“You bastard,” she sobs, trying to punch his chest. “You God damn bastard.” He quells her energy, taking the blows and holding her against him until all she can do is weep.
* * *
George’s body folds around hers, his hand embracing her head against him. When she raises her arms to strike him, he overpowers her efforts and tightens his embrace. Their bodies stand close. He bows his head to hers, his mouth near her ear as he whispers, “Don’t leave me, Amy.” She feels him breathing, his chest rising. “It’s not what you’re thinking. It’s not, I swear to you.”
“No, George.” She struggles to twist out of his hold. “No. No!” She pushes back with a terrifying thought. How easy it would be to raise her face to his, to let him kiss away her tears, to let love wash over the pain. But reality stops her with the picture of him armed with a weapon while Grace was carried away.
The telephone rings again and she manages to pull out of his arms. “Hello?” She has to press the mouthpiece against her head to stop her hand from shaking. Her legs threaten to give out, forcing her to turn and lean against the wall for support. She watches George while she listens, watches him cuff his wet shirt sleeves. “Yes, Celia.” She sucks in a breath. “He’s here.”
George walks to the blue kitchen farm table and pulls out a chair, sitting with his elbows on his knees, watching her too. The dark, overcast sky keeps the kitchen in shadow; the rain whispers down.
“No. No, I’m fine, really.” Her eyes follow his every move. A red plaid dishtowel hangs on the back of the chair beside him. He pulls it off and drags it over his face, blotting rainwater from his skin, then leaves it crumpled on the table beside the white vase holding his solitary pink rose before looking steady at her again.
Finally she turns away from George’s gaze, tipping her head into the call and speaking softly. “Thank you, Celia. Yes. I’ll call you later.” Once Celia hangs up, Amy holds the silent phone to her ear for several seconds, collecting herself in slow breaths behind closed eyes. There is so much she wants answered. But the air refuses to take shape in her mouth, her lips refuse to form the words. She muffles a sob with the realization that this is precisely what happened to Grace. She couldn’t say anything.
* * *
George picks up the dishtowel and wipes off his face again, pressing it at his wet hairline and along the side of his face before drying his neck. The air in the room is close and when he speaks without inflection, Amy raises her eyes to his. “I’m not sorry for what I did,” he says. “It was the only way to help. My regret is that I couldn’t stop that crime. But I can tell you I never knew about it until that day. That I got in a car that morning thinking I was going to the casino with my brother.”
“Nate?” Amy stares at him for a quiet second. “I put Grace right back into both your hands?”
The distant cornfield is visible through the kitchen window, the plants tall, leaves cascading. A painted barn star hangs on the wall beside the blue and white checked curtains. George goes to the sink and looks out. “My brother tried to force me into it. But I walked away. I told him he was crazy. You didn’t see that part. You didn’t see me turn my back and leave the gun and everything behind in his car. I had nothing to do with it until I saw you. You and Grace walking toward the bank.” He turns to face her. “Those men were ruthless, Amy. I wasn’t going to stop them. So I made a choice.”
“Well aren’t you lucky.” Amy paces back and forth barefoot across the kitchen’s wide-plank wood floor. “You had a choice. Tell me something. What was my choice begging on my knees on that filthy pavement? Do you remember, George? I had no choices. Nothing.” She jabs her finger at the air, pointing harshly at him. “You took that away from me. You.”
“No. No, don’t you see? I’d left. But when I saw you and Grace go into the bank, I just knew. Something was going down and I had to keep that child safe. If I kept walking away and called the police, things could have escalated and she might have been seriously hurt. I had one second to decide. One second. To call the police, or to help. Do you think either of those choices were bearable?” He waits, watching her pace past the painted hutch with lace-trimmed shelves, the potato bin with the red ceramic rooster on top of it. “Do you know who made it bearable?”
Amy circles around the farm table then, her hand lighting on each chair top. Her voice comes in a whisper. “Don’t say it, George.”
George moves toward her. Outside the rain starts to thunder down. “Grace did.”
She turns and runs at him, raising an arm to strike, but he catches it in his grip, twisting her around and rendering her immobile. From behind, his arms lock over hers and they nearly fall over.
