“She’s looking for her dad,” Jake said.
“Oh?” Gilly filled a glass with ice and tea and brought it to Caroline. “He lives here in Wyatt?”
“Not anymore. Or at least I don’t think he’s here, but his second wife and her son—they still live here.”
“Garrett Hoffman,” Jake said, speaking to Gilly. “Have you ever heard that name around here?”
She thought about it and after a moment shook her head. She didn’t think so, she said.
Caroline took a bite of her sandwich and set it down.
“His second wife—do you know her name?” Jake asked.
“Julia. Hoffman, I guess, although I don’t know that she kept my dad’s name. She has a son, Harris—”
“Harris Fenton?” Jake and Gilly shared a glance, one that was loaded with caution.
It was a moment before Caroline got it—that they knew about Harris’s arrest and were concerned for him. Concerned about his privacy. They would feel an obligation to protect that, and rightfully so. Ordinarily Caroline would have respected that, but time was short and growing shorter. “My aunt, my dad’s sister, is dying,” she said. “She and my dad haven’t seen each other in nearly thirty years. I want to bring him to her before she passes. I’d like for her to have that peace.”
“You think the Fentons know where your dad is.”
“Yes,” Caroline answered Jake.
He unfolded his arm across the counter, nudging the sugar shaker an inch to one side, contemplating it.
“It’s not as if it’s a state secret,” Gilly said. “It was on the news.”
Jake shot Caroline a glance from under his brow. “Harris was arrested recently,” he said.
“I know,” Caroline answered. “The deputy who arrested him is a friend of mine. He’s trying to help me locate my dad too. It’s the reason I came out this way. We had a lead, but it turned out to be nothing.”
“I can’t see the harm in your calling Julia,” Gilly said. “Can you, Jake? If she doesn’t want to talk, she can say so.”
“I don’t have her phone number,” Caroline said.
“I’ve got it.” Jake pulled his phone from his jacket pocket. “We worked together on a community fund-raiser a few months ago.”
Once he’d texted the contact information to her, Caroline thanked him. She asked for the check, but Gilly wouldn’t let her pay for lunch. She and Jake walked her to the café door; they wished her luck. It was odd, given the short time they’d been acquainted, but Caroline felt a connection with them.
Back in her car, she sat holding her phone, but when she couldn’t stop the erratic thump of her heart or work out in her mind the right thing to say, she tapped Julia’s number and pressed the phone to her ear. After a series of rings, when Julia’s voice mail answered, Caroline didn’t leave a message. Instead, she dialed the number for Julia’s landline, which had come with the contact information Jake had shared.
22
Harris—Thursday, January 18
Harris? Are you all right?”
Phone to his ear, he looks up at his mom. “I’m talking to Zeke,” he tells her, or at least he thinks he’s speaking out loud, but his voice sounds distant.
She sets her hand on his shoulder, and her touch anchors him. “The police are here,” she says. “They want to ask you some questions.”
“What’s going on?” Zeke asks.
“I’ve got to go,” Harris tells him.
“Are the cops there? Harris, don’t do anything stupid. Okay? Don’t go on the run. Call me—I’ll come there if you need me. All right? Harris?”
“Sure. Yeah,” Harris says. Zeke is still talking when he ends the call. Getting to his feet, he says, “They want to talk to me?”
“Yes, honey. About Gee. They’ve arrested him.” Her gaze is steady, but he sees the anxiety fishing through her eyes. “Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yes,” he says, although he feels unsteady, somehow light headed.
“All right, then. It’s Captain Mackie and Sergeant Carter who’re here, the same officers who came to interview all of us at school.”
“Yeah, I remember.” Harris follows her through the back door and into the kitchen.
The lawmen are standing near the table. Greetings are exchanged. Harris’s mom invites the officers to sit.
“I have coffee, a fresh pot,” she says, looking from the captain to the sergeant.
“That would be mighty good if it’s no trouble,” Mackie says. “It’s turning colder out. I have a feeling Old Man Winter isn’t done with us yet.”
