Atone

by Beth Yarnall

  He stares down at the picture in my hand. He’s unguarded. His love for her is naked and stark on his face. So is his loss. They’re intertwined. No one’s ever looked at me the way Beau looks at Cassandra’s picture. I’m jealous—I realize—of a dead woman. It’s so stupid I almost laugh out loud. What would he trade for one more day with her? Six years of loving and grieving. A quarter of his life. How much longer will he carry it around?

  I hand him the photo. “You’re very lucky to have loved and been loved like that.”

  He tears his gaze away from it to look me in the eye. “I know.”

  “What does it feel like?”

  My question surprises him.

  “Never mind.”

  “No. I don’t know. I don’t have the words for it.”

  “Try.”

  He looks for a moment like he’s going to cop out again, then changes his mind. “It’s…” He makes a frustrated sound and tries again. “Being with Cassandra was like…like the sun shining on me all the time.”

  I close my eyes and try to imagine what that would feel like, but my imaginings are a pale wisp of the emotion in his voice and have none of what I saw in his eyes when he looked at her picture. Blinking my eyes open, I find Beau watching me. He’s got a funny look on his face.

  “I tried to see if I could picture it. What you described. I can’t. I loved Javier and thought he loved me, but that wasn’t love. There was no sunshine.”

  “Ah, Vera.” He brushes the knuckles of his uninjured hand along my cheek. “You deserve endless days of blue skies and sunlight.”

  There’s a note of regret in his voice. He’s a tempest and I am too. There is no sunshine in either one of us. Together we’d be a perfect storm of misery, regret, and lost youth. I’m just beginning to learn all there is to Beau and I already know he’d be worth the effort if only I had something to offer him. I haven’t even started to unpack my baggage. He’s seen only the outside. He has no idea the horrors that lurk inside.

  It’s just as well he shot me down. My past is a Pandora’s box I never want opened, and something tells me that Beau could be the one to release it all.

  Chapter 9

  Beau

  It’s Sunday. Family reunion day. I haven’t seen my parents in almost six years. I’m not even sure why we’re doing this. Cora hums along with the radio to a song I know she doesn’t like. She’s plastered all kinds of expectations on this visit. She wants things to go back to the way they were before. Am I supposed to pretend I’ve been away at summer camp or college and came home for a visit? My parents abandoned me. I didn’t expect my friends to stick by me, but my own flesh and blood? Yeah. I fucking depended on them. I needed them. And they weren’t there.

  All I had was Cora.

  She has no idea how much her visits and letters meant to me. Even as I did everything I could to push her away, I looked forward to hearing from her, seeing her. I guess a part of me didn’t feel like I deserved her loyalty. She not only stood by me, but she was the only one who believed in my innocence. I really think my parents held on to their faith in me as long as they could, but in the end it couldn’t withstand a guilty verdict. It just wasn’t strong enough.

  When they gave up on me, I gave up on myself.

  Of all the things I’ve done, I’m most sorry about that, because it hurt Cora. I’m ashamed that I left her all alone believing in me. How she stuck by me so long I have no idea. She’s stronger and better than me by far. The fact that she’s the one pushing for this family reunion is proof of that. Without her, I wouldn’t attempt to reconcile with our parents and I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t make the effort either.

  She has to direct me to Mom’s house because I don’t know where she lives now. I don’t know where Dad lives either. Cora waited until I was released from prison to tell me what happened to our family. My parents’ split, the sale of the house we grew up in, and my dad’s alcoholism. What’s odd is that my dad never drank. I didn’t even think he liked the taste of alcohol. Cora tells me it’s a weakness in him and it has nothing to do with me. That’s some bullshit she learned in Al-Anon. She’s not only the sister of a convicted murderer, she’s the daughter of an alcoholic.

  My conviction didn’t just happen to me, it happened to my whole family.