“Listen to me!” he whispers fiercely, scraping a chair aside with his foot and sitting her in it. “Just listen,” he insists, crouching in front of her. “I had to do something to let myself live with that day. If I didn’t help, I couldn’t get up in the morning and go on. And the only thing I could do was keep your daughter safe. If I interfered with that heist, she’d be at even more risk. I understood that she was their hostage and I had to make them think I was in.” He stands, then sits across from her at the table, moving a white coffee cup aside and leaning close. “I didn’t want the money. I wanted to walk away from the whole morning. But I saw your face, Amy. I saw your pain. And then I looked at Grace sitting in the back of that truck.”
“Damn you,” she says, crying, her hands limp in her lap. “Damn you to hell.”
“Amy. I saw what you didn’t. I saw Grace’s fear, I saw her eyes squeezed shut, I saw one of the men nearly accost her.” When she starts to stand, he stands quicker and she sinks back down into the chair. George looks away, then right at her again. He doesn’t know how to get through her pain. It might not be possible. All the while, the kitchen grows darker with the rainstorm surging outside.
“I continued to participate in the crime just to keep her safe. You’ve got to believe me.”
“And why would I believe you?” She looks up at him standing close. “How do I know you didn’t plan the whole thing?”
“I don’t know what to say to convince you, Amy. I guess this is your choice, now. To believe me or not. To believe that once they secured that truck and I was in on it, I told them that if Grace wasn’t given back to you right away, if she was harmed in any way, my money would hunt them down. I’d pay someone to do it.”
“And then what? You became our bodyguard?”
“No. No, I never thought I’d see you again. I just wanted to get Grace safely home to you that day. And I did.” He sits in the chair beside her. “I did. But you came into my shop the next week, wanting to thank me. Jesus, Amy, I saw your state of mind. How could I turn my back on you? So I agreed to dinner. And then,” he leans closer, his elbows on his knees, looking up at her face. “I fell in love with you.”
“You’re lying.”
“What?”
“How many times did you see me cry? Or flashback? You saw Grace withdraw, you saw what I put her through to help her and you still didn’t tell me?” She stands quickly, toppling her chair. “That’s love? You lied to me the whole time. You looked straight at me and lied. You could be lying right now.”
George shakes his head as she speaks. “No, I didn’t lie. I just couldn’t tell you the story. I wanted to. And I swear I planned to this summer, when you were stronger.” He stands and takes her hand in his, but she yanks it away. “I wanted to marry you, Amy,” he says. “But I thought you had to know me, know everything, if you’d ever agree to it.”
Amy walks to the counter, her arms wrapped around herself. “Beautiful,” she says through her tears, looking to the ceiling, then back to him. “A marriage proposal now.”
“No. I just thought, oh God, how can I tell you what I thought?” He watches her pacing near the counter. “Everything’s changed now. Everything fell apart.”
“I let you hold me. I let you touch me.” Her hand covers her mouth. “And all the while, it was y
ou. Why didn’t you just go to the authorities, George? Why didn’t you do something?” After a second, she whispers, “Why didn’t you just leave me alone?”
His eyes gauge her, judging how much more she can take. “I don’t know where the others are, okay? Now listen. Before they disappeared, when they gave me Grace in the parking lot, one of them threatened you. So if I went to Hayes to report what I knew, and what I did, your life was on the line. I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”
“My life?”
“What do you think the stalking is about? It’s them, Amy. They don’t want you near me. The stalking is a tactic to get you away from me. To get you to leave Addison for good. They’re afraid this would happen, that you would find out who I am and turn me in.”
Amy pulls open the kitchen drawer where she keeps a sketch pad and pencils and Grace’s crayons. She lifts out a gun. “I’m not afraid anymore.”
“Jesus, Amy.” George approaches cautiously, his hand open, wanting the weapon. She backs away, still crying. She has never stopped crying, not since he broke through her screen door. He steps closer. “Just let me stay with you then. Believe me, Amy, and you won’t need that. We’ll go to Hayes together. We’ll tell him everything. Whatever happens, we can get through it.”
