble.
“Explain?” Charles scoffed. “You want to explain? Let me explain something first. You have no Goddamn right to be here. You should’ve never come here. You took our whole life away from us. Do you know what that’s like? Do you have any children?”
“No,” Ben shook his head.
“I figured not,” Charles went on hatefully, lowering the gun to keep his arm from growing weary. “We raised our daughter with high hopes for her. She was great in school, best in her class, she was destined for amazing things. Even when she started staying out all night and disobeying I knew she’d turn out well eventually, she was too smart not to. She would be someone great someday, that was something we knew for sure. That is, until some farmer found her dead in a damn field. Any aspirations she had, any life that was ahead of her, ended. Any life we hoped to have ahead of us died too. All because of you. I can never send her off to her prom, I can never walk her down the aisle at her wedding. The best I or anyone else can do for her now is put flowers on her gravestone.”
“I know,” Ben nodded, eyes at the ground, using all his strength just to get his words out. “I won’t ever stop knowing that. I didn’t come here to find forgiveness of absolution.”
“Then what did you come for?” Marilyn asked furiously.
“I came to give you this,” Ben held out the red notebook to them. “It can’t give me any peace of mind, but maybe it’ll help you out.”
“What the hell is this?” Charles finally set the gun down and took the journal from Ben. He opened to the first page, being sure to hold it at enough of an angle for his wife to read as well.
“It’s what she put her thoughts in while she was a runaway,” Ben explained. “She wrote in that damn near everyday I knew her.”
Tears welled up in both parents’ eyes as they finished reading the first entry. They found its hateful content hardly soothing.
“Why would you think this would help us?” Charles hissed. “Why would knowing how much she despised us before she died be any help?”
“Read the last page,” Ben instructed. “She wrote it about an hour before she…” he trailed off for his own good.
Charles paged through the notebook until he reached the final entry. He and Marilyn read through it slowly. By the time they’d reached the end, their wetted eyes had been brought to the point of down pouring tears.
“Jesus Christ,” Charles wheezed through his emotion.
“She didn’t want you to go through life thinking she hated you,” Ben explained. “This was her way of making sure of that. Rain didn’t despise you, she never did.”
Marilyn was the first to look away from the book and back at Ben, “Thank you.”
“You're welcome,” Ben turned away and stepped off the stoop. He was swift to head to his car. Although he half expected for one of them to call to him as he left, neither did, and he was glad for that. Ben couldn’t handle one more second of it.
His car nearly peeled out as he drove away from the Phillipa home. All he wanted was to put that house beyond the horizon and forget about it and the guilt it brought on. But he knew he’d never forget it. His punishment never ceased, the memories made sure of that. He took a young, loved, promising life off the earth, and he deserved this. He knew it.
Ben drove to the only place he could think to go. He wandered through the cemetery for nearly an hour before he came across the sparkling slab of granite with ‘Rain Phillipa’ printed across it. It was worse than the house here, but just as before he knew he needed to stay.
The weight of the guilt nearly brought him to his knees at the edge of the grave. He was too overwhelmed to even shed a tear. He couldn’t walk away if he wanted to. There was no desire to be here, there was necessity to be here.
Ben reached into his pocket and pulled out a partially crushed but still perfectly alive begonia. He’d picked it just a few hours earlier. Its orange color still glowed as if it were ablaze. He kneeled down and set the flower gently on the base of the gravestone.
“I’m sorry, Rain,” he closed his eyes and hoped for a response. All he needed was her to say something now, anything, absolving him and all the guilt would be gone. All he needed was her words after the fact and he could be free. But it would never come, he knew it never would. And so he was stuck with his punishment. He always would be, it would follow him everywhere, in life and death. The voice of absolution would never grace Ben's ears, his hand had silenced it for all eternity, and so the guilt would hang forever. As it should be.
Dear Mom and Dad,
I can’t believe I’m writing this, but this is my very last letter I'll write to you. In the beginning, I hoped I would fill this book with messages to you, but I’d much rather spend my life talking to you than writing to you in some notebook. I’m coming home tonight, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m so sorry about all of this. The more I think about it, the more I know this whole thing isn’t anyone’s fault except for mine. I just hope you can forgive me for everything I put you through all this time. Please believe me when I tell you how deeply sorry I am for it all.
When I first left, I couldn’t think clearly. I was mad, I was emotional, and I couldn’t understand what I was doing. I can think far clearer now, and I know just how much of an idiot I was. I'm beyond excited to come home, to see you again, to hug you and show you that I’m okay. I love you both more than anyone else in the world. I know that over the last few months I always said that I hated you, but I never meant it, even if I didn’t know it then. I love you, and I always have. I finally realized that I haven’t said that nearly enough in my life, but now I promise to tell both of you that everyday that I’m alive. See you soon!
Your
s truly,
Delicate Rain
About the Author
Mitchell Goth currently resides in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin. He currently plans to attend Antioch College in the fall of 2013. When not writing, he spends his time investigating the paranormal and indulging in a good book or movie. Delicate Rain is his sixth novel.
Acknowledgements
First, I would like to thank everyone in earshot of me while I talked about how much I liked writing the book. It was really the best writing experience I’ve had in my publishing career so far, so thanks for listening through all the annoying talk. Second, I would like to thank my friend Gabby Ames for providing me with a good share of imperatively useful information during the research stage for this book. Finally, I would like to thank everyone I happened to befriend during my time being born and raised in Janesville, Wisconsin. This will be the last book I publish while living in Janesville, for a good while anyway. To everyone I knew or still know from my eighteen years in the city of parks, thank you for impacting my life in ways big or small and leading me to the life I lead now. I’m sure I’ll be back someday. But, for now, on to Yellow Springs!