  Cora buffered everything for me. When I walked out of prison it was like I was Dorothy opening the door to Oz. The landscape of my life had totally changed. I still don’t know how to navigate it. Around every turn is another thing I have to adapt to and accept as my new reality. I went to a couple Al-Anon meetings with Cora, but they had no context for me. In my memory, my dad never even drank. How am I supposed to connect what Cora tells me with what I remember? They’re so far apart it’s ludicrous.

  She talks about how much our mom has changed. The way she says it is a warning, like I shouldn’t expect much of anything from our mother. Cora’s tried to dampen my expectations of this reunion, but I have the feeling the effort is more for her than it is for me. She wants this to go well—for me. She doesn’t know it, but the pressure that puts on me balls my hands into fists and I have to force myself to relax my jaw. I already have a headache from the pressure. What if I fuck this up? I can’t let Cora down. I just can’t.

  I rode my bike past our old house a couple times, looking for I-don’t-know-what in the clapboard siding and tidy yard. There weren’t even any ghosts there, no shadows of my former life. It was just a house. I feel so distanced from my life before, it feels like a movie I watched and can barely remember the plotline of or the actors who played in it. I’m not sure how to behave with our parents. Do I hug them like I used to? A handshake? An awkward wave maybe, or an acknowledging head nod? I just don’t know. I’d ask Cora, but I’m afraid the question would disappoint her.

  I pull the car up to my mom’s house and cut the engine. I take my driving test tomorrow to get my license back. Both Cora and I had to take half a day off work so she could drive me down to the DMV. I hope I pass. Cora’s counting on that too. I can’t deal her any more disappointment.

  We get out of the car and walk up to an apartment building a few pay scales down from our old neighborhood. I wonder how my mom has handled this. She was always about appearances and fitting in. I don’t imagine she’s still friends with my friends’ moms. Not because they would’ve dropped her, but because she wouldn’t have been able to deal with their pity and rejection. The old you can’t fire me because I quit routine.

  Cora pauses at the door and looks up at me. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

  Her laugh isn’t humorous. “It’s not a root canal.”

  It might as well be. “Of course it’s not.” Let’s just get this over with, I want to say. Instead, I rap on the door. Cora steps forward so she’s in front of me.

  Mom answers the door. I’m glad I’m standing behind Cora, because I would’ve knocked backward into her. Mom did something to her hair and—what the fuck?—her eyes. I look like her. Or at least I used to. She lightened her hair so that it’s almost blond, and the green contacts in her eyes blot out the blue that was nearly identical to Cora’s. All of the air is sucked out of me and I can’t speak. I’m looking at a stranger. There’s little similarity between the woman I’m looking at and the woman who raised me.

  “Beau!” Mom throws her arms out and charges toward me, nearly bumping Cora off the porch.

  I’m hit with a hundred and thirty pounds of unfamiliarity that wraps around me and squeezes tight. She doesn’t even smell the same. I meet Cora’s gaze over the top of mom’s head. She mouths I’m sorry. I embrace Mom back and we do this awkward dance of letting go just as the other one hugs harder until I drop my hands to my sides and she’s forced to drop hers too.

  “Look at you.” Mom pats me on the chest. “You’re so handsome. But this beard…” She tries to touch my face, but I lean out of reach. She recovers and wipes her hand on her hip. She gives Cora a brief hug. “Come in. Your dad�
�s not here yet.”

  We follow her into the apartment. She kept some of the furniture from our old house. It looks out of place here. The context is all wrong. There are some new pieces mixed in that confuse me.

  “Have a seat.” She motions to the couch that used to be in our old living room.

  I put my hands up Cassandra’s shirt for the first time while sitting on it. The memory throws me off, and I’m stuck in place by it, staring at the exact spot where we sat. I couldn’t work the clasp of her bra. She laughed and unhooked it for me. I can practically feel her in my hands and hear the hitch in her breath. Cora prods me, bringing me back to the here and now. When I sit it almost feels like sitting on a grave, and a chill shoots through me.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Mom looks hopeful, like maybe Cora isn’t the only one who put expectations on this visit.