Harris sits down opposite the officers. “Mom says you arrested Gee.”
“The police in Del Rio got him,” Mackie says. “What a shocker. I can’t believe—but that’s the way it happens sometimes. The kid with the most going for him—but you know.”
Mackie locks Harris’s gaze. Harris shoves his hand over his head.
“Gee and his cousin are being transported back here now.”
“Yeah. Well, I gave a statement to Deputy Wayman about what I saw them doing last fall.”
“I heard.”
It’s only two words, but they hold a world’s worth of pity. The police captain couldn’t have stated it out loud more clearly, how sorry he is for how low Harris has sunk.
Harris’s gut clenches.
“We need to clarify a few things,” Mackie says.
“Wayman indicated if I cooperate, the DA might be willing to cut me some slack.”
“It’s a possibility. Greeley County is working with us, but we still need to hear everything you know, not just about the robbery you witnessed but also about the drug operation. I’d like to tape your statement, if it’s okay?” He sets his phone on the table.
Harris says it’s fine with him. Get it over with—that’s all he wants.
His mom brings mugs of coffee, cream, and sugar to the table and sits down. She and Harris exchange a look. He doesn’t want her to stay, to hear his recounting of his activities, which will only distress her further, but he knows she won’t leave him. And in a way maybe she needs to hear, to know the truth, just how low he’s fallen. He talks for nearly an hour. Mackie asks about the night Harris claimed to have seen Gee at the school working out. “Was that true, or were you covering for him?”
“Covering. He had me over a barrel.”
His mother’s heartbreak, hearing how Harris allowed Gee to use him, is tangible. Harris wishes he were a better son, a better man, worthy of the sacrifice she has made for him. There’s no way he can make it right; the damage done is as irrefutable as it is irreparable. It is like a badly mended bone, Harris thinks, one that would need rebreaking in order to be set straight, and even then he’s doubtful that healing would take place. People can talk all they want to about closure and forgiveness, but there are certain situations, certain crimes, where the only way for the human heart to survive is by forgetting—as much and for as long as that’s possible.
Finally the lawmen are done. They thank Harris’s mother for the coffee and Harris for his cooperation. They say they’ll be in touch. Once they’re gone, his mother makes lunch, grilled cheese sandwiches accompanied by cups of chicken soup, which neither of them can finish.
They spend a couple of hours cleaning up the vegetable garden, raking aside the dead vegetation, fall-planted tomato vines and cole crops—broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages, and spinach—that didn’t survive a late December spell of days when the temperature never got above freezing. The air is cold enough now that Harris can see his breath, and yet leaning on his rake, he swears he can feel a hint of spring in the fitful breeze. His mom scoffs when he mentions it. She repeats what Mackie said, that Old Man Winter isn’t done.
“I’m going for a drive,” Harris says later, when they’re putting the garden tools away in the barn.
“Where to?” His mother is alarmed.
“Nowhere. I just need to get out.” He sets the rakes into their slots.
“Ho
lly and the boys aren’t going to talk to you no matter how many times or for how long you sit parked in front of your house, Harris.”
He looks at his mom. It doesn’t surprise him that she knows about his frequent trips. But he does wonder if she feels it, the sense of something building. It’s as if the very air is waiting, electric.
“I talk to them daily, as you’ve asked me to, and they’re fine. As fine as they can be under the circumstances. Even Kyle is doing okay. I told you Holly said yesterday his bruises are fading.”
It’s not enough. Harris would say it if it wouldn’t hurt her.
“You’re only making it worse driving over there so often. Holly could complain that you’re stalking them.”
“I have to do this, Mom.”
She walks to the open barn door, stands with her back to him. He doubts she’s taking in the view.
“I’m not going to hook up to buy drugs. That’s over. I know it’ll take a while before you trust me again, but that’s all right. Every day, you’ll see.”
She doesn’t answer.
He wants to tell her it’ll be okay, but he’s got no idea if that’s true. He thinks—hopes—he’s done with lying too. “I’ll be back in time for dinner,” he tells her. “I’ve got my phone. If you need anything, if anything happens.”
