The Merciful Scar

by Rebecca St. James

  I laughed out loud when she jumped into them and buried her bed-head in his shoulder. Joseph held her and her bare feet dangled above the ground. It was the way a daddy should greet a daughter.

  But the next thought snuffed out my laughter. What about Andy? Did Joseph bring him back? Or news of him?

  Or nothing?

  I turned to the other side of the porch and leaned out to view the driveway, but no Jeep had tucked itself between the trucks and tractors. My heart began a slow decline that continued when Frankie didn’t come by for me at six, and Joseph and Emma were still talking outside the bunkhouse, she in Joseph’s jacket, listening intently to whatever he was telling her. If it was the story of Andy’s parents’ deaths, I was glad she was hearing it in a better way than Andy had. At least there was that. I hurried on to the barn, murmuring a thank You and a please bring him back and a please show me what to do next.

  Frankie wasn’t there, either, so I fed the chickens and both sets of bums, all the while listening to Hildegarde complain that she had full udders and, by golly, somebody had better come relieve her or all Hades was going to break loose. When I was finished with everything else and Frankie still hadn’t appeared, I found a clean bucket and straightened my shoulders and went into the corral.

  Uh, what do you think you’re doing?

  Merton and Sienna shied to the other side, ears down as if they had the same question.

  “I’m going to milk this cow,” I said. “I’m all you’ve got, Hildegarde, so let’s get it done together.”

  Her huge brown eyes roamed as if she were actually looking for other options. When she apparently saw none, she blew the air out of her enormous nostrils and let me lead her into the chute, where I had a bale of the freshest hay ready for her to nosh on.

  “I would really like to do this without including Little Augie,” I said as I massaged her udders with balm. “There’s just no reason why we need a man for everything. Come on. Cowgirl up.”

  The milk was squirting out, white with the promise of cream, when Frankie joined me and lowered herself onto the hay bale I always used for a seat. It was obvious her attempt at a smile was brave at best and that her prayers that morning had come with a side of tears.

  “You have no idea how much I appreciate this,” she said.

  I did my imitation of her and nodded.

  “I thought you’d want to know that Joseph found Andy in Reno.”

  I squeezed too hard and got a correctional groan from Hildegarde.

  “He’s fine. Physically. He wouldn’t come back with Joseph, though. He says he has something he needs to do.”

  I heard a tremor in her voice that made me afraid to ask what that was.

  So . . . yesterday was all for nothing then? You’re still going to hide from the things you don’t want to know?

  “May I ask what it is he needs to do?” I said.

  “You have every right to,” Frankie said. “And I would tell you if I knew. But maybe Andy told you himself.”

  I stopped milking and looked up at her. “I swear to you I haven’t talked to him. I would have told you.”

  “No, no . . .” Frankie sank her hand into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out an envelope. “I meant in here. Andy asked Joseph to give it to you.” She stood up. “It looks like Hildegarde’s given all she’s going to give this morning if you want to take some time alone to read it.”

  I folded the envelope in half and slipped it into my own pocket.

  “Kirsten.”

  I looked up again. Frankie’s eyes were full.

  “You are under no obligation to tell me what it says. But if you need me after you read it, you know where to find me.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I mean it.”

  Frankie closed her eyes, and I knew it was my turn to wait. When she opened them, she said, “This stirring up of my own past these last few days has reminded me how easy it is for anyone to be brought low by the memories that haunt them. I let it pull me down—and away from you and Emma, and I’m sorry.”

  “It’s—”

  Frankie put her finger to my lips. “It’s not okay. I’ve left you two to struggle through this on your own when everything we stand for here is strength in God and community. I’m still here for you, my friend. No matter what is in that letter.”

  I didn’t read it right away. I left it in my pocket while we herded the sheep, and when I returned to the Cloister I hoped Emma would be there so I would have a reason to put it off even longer. But the house was empty and I was left alone with a letter I didn’t want to read because I knew it would say what I always heard. I’m done with you.

  Again . . . what was yesterday for, then?

  To show me that getting free wasn’t the end of it. That now I faced a lifetime of looking the truth in the face before it had time to burrow under my skin.

  The sky was grumbling and cloaking itself in gray clouds, which could mean a downpour or a-few-spits-and-call-it-good, but to be on the safe side I decided against the porch and curled up in one of the recliners. I could hear her saying, For Pete’s sake, Petersen, read it already.

  Andy’s handwriting was strong, not surprisingly, and it raced urgently across the paper.

  Dear Kirsten,

  Kirsten. Not the Bo I longed to hear. I placed my hand on the bottom of the page so I couldn’t scroll down to the inevitable end.

  I don’t think it’s fair to leave you hanging, so I’m writing this so you’ll have the big picture. That’s what we both tried to see all summer, isn’t it? The big picture of our lives?

  I found myself nodding.

  Let me start with what Joseph told me—about what happened after he turned himself in for killing Gabe DeLuca. (I still can’t think of him as my father.) His lawyer told him he would never do time for the shooting. He said Joseph knew I was in danger and no jury would convict him for saving me from a guy who was obviously disturbed. (Yeah, I really, really can’t think of the man as my father.) The lawyer told Joseph he didn’t even see the DA bringing charges.

