Little does she know, p.23
Little Does She Know, page 23
part #1 of If Only She Knew Series
“I’m sorry for what my”—he fumbled for the words—“other mom did to you. But I’m here now.”
“I can see that,” I said as I nudged my feet a step forward, an invisible rope pulling us closer. So badly I wanted to reach out and touch him. To make sure he was real. “You’re so tall. Like your dad.”
“Yep, that happens with time.” His lips lifted in a grin.
“I’m so sorry, Jonah.”
“For what?” His chin tipped at an angle.
“For not watching you better in that storm. For not being there when you were taken.”
His hand reached out to me. I moved mine closer to him, yearning for that zap of connection. “It’s okay. It was a mistake. I know you didn’t mean for something bad to happen, and I know you searched for me for years.”
“It doesn’t matter that I searched for you. What matters is that I didn’t find you.”
His hand found mine. Zap. The warmest zap I’d ever felt.
“You found me now.”
My skirt whipped at his bare legs, the floral pattern wrapping around his shins. “Were you treated well, I hope?”
“The best.” He winced, as if he’d said the wrong thing. “I couldn’t have asked for a better childhood, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“That’s all a mother ever really wants for her child, a beautiful life. I’m just sorry it wasn’t with me.”
“Is it too late for that—for us? To get to know each other?” he asked.
“It’s never too late, Jonah.”
I had come here to say goodbye to the past, to my roots, and in a way I had. With it finally gone, all that remained was a blank slate, where my life could become anything. A mother. A friend. But right now, all I wanted was to stay here, suspended in this exquisite, infinite present.
Chapter 38
Tara
I could feel fate closing in on me, sealing me in a coffin of my own making. It had been five days since my husband was taken into police custody, one day since I had found out my daughter killed a man, eight hours since I talked to my lawyer, four phone messages to Ginger that went unreturned, and twelve texts from my mother I had been avoiding.
When the doorbell rang, I pulled myself away from my cell phone. My eyes were tired of ricocheting between reading social media posts and tracking every news article about Benson Mallowan’s murder. I had been trapped in this labyrinth for hours, unable to find my way out until something, anything, proved Nora was innocent and some serial killer or home robbery gone wrong instead was to blame.
I answered the door, expecting my mother. Not Peace and Ginger, with my mom tucked in between them. Behind the cluster of bodies was Benny’s ex-wife Sloane, an appearance that made my jaw drop.
“Surprised to see us all?” Mom asked, elbowing her way past me into the house.
The group wove around me into the living room. “I guess Eloise told you all everything?” I often slid into a first-name basis for my mother when she overstepped her bounds.
“We’re not here to judge,” Peace interjected, interpreting for Sloane, who was signing beside her. “We’re here to help. I know you’re worried about your daughter, and I knew Benny well enough to help you piece this together before you do something you’ll regret.”
As Sloane and Peace sat together on the sofa resuming a conversation I wasn’t privy to, Mom slipped into the kitchen to make coffee for everyone.
“‘Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.’” Only Ginger knew how to pull me out of a mood with the often misquoted line from All About Eve.
She halted on her way toward the overstuffed chair that Chris usually claimed, holding the stance for a terribly long, uncertain moment. Her body, covered in vintage Jordache, stiffened with determination. “I had to be here for you. This is too important. You can kick me out and banish me from your life again after you’ve gotten the support you need.”
She waited, I waited, we both waited, knowing exactly what needed to happen. We flung our arms open and pulled each other in at the same time, thinking the same thing, crying the same tears that only close friends can shed together. She sniffled into my shoulder, and I mumbled against hers.
“If you blow your nose on my shirt…” I left the threat empty, and she filled it in with a laugh.
“It’s better than the tissues up my sleeve, isn’t it?” she retorted.
“Anything is better than those!”
And just like that, we both hit the play button on our friendship, as if it had never been paused.