  “Water,” I say, and Cora echoes me.

  “I have soda and iced tea,” Mom offers. Water won’t cut it.

  “A soda,” Cora says. “Beau?”

  “A soda for me too.”

  “I’ll be right back.” Mom hesitates, her gaze bouncing between her two children as though she can’t believe we’re real. And then she goes into the kitchen. “Ice?”

  “Yes, please,” Cora and I say together.

  Cora turns away and puts a hand over her mouth to hold back her laugh.

  I nudge her with my elbow. “Dork.”

  She bumps me in return. “You’re a dork.”

  “Shut up, dork.”

  “Don’t tell me to shut up, dork.”

  Laughing, we shove each other like we did when we were kids and the insults fly.

  “Knock it off,” Mom shouts from the kitchen.

  We glance at each other in surprise, then dissolve into silent hysterics, gripping our stomachs. It’s so normal, this moment. It’s the most normal moment I’ve had in more than six years. By the time Mom returns we’ve got control of ourselves again and I’m feeling a lot less tense. She hands us our drinks and takes a seat in a new chair opposite us.

  “Cora tells me you’re working at the agency with her,” Mom says.

  I can tell from the tone of her voice that she doesn’t approve of either one of us working there.

  “They’ve been very good to me. To both of us,” I add.

  “I’m glad.” She turns to Cora. “When are you going to do something with your hair? You’re never going to get a boyfriend looking like that. I’m surprised people at your job take you seriously.”

  “I have a boyfriend.”

  Mom gets a disbelieving look on her face. “You do? Does he have a job?”

  Cora’s been going out with Leo for months now. I shouldn’t be surprised she didn’t tell Mom about him, but I am.

  “He’s in law school at UCLA.”

  Mom turns to me. “Is this true?”

  “Very.”

  “You’ve met him?”

  I nod. “He’s a good guy.”

  Mom seems momentarily stunned by this. We sit in uncomfortable silence, sipping our drinks and avoiding looking at one another. I want to text Vera something stupid and random to take myself out of this moment. She’s the first person I think of in the morning and the last person I think of at night before I fall asleep. That’s not something I look too hard at. It’s nice to have something to occupy my mind other than the fucked-up state of my life.

  A panda. I’d text her a panda.

  There’s a knock at the door. Mom gets up and smooths down her skirt. She glances at her reflection in the mirror next to the door before she opens it. Dad leans with a hand on the door frame. I stand and Cora does the same. When she moves in front of me again like she did at the front door, it hits me. She’s trying to shield me from our parents. It would be funny, except for the fact that she feels it’s necessary. As the big brother, I should be protecting her, not the other way around.

  The changes in Mom were surprising, but the changes in Dad are shocking. He’s a lot grayer than he was six years ago. Smaller too. The chiseled lines of his face are crags now, carved by stress and drinking. His eyes—the same light blue as mine—are red rimmed and tired looking. He doesn’t see Cora or me. He doesn’t take his eyes off Mom. The look in them strikes a blow deep in my gut. I recognize the combination of grief and longing.

  Mom looks him over, her lip curling. “You’ve been drinking.”

  He holds up his fingers in a pinching motion. “Just a little. I’m not drunk.” His slurred words make a liar out of him.

  Cora stiffens and reaches back for my hand.

  “You’re going to see your son for the first time in how many years drunk?” Mom chastises him like it hasn’t been years since she’s seen me.

  “I’m not drunk.”

  “I can smell it on you. I told you I didn’t want to see you if you were drinking.” He tries to make a move around her, but she steps in front of him. “Do I need to call the police?”

  I don’t recognize these people and the dance they’re doing. I don’t know how to respond. Cora squeezes my hand in reassurance.

  “Aww, come on Evie. Let me in,” Dad pleads.

  “I don’t like you when you’re like this.”

