“But how—it’s as if you’re saying what they did is all right, and it isn’t.”
“No, and that isn’t what forgiveness means. It isn’t for Harris’s or Julia’s sake. It’s for your own.”
Moments passed, and then Lanie squeezed Caroline’s hand with more strength than seemed reasonable. “Promise me you’ll work on it. Don’t hold the anger and hatred. Don’t sacrifice your joy in life to that. Okay? Don’t hate them. I don’t.” Her eyes on Caroline’s were burning, intense. “Promise me.”
She had insisted. Those had been her final words. And Caroline had promised, and remembering that, remembering her aunt’s kindness, her sweet, gentle spirit, was like a balm she applied to a wound on an as-needed basis. In March, when she’d gone to Wyatt for the Fentons’ hearing, it had been because she’d known it was what Lanie would have done. But it was seeing actual proof of Julia Fenton’s injuries and hearing the sworn statements from people who had witnessed how badly and how often she’d been hurt that had brought home to Caroline the hellish nightmare the Fentons had endured at her father’s hands. Her anguish had bent her over her knees. A woman sitting next to her had offered water. Caroline didn’t know how she had kept it together. Outside the afternoon had been sunny, cold, and windswept, and she had stood on the fringe of the small crowd gathered around the Fentons, praying for the nerve to speak to them. But in the end she’d had no idea what to say, and she’d left.
She would always be grateful that Harris had followed her, grateful for the chance to have shared that Lanie had professed to see her brother. Whether it was true or not, Caroline hoped that like her, Harris would derive comfort from it. But mostly she was glad she’d had the opportunity to say she was working on the issue of forgiveness. He’d seemed to appreciate it. More than that, he’d seemed astonished. Caroline had felt something in her heart loosen; she’d felt as if her dad’s ghost had been laid to rest.
She’d touched Harris’s hand, offering her own silent gratitude. Maybe no one else would understand. Maybe it was weird. Some might say it was too soon or fake, but what did it matter what anyone else thought? Caroline knew Lanie would be pleased.
It hadn’t been long after the Fentons’ court hearing that she’d heard from Jace that Coach Kelly had died of a massive stroke. By April, Caroline had added her house, which had gone into foreclosure, her marriage, which had ended in divorce, and the closing of the company she and Rob had started to the list of losses. Prior to filing bankruptcy for both himself and New Wheaton Transit, Rob had had the attorney he’d finally hired dissolve the partnership. He had shielded Caroline in every way he could.
Still, the whole thing was heartbreaking. While Rob’s attorney had managed to work his legal magic to keep Rob out of jail, his wages from a job as a driver for a local trucking company were being heavily garnished by the IRS. He was renting a room in someone’s house, subsisting on canned tuna and peanut butter, barely making it, he said. In a fit of self-pity, he had accused her and Nina of abandoning him. He’d imagined that once he took action to save her, she would come home; they would rebuild their marriage, the business. Instead she’d filed for divorce and been granted innocent spouse status by the IRS.
Caroline hadn’t explained it. It would have been pointless.
Neither had she mentioned that she was Lanie’s sole heir. No one could have been as surprised as Caroline when her aunt’s attorney had called her into his office and handed her a copy of Lanie’s will. Her estate wasn’t vast by any means, but it was substantial enough that Caroline didn’t have to worry immediately about how she was going to support herself or find a way to ensure Nina could finish college. Lanie’s house provided Caroline with shelter, too, and tending Lanie’s beautiful garden as it came to life through the spring had given Caroline hope even as she’d grieved for everything that was gone—not only people she had loved but her illusions, the fairy tale she had imagined was her life.
“Maybe your dad would rather have his ashes spread at the Astrodome,” her mother said now.
Caroline looked at her, brows raised. While her dad’s will had contained instructions that he be cremated, unlike Lanie, he hadn’t mentioned a preference as to his final resting place.
“They were some of the happiest times of his life, when he played for the Oilers.”
“Yes, but he was happy when you visited the farm, too, right? Besides, who knows what kind of red tape is involved in spreading someone’s ashes in a stadium, even if it is pretty much abandoned.”
