The Great Alone

by Kristin Hannah

  Chief Ward set his elbows on the desk and steepled his blunt-tipped fingers. “You could have mailed this letter.”

  “I could have.”

  “But that’s not who you are, is it, Lenora? You’re a good girl. An honest person. I have glowing reports about you in this file.” He leaned forward. “What happened on the night you ran away? What set him off?”

  “I … found out I was pregnant,” she said.

  “Matthew Walker,” he said, glancing down at the file. “People said you two kids were in love.”

  “Uh-huh,” Leni said.

  “Sad as hell about what happened to him. To both of you. But you got better, and he…” Chief Ward let it hang there; Leni felt her shame hang on the hook of the unspoken. “I hear your dad hated the Walkers.”

  “More than hated them.”

  “And when your father found out you were pregnant?”

  “He went crazy. Started beating me with his fists, with his belt…” The memories she’d spent years submerging broke free.

  “He was a mean son of a bitch, from what I hear.”

  “Sometimes.” Leni looked away. Out of the corner of her eye she saw MJ reading his book, his mouth moving as he worked to sound out the words. She hoped these spoken words didn’t find purchase in some dark corner of his subconscious, able to rise one day.

  Chief Ward pushed some papers toward her. Leni saw Allbright, Coraline in the corner. “I have sworn statements from Marge Birdsall, Natalie Watkins, Tica Rhodes, Thelma Schill, and Tom Walker. All of them testified to seeing bruises on your mother over the years. There were a lot of tears when I took these statements, I can tell you that, a lot of folks wishing they’d done things different. Thelma said she wished she’d shot your dad herself.”

  “Mama never let anyone help her,” Leni said. “I still don’t know why.”

  “Did she ever tell anyone he beat her?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You have to tell the truth if you want real help,” Chief Ward said.

  Leni stared at him.

  “Come on, Leni. You and I both know what happened that night. Your mom didn’t do this alone. You were a kid. It wasn’t your fault. You did what your mom asked of you, and who wouldn’t? There’s no one on the planet who wouldn’t understand. He was beating her, for God’s sake. The law will understand.”

  He was right. She had been a kid. A scared, pregnant eighteen-year-old.

  “Let me help you,” he said. “You can get rid of this terrible burden.”

  She knew what her mother and grandparents wanted her to do now: to keep lying, to say Leni hadn’t witnessed the murder or the drive to Glass Lake or her father sinking into the icy water.

  To say: not me.

  She could blame it all on Mama and stick to that story.

  And forever be a woman with this dark, terrible secret. A liar.

  Mama had wanted Leni to come home, but home was not just a cabin in a deep woods that overlooked a placid cove. Home was a state of mind, the peace that came from being who you were and living an honest life. There was no going halfway home. She couldn’t build a new life on the creaky foundation of a lie. Not again. Not for home.

  “The truth will set you free, Leni. Isn’t that what you want? Why you’re here? Tell me what really happened that night.”

  “He hit me when he found out about the baby, hard enough to fracture my cheek and break my nose. I … I don’t remember all of it, just him hitting me. Then I heard Mama say, Not my Leni, and a gunshot. I … saw blood seep across his shirt. She shot him twice in the back. To stop him from killing me.”

  “And you helped her get rid of his body.”

  Leni hesitated. The compassion in his eyes made her say quietly, “And I helped her get rid of the body.”

  Chief Ward sat there a moment, looking down at the records in front of him. He appeared ready to say something, then changed his mind. He opened his desk drawer (it made a scratchy, creaking sound) and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. “Can you write it all down?”

  “I’ve told you everything.”

  “I need it on paper. Then we’ll be done. Don’t lose steam now, Leni. You’re so close to the end. You want all of this behind you, right?”

  Leni reached for the pen and pulled the paper toward her. At first she just stared down at the blank page. “Maybe I should ask for a lawyer? My grandfather would recommend that. He’s a lawyer.”

  “You can do that,” he said. “It’s what guilty people do.” He reached for the phone. “Shall I call for one?”

  “You believe me, right? I didn’t kill him and Mama didn’t want to. The law knows about battered women now.”