I couldn’t say I wasn’t relieved to see everyone. This was by definition a family emergency, and I needed all the family—and friendship—I could get. Without them, I wasn’t sure I could go through with what I needed to do. I knew I could give them the facts and they would hand me back faith to do the right thing. More than anything I wanted to trust that it would all work out, but my trust was as flimsy as my knees had become as I stumbled to take a seat.
After Mom set the coffee table with a carafe, mugs, sugar, and creamer, we all looked up at the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. Jonah had been sent to retrieve Nora, a job better fit for Cool Uncle Jonah than Overbearing Mom. My daughter, swimming in another one of her father’s sweatshirts, stared blankly around the room with dark half-moon-rimmed eyes. She hadn’t seen Havoc in days, refused to visit the barn, had barely eaten more than crackers. All she did was sleep and mope and I couldn’t watch her self-destruct any longer, even if it required the ultimate destruction to free her.
On the sofa Mom, Peace, and Sloane sat thigh to thigh, and Ginger sat catty-corner in an armchair. Nora took the loveseat next to Jonah, and completing the circle was me. Nora’s gaze roamed wildly at all the eyes fixed on her, until she settled on mine, begging me for information. I became acutely aware of the expressions across the room. Jonah’s timidity at both his mothers being here in one place. Peace’s soft concern. Eloise’s scrutiny. Ginger’s yearning. Sloane’s placid observation. And back to Nora’s, now full of horror.
“Mom, what’s going on?” Nora asked.
“Nora, we need to talk.” I loathed that phrase anytime Chris used it—it always sent my pulse into overdrive—and yet here I was parroting it.
I could envision Nora’s brain churning with ideas. “It is something bad?”
No more lying. “Yes, honey, it’s something bad.”
I used to think I was immune to nightmares. As if I was above the worst life had to offer. Maybe I thought this because I was a good person who didn’t deserve bad things, or maybe it was because life had always handed me its best. Today I realized how wrong I was.
Life hadn’t discriminated as it doled out suffering equally. I thought of all Ginger had gone through. A husband who left her suddenly, with three young children. An infant she painfully surrendered, cutting her own heart apart to save his. Another child abducted and the guilt of those few moments she wasn’t there and how dearly it cost her. And now another son dead, the son she committed her life to, who so easily wanted to take everything away from her. Her love for him had been deep, while his love for her was shallow. Life wasn’t just unfair; it was downright cruel.
“Is this about Dad?” Nora pressed.
No. Yes. Maybe. The truth was buried somewhere in a black hole inside of me, whirling through the space of my mind.
“Sort of. It’s about what happened…that night.”
“Okaaay…” She drew out the word as if clinging to it like a life raft.
“I know we didn’t really get a chance to talk in detail about it, but I need you to tell us, to tell me, where you were, what you did. From your perspective.”
“I already told you, Mom. I heard a gunshot, which woke me up. So I went downstairs and it was storming. I went outside, and I heard a scream, which is why I called the police. By then you and Dad were already out of bed and had gone to check on Miss Ginger.”
Already the details weren’t lining up. Already she was lying. The scream happened before the gunshot, and she hadn’t called the police until I was already at Ginger’s. I still hadn’t pieced when Chris left, but it was definitely before I even woke up.
“Nora.” If we were being stubborn tonight, Nora had nothing on me.
I knelt at her feet, cupping her hands in mine. I needed her to feel my love surging, my promise to protect her during the hardest conversation of her life. Somewhere along the way we had jumped from chats about homework and wrestling matches to murder.
“Be honest with me. Were you at Ginger’s house the night Benson…died?”
I refused to say was murdered. I could never let my daughter think I looked at her as a killer, no matter what she had done. Because ultimately, she came from me. She was formed inside me, and nothing could break that bond, that love, even murder. Because of that love, I knew the right thing to do. As a mother my job was to walk with her through this, to make amends, to right the wrongs, no matter how painful it was. In the end, her character, her growth, who she was and who she became was more important than her freedom.
Nora pulled her hands out of my grip, shuffled away from me across the cushion. “You know, don’t you?”
