House of Reckoning

by John Saul

It was the other one that would be difficult, but Kate hadn’t realized how difficult until an hour ago, when she stood in the courtroom watching Edward Crane sentenced to fifteen years in prison on a manslaughter charge.

  Nothing about this case had been what she expected. When she’d picked up the file and seen that it concerned a fourteen-year-old girl whose father was charged with murder, she was prepared for the usual tawdry tale of people living on the fringe of American culture—probably in a trailer park—whose tenuous grip on life had finally given way. What she’d found was a description of tragedy: a family that hadn’t managed to survive the death of Ed Crane’s wife six months earlier. Making no excuses for his drinking problem, he’d merely apologized to the family of the man he killed and pleaded with Kate to take care of his daughter.

  “I will,” she assured him, but his eyes were so filled with tragedy that it made her own well with tears. Ed Crane was no run-of-the-mill thug who killed someone in a drunken rage and then ran over his daughter on purpose. This was a tragic series of events that began with the death of the man’s wife, setting the pieces of his life to toppling over like so many dominoes, landing him in jail and his daughter in the hospital with no place to go when she recovered.

  If she recovered.

  This one would have been hard if there were no other problem than her age. At fourteen, Sarah Crane would not have an easy time adjusting to the foster care system. But in addition, it wasn’t easy to place children in wheelchairs, a situation in which the Crane girl might very well find herself.

  Kate parked, grabbed her briefcase, and stepped out of her car into the cool fall morning. The brilliant color of the maple trees on the hospital grounds gave her an excuse to pause for a moment and bask in the glory.

  And steel herself to deliver a large package of bad news to a fourteen-year-old girl who’d done nothing to deserve what had befallen her.

  Kate locked her car and walked up the broad steps into the hospital. Resisting the urge to put Sarah Crane off for at least a few more minutes, she checked with the information desk, then made her way to the third floor. Unconsciously sucking in a deep breath, she tapped softly on Room 332, then pushed the door open.

  A girl lay in the bed, her face turned away from the door as she stared out the window, and Kate felt a fleeting urge to just close the door, go away, and let her enjoy the morning. That, though, would only postpone the inevitable. “Sarah?” she said.

  The girl turned a pale face toward her and nodded. Beyond the sallow complexion, Kate could see sharp intelligence behind Sarah Crane’s blue eyes, and though her smile was wan—as well it should be, given what she’d been through—it was friendly and revealed well-cared-for teeth. Other than the scrapes on her right cheek and a bandaged forehead, Sarah Crane was the typical girl next door.

  Kate strode across the room, pulled a hard plastic chair to Sarah’s bedside, sat down, and pulled the girl’s file from her briefcase. “Hi. I’m Kate Williams, with the Vermont Department of Social Services. How are you doing?”

  Sarah eyed her cautiously. “I’m okay, I guess.”

  Kate arched her brows. “That’s not what it says here. According to this, you have a broken leg and a broken hip, and they’re not sure you’re going to be able to walk again.”

  Sarah seemed to ignore her words. “Do you know what’s happening with my dad?”

  “I just saw him,” Kate said, and though she tried to keep her voice from revealing anything, she saw the instant worry in Sarah Crane’s eyes.

  “Is he going to be able to come and see me?” Before Kate could formulate any kind of answer at all, Sarah came up with her own. “He’s not, is he?”

  The girl was looking at her with a forthrightness she hadn’t seen in so young an adolescent, and she instantly knew that Sarah had far more strength than her wan smile had revealed. “I’m afraid not,” she said. “He pleaded no contest to a manslaughter charge. Apparently, he got into a fight the night of your accident, and the man he was fighting with died.”

  Sarah bit her lip, and Kate could see her struggling not to cry. She started to reach out to take her hand but quickly thought better of it; Sarah Crane had taken blows before and survived, and she had a feeling the girl would survive this one, too.

  “He didn’t mean it,” Sarah finally said. “He didn’t mean to hurt anybody—he just drinks too much sometimes.” She looked out the window, then her eyes met Kate’s. “What’s going to happen to him?”

