“I built them a house so they’d be close.”
“Keeping up appearances, I guess.” Sarcasm edged Lily’s voice.
“I was a father to that boy in every way I felt that I could be. I fed him, bought his clothes, helped him with his homework, taught him to ride and to shoot. He had chores, responsibilities, but he was lazy.”
“I’ve heard you call AJ lazy.”
“Yeah, maybe sometimes. But AJ’s got heart; he’s got passion for his work. Erik doesn’t.”
“So you cut him out of your will without even consulting his mother.”
“It was stupid, a stupid move on my part. I don’t know what to do about it, how to make it up. I can pay for his defense, and I will. I’ll get him and Win whatever they need.”
“Yes,” Lily said. “But I don’t know that you can ever make it up.”
Lily didn’t explain it to Paul when she called him later, beyond saying that what had set Erik off was family related and rooted in the past. He was behind bars; AJ was free and safe, and the ordeal was over.
“I’m not family anymore, I guess.”
“By your own choice.”
“So, what do you want to do?”
“Nothing right now,” she said. “I’m staying on here. AJ needs me.”
“What will you tell him? About us, I mean.”
“The truth,” she said. “That you’re involved with Pilar Dix.”
Paul didn’t like it. She knew by the impatient intake of his breath, the click his teeth made when he set them together. The truth wasn’t going to enhance his image. Too bad, she thought.
“I was going to drive down this evening, but maybe I’ll wait. Will you let AJ know—” Paul stopped, seeming to consider.
Lily tried to imagine what he wanted AJ to know—that he had never doubted AJ’s innocence? That was a lie. That even though he’d cheated on her, he was still worthy of AJ’s respect? That, too, was a lie. If she was honest, she’d cheated on Paul with Edward. Even if it was only emotionally, she wasn’t proud of it. But the one thing she would never do would be to put AJ in the middle of her marital difficulties in a way that would force him to choose one of his parents over the other. AJ was an adult; he could make up his own mind about the sort of man his father was.
24
Dru went to the hospital on Sunday, the evening before AJ was to be discharged. Shea was the only other person there, and when she caught sight of Dru, her eyes widened. Dru hadn’t told her she was coming. She went to AJ’s bedside, steeling herself.
Unlike Shea, he met her gaze as if he’d been expecting her. She gripped the side rail. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she heard the quick, astonished intake of Shea’s breath. “I jumped to conclusions about you that aren’t true.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “If I had a daughter like Shea, I’d be just like you.”
“It’s hard for me, because of Shea’s dad.” Dru glanced at Shea.
AJ glanced at her, too. “She told me,” he said, and then paused, taking a moment. He wiped his face, let out a gust of air. “I know I’ve got PTSD, that I probably need help.”
It cost him, admitting it. Dru could see that it did.
Shea slid her palm over his hand.
“I haven’t wanted to admit it. I’m afraid of how people will look at me, what they’ll think. I figured I could—that I should, you know, tough it out, that I ought to be able to control it, my emotions, my temper. I mean, I’m a soldier, right? A marine. I should just get through it, drive on—”
“You’re human, AJ.” Dru’s defense came unbidden out of the swift bloom of her sympathy, and she was surprised by it. But she realized she didn’t regret it. She was only telling the truth. “My God, when you consider what you went through over there, what all of you soldiers go through, not to mention what’s just happened. Erik could have killed you—”
“I’m scared is what I am.” AJ looked at Dru, and she could see it, the fear shadowing his eyes, but there was something else in his expression, too. Something harder and more determined. “I promise you I will never harm Shea, Mrs. Gallagher.”
“Dru,” she corrected softly.
“He’s going to get help, Mom, the way Dad did. AJ’s going to go back into counseling, and he’s going to work with the Wounded Warrior Project.”
“I’ll do whatever I have to for Shea,” he said, “for our future, our children—to keep them safe. I want to come home, Mrs.—Dru—all the way home in my head.”