“I think so. Is that why your father isn’t talking? He knows what happened and is taking the fall for you?”
Nora nodded, shame clouding her face. “I don’t know what to do, Mom.”
I tipped her chin up, caressed her cheek, now damp with tears. “Honey, I’m sure it was a tragic accident. We’ll talk to the lawyer first, together, but we have to tell the police.”
“But Mom, I broke the law. I’ll go to jail forever.” Nora turned to look at Ginger. “It wasn’t the accident you think it was.”
Then the story unfolded, every secret came to light.
“You know how you were teaching me to cook?” Nora began, directing the question to Ginger, then shifting back to me. “We would talk a lot during our cooking sessions, and she told me how much our family meant to her and how much she would miss us when she was gone. When I asked her what she meant, she told me that Mr. Benson was selling her house and she was going to the Happy Homes place soon. She seemed so sad about it, and it didn’t seem right. So I told Dad, asking if there was any way we could help her. He didn’t say much then, but he told me he’d figure something out.”
I recalled the empty space beside me in bed, and how it had remained empty since.
“Then the night of the storm happened. I woke up when I heard Dad going downstairs and outside—you know how heavy he walks—which seemed strange, especially because it was really late and raining hard. So I followed him, thinking he was going to check on Havoc and I figured I’d help. Instead he went next door, and I don’t know, I guess I was curious so I followed him. I watched from under the tree canopy while he was arguing with Mr. Benson on the back porch about Miss Ginger.”
“What were they fighting about?”
“I heard something about Mr. Benson accusing Dad of stealing Miss Ginger’s gun, saying it was rightfully his and worth a lot of money. Dad told him he didn’t have the gun, and after that, it got pretty intense.”
“How so?” I asked, assuming this was the fistfight Chris had alluded to.
Ginger leaned in, while Peace interpreted all of this for Sloane.
“Mr. Benson called Dad a liar and pushed him, then Dad punched him in the face and left. I went home after this, but I was too wired to sleep, so I snuck back over to Miss Ginger’s back door and broke in.”
“You did what?” I exclaimed.
“Keanu taught me how to jimmy a lock. I was only trying to be nice. I knew how sad Miss Ginger had been feeling, so I brought her a vase of roses from our yard and this mini-card of mine she liked that Uncle Jonah had given me. When I was putting the flowers on her counter, I saw our kitchen knife that I had left at her house. I didn’t want you to be pissed at me when you noticed it was gone, so I grabbed it to bring it home. It was pitch-black, and Mr. Benson must have heard me and thought I was Dad. He lunged at me while I was literally heading out the door, Mom, and I turned and stabbed him.”
“Oh, Nora…” There were no words.
“I’m so sorry, Mom. I wasn’t thinking, just reacting. I guess my wrestling instincts kicked in, because I twisted and went for a single leg takedown, forgetting the knife was still in my hand.”
As Nora left me with the image of the knife in her hand piercing Benson’s chest, she broke down, unable to continue. Ginger rose from her seat and slid next to her, cradling my daughter—her granddaughter—against her chest. I could already envision the play-by-play as Benson’s body slammed into hers, his thick shoulder cracking into her tiny frame. Then a swift pivot as the knife’s blade swung around, his muscle at first resisting, then accepting the metal. I imagined the shock of nerves being severed, the burn of flesh dying.
“I didn’t know he was hurt until I pushed him off of me, and he just kind of slumped and fell down. He was still alive, and I was going to get Miss Ginger, until I heard a gunshot right behind me and I ran until I got home and found Dad in the kitchen icing his hand. All I told him was that I broke into Miss Ginger’s house and stabbed Mr. Benson. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Ginger ran her hands over Nora’s head, shushing her gently. “I’m so sorry I scared you, Nora. I was just trying to send a warning shot. I didn’t know it was you, honey.”
“Miss Ginger, you have to believe me that I didn’t mean to kill him.”
“I’m guessing your dad told you he’d take care of everything and not to say a word about it to anyone?” I ventured.