  “You used to like me a lot.” Dad reaches a hand toward Mom to stroke her cheek. It’s an old familiar gesture. “Remember that time—”

  Mom knocks his hand away. “You make me sick.”

  She tries to shut the door, but Dad’s faster and catches it before she can close it on him.

  His face morphs into a stranger’s. “And you’re a shriveled-up old cunt. I said let me in.”

  In front of me, Cora is a statue, holding on to me like I’m an anchor keeping her from floating away. I don’t want to leave her, but I can’t let this go on anymore.

  I walk up behind Mom and grab the edge of the door. “Don’t talk to her like that.”

  Dad finally sees me, squinting up at me as though he doesn’t recognize me. “Beau?”

  “Mom doesn’t want you here like this.”

  “Go home, Reid,” Mom pleads.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, Evelyn. Please. Let me in.”

  She turns her face away. In profile, I catch the sheen of tears in her eyes as she slips past me, leaving me alone with Dad.

  “Beau. Son.”

  I stop him from trying to hug me with a hand on his shoulder. “Not like this. Not now,” I tell him. I don’t want to meet this man, this broken drunk. I want my father. I want the man who raised Cora and me. I want the man I tried to emulate.

  The look in his eyes cuts me. His lower lip shakes as he drops his hands to his sides. The bony flesh of his shoulder is unfamiliar and a startling contrast to the place where I once laid my head as a kid. Up close, I can see the gray tinge to his skin and smell the stench of alcohol and cigarettes. Since when did he start smoking? I can’t reconcile this man with my father. He was so full of life and passion, and now…now he’s just not.

  He presses his lips together. His expression turns mean. “Too good for me now that you’re famous?”

  “Go home.”

  “And what about you, Cora?” he shouts over my shoulder. “Too good for me too?”

  “Leave her out of this,” I warn.

  “Or what?” He pushes at me, trying to start a fight.

  His shove is a trigger. Drawing in a ragged breath, I have to concentrate hard on not balling my hands into fists.

  Cora slips under my arm and plants herself in front of me. “Don’t touch him.”

  His focus shifts to her and his expression softens into an imitation of affection. “Corabelle, tell them it’s okay.” He even uses their nickname for her from when she was a little girl.

  “You said you wouldn’t drink today.” Her reply is heavy with disappointment and sadness. “You promised.”

  “Just a nip to take the edge off. Nothing a cup of coffee wouldn’t cure. What do you say?”

  Behind me, Mom cries. Her muffl
ed sobs fill the silence. Dad looks at the door as though he can see through it to where my mom stands with her face in her hands. I don’t know what to do. Like everybody else, I look to Cora for some kind of direction here. She knows them better than I do. What’s going to make this right? I know it’s not my fault what happened to my family. I know it and yet the guilt is there, laying low in my belly. I’d take off if it didn’t mean leaving Cora alone to deal with them.

  Cora shakes her head. “No, Dad.”

  I hook an arm around her and pull her behind me. Before Dad can react or say anything else, I slam the door and lock it. Cora gasps. Mom turns her tear-streaked face toward me. For a moment it looks like she’ll say something, then she ducks her head and goes down the hall. A few seconds later a door crashes shut. There’s nothing from the other side of the front door. No knocking, no more pleading. Just silence. Cora dives for me, wrapping her arms around me and burying her face in my shirt. It takes me some time to react, and then I’m hugging her back just as hard as she hugs me.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her, my voice choked and hoarse. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s my fault. I thought he’d be okay.” She pulls away and makes a helpless gesture toward where Mom disappeared. “And her too. I was hoping they’d be…better.”

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “Wait.” She gathers up the glasses of undrunk soda and heads for the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Mom’ll have a fit if I leave these out.”

  Fixing. Cora’s always fixing and protecting and preventing. Another way in which my conviction irrevocably altered our family. I can’t go back. I can only go forward, but with the future so uncertain, I wonder what we’re moving toward. More days like this?