Dru reached out to him—she couldn’t help it—touching her fingertips to his cheek, letting them rest there briefly before taking her hand away and clearing her throat. “Rob wants me to go with him to couples’ counseling.”
“Will you?” Shea asked.
“Yes.” It was only in the moment that Dru made up her mind, and she knew it was because of AJ, his honesty and his courage in the face of his vulnerability, that had decided her. She had no idea where counseling would lead her and Rob as a couple, but she knew Rob, like AJ, deserved her support, her participation—her faith.
A nurse came in, and they were quiet while she checked AJ’s vitals.
After she left, Dru said, “Ken was by the house earlier. He said Erik has made a full confession. He’s tried to waive his right to an attorney, too.”
“He left a suicide note in the sack with his bloody clothes,” Shea said. “Did Ken tell you that?”
Dru said he had. But she’d already heard about it. She didn’t know how the contents of the letter had come to light—there had been little local media coverage of the story—but it had sent shock waves through Wyatt. It wasn’t so much that Jeb Axel and Winona Ayala had been involved with each other for years. Most folks had figured that was the case. Some had even speculated that Erik was Jeb’s son. It was what Erik had done, the pure evil of his crimes that had people reeling. They couldn’t believe the boy who’d grown up near their town, who’d gone to Wyatt schools, the young man with the easy laugh who’d always been ready to help—the one who’d run the streets with their kids, for God’s sake—had murdered two of their own sweet girls.
How had it happened? What clues had they missed? Even Dru wondered. She thought of meeting Erik at the feed store when she’d needed advice on caring for donkeys. He’d been so congenial and patient with Kate and Shea and their giggling adoration of him. Like everyone else, she questioned herself, how easily she’d bought into Erik’s charm, been fooled by his good looks, his friendly demeanor. But as Lily had said when Dru ran into her outside in the hospital parking lot earlier, who could say what a murderer looked like?
Lily had said, too, that if anyone should have known about Erik, it was her. She’d been part of his life from the day he was born. Dru had advised Lily not to blame herself; she’d said how sorry she was for her misjudgment of AJ. Inexplicably, Lily had waved off Dru’s apology, and while Lily’s dismissal was a relief, Dru felt perplexed. How could Lily be so forgiving of her?
“I hope you can forgive me,” she said now to AJ. The press of tears and the opposing and sudden lift of her heart surprised her.
“Of course,” he said. “I hope one day you’ll be able to trust me.”
Dru found a tissue and wiped her eyes. “It could happen.” She smiled. “Maybe sooner than you think.”
Shea came to Dru’s side and embraced her. “Thanks, Mom,” she whispered.
Dru pushed her grocery cart up and down the aisles. She was out of almost everything. The last time she had shopped, she realized, was two weeks ago, on Tuesday, the day before Becca was found dead in AJ’s apartment. Her mind did that now. It split life into before and after, and while she found it comforting, this return to her ordinary routine, it also felt strange. When she thought of Joy and Charla and how their lives would never be the same, it made her heart ache. Dru was thinking of Winona Ayala, too—that her life had also been altered irrevocably by her son’s actions. Then, when turning the corner toward the deli counter, she caught sight of Win. Sh
e was behind a table, one of several food-sampling stations that were set up throughout the store. Win was giving out bite-size slices of tamales, speared on frilled wooden picks.
“You made these? I can buy them here?” a shopper, a man Dru didn’t recognize, asked.
“Yes,” Win said. She took a package from the cooler, offering it to him.
He took them. “Best damn tamales I ever ate,” he said.
Dru would always think later that it was hearing the man’s emphatic praise of Win’s tamales that set the plan she didn’t know she had into motion. As Dru approached Win, their eyes caught. Dru could see Win was startled; she shifted her glance toward a door behind the deli counter as if she might be pondering her escape.
“It’s okay,” Dru said, and it seemed laughable. It was doubtful that much in Winona’s life right now was okay, but Dru wanted to reassure her.
“You would like to try a sample?” Winona asked.
“I’d love to.” Dru helped herself and pronounced it delicious. “You’re selling your tamales through the store?”