“Not even you.” Nora’s whole body shook with sobs.
Breaking and entering. Manslaughter.
I knew why. Chris was afraid it would break me, discovering what my daughter had done. Chris thought I was fragile; he had no idea how much I could shoulder, though. I had proven that this week.
Good intentions or not, accident or not, Nora had broken into their home and stabbed a man. There was no way to know how the authorities would spin it. These days kids were committing crimes left and right, teens were being tried as adults. As far as Chris knew, he had to take his daughter’s crimes as his own. It was who her father was. Protector. Confidant. Intercessor. Since her birth, Nora was the sun he revolved around, no matter how much she wanted him to spin off his axis away from her.
“Whatever happens, Nora, I’m right beside you.” Then I let each word have its due: “I love you.”
A violent sob jerked in my chest, stirring the anguish of knowing what my daughter had been through. I didn’t want to let her go. I didn’t want her to pay this price. In an instant I fell from seeking to amend wrongs to imagining a way to hide them. I had become squishy flesh and no bone. I couldn’t be that mother, and I couldn’t let Chris be that father.
“Nora, I need you to tell the police exactly what you told me. They’ll understand it was just a tragic accident. We can’t hide it anymore. You understand?”
Nora whimpered. “Do you think I’ll go to jail?”
“Absolutely not,” my mother interjected.
“Honey, we will not let that happen,” Ginger added. “You have to trust your mom. She’ll protect you. She always has, and she always will. Have faith in her, okay?”
Faith. It was a vague, empty promise, because the moment Nora confessed the truth was the moment everything slid out of my control. I didn’t want this decision, but it was mine regardless. Just as life had sealed Ginger’s fate, I had to seal Nora’s.
“I’m so scared, Mom!”
“I know, baby, but what does your dad always say about fear?”
Nora sighed, wiping her nose on the cuff of her sleeve. “When you’re overcome with fear, overcome it with courage.”
I thought of all I had survived, all Ginger had survived. We had become victors in our stories, but victory didn’t come without courage.
Chapter 39
Ginger
Six Months Later…
The fire in front of me blazed, tempting me to step right in. I had already died once in 1986. Then I died another thousand deaths over as I took each blow to the gut after Rick left. Punch. And Cole was taken. Punch. Then my house stolen. Punch. Now my firstborn son buried. Punch. As the flames raged, it felt like I was about to die again as I saw my dead son’s handwriting scrawled across an envelope addressed to me…a death I had long waited for.
My fingertip paused at the crease. I was afraid to open it. A letter six months from beyond the grave wasn’t something to take lightly. I had no idea when he had penned this, or what horrible thing he couldn’t tell me in person that prompted him to write me instead.
“You can do this,” Tara said, her words offering great comfort. Then she switched to a Russian accent and added, “You’re strong, like bull.”
I chuckled, instantly recalling the movie quote. “There’s Something About Mary. And no, I’m not strong. Not anymore.”
“Ging, give yourself credit. You’re the toughest old bird I know!”
Smiling, I knew no matter what was in the envelope, Tara would be here. The truth was, I could only do this with my best friend beside me.
With a trembling hand, I tore across the edge of the paper, slicing it open to find two pages inside. One handwritten, and one formally typed. It was a terrifying revelation, as experience had taught me that formal letters contained foreclosure notices, or child welfare investigations, or bankruptcy statements, or any number of terrible outcomes. Nothing good ever came from a formal letter.
I placed the handwritten page on top, instantly recognizing Benny’s clean script. I could barely see through my tears as I imagined him sitting down, pen in hand, to write this, whatever it was. It was time to find out.
Dear Mom,
We both know I’ve been a terrible son. Controlling, manipulative, making you think you’re going senile. Wanting you out of the way. Most of all I’ve been selfish. I always blamed you for how I ended up like this, because I thought you chased my dad away. And because you were obsessed with a dead son I couldn’t compete with. I can’t explain why I’ve treated you like this; there’s no reason, only that I hated you for wrongs you never committed.