“You said Jace spread his father’s ashes at the Tillman stadium.”
“Maybe permission was granted because Coach Kelly was so well loved.”
Her mother’s huff was derisive. She didn’t buy that Coach Kelly had been victimized by Farley Dade and his old boy cronies. Neither did Kip Penny.
The reporter had been shocked to learn the truth of her dad’s disappearance. But once he’d voiced that and offered Caroline his sympathy, he’d said in a way it was a relief. “I had a hunch Hoff was the victim of foul play, but I was afraid it would be connected to the story I was doing, that I’d put him in jeopardy. You never know how far someone will go when they’re desperate.”
“No,” Caroline agreed, and she went on to tell him about Jace and all that his desperation had led him to do.
“I suspected he was the one who hit you, but honestly, it surprises me that he took it that far,” Kip said when she finished.
“Well, even with Dad gone, I’m kind of worried Farley Dade might think I’ll try to smear his precious reputation.”
“Well, I don’t think he’s in any condition to make trouble nowadays. I heard he had major bypass surgery a couple of weeks ago and may not make it.”
Caroline’s heart eased; she couldn’t help it. “I guess none of that old business will ever see the light of day, and that’s fine with me.” She just wanted it over.
“There’s no more real evidence to back it now than there was then. There are other, newer recruiting scandals, possibly not on the scale of SMU or Tillman State—wait a minute—” He interrupted himself. “Did you tell Jace about your dad?”
“I did,” Caroline said. “He was, like you, like all of us, shocked. He’s glad it was nothing to do with his dad. You know Coach Kelly died.”
“I heard. Stroke, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. He’s being inducted into the Hall of Fame, though, posthumously.”
“Well,” Kip answered. “I kind of hate that, given he was probably as big a snake as the rest of that crew.”
But nothing they did had any bearing on your father’s death. Caroline had waited for Kip to repeat it, but he hadn’t.
“I think this is it,” Caroline’s mom said now. She pointed through the windshield where a single-lane, caliche-topped road met the highway. “This is the turnoff for the farm.”
They crossed a cattle guard and found the pond a little farther on at the foot of a gentle slope. Caroline parked off the road on the weedy verge, and they walked single file down a narrow path, their footsteps unsettling tiny explosions of dust and dislodging the occasional slumbering grasshopper. Nina led the way, carrying the crematory box. She stopped a few feet from the water’s edge, and when Caroline drew alongside her, she said, “What do we do now?”
She seemed relieved when Caroline took the box from her. It was heavier than she’d thought it would be.
“Hoff pushed me in that old tire swing.” Her mom walked to where it hung from the thick branch of a towering live oak and nudged it with her fingers.
“Do you think it’s the same one?” Caroline asked. She set the box on the ground, took out the heavy plastic bag, and opened it. She’d had her aunt’s and her father’s remains comingled. If they couldn’t meet one final time in life, at least they would be together now. She felt the weight of what remained of them in her hands.
She was plagued by what-ifs: What if she’d gone to her dad after his head injury and somehow gotten him back to Houston,
where she and Lanie, not Tricia, could have taken care of him? What if she’d kept a relationship with him despite her bitterness over his love of Harris? Plenty of kids got angry with their parents, but they didn’t sever ties.
“Look at Nina,” she had said to Steve one day last week when he’d called. He’d taken to calling her regularly, and Caroline was never sorry to see his name flash on the caller ID screen. “She hasn’t cut Rob out of her life,” Caroline had said to him. “If only I’d been as tolerant of my father. If I’d been more forgiving of him and Julia and Harris, I would have known Dad wasn’t acting right. Maybe I could have talked him into getting help.”
“You were seventeen when all that was going down, Caro,” Steve had reminded her. “Besides, in those days we didn’t have as many tools as we do now to deal with folks in your dad’s situation.”
“What about Harris? When I think of how lost he became, the secret he felt compelled to keep, no wonder he took drugs. I can’t imagine the pain he was in. It breaks my heart.”
“I’m amazed you aren’t mad as hell. I’m not sure I could be so magnanimous.”