He’s nearly to his truck when he hears her call out to him.
“I love you, Harris,” she shouts. “You know that, don’t you?”
He pauses. “I love you, too, Mom.” He says it softly, though, and doubts she has heard, but then before he can change his mind, he walks swiftly back to her, embracing her tightly for a moment before releasing her. Retracing his steps, he’s inside his truck before she can respond. He’s startled her, no doubt. While they have always been close, showing affection toward one another isn’t their custom. It happens only when times are fearsome and hard, like now.
A half hour later, he’s turning in to his subdivision in town, driving down his street. The neighborhood is quiet. It’s after four o’clock. School has ended for the day, but there aren’t any kids playing outside. The wind has picked up, and the sky is a featureless gray sheet. No doubt Connor is at baseball practice. Even with his broken finger he would insist on going. Harris should be at ball practice, too, running his team through their drills, but it’s unlikely he’ll ever work in school sports at any level again. In addition to the fact that he’s an addict, that he’s bought dope off a student, he’s also assaulted someone. Not just any someone but his own kid. What administrator, what parent, would trust him on hearing that? He’s sickened by what he did to Kyle, that it was Kyle’s chest he planted his knee on, Kyle’s face he battered.
Harris’s chest tightens with panic at the memory. He pulls to the curb in front of his house, bends his head to the steering wheel. After several moments, hearing a sound, he lifts his head and looks toward the house. Connor is there on the front porch. His appearance is ritual, as if they’ve made a silent pact. He’s wearing shorts and a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt, and he’s barefoot. In January, when the temperature can’t be more than forty degrees. He lifts his hand, the one with the splint, in a small wave. Harris waves back. As it does each time he sees his son, it takes every ounce of his strength to keep himself from bailing out of the truck. He wants so badly to grab Connor into a bear hug. He knows Connor will smell a bit like mint and boy sweat. He’ll cut loose with a laugh that rides up from his belly. Harris wants to hear that; he wants to hold his son, but now—for the first time since he began this routine—Holly appears. She stands behind Connor, staring at Harris. He can’t read her expression. Unhappy—she’s unhappy and miserable, angry and hurt. Because of him. He’s hurt her and Kyle and Connor so much.
Kyle has come outside now, and even from where Harris sits, he can see the warning in Kyle’s eyes, which are still so bruised Harris can’t stand the sight of them. There’s a cut on his cheek, and his upper lip is cracked and swollen. It vacuums the breath out of Harris’s lungs, seeing Kyle’s injuries. Holly crosses her arms over Connor’s chest and pulls him to her, as if to show Harris ownership. Or is she only being protective? Either way, there’s no room for Harris up there on that porch. His mother is right: if he pushes Holly, he’ll only make matters worse. He touches his brow, a small salute, shifts the truck into drive, and heads down the street, watching in his rearview until his family’s image disappears.
After leaving his neighborhood, he drives west on FM 1643, determined to skip town. He’ll go to California, or possibly he’ll turn south toward El Paso and cross the bridge into Mexico. He puts his foot down on the accelerator. His head is a war zone, hotly debating the question of whether or not his family will be better off if he disappears. After a while, approaching Interstate 10, the major east/west artery that bisects the state, he slows, and it’s almost without conscious thought that he pulls over onto the road’s shoulder. Turning off the ignition, he sits looking into the distance as far as he can see, throat tight, heart hurting. He could keep going, lose himself somewhere. It would be cowardly, the action of a weak man, a rat, but so what? His kids have no respect for him anyway. But no matter where he goes or how far, he’ll never outrun his head or the nightmare that jolts him from sleep. He’ll never escape the truth of who he is and what he’s done to his family. It’ll stay with him, chewing him up from the inside. He thinks of Kyle and Connor, the fine men they’re growing up to be. Maybe it’s selfish, and maybe he’s got no right to hang around and watch them from a distance, but he’s got to. He can’t leave them. Can’t rob himself of the chance that he might someday get the opportunity to make it up to them, make it right. He’s got to stick it out, no matter how slim his chances are—for his sons. It’s for them that he makes the U-turn and heads back to his mother’s house.