  “Of course. And besides, you’ve already told me the truth.”

  “So I just have to write it down and I’ll be done? I can go to Kaneq?”

  He nodded.

  What difference did it make to write the words? She began slowly, word by word, rebuilding the scene of that terrible night. The fists, the belt, the blood, the gore. The frozen trek to the lake. The last image of her father’s face, ivory in the moonlight, sinking into water. The sound of ice slushing over the rim of the hole.

  The only omission was about Large Marge’s help. She mentioned nothing about her at all. She didn’t mention her grandparents, either, or where she and Mama had gone when they left Alaska.

  She ended with: We flew from Homer to Anchorage and then left Alaska.

  She pushed the paper across the desk.

  Chief Ward looked down at her confession.

  “I’m done reading, Mommy,” MJ said. She waved him over.

  He slapped the book shut and half charged across the room. He climbed up onto her lap like a monkey. Even though he was too big, she held him, let him stay, his skinny legs hanging as he kicked the metal desk with his sneaker toe. Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Chief Ward looked at her. “You’re under arrest,” he said.

  Leni felt the world literally drop out from under her. “But … you said we’d be done if I wrote it down.”

  “You and I are done. Now it’s up to someone else.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I wish you hadn’t come in here.”

  All the warnings over the years. How had she forgotten? She’d let her need for forgiveness and redemption trump common sense. “What do you mean?”

  “This is out of my hands, Leni. It’s up to the court now. I am going to have to lock you up, at least until your arraignment. If you can’t afford an attorney—”

  “Mommy?” MJ said, frowning.

  The chief read Leni her Miranda rights from a sheet of paper, then finished up with: “Unless you know someone who can take your son, he’s going to have to go to Social Services. They’ll take good care of him. I promise.”

  Leni couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid and naïve. How could she not have seen this coming? She’d been warned. And still she’d believed the police. She knew how unforgiving the law could be to women.

  She wanted to rail and scream and cry and throw furniture, but it was too late for that. She’d made a terrible mistake. There couldn’t be another. “Tom Walker,” she said.

  “Tom?” Chief Ward frowned. “Why would I call him?”

  “Just call him. Tell him I need help. He’ll come for me.”

  “What you need is a lawyer.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Tell him that, too.”

  THIRTY

  Processed.

  Before today, Leni associated that word with food that had been stretched out of recognition and changed into something bad for you. Like spray cheese.

  Now it had a whole new meaning.

  Fingerprints. Mug shots. Turn to the right, please. Hands patting her down.

  “This is fun!” MJ said, banging his hands along the cell bars, running from side to side. “I sound like a helicopter. Listen.” He ran again, as fast as he could, his hand hitting the bars.

  Leni couldn’t manage a smile. She couldn’t lo

ok at him but she couldn’t look away. It had taken endless pleading on her part to get them to let him be in here with her. Thank God she was in Homer, not Anchorage, where she was pretty sure the rules would be more strictly enforced. Apparently there still wasn’t much crime in the area. Mostly this cell was used to house drunks on the weekends.

  Clang. Clang. Clang.

  “MJ,” Leni said sharply. It wasn’t until she saw his face—the worried green eyes, the gaped mouth—that she realize she’d screamed it.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Come here, kiddo.”

  MJ’s moods were like the sea; one glance told you all you needed to know. She’d hurt his feelings, maybe even frightened him with her outburst.

  Something else to feel bad about.

  MJ shuffled across the small cell, purposely scuffling his rubber-soled tennis shoes. “I’m ice-skating,” he said.

  Leni managed a smile as she patted the empty place beside her on the cement bench. He sat down next to her. The cell was so small the lidless toilet was practically touching his knee. Through the metal bars, Leni could see most of the police station—the front desk, the waiting area. The door to Chief Ward’s office.

  She had to force herself not to take MJ into her arms and hold him tightly. “I have to talk to you,” she said. “You know how we’re always talking about your dad?”

  “He’s brain damaged, but he would love me anyway. That’s a gross toilet.”

  “And he lives in a facility where they take care of people like him. That’s why he doesn’t visit us.”