“I just started. I am going to sell other things, too. Barbacoa, garnachas. I make the food fresh every morning. Most of it is Oaxacan, specialties I learned to make from mi abuela, my grandmother.”
“But you best get here before noon if you want to take any of it home.” A man—Dru recognized the store manager—spoke in passing.
“He tasted many samples before hiring me.” Winona’s smile didn’t quite lighten the shadow of grief in her eyes. Dru wanted to address it, the source of Winona’s sadness. She wanted to help Winona, to reach out to her. “Is it possible for you to take a break?” she asked. “We could have coffee, my treat.”
It surprised Dru, both her offer and that Win accepted it.
She needed a friend, she told Dru a bit later. They were sitting in Dru’s car with their coffee. Win had suggested it. People were generally kind, but they stared, she said. They talked behind her back. It was difficult, being at the store, but she had to work. Win told Dru she was living in town now in Erik’s old apartment.
“It is hard being there, but I have nowhere else. I can’t be at the ranch with Jeb. Not anymore.”
Dru didn’t press her. “There’s a small cottage on my property,” she said instead. “You could live there. You could come to work with me. I’ve been thinking about expanding my catering business, and I’d love to be able to offer your wonderful Oaxacan cuisine to my clients.”
Winona stared at Dru. “You are serious?”
“I am,” Dru said, and she realized she’d never been more serious. She felt a thrill of excitement. They sat talking for a long time, making a plan, working out the details.
“I can’t believe you are doing this for me,” Win said. “I didn’t know how I would get by.” She looked down into her foam cup, empty now. “It’s not only the money that I need.”
No, Dru thought. It was hard to think of all that Win was facing, the terrible events that lay in her future. The Dallas prosecutor assigned to Erik’s case was calling for the death penalty. According to news reports, Erik had refused Jeb Axel’s offer to cover his legal expenses, and he had only accepted the help of a court-appointed attorney under duress. That lawyer, who was from Greeley, the Madrone County seat, was citing mental defect as a defense. As a mother, Dru couldn’t begin to fathom how all of it would feel. Reaching out, she put her hand on Win’s arm.
“I love Erik,” she said softly. “He’s my son, and I will always love him, but I don’t know if I can forgive him.” She glanced at Dru and quickly away. “I hope to. It’s all I pray for. That and peace. Peace for Becca’s and Kate’s parents. Peace for us all.”
Dru looked through the windshield. It was a good prayer, she thought. Possibly the only prayer.
Later that afternoon, Shea was at the xL with AJ, and Dru and Amy were unloading Dru’s SUV, ferrying the tableware for Shea’s wedding reception on Saturday into the house when a car pulled up alongside the curb. Amy was at the foot of the porch steps and saw it first. “It’s Charla and Joy,” she said.
“Is Gene with them?” Dru turned to look.
“No. After what he did? He wouldn’t have the nerve.”
Dru had known, given Wyatt’s small size, that seeing them was inevitable, but she’d never imagined they would seek her out.
“Should I stay?” Amy asked.
“Yes, please. Otherwise things might get out of hand.”
Dru and Shea had attended the separate funeral services last week for Becca and Kate, but they had gone late, slipped into a back pew, and left early. Even though Charla and Joy—the whole town, in fact—had known by then that AJ was completely innocent, Dru had wanted to avoid an encounter. She didn’t trust herself, or her temper. While she grieved for both mothers, it rankled, the way she and Shea had been treated at Charla’s house, even though in view of her own recently vanquished suspicions of AJ, she could understand it.
What she didn’t understand and couldn’t so far forgive was how the same feeling of suspicion had driven Joy’s husband, Gene, to get behind the wheel of his pickup truck and attempt to run her and Shea off the road. In essence, he’d tried to kill them. He could have very easily. It had been such a shock last week when he’d come forward and confessed to Captain Mackie that he was responsible. He’d cited his grief over the loss of his daughter and claimed he had little recollection of the incident. He’d said he’d been driven to the edge of insanity, that he’d needed someone to blame. He’d wanted Dru and Shea to pay, however irrational his choice of a target seemed. Captain Mackie had told Dru that Gene had cried. Dru hadn’t heard from Gene. Like Amy said, he hadn’t had the guts to face Dru or Shea.