He finds her on the deck, tending the grill. When she looks up, her face on seeing him is bright with her relief. He has the sense that she knew he’d entertained the idea of escape. Or maybe she thought he’d gone to get high. She takes the meat from the grill, setting it on a small platter.
“It’s your favorite,” she says. “Pork chops.”
“You shouldn’t—Mom, it’s too cold to be out here.”
Her expression deflates a bit.
“But thank you.” He takes the platter from her, and he’s surprised when his mouth waters.
“I did scalloped potatoes, too, and the little snow peas you like.”
She smiles at him, and in her eyes there’s a memory from when he was younger, before Hoff, the days when he missed having a dad but wasn’t yet aware of how much. Whenever she made scalloped potatoes then, they flipped a coin to determine who would have to scour the dish. Harris almost expects her to produce a coin now and ask him to call heads or tails. But she doesn’t. She dishes the plates. He sets the table with silverware and napkins and pours a cup of coffee for her and a glass of iced tea for himself.
Harris tries to eat but can’t do more than pick at the meal. His mom doesn’t do any better.
“I saw Holly and the boys,” he says.
“Holly called. She was upset.”
“I didn’t even get out of the truck.”
“She didn’t know what you wanted.”
Harris wipes his mouth.
“She said Kyle’s better. The swelling and bruising is better.”
“He’ll never get over it, Mom. Neither will I.”
“I know I sound like a broken record, Harris, but you need help—”
A telephone—the landline—rings. His mother jumps. “No one calls that number anymore,” she says.
“I’ll get it,” Harris says, leaving the table. The landline is in the study, adjacent to the living room.
“Probably someone selling something,” his mother says.
She’s at the kitchen sink scrubbing the scalloped-potato dish when he comes back. She glances at him over her shoulder, and he knows he must look as sick as he feels when he sees the color drain from her face. “Who
was it? What’s happened?” She shuts off the water.
“It was Caroline, Caroline Corbett. Caroline Hoffman Corbett.”
“What—what did she want?”
Harris recognizes the question is rhetorical. They both know the answer. She wants the truth, the one only he and his mother know.
“What did you tell her?”
“She wants to come here and talk to us. She apologized if this is a bad time. I think she knows I was arrested.”
“She’s coming now?”
“She wanted to. She said she was just down the road. She agreed to wait until morning. It will give me a chance to speak to Steve Wayman and ask him to be here too.”
“The deputy?”
“Yes. He’s a good guy. He’ll be fair if it comes down to—to legal action.” Harris keeps his mother’s gaze. Delaying overnight will give her time to adjust to the reality of what they’re confronting. She needs that. For himself, he’s ready. He wants it out in the open before it kills him.
It isn’t as if they haven’t both known this day would come. That Caroline would contact them at some point was inevitable.
They planned for the eventuality almost thirty years ago.
23
Caroline—Friday, January 19
She followed the directions Harris had given her, turning off the farm-to-market road onto the private drive at the mailbox labeled with the Fenton name. She drove slowly, reluctantly. If only she could have gotten this over with yesterday. She resented it, the delay of hours Harris had imposed on her. Everyone in her family was upset with her, and for a second night in a row, she hadn’t slept. Her self-control was shot, and she was afraid she would cry. She was afraid of what she was going to hear. The one thought that stood out in the heaving sea of thoughts in her head was that nothing after today would be the same.
The house, an old, steep-gabled, two-story farmhouse, faced in native limestone, came into view, and Caroline stopped, letting her gaze drift over the length of the porch, higher to the metal roof, glinting dully in the chilly January sunlight. A tired voice in her brain said she didn’t have to go through with it, talking to the Fentons. But a deeper knowing said she’d come too far; there was no way to leave now, not without the answers she’d come for.
Tell No One Page 28