by Nora Roberts
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Pack. And we’ll take it a step at a time from there.”
She heard her mother crying when Seth left the room. But after a while Naomi heard drawers opening, closing.
Packing sounds, she thought.
They were leaving in the morning. Leaving all of this.
Closing her eyes, she said a special prayer of thanks for her uncle. She understood that she’d saved Ashley’s life. Now she thought Uncle Seth was saving hers.
Three
Naomi lived in D.C. for five months, two weeks, and five days. That narrow slice of time brought so many highs and lows, so many jolts and joys she couldn’t keep track.
She loved the house in Georgetown with its high ceilings and deep, rich colors, with its pretty backyard patio and little fountain with its own tiny pool.
She’d never lived in a city before, and could spend hours sitting at the window in her room watching the cars and cabs and people. And her room was so beautiful. The old cherrywood dresser—an antique, not a hand-me-down, because there was a difference—had a big oval mirror framed in the same wood, and with little curlicues. She had a double bed, a luxury that had her rolling around in it or stretching her arms wide just because she could. The sheets were so soft and smooth she’d stroke her fingers over the pillowcase to lull herself to sleep.
The walls were sunset gold and had pictures of flowers grouped together in their own little garden.
She liked her room even better than Mama’s, which was fancier with a pale green canopy draped over the big bed, and a chair with strange and beautiful birds flying over it.
Mason slept on a pullout sofa in what her uncle called the upstairs parlor, but most nights in the first few weeks, he’d end up crawling into bed with her or curling up on her rug like a puppy.
Harry took them to his restaurant with its tablecloths and candles and flowers, and gave them a tour of the big kitchen that was all noise and rush and heat.
Starting school brought nerves and excitement. A new school, a new place, where no one knew her. That was both scary and wonderful. She got to use a new name, too. Here she’d be Naomi Carson—the new girl—and some made fun of her accent. But none of the other kids knew her daddy was in prison.
She didn’t much like going to the therapist. Dr. Osgood was nice—young and pretty, and she always smelled really good. But it felt wrong, at least at first, to say things to a stranger about her parents, and her brother, and more than anything about what had happened that night in the woods.
Mason went to another doctor, a man, and liked it fine because his doctor let him talk about video games and basketball. At least Mason said he did, and after a few weeks of talking about video games and basketball, he stopped coming in to sleep in Naomi’s bed.
Her mother went to another doctor altogether, when she went. A lot of times she said she wasn’t feeling up to it, and went to bed with one of her headaches.
Once a week she borrowed Uncle Seth’s car and drove to the prison—United States Penitentiary, Hazelton—on visiting day. It took nearly eight hours for the trip up and back, for the little bit of time she had to visit through the glass. And she always came back looking beaten up and with one of her headaches.
But she wouldn’t stop going.
Still, everything settled into a kind of routine, with school for her and Mason, the restaurant for Harry, the office where Seth worked on investing other people’s money, and her mother working part-time as a waitress.
Then Seth came home from work one night with a tabloid paper in his hand, and there was hell to pay.
Naomi cringed. She’d never seen her uncle angry, never heard him raise his voice. Now she didn’t know what to do as she was making chicken and rice like Harry had shown her on the big gas cooktop while Mason sat at the eating counter dawdling over his homework, and Mama sat staring off into space and pretending to help.
Her mother jumped up to stand when Seth slapped the paper down on the counter. And Naomi saw that the front of it had a picture of her father and, oh God, one of her from picture day back at Pine Meadows Middle School.
“How could you? How could you do this to your children, to yourself?”
Susan clutched at the little gold cross around her neck. “Don’t yell at me. I didn’t say hardly anything.”
“You said enough. Did you give them this picture of Naomi? Did you tell them you were living here in D.C.?”
Now her shoulders hunched together, the way, Naomi thought, they used to when Daddy gave her a mean look.
“They paid me five thousand dollars. I’ve got to earn my way, don’t I?”
“Like this? Selling your daughter’s picture to the tabloids?”
“He could’ve gotten it without me, you know it, and they’ve been writing about all this for weeks now. It never stops.”
“They didn’t have her picture, Susan.” As if weary, Seth pulled the knot of his red tie loose. “They didn’t know y’all were living here.”
When the phone rang, he held up a hand to stop Naomi. “Don’t answer it. Let it go to the machine. I had six calls at my office already. It wouldn’t take long to dig up an unlisted number. Unlisted to protect you and the children, Suze, from what’s going to happen now.”
“They’re always at the prison, pestering at me.” With her shoulders still hunched, Susan pressed her lips together.
There were lines deep around her mouth, Naomi noted. Lines that hadn’t been there before that hot summer night.