“That’s enough.” She waves the gun as though she might be able to bring him into her aim. “I want you and your crime and your stalking and your money out of here.” Her hand wavers and she sets the gun back in the drawer, then blocks the drawer with her body as she leans against it, nearly knocking over a floral pitcher filled with serving utensils.
George looks around, frantic to get through to her. She won’t listen. Why had he thought she would? He is the bullet that hit her daughter, her self, her life. In his panic, he sees her suitcases in the hallway. “Where are you going?” he asks abruptly.
“What I do doesn’t concern you.”
He motions to the luggage. “You can’t leave without knowing everything. You’re just confused and you don’t need to leave your home. Listen to me.”
“George.” Amy doesn’t move from the drawer. Their voices quiet, their breathing slows, but the rain still falls. “I know enough. I know that it was you in the parking lot. That you followed that bastard holding my daughter onto the truck. That you didn’t turn your gun on him instead of me. Grace is safe with my parents. And as soon as I take care of a few things, I’m leaving to be with her.”
“Before you go …” He takes a quick breath, looks away and returns his gaze to her. It becomes a physical struggle to think straight and keep her in his life. “Come away with me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Away from here. Where there are no reminders.” He takes a step closer. “We’ll go to the cottage at the beach. Just for a couple days.” He walks to her and takes her hands again in his. “We need to get away from here. At the sea, Amy. We’ll fix this at the sea. I don’t want to lose what we have, not for the wrong reasons.”
“What we had, George.” She doesn’t try to stop her tears. “It’s over. You deceived me all summer. It’ll never work.”
“No, it’s not like that. I’ll go to Hayes. Anything, Amy. I’ll do anything. Let’s just go to the cottage with nobody around. We’ll walk on the beach, in that sweet salt air. We’ll sit on the porch, we’ll feed the swans in the lagoon.” His eyes lock onto hers as his hands pull her close. “Let me tell you everything there, at Stony Point, in good time.”
“I’ll never understand.”
He fights his own burning tears. “You will. You just need time.”
She shakes her head. “I want you to leave now. Leave us alone.” She steps back in her jeans and tunic, as casual and beautiful as can be, and ruined. “It’s over,” she says quietly.
George moves closer and takes her face in his hands. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. Come with me, for only a day then. One day, at that little cottage. I did everything that day for your Grace. Just for Grace. For nothing else. You have to know me, to believe me.” They just look at each other as she shakes her head, no.
This is the end. One day has beaten them down. If these have to be his last words, he’ll make them tender. He won’t leave her any other way. “I’m so sorry that I hurt you, Amy, but I’ll never stop loving you.”
“Stop it. Please.” She backs up a step, her eyes never leaving his. “You have to go now. Get out, George.”
He drops his hands and turns then, pushing open the screen door and pressing it closed behind him. The rain hasn’t let up.
Thirty-one
EVERYTHING IS BITTER WITH THE new day, tinged somehow: his coffee, the sunrise, a long shower. It all sours. On the dining room table, an old newspaper lays folded open to the movie page, the weekend listings circled in blue ink. George brushes it aside rather than drop it in the trash. Nothing is worth the effort; it is all he can do to go through the motions. He stops mid-task, leaving a cup of coffee unfinished, the bed unmade, his face unshaven. By six-thirty, he leaves his condominium and rattles around The Main Course. Still, nothing helps, not putting on another pot of coffee, not turning on the stereo, not straightening a pile of paperwork on his desk, not turning off the stereo, and finally not walking to the work area to set out the knives and prepare equipment for the morning’s orders.
The first thing he notices there is the red light shining on one of the meat grinders, a unit he meticulously cleaned and shut off the day before. “Dean?” he calls out, leaning into the main showroom. But Dean’s not there; no lights are on. For the two steps closer he takes, the view meeting his eyes sets him back one. He pulls an old knife from a drawer and lifts a large piece of lace from the grinder. It hangs tattered on the blade.