  The words were so direct that Kate Williams saw no reason to try to skirt around the issue. “He’s going to be in prison for a while.”

  Sarah lay motionless, digesting the words. “Well, then,” she finally said, her voice strengthening as she took a deep breath. “I guess I need to get out of here, don’t I?”

  “You get out of here when you’re well,” Kate replied. “Which means a lot of rehab. Think you can do it?”

  “If I could take care of the farm after Mom died, I can learn to walk again,” Sarah replied without a hint of self-pity. “How long do they think it will take?”

  “They don’t know,” Kate said. “It’ll be mostly up to you. Rehab goes as fast as you want it to go. It’s going to involve a lot of physical therapy, but I have a feeling that’s not going to be a problem for you.”

  “Can I do it from home?” Sarah asked. “That way I can at least feed the animals, and by spring I should be able to do the rest of it.” She forced a painful grin. “I mean, it’s not like the fields are doing anything all winter.”

  Despite the girl’s brave words, Kate could see that Sarah knew she wouldn’t be going home. “Someone is looking after your animals,” Kate assured her. “And I’m afraid that for now, at least, you won’t be able to go home, except to pack some clothes. Once you’re out of rehab, you’ll be going to a foster home.”

  Sarah stared at her. “A foster home,” she breathed. “For how long?”

  Kate saw no other option than to tell her directly. “Until you’re eighteen.”

  “Eighteen!” Sarah echoed. “I can’t—” She abruptly cut off her words, seemed to collect herself for a moment, then spoke again. “Is that what Dad wants me to do?”

  Kate nodded.

  Sarah sank back into her pillows, staring at the ceiling.

  “We’ll find you a nice home,” Kate went on. “With a good family.”

  Sarah took a couple of deep breaths and wiped her cheeks with the tissue. “Near my dad?”

  “Absolutely,” Kate said, even though she hadn’t yet identified any family—let alone a good one—that would be willing to take Sarah in. “I’m going to try to find people in Warwick, near where your father will be. That way at least you’ll be able to see him.” Sarah said nothing, and finally Kate stood up. “It’s going to be all right, Sarah. I promise you.” When the girl still said nothing, Kate pulled one of her cards from her purse, added her home phone number to it, and laid it on the stand next to the bed. “I’ll be coming back often,” she promised. “And I’m going to find the right place for you. You just concentrate on getting well so we can get you out of here, okay?” Without even thinking about what she was doing, Kate Williams leaned over and kissed Sarah’s forehead, then picked up her briefcase and started toward the door.

  “Thank you,” Sarah abruptly said just as Kate was about to pull the door shut behind her.

  Kate turned back, smiled at Sarah, and finally pulled the door closed. But even as she walked down the hall toward her next destination, she realized her card wasn’t all she’d left in Sarah Crane’s room.

  A little bit of her heart had stayed there, too.

  Chapter Three

  The gray facade of the Lakeside State Penitentiary at Warwick made the chill of the late fall morning feel even colder than it was, and Sarah Crane felt an icy shiver of apprehension as she followed Kate Williams toward the single small door that led from the parking area into the prison itself. How can my father be in here? she wondered, and reached for Kat
e’s hand as much to reassure herself as to steady the painful gait the surgeries on her hip and leg had left her with. Get used to it, she told herself. It’s not going away—not ever—so just get used to it.

  As if she’d read Sarah’s mind, Kate slowed her pace, squeezed Sarah’s hand, and gave her a reassuring smile.

  A man in a uniform waved them toward the metal detector, and Kate signed them in, put her purse on the conveyor belt, and stepped gingerly through the archway. When the officer motioned Sarah forward, she laid her backpack on the conveyor, then hobbled through the detector, which instantly screamed out a loud beeping sound.

  Her hip! Why hadn’t she thought of it before she stepped into the detector? But before she could begin to explain, Kate Williams was grabbing her purse from the X-ray machine and opening it. “She has metal plates in her hip and leg,” she said, handing the doctor’s certificate to the nearest guard, who read it, made a copy of it, then handed it back to Kate.