  MJ nodded. “He can’t talk anyway. He fell down a hole and broke his head.”

  “Uh-huh. And he lives up here. In Alaska. Where Mommy grew up.”

  “I know that, silly. It’s why we’re here. Can he walk?”

  “I don’t think so. But … you also have a grandfather who lives here. And an aunt named Alyeska.”

  MJ finally stopped banging his plastic triceratops on the bench and looked at her. “Another grandpa? Jason has three grandpas.”

  “And you have two now, isn’t that cool?”

  She heard the station door open. Through it, the sound of a truck rumbling past outside, tires crunching on gravel. A horn honking.

  And there was Tom Walker, striding into the police station. He wore faded jeans tucked into boots and a black T-shirt that had a huge, colorful Walker Cove Adventure Lodge logo on the front. A dirty trucker’s hat was pulled low on his broad forehead.

  He came to a stop in the center of the station, looked around.

  Saw her.

  Leni couldn’t have remained seated even if she’d tried, which she didn’t. She eased away from MJ and got to her feet.

  She felt a flutter of energy that was equal parts anxiety and joy. She hadn’t realized until right now, this moment, how much she’d missed Mr. Walker. Over the years, she’d romanticized him. She and Mama both had. For Mama, he’d been the chance she should have taken. For Leni, he’d been the ideal of what a dad could be. In the beginning, they’d talked about him often, until it had become too painful for both of them and they’d stopped.

  He moved toward her, pulled the hat from his head, crushed it in his hands. He looked different, more weathered than aged. His long blond hair was gray around his face and had been pulled back into a ponytail. He had obviously been working in the woods when Chief Ward called him. Dried leaves and twigs stuck to his flannel shirt. “Leni,” he said when there was nothing but a set of jail-cell bars between them. “I didn’t believe Curt when he said you were here.” He clutched the bars in his big, work-reddened hands. “I thought your dad killed you.”

  Leni’s shame reared up; she felt her face warm. “Mama killed him. When he started in on me. We had to run.”

  “I would have helped you,” he said, lowering his voice, leaning in. “We all would have.”

  “I know. That’s why we didn’t ask.”

  “And … Cora?”

  “Gone,” Leni said in a thick voice. “Lung cancer. She … thought of you often.”

  “Oh, Leni, I’m so sorry. She was…”

  “Yeah,” Leni said softly, trying right then not to think of all the ways her mother was special, or how much her loss hurt. It hadn’t been long enough yet; Leni hadn’t learned how to talk about her pain. Instead, Leni stepped sideways, so he could see the boy sitting behind her. “MJ—Matthew Junior—this is your Grandpa Tom.”

  Mr. Walker had always seemed impossibly, superhumanly strong, but now, with one look at the boy who looked so much like his son, she saw how it cracked him open. “Oh, my God…”

  MJ popped to his feet. He was clutching a red plastic dinosaur in one fist.

  Mr. Walker squatted down to be eye to eye with his grandson through the cell bars. “You remind me of another boy with blond hair.”

  Hold it together.

  “I’m MJ!” he said with an oversized smile, jumping up. “You wanna see my dinosaurs?” MJ didn’t wait for an answer, started pulling his plastic dinosaurs from his pockets, producing each new one with flourish.

  Over the sound of the growling (that’s what T. rex sounds like, grrr), Mr. Walker said, “He looks just like his dad.”

  “Yeah.” The past muscled its way into the present. Leni looked down at her feet, unable to meet Mr. Walker’s gaze.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she said. “We had to leave fast and I didn’t want to get you into trouble. I didn’t want you to have to lie for us, and I couldn’t let Mama go to prison…”

  “Ah, Leni,” Mr. Walker said at last, rising to his feet. “You always had too many worries for a girl your age. So why are you in here if your mom killed Ernt? Curt should give you both a freaking medal, not lock you up.”

  Leni could have crumpled at the kindness she saw in his eyes. How could he not be angry? She’d abandoned his brain-damaged son, lied for years by her absence, and stolen years of his grandson’s life from him. And now she had to ask him for another favor. “I helped her after the fact. You know … to get rid of the … body.”