  But he wasn’t factoring in the power of the DeLuca family and the entourage of lawyers who descended on Conrad to make sure Joseph went down for what he did to one of their own. They wanted Murder One, which would have meant life in prison, but the DA offered them a deal. Joseph would do fifteen years for manslaughter and the DeLucas would agree to give sole custody of me to Frankie and my grandfather. They took it, which shows me Gabe didn’t try to take me because I was his son. He just wanted revenge. (Have I mentioned that I cannot and never will be able to think of him as my father?)

  I stopped reading so I could wipe my palms on my jeans. Hope fluttered somewhere just above my shoulders. If Andy could hold on to his sense of humor as he told this story that had the potential to rip him into confetti, maybe he was still all right. I turned back to the paper, which was now limp with my sweat.

  Joseph refused all visitors while he served his term, but Frankie and my grandfather kept tabs. He was the model prisoner and probably would have been released years earlier than he was but he would never petition for parole. He didn’t tell Frankie this until after he served out his sentence, but he was afraid the DeLucas would take him down the minute he was released.

  I knew the word surreal now and this more than qualified. How was this the life of people I loved?

  The day Joseph got out of prison, Frankie was there to pick him up but he almost didn’t go with her. That’s when he told her about his fear. He didn’t want to bring trouble to her. The only way she was able to convince him to come back to the ranch was by telling him how bad things were here. You know about that. He said Frankie prayed, right there in her beat-up truck in the parking lot of the Montana State Prison, and he knew he wasn’t going back to the ranch just to help her and save the Bellwether. He knew it was the only chance he had of ever being healed.

  I had to stop and wipe my nose before I read on.

  I want you to know that I apologi
zed to him today for shutting him out instead of manning up four years ago. He gets it. Of course. He’s Joseph. What he didn’t get was why I can’t come back to the ranch yet. Even though I could hear you saying I should, I couldn’t tell him why. I’m only telling you because I got so used to sharing everything with you. It doesn’t feel like it’s happening unless I tell you. Anyway here it is: I’m going to San Francisco to find the DeLucas and set them straight on the kind of man Joseph Maxwell is. I have to do this.

  Oh, Andy. No.

  I don’t know how long it’s going to take, so I don’t know if you’ll still be there when I get back. And I don’t even know who I’ll be by then because I don’t think I’ve even scratched the surface of what I have to face. I just know I have to face it on my own. I know you’ll get that.

  “No,” I said. “You don’t get it, Andy. You can’t do this alone.”

  Thank you for the way you were always there for me. I’m trusting you to keep this between us.

  I was shaking my head before I even got to the signature, a simple Andy.

  I can’t do that, Andy. Because it doesn’t belong between us.

  My phone was in the bedroom and I started across the front room to get it. I owed it to him to text him and tell him what I was going to do and at least give him a chance to tell Joseph and Frankie himself. But if he didn’t, I had to, or he was going to get himself killed.

  Finally you figured out what yesterday was all about.

  I didn’t make it as far as the bedroom before someone knocked with a firm hand. For a crazy moment I hoped it was Andy, but it was Joseph I opened the door to.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Emma’s not here.”

  “I know,” he said. “I came to talk to you. Got a minute?”

  I stepped out onto the porch. “Pick a rocker,” I said.

  “I’m not staying that long. You got the letter?”

  “Right here.”

  He only glanced at it, still unfolded in my hand, but I saw the longing in his eyes.

  “I just wanted to say I’m sorry I couldn’t get him to come home with me,” Joseph said. “I know you mean a lot to each other. If he changes his mind, it’ll be because of you—”

  “He’s going to San Francisco, Joseph. He’s going to look for the DeLucas and tell them they were wrong about you.”

  Joseph lowered his head to look straight into my eyes.

  “It’s in the letter. If you want to read it—”

  “Dear Lord in heaven,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Joseph left early the next morning to catch a flight to San Francisco. Emma, Frankie, and I stood on the porch of the Cloister and watched him go. But Frankie allowed no silence this time. She took my hand and Emma’s and said, “We will do this together.”

  Every moment of that day seemed deep as we cared for the animals and ate our meals around Frankie’s table and prayed together in the garden. When Frankie walked us back to the Cloister that night, we shared Emma’s coffee on the porch with her—and held hands while Frankie took Joseph’s call.

  “He knows where Andy’s staying in San Francisco,” she told us. “That’s good news, my friends.”

  No. Good news would be: And he has sedated him and is carrying him home on the next plane.

  Frankie said good night and made her way back up the path with Undie and Norwich. I felt Emma looking at me. Although we’d been together all day, we still hadn’t had a real conversation since Joseph left the first time to look for Andy. I could let go of blaming myself, but that didn’t mean everybody else was going to give up blaming me.

  “With all this going down with Andy, do I need to keep you from cutting, Petersen?”

  It was a minute before I could answer, only because I needed that long to get my jaw back into place.