  “I should have given you this earlier,” Kate said, slipping the certificate into Sarah’s backpack before Sarah proceeded through the detector, then stood still while yet another officer scanned her with a wand. “I can get as many more copies as you need, but you’d probably better keep one with you all the time, given how often everyone gets scanned these days.”

  “Okay,” the guard with the wand said, “go ahead.”

  Sarah shrugged her backpack on and followed Kate into what looked like a shabby school cafeteria.

  A dozen men sat at a dozen round tables, each with four or more plastic chairs. Sarah’s heart hammered in her chest and she nervously ran her tongue over her lower lip as she scanned the faces, looking for her father.

  A gaunt, thin man in the corner stood up, lifting his hand as if in greeting, and for a moment Sarah thought he must be waving at someone else. But then she realized it was her father, though he’d changed so much she barely recognized him. His hair was gone, so short was the buzz cut they’d given him.

  He was much thinner than the last time she’d seen him.

  And his face was pale and drawn.

  “D-Daddy?” she stammered. Then, as his eyes lit up at the sound of her voice, she hurried toward him, ignoring the pain in her hip and leg.

  Ed Crane put his arms around his daughter and lifted her off her feet in a bear hug, and for the first time in months Sarah felt safe. Safe.

  Comfortable. Secure.

  Loved.

  “No touching,” a guard warned, and Sarah’s moment of security instantly collapsed back into the terrible reality of what had happened.

  “I’m sorry,” her father whispered as he lowered her gently back to the floor. Steadying her while she got her balance, he guided her into one of the chairs, then sat beside her, his fingers as close to her hand as he could put them without earning another admonishment from the guard.

  “Thanks for bringing me my little girl,” Ed said to Kate Williams as she joined them at the table.

  “I’m just sorry it couldn’t be sooner,” Kate replied. “But with the rehab—”

  “Kate’s been great,” Sarah cut in, not wanting to waste even a second of her time with her father talking about what she’d been through. She started to slip her hand under her father’s but checked herself just in time as the guard’s warning voice echoed in her mind. Then, as she saw the word INMATE stenciled on his shirt, her eyes welled with tears.

  “Don’t, honey,” Ed Crane whispered. “Everything’s going to be—” he went on before his voice broke.

  “I’ll be okay,” Sarah said, struggling against her tears. “It’s just—” Now it was her voice that broke, and she quickly reached into her backpack and pulled out a piece of paper rolled into a tube. “I made you this while I was learning to walk again,” she said, handing it to her father as one of the guards stepped closer to monitor what was going on.

  “Just seeing you is enough for me,” Ed said. “How’s your leg? Does it hurt?”

  “A little,” she admitted as her father unrolled the paper.

  “She’s doing very well,” Kate said, reading Ed Crane’s anguish at what he’d done to his daughter. “She isn’t even using her crutches anymore.”

  But Ed was no longer listening. Instead he was staring down at the picture he’d flattened out on the table. It was of Sarah, and her eyes seemed to be smiling up at him with some kind of internal light, even from the thick charcoal lines with which the drawing was limned. “It—It’s beautiful,” he whispered.

  “I did it by looking in the mirror, so it’s all backward,” Sarah said, but Ed shook his head.

  “Couldn’t tell by me. It looks exactly like you.” He turned the picture toward Kate. “Did you see this?”

  Kate nodded but said nothing.

  Ed turned the picture back and gently lay a finger on the image’s left cheek just the way Sarah remembered him doing to her back when … back when …

  Back when everything had still been all right and her mother hadn’t been sick, and her father only drank once in a while and—No! she told herself. Don’t start crying and don’t start feeling sorry for yourself!

  “Thanks, sweetheart,” she heard her father say as she jerked herself out of her thoughts. “And thank you, too, Ms. Williams.”

  “Call me Kate,” the social worker said. Then, seeing that both father and daughter were welling with tears neither one of them wanted to give in to, she decided to change the subject. “We’ve found a family here in Warwick for Sarah to live with,” she began. “They’re—”

  “Isn’t that great?” Sarah broke in, seizing on the opportunity Kate had offered. “They’ve got a girl my age and a boy a couple of years older. And I’ll be able to visit you all the time!” She saw a terrible sadness wash over her father’s face, and in that split second, all the regrets she knew were inside him. “I-I’ll draw you more pictures,” she offered, wishing there was something else—anything else—she could do to make him feel better, but knowing there wasn’t.