But Joy and Charla were here, standing at the foot of the porch steps, looking up at Dru. Two women, bonded by mutual grief. Dru’s heart ached for them. Who was she to judge them? She hadn’t walked in their shoes. Her fervent prayer was that she never would. Hadn’t she thanked God a thousand times for sparing Shea? Hadn’t she counted herself lucky?
“Would you like to come and sit?” she asked, and she felt Amy’s startled glance.
Charla thanked her. “I only wanted to say I’m sorry in person for how I spoke to you and Shea. The evidence just seemed to suggest—”
“Gene and I are sorry, too.” Joy interrupted Charla, as if she was anxious to get her part over. “He—he wanted to come, but he’s—it was awful, what he did. There’s no excuse. He’ll—we’ll pay for the damage to Shea’s car.”
“We haven’t heard yet from the insurance company.” Dru wished she were wealthy enough to tell Joy to forget it, but the truth was, repairing the car would put a financial strain on Shea and her.
“We want to pay,” Joy said. “It’s the least we can do.”
Dru frowned, not taking Joy’s meaning.
“Captain Mackie told us you refused to file a complaint against Gene. He thinks the district attorney won’t pursue charges in light of the circumstances, because you’ve said you won’t testify if Gene goes on trial.” Joy glanced away, blinking.
Charla drew her into a one-armed embrace.
Dru’s throat constricted. She sensed Amy was struggling for her composure, too.
“I pushed Kate on Erik,” Charla said, and although she looked startled for having spoken, she went on. “I told her she would never find a better man, a kinder, more handsome man.”
“We were all fooled.” Joy broke out of Charla’s grasp. “I knew there was something not right when Becca went to Dallas. She wanted to believe AJ cared for her, but it was so plain that Shea was—I let Becca go anyway. I didn’t lift a finger to stop her, and even if it was the wrong man, Erik, and not AJ, who hurt her, I knew nothing good would come of it.”
Dru said, “You can’t blame yourselves,” and when she went down the stairs to them, it was because she was shaken by their anguish. The three fumbled their arms around one another, mothers comforting mothers. Amy came, too. It was an unlikely embrace
, but what else could you do in a storm but cling to one another?
The bond was broken as quickly as it was forged.
Joy said, “You know who he is—Erik.”
Dru knew what was coming, and her jaw tightened.
“He’s Jeb Axel’s son by that Mexican woman who works for him.”
“Do you know Winona Ayala?” Dru asked. “Personally, I mean?”
“No,” Joy said. “But what kind of woman—”
“They’re both single and over twenty-one, right?” Dru smiled.
“It’s their business, isn’t it?” Amy suggested.
Dru said, “What Erik did, as horrible and unforgivable as it is, his mother isn’t to blame. She’s struggling, too.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive him,” Charla said softly.
“I hope he gets the death penalty,” Joy said.
“I heard he’s under a suicide watch,” Amy murmured.
Dru looked off, her eyes following the progress of a neighbor, a youngish man she saw regularly in the late afternoons, running along the road’s shoulder. She could hear the thud of his footfalls in the soft dirt. She thought of Winona’s prayer for peace, and it comforted her.
25
It was the Friday afternoon of the rehearsal dinner. They should have been getting ready for it, flinging cloths over the tables they’d set up in the pasture, stacking dishes and cutlery into the cart that would have been hitched to the four-wheeler, making the job of going to and from the ranch house easier. The air would have been redolent with the aroma of roast pork. The weather was perfect. There was a delicious breeze now as the sun was setting. It would have guttered the candlelight, carried the sound of laughter, the buzz of conversation. The scent of perfume. Music. Lily would likely have been upstairs about now, dressing in the emerald-green suede western skirt and boots to match that she’d planned to wear.
The Truth We Bury: A Novel Page 26