“And Tom said we could make some good money. He can’t do it himself, it’s the law, but . . .”
“You can funnel it to him.”
Susan flushed deeply, the way she did when deeply embarrassed or angry. “I’ve got a duty to my husband, Seth. They got him locked up, and in what they call the special area. He said how he needs money to pay the lawyer to work out getting him in general population.”
“Ah, Christ, Suze, that’s just bullshit. Don’t you know bullshit when you hear it?”
“Don’t use that language.”
“The language bothers you, but this doesn’t?” He slapped a hand on the tabloid as the phone began to ring again. “Did you read it?”
“No, no, I didn’t read it. I don’t want to read it. They—they kept pestering me, and Tom said he’d start getting more respect if he could tell his story, and I could back him up.”
“Nobody respects tabloids. Even he’d know . . .” He paused, and Naomi snuck a look, thought he seemed more sick than angry now. “Who else pestered you? Who else have you talked to?”
“I talked to Simon Vance.”
“The writer. True crime.”
“He’s a professional. His publisher’s going to pay me twenty-five thousand dollars. It says so right in the contract.”
“You signed a contract.”
“It’s professional.” Eyes glazed, lips trembling, Susan threw her arms out as if to ward off an attack. “And there’ll be more when they make the movie deal. He said.”
“Susan.” Naomi knew despair now, and heard it in her uncle’s voice. “What have you done?”
“I can’t get by waiting tables. And that doctor you make me go to, she said how I need to work on my self-confidence. I need to get a place closer to the prison so I don’t have to take your car and drive so far. Tom wants me and the kids closer.”
“I’m not going there.”
Susan spun around at Naomi’s voice, and the heat of anger seared through the tears. “Don’t sass me.”
“I’m not sassing, I’m saying. I won’t go. If you take me, I’ll run off.”
“You’ll do what your daddy and I tell you.” Hysterics—Naomi had heard them often enough in the last four months to recognize them—spiked into Susan’s voice. “We can’t stay here.”
“Why is that, Susan?” Seth spoke quietly. “Why can’t you stay here?”
“You live with a man, Seth. You live in sin with a man. A black man
.”
“Naomi, honey.” Seth’s voice stayed quiet, but his eyes—full of noise—stayed on Susan’s face. “You and Mason go on upstairs for a bit, will you?”
“I got dinner on.”
“Smells good, too. Just take it off the heat for a bit, all right? You go on up, help Mason finish his homework.”
Mason slid off the stool, wrapped his arms around Seth. “Don’t make us go away. Don’t let her take us away. Please, I want to stay with you.”
“Don’t you worry now. Go on upstairs with your sister.”
“Come on, Mason. We’re not going anywhere but upstairs.” Naomi looked back as she gathered up Mason’s books and papers. “Harry’s not a sin, but I think it’s one for you to say so.”
“You don’t understand,” Susan began.
“I understand. I started understanding that night in the woods. It’s you who doesn’t understand, Mama. Come on, Mason.”
Seth said nothing as Susan began to cry, just opened the wine fridge, chose a bottle. He let her stand, hands over her face, while he opened it, poured himself a glass.
He turned off the ringer on the phone that hadn’t stopped.
While she wept he took two careful sips.
“You’ve known I was gay since I was fourteen. Probably longer, but that’s when I got up the nerve to tell you. It took me a little longer to come out to Mom and Dad, and they took it pretty well, all things considered. But I told my big sister first. Do you remember what you said—well, after you asked if I was sure?”
When she just kept crying, he took another sip of wine. “You said, well, don’t go putting the moves on anybody I’ve got my eye on. Where’s that girl, Suze, the one who could say just the right thing to me when I was so scared I had jelly in my knees? The girl who made me laugh when I’d be trying not to cry. The one who accepted me for what I am.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“That’s fine, Susan. But I’m going to say this to you, and you hear me. You hear me, Susan. Don’t ever talk about the man I love that way again. You understand me?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Harry’s been everything kind and good to me and the kids. And I can see how good he is for you. I’m sorry. But . . .”
“We’re still an abomination? Is that what you really think? Is that what your heart tells you?”
She sat again. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know! Fourteen years. He wasn’t so strict at first. It all came on so gradual I didn’t notice. He didn’t want me to work anymore, and I was just pregnant with Naomi, so I thought that would be fine. Being able to make a real nest, and stay home with my baby. Then he didn’t want to go see Mom and Dad—had excuses. Then he didn’t want me going. We were a family, and he was head of the house. Then he didn’t like them coming to our place either. Holidays maybe—at first.”
“He was cutting you off from everyone who loved you.”