  “I’ll be all right,” Ed whispered. “I’m a lucky man.”

  “And when you get out,” Sarah pressed on, “we’ll go back to the farm. We’ll …” But the words died on her lips as she saw the look that passed between her father and Kate.

  We’re not going back to the farm, she thought. Not ever.

  Angie Garvey finished wiping down the kitchen counters, rinsed the sponge, stuffed it into the mouth of the pottery frog that everyone in the family hated except her, and pushed the button on the dishwasher. Except for a quick mopping of the floor, the kitchen was finished.

  Too bad she hadn’t gotten around to washing the windows. They were pretty bad. On the other hand, with the sheers dropped, you could hardly notice the streaks.

  She pulled the vacuum cleaner from the closet and plugged it into an outlet in the small dining room, anticipating a roar of disapproval from Mitch, who, as usual, was slouched on the sofa watching some sporting event on the television that dominated the equally small living room.

  “Mitch,” she said. “I have to vacuum.”

  “Do it later,” he said, not even bothering to glance at her.

  Angie’s jaw muscles tightened, but instead of putting the vacuuming off, she walked over to the couch, picked up the remote and turned off the television.

  “Hey!” Mitch glowered up at her. “I was watching that.” He grabbed for the remote, but she held it out of his reach.

  “Watching what?” she challenged. “Tell me who was playing and what the score was within three points.” Seeing the blank look on his face, she twisted the knife. “Forget the score. Just name the teams. Even one of them.”

  Mitch’s glower deepened and his fingers closed around the beer can in his hand, crushing it.

  “You don’t even know one of the teams,” Angie said, not trying to keep the disgust out of her voice. She tossed the remote back onto the couch. “Get up, Mitch. Get dressed. The social worker’s bringing the foster kid here in an hour, and I want y
ou to look as good as the house.”

  “I look fine,” Mitch said, “and I don’t want no foster kid living with us. They’re nothin’ but trouble. If they were worth anythin’, they wouldn’t need people like us.”

  Angie pulled open the drapes, and Mitch, unshaven and still in the T-shirt and underwear he’d slept in, squinted in the light. “Get dressed.”

  “C’mon, Ange,” he whined. “It’s my day off.”

  “You’ve got more days off than you work lately,” she shot back. “They cut your hours at the prison, remember? And we aren’t making ends meet, remember?” She picked up dog toys and tossed them into the corner.

  “That’s not my fault.”

  “Did I say it was? Besides, it doesn’t make any difference—it is what it is.”

  “You could get a job,” he groused.

  “Which is exactly what I’m doing,” Angie said as she pulled a pile of old newspapers out from under the coffee table. “I take care of people, remember? You and Zach and Tiffany. And it keeps me plenty busy, believe me. But I’m doing what I can to bring in some extra money by taking care of one more person. We get paid to take care of a foster kid, remember?”

  Mitch scratched his belly and drained the last of his beer out of the mangled can.

  “Come on,” Angie said, swatting his leg with the newspapers. “We need to impress that social worker.” She checked her watch. “They’ll be here in forty-five minutes. Get up!”

  She hustled the newspapers into the kitchen garbage, and when she got back to the living room, Mitch had disappeared. She disposed of the empty beer can, then fluffed the throw pillows and placed them just right to disguise the worst of the stains on the old sofa. She still needed to dust, vacuum, and spray some of that air freshener, but then the living room would be finished. At least it would be if Pepper didn’t track in a bunch of the rotting leaves that Mitch hadn’t bothered to rake up from the yard. Too bad she hadn’t had time to give the dog a bath—if he came in wet, the old cocker spaniel would smell pretty rank.

  Angie turned on the vacuum cleaner and was just starting to run it around the living room when Mitch came downstairs dressed in his ragged Warwick High School letterman sweater and a pair of jeans that were at least clean, if almost as worn as the old sweater. “I’m going to watch the game down at O’Malley’s,” he said. “Got any money?”