“What the hell?” he says. There is no mistaking that the fabric is a veil, or part of a wedding gown. Whatever it is, a cloud of it fills the feed pan and the rest had been pushed through the grinder, leaving pieces of the white fabric hopelessly shredded and tangled in the auger and cutting blade while other pieces of the antique lace are partially intact, the intricate pattern untouched and beautiful. “Jesus Christ,” he whispers. Hitting the reverse switch to try to unjam the lace only further knots it and locks up the unit.
Using the same knife, he lifts thin, opaque shreds of the tattered white lace hanging from the feed assembly and falling to the table at its base, knowing damn well it came from Amy’s shop. “Mother fuckers,” he says before grabbing his car keys and closing up The Main Course behind him.
* * *
Nate never changed the lock on the back door of the old Cape Cod where he and George grew up. He told George it’s his home too, always, no matter what. So George uses his key, rushes through the kitchen and takes the stairs two at a time to his brother’s bedroom. The room is thick with drawn blinds and a tangle of clothes and sheets. He hauls his sleeping brother up by the arms and shoves him back into the headboard.
“Where are they?” he demands. “Where the fuck are they? I’ll kill them, Nate.”
“George. Whoa.” Nate pushes himself up into a sitting position. “Calm down, guy.”
“Reid. Elliott. You’re going to tell me. Where are they?”
Nate glances at George’s hands holding him against the headboard. “Back off,” he warns and George releases his grip. His brother gets out of bed and steps into a pair of jeans, clearly irritated with being pulled from sleep. He looks over at George. “I’m going to wash up. Give me a minute, would you? I’ll meet you downstairs.”
George walks around the kitchen table over and over, glancing toward the stairs time and again. Nate finally comes down and fills the coffee decanter with water. “Now start from the beginning,” he says over his shoulder. He had pulled on a clean T-shirt and ran a wet comb through his hair. “What happened? Is it Amy again?”
“I don’t have time for God damn coffee, Nate.”
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” His brother sets the decanter on the counter.
“
They got into her shop.”
“Who? What shop? What are you talking about?”
“Wedding Wishes. Amy’s bridal shop. They broke in and stole one of her antique gowns, or veils, I can’t tell which.”
“How do you know?” He pours the water into the coffeemaker and it starts to gurgle.
“I found it.” George pushes past his brother, yanks the coffee plug and turns to him. “I found it in shreds in the God damn grinder.”
Nate backs up a step. “What? In your meat grinder? Are you sure?”
“Yeah I’m sure. Where are they? I’ve had enough already.”
“Wait a minute.” Nate turns around and plugs the coffeepot back in. “What the hell do they want with a lousy veil?”
“Oh I don’t know, Nate. Maybe the fact that I wanted to marry her has something to do with it?”
“What? Marry her?”
“Listen, the point is that this time, they’re fucking with my head.”
“What about Amy? She must be upset.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” George thinks of Amy and everything he lost with her and with that anger he shoves Nate up against the wall. “Now,” he orders. “Because I can’t take this anymore. You tell me where they are. Right now.”
“All right, all right,” Nate answers, brushing off his grip. “All I have is a number. They go back and forth between Vegas and Atlantic City. I’ll give you the number, but you’ll just get his voicemail. Reid never answers.”
“Reid?”
“Yeah, it’s Reid’s phone.”
Nate shuffles through a drawer filled with take-out menus and old receipts. He flips open a black address book and scribbles down a number on a scrap of paper. Every minute matters now. As soon as he sets the pencil down, George grabs the paper, turns and walks out of the house.
“Hey!” Nate calls after him. “Hey, be careful, would you?”
George keeps walking. He doesn’t see if Nate watches from the door. He doesn’t see the sun shining on the dewy lawns, the flowers opening to the light. It’s all he can do to wait behind the flashing railroad crossing for the train to pass, car after car after car. Stop signs are barely visible on the drive back to The Main Course where he folds Reid’s number into his shirt pocket. He isn’t thinking straight enough to call yet, not with the thought of one of Amy’s cherished bridal pieces ruined. It’s difficult pulling the tangled fabric from the grinder, difficult watching a plastic garbage bag fill with the remnants. Some of the lace is still intact; detailed stitches shape a vine pattern with small hearts blended in the leaves. “Okay, you win already. Leave her alone.”
True Blend Page 30