  He leaned in. “You admitted that? Why?”

  “The chief outsmarted me. Anyway, maybe it’s the way it has to be. I needed to tell the truth. I’m tired of pretending to be someone else. I’ll figure it all out. My grandfather is a lawyer. I just … need to know MJ is safe until I’m … out. Will you take him?”

  “Of course I will, but—”

  “And I know I have no right to ask you this, but please don’t tell Matthew about his son. I need to do that myself.”

  “Matthew won’t—”

  “I know he won’t understand, but I need to be the one to tell him he has a son. It’s the right thing to do.”

  She heard the jangle of keys, footsteps. Chief Ward was coming this way. He eased in past Mr. Walker and unlocked the cell door. “It’s time,” he said.

  Leni bent down to her son. “Okay, baby boy,” she said, trying to be strong. “You need to go with your grandpa now. Mommy has … things to do.” She gave him a little shove, so that he was outside the cell.

  “Mommy? I don’t wanna go.”

  Leni looked to Mr. Walker for help. She didn’t know how to do this.

  Mr. Walker laid his big hand on MJ’s little shoulder. “It’s a pink year, MJ.” His voice was as unsteady as Leni felt. “That means the humpies are clogging the rivers. We could fish the Anchor River today. Chances are good you’ll catch the biggest fish of your life.”

  “Can my mommy and daddy come?” MJ asked. “Oh. Wait. My daddy can’t move. I forgot.”

  “You know about your dad?” Mr. Walker said.

  MJ nodded. “Mommy loves him more than the moon and the stars. Like she loves me. But he has a broke head.”

  “The boy needs to leave now,” Chief Ward said.

  MJ looked at Leni. “So I’m going fishing with my new grandpa, right? Then we’ll play jail more?”

  “Uh-huh,” Leni said, doing her best not to cry. She had taught her son to trust her, always, and to believe her, and so he did. She reached out and pulled him into a hug, imprinting the feel of him. Of all the courage she had expended so far—coming home, telling the truth, calling for Tom Walker—it took the greatest toll on her to simply let her son go. She managed a shaky smile. “’Bye, MJ. Be good for Grandpa. Try not to break anything.”

  “’Bye, Mommy.”

  Mr. Walker swept MJ into the air, planted him on his shoulders. MJ’s high-pitched giggle rang out.

  “Look, Mommy, look! I’m a giant!”

  “She doesn’t deserve to be here,” Mr. Walker said to Chief Ward, who shrugged. “You always were a by-the-book prick.”

  “Insulting me. Good plan. Tell it to the court, Tom. We’ll arraign her quickly. Three o’clock. Judge wants to be out on the river by four.”

  “I’m sorry, Leni,” Mr. Walker said.

  She heard the gentleness in his voice and knew that the man was ready to offer comfort. Leni didn’t dare reach out. Any kindness now could break what little control she had. “Take care of him, Tom. He’s my world.”

  She stared up at her son on his grandfather’s shoulders, and she thought, Please let this be okay, and then the cell door clanged shut.

  The rest of the day passed slowly, in unfamiliar sights and sounds, in a phone jangling, in doors opening and closing, in lunch orders being taken and delivered, in boots stomping across the station floor.

  Leni sat on the hard concrete bench, slumped back against the cold wall. Sunlight streamed through the small cell window, heated everything. She pushed the damp hair out of her eyes. She’d spent the last two hours crying and sweating and muttering curses. Everywhere she could be damp, she was. Her mouth tasted like the inside of an old shoe. She went to the small, lidless toilet, pulled down her pants, and sat down, praying no one saw her.

  How was MJ? She hoped Mr. Walker had found the stuffed orca (inexplicably named Bob) in his suitcase. MJ wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight without him. How had Leni forgotten to tell Mr. Walker that?

  The station door opened. A man walked in. He had hunched shoulders and hair so tangled it looked like he’d been electrified. He wore hip waders and carried a scuffed green nylon briefcase. “Hey, Marci,” he said in a booming voice. Leni returned to her place on the bench.

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