“You know the promise I made Aunt Lanie. Anyway, how can I be angry at a twelve-year-old boy who was terrified out of his mind? Julia asked me what I would have done had it been me and Nina in similar circumstances, and when I try to imagine it, whatever grudge I have just evaporates.”
“You think you would have covered it up the way Julia did?”
“I would have done whatever was necessary to protect Nina, to keep us together.”
“It was an awful lot to put on a kid, though, asking him not to tell.”
“You’re in law enforcement. What do you think would have happened to Harris if she’d reported it? Would the police have believed her story and let her and Harris go on their way?”
“Maybe not. It could have gone very wrong for them.”
“Julia did the right thing, then, the only thing,” Caroline had said.
“That doesn’t look like ashes,” Nina said now, peering into the bag Caroline was holding.
She was right. The contents were coarse, more like concrete mix. Caroline scooped some into her palm and, walking to the pond’s edge, where the grass was short and the wind was at her back, flung it out over the water. The lighter dust was carried away, but the heavier particles dropped near her feet.
Nina and Caroline’s mother joined her, dipping out handfuls of the grit and scattering it. After a bit Caroline upended the bag, spilling the last of its contents into the water, where they were carried for a time on its silvery and immutable surface.
“Should we say something?” Nina broke their silence.
“I loved you both,” Caroline’s mother said.
“Rest in peace,” Nina murmured.
“I’m sorry,” Caroline said, and she wasn’t prepared for the tears that flooded her eyes.
“Oh, now,” said her mother, brushing at Caroline’s cheek with her thumb.
Nina pulled her into an embrace. “Mom, even if you’d gone to Omaha after your dad fell, what could you have done? You were sixteen. I wouldn’t have known what to do when I was sixteen.”
Caroline pinched the bridge of her nose, willing the return of her composure.
“From the research I did,” Nina went on, “explosive anger isn’t uncommon after a head injury. Nowadays doctors know more; they can help. But thirty years ago? I doubt it.”
Caroline wiped her face. Nina sounded like Steve.
“Hoff wasn’t the sort to accept help, anyway,” her mother said.
“What happened is sad and awful,” Nina said. “But it’s not your fault.”
“No one is to blame.” Caroline’s mother tucked strands of hair behind her ear. “Hoff’s fall was an accident, and that’s what brought on all the rest.”
“But it’s so horribly ironic, isn’t it?” Caroline said. “That all these years I thought he didn’t care about me because I didn’t care about him, and instead he was—dead.” She said the word, one syllable, composed of four letters that contained forever.
“You just need time, Caro,” her mother said.
Nina tipped her head to Caroline’s shoulder. “We’re here for you, Mommy, me and Gramma.”
Caroline circled her mother and Nina in her embrace, and the three stood, arms around one another, and there was only the sound of their breath and the wind through the grass. Out over the center of the pond, a dragonfly hovered, his wings gleaming in the sunlight like precious jewels.
Later, having dropped her mother off at her new home in time to play bridge and have dinner with her friends, Caroline wandered through the rooms of Lanie’s house, feeling a bit sorry for herself. Nina and Ollie had packed a picnic and gone to Hermann Park to watch the fireworks. They’d invited Caroline, but she’d claimed she was tired. If she’d told the truth—that she couldn’t think of anything more awkward than tagging along on her daughter’s date—Nina would have hooted and likely dragged Caroline out the door.
She went into Lanie’s dining room. The hospital bed was long gone, the table and chairs back in place. Her mother said she should redecorate, make the house more her own, but Caroline thought it was too soon. Running her fingertips along the tops of the dining chairs, she thought how she hadn’t been prepared for how lonely holidays might be. Now her throat closed, and she was fighting a renewed and unwarranted press of tears.
What was her problem? She didn’t even like the Fourth of July.