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t even thought about it. Now, taking one of the trucks and going after him myself, that I’ve thought about.”

  Emma shook her head. “You wouldn’t get out of here without me.”

  Just when you got your jaw hinged again . . .

  “That’s not just because you saved my life. It’s more what Frankie said: we do this together.”

  “So . . . you forgive me?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  Emma gave a vintage grunt. “No. I just finally figured out there was nothing to forgive you for. Question is: did you give up blaming yourself yet for what your old man did?”

  “I’m workin’ on it.”

  She stared uneasily into her coffee cup.

  “Spit it out, Velasquez.”

  “I wasn’t trying to get into your business the other day when I went and got Frankie, but the way you were screaming in the bathroom . . . I knew you wouldn’t let me go through something like that alone. I mean . . . you didn’t.”

  “I couldn’t have done it alone,” I said. “So thank you.”

  “Yeah, well, you can also thank me for helping Frankie carry your sorry self to the bed and covering you up with ten tons of quilts. How do you sleep under all that stuff?”

  I laughed. And then I laughed again. On the third gale, Emma joined me. “Although,” she said, “I have no idea what we’re laughing about.”

  Frankie didn’t hear from Joseph again until the next afternoon. Emma and I were cleaning out the water trough in Bellwether Middle School when she came down with the news, phone in hand, face pure white. Emma shut the pump down and went straight to her.

  “What happened?” she said.

  “Nothing yet,” Frankie said. “Andy is right now sitting in a restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf with several of the DeLucas. Joseph’s watching from the other side of the street. He can catch glimpses of them through the window when there isn’t someone blocking his view.”

  “This can’t be real,” I said.

  “No, I’m afraid it’s all too real.” Frankie looked at each of us in turn. “I need your help, ladies. Because I am very, very frightened.”

  Emma’s chin lifted. “You got it. How can we help?”

  “We do what she does for us,” I said.

  Emma, of course, made coffee with Hilda cream and I snuggled Frankie into one of the wide chairs in her living room under the perpetually waiting Mary and lit as many candles as I could find. Coffee cups steadying our beyond-nervous hands, we prayed.

  We prayed for so long Frankie said it was a vigil. When we stopped to have bread and cheese, the prayers still threaded their way through our conversation.

  “God bless our Joseph,” Frankie said. She took the wedge of Muenster I handed her, but she couldn’t seem to get it to her mouth. “He’s out there again trying to save Andy from the people my sister took him away from.”

  “If anybody can do it, Joseph can,” Emma said.

  Frankie closed her eyes. “Only if Andy wants to be saved. That’s what I keep bumping into.”

  I bumped into it, too, but from a different place. A clear place. Was that why I didn’t save Lara’s life that night? Because she didn’t want to be saved?

  Just a point of clarification: she’s not dead.

  But she had no life—not there in that stuffy Missouri bungalow with a mother who kept her there out of guilt. Was there another life she could have?

  Could I save it this time?

  The phone jangled me back to the circle. By the time my mind caught up, Frankie was holding it to her ear. And she was smiling.

  “Okay—no questions. We’ll talk when you get here.”

  When she hung up Emma was almost in her lap.

  “Well?”

  “They’re driving the Jeep home. Both of them.”

  I smiled with Frankie and high-fived with Emma and I was, indeed, glad.

  But I knew when Andy came back to the ranch I wasn’t going to be there.

  “He’s going to be so angry with me,” I told God the next day. I’d intended to wait until I was at the monument to start the talk, but before I’d even left
the main road, the quiet question was already being asked.

  What are you doing here, Kirsten?

  “I’m trying to figure out just how to do this, and I need Your help. That’s what I’m doing.”

  We were both quiet until I leaned against the stone wall I now called mine. I knew what questions to ask because I’d thought them through all night.

  What was the point in being there when Andy came back? He’d asked me not to tell and I had. I’d done it for his safety and I would do it again if I had to. But I hadn’t heard from him myself, not even a text. In the last text I’d gotten from him, the same night he left, he’d said, You might not want to wait for me. And then there was the letter with all its past-tense phrases: what we both tried to see all summer—I got used to sharing everything with you—thank you for the way you were always there for me. Whatever we were going to have together had already happened.

  The question I didn’t know the answer to was whether I was running away. Now in the silence with the stones pressing their familiar pattern against my back, I heard the bat kol answer almost before I asked—in Frankie’s words the night we left Bozeman. “You’re not running away. You’re running for your life.”

  Of course, things were different now. I was different. Now I had some power. Not power over, I assured God quickly. Power to.

  I sat up and slanted away from the stones. That didn’t seem right somehow. Because something else was different. Not about me. About this place.

  I looked around and found the same craggy slopes across the canyon. The same chittering of some cute animal that thought I was there to invade its den. The same endless open space that used to make me want to hide under Crazy Trixie’s quilts . . .

  I felt the smile almost before I knew. That was it. There was no aloneness—even without Bathsheba and without the hope of Andy and without a plan beyond Go home to Lara and help her have whatever life is possible. So I could finally find mine too.