“He said how we were what was important. We needed to make our own lives, and then Mason came along, and he was so strict about how things had to be. But he worked hard, and paid the bills. He never laid a hand on me, I swear it. Or on the children. How he thought, what he wanted, what he said, it just seeped in. I missed Mom and Dad. I missed you so much, but . . .”
He got out another glass, poured wine, set it in front of her.
“I haven’t had anything but church wine since I was carrying Naomi. I used to be like her, didn’t I? Strong and brave and a little bit fierce.”
“You were, yeah.”
“I lost that, Seth. I lost all that.”
“You can find it again.”
She shook her head. “I’m so tired. If I could sleep, just sleep until it all went away. She meant what she said, Naomi did. She wouldn’t go with me. Or if I made her, she’d run off—take Mason with her. She wouldn’t leave him. Not like I left you. She’d make me choose between my children and my husband.”
“You chose him over your family once before.”
“A woman cleaves to her husband.” On a sigh she picked up the glass, drank. “Oh, that’s good. I’d forgotten. I did take vows, Seth. I know he broke them, I know he did unspeakable things—at least sometimes I know. But it’s hard for me to break those promises, to accept that the person I made them to is the man in prison now. I’m just so tired. All the time. If I could, I’d sleep the rest of my life.”
“It’s depression, honey. You have to give the therapy and the medication time. You have to give yourself time.”
“It feels like years already. Seth, every time I drive up to Hazelton, I tell myself it’s the last time. I don’t want to see those walls, to go through those guards. Sit there, talk to him through the glass. To have those reporters and the others who wait for me to come, try to talk to me. They yell out things. You don’t know.”
“Then stop being their target.”
She only shook her head. “But then . . . Tom’s got a way of turning me around, of making me doubt myself. I’ll end up doing just what he says to do. I knew talking to those reporters was wrong. I knew signing that contract was wrong. But I’m not strong and brave and fierce, so I did just what he told me. He said, take that money, sign those papers. I was to put money on his prison account and get a house close by. I was to keep coming every week, and bringing the children once a month to start.”
“I’d fight you on that. I might lose, but I’d fight you on taking those kids there.”
“She’d fight me. My girl.” On a half sob, Susan knuckled a fresh tear away. “She wouldn’t go and she’d fight me like a tiger to keep Mason away. I’ve got to do better by them. I know it.”
“Don’t go back.” He laid a hand over hers, felt hers stiffen. “Get stronger. Take a few weeks, then see. Talk to the therapist about it.”
“I’ll try. I swear. I’m so grateful to you and Harry. I’m so sorry I did what Tom told me, after all you’ve done for us.”
“We’ll get through it.”
“I’m going to go up, talk to the kids for a minute. Then we’ll come down, finish making dinner.”
“That’s a good start. I love you, Suze.”
“God knows you must.” She rose, reached for him. “I love you. Don’t give up on me.”
“Never happen.”
She gave him a hard squeeze, then walked out, walked up the stairs. The hardest walk of her life, she thought. Even harder than that horrible walk through the prison to the visiting area.
She stepped to Naomi’s door and looked at her children, sitting on the floor with Mason frowning over his pencil and worksheet.
He’d been crying, and that broke her heart because she’d brought those tears on.
But not Naomi. Her eyes were dry and hot when they lifted, met hers.
“I want to say first I was wrong. What I said down there about your uncle and Harry. It was a wrong and ugly thing to say. I hope you’ll forgive me. And I want to say you were right. Both of you were right. We won’t be moving away from Seth and Harry. I was wrong about talking to those people. The paper, and the magazine, and the book writer. I can’t go back and not do it, but I’ll never do it again. I’m so sorry, Naomi, for letting them have your picture. I don’t know how to make it up to you. But I’m going to try to do better. I promise, I’m going to try. It’s easy to say that. What I have to do is show you. You need to give me a chance to show you I’ll do better.”
“I’ll give you a chance, Mama.” Mason sprang up, ran into her arms.
“I love you so much, my little man.” She kissed the top of his head, then looked at Naomi. “I understand it’s going to take longer for you.”
Naomi only shook her head and ran to her mother.
—
She did better, though there were dips, and some of them deep. She’d opened a door her brother had tried to close by giving the interviews, selling the photographs.
It engendered more, with side stories on the serial killer’s gay brother-in-law, and with reporters stalking him to
and from his office. Paparazzi captured photos of Naomi leaving school for the day, one of Mason on the playground.
TV talk shows fueled the machine with discussion, with “experts,” and the tabloids were relentless.
Word leaked that Pulitzer Prize–winning author Simon Vance had