It took a moment to shake it off, the sadness, a lingering sense of loss, the old feeling of blame, but once she did, she drove to the grocery store and bought ice cream, her and Lanie’s favorite flavor, Blue Bell chocolate chip cookie dough. A gallon. On the way home she decided she would find an old movie to watch from when she was a kid, Stand by Me or Big or The Breakfast Club, and eat the whole gallon by herself. Maybe before the ice cream she’d have waffles for dinner. Because, by God, she would make a new life here for herself, one tablespoon of sugar at a time, no matter how many it took.
Coming down Lanie’s street—now her street, Caroline corrected herself—she saw him from three houses away, a man sitting on her front steps. Narrowing her gaze, she realized it was Steve, and her heart dipped.
He’d parked at the curb. Passing his truck, she pulled into the driveway and made herself take a deep breath. She was so glad to see him. Too glad, a voice warned as she got out of the car.
He stood up. “You might not believe this, but I was in the neighborhood,” he said, and his grin was abashed, as if he knew how lame it sounded.
“It’s fine,” she said, her pulse tapping lightly in her ears.
“You don’t have plans?”
She opened her grocery sack, revealing the ice cream.
“Huh,” he said. “I don’t suppose you could use some help with that.”
She smiled. “I was hoping you’d ask.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My gratitude first, last, and ever is to my agent, Barbara Poelle. Without her none of the rest of this dream job would be possible. I can’t ever say enough good about having her in my corner.
Heartfelt thanks, too, to my fantastic editor Alicia Clancy. I’m so grateful for her support, her enthusiasm, and her expertise and for how she paired me with Tiffany Martin, developmental editor extraordinaire. Tiffany had her finger on this book’s pulse from the beginning, and it was through her direction that I was able to put my finger there too. She’s the ultimate book whisperer, and I loved working with her.
Untold thanks to Nicole Pomeroy and to my copy editors Riam Griswold, Sylvia McCluskey, and Angela Elson for their sharp eyes and their skill at fine-tuning a book.
When I saw the cover for this book the first time, I just went, “Wow!” The image so perfectly captures the mood of the story. Thank you to Lindy Martin of Faceout for making it so compelling.
Thank you, too, to Gabe Dumpitt and Gabriella Trull and the whole APub team, including the marketing team, all of
whom work so hard to ensure the publishing journey is as smooth as possible. Thank you to Donna Postel, who has in her pitch-perfect voice narrated the audiobook versions of my last four novels. Thank you to all the folks at Audible who make audiobooks possible.
My appreciation to the wonderful moderators and members of Facebook reading groups is just endless. There are so many, and I know I’m going to miss some, but to name a few: Athena Kaye and Andrea Preskind Katz of Great Thoughts Great Readers; Kristy Barrett and Tonni Callan of A Novel Bee; Reader’s Coffeehouse; Susan Peterson of Sue’s Booking Agency; the many admins and members of Bloom with Tall Poppy Writers; and Linda Zagon of Linda’s Book Obsession. All the lovely readers/members/moderators/founders are, of course, in the habit of reading books, but they go that extra mile to review them and to talk them up among other members and anyone else who might be interested. They, and all the other groups that I know I’ve missed, are a tireless and wonderful support for books, and there is such contagious joy in sharing the love of writing and reading with them. I feel so fortunate to have been included in their membership as both a reader and an author. Thanks very much to my assistant, Kate Rock, an active and lovely supporter of books and authors and also the creative and artistic genius behind many of my giveaway graphics and book trailers.
And again, huge thanks to my law enforcement neighbor, Constable Chip Leake, for his patience in finding the answers to my questions about legal and police procedures with regard to the situations depicted in the plot of this novel. Any mistakes or misstatements along legal lines are entirely my own.
A big hug and thanks to my big sister, Susan Harper. I knew the story I wanted to tell but couldn’t get it moving, and it was during a conversation with her that she suggested what turned out to be the perfect trigger.
Thank you also to my sons, former college athletes Michael and David Sissel, who both have firsthand experience of the college-level recruiting process. Mike went on to play pro basketball overseas, which only enhanced my research. It was fun and interesting to revisit that time in their lives. I’m particularly grateful to have had the benefit of their knowledge and expertise for this story in regard to college athletics. Any misstatements are my own.
Tell No One Page 32