No Place to Hide

by Susan Lewis

  Cockily, he said, “I like it just fine, it’s cool, they’re my kind of people.”

  “They’re who you’re going to spend the rest of your life with if you keep refusing to talk to the psychiatrists.”

  His eyes stayed on hers as he nodded. “Let’s not kid ourselves,” he said, “it doesn’t matter who I talk to, the only way I’m ever getting out of here is if they move me to a place for the criminally insane, which might be cool, come to think of it, bit of a crack, a few drugs, knocking about with some wacky people…”

  “Ben, you don’t mean what you’re saying. I know you regret what you did.”

  “If you know that, then you know more than I do.”

  “Can’t you see that I’m trying to reach you, to show you that in spite of everything Dad and I are still here for you?”

  “Then you’re crazy. There’s nothing either of you can do to help me, and nothing any psychiatrist can do either, because I’m not some schizo with voices going on in my head, telling me what to do…I’m in control of me, I’m the one who decided what I was going to do, and I’m the one who did it.”

  “In a psychotic episode that you couldn’t control.”

  His eyes widened. “Nice try,” he responded, apparently impressed.

  “Am I wrong?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows?”

  Without thinking she tried to grab his hands, but he pulled them away. “Hey, hey, no touching,” he warned.

  She stared at him helplessly, wondering what the point was of even being there.

  “I don’t know what you expect from me,” he said roughly, “but face it, Mum, whatever happens, you’ll never be able to forgive me for Abby.”

  It was true, she wouldn’t; she couldn’t even bear to hear him speak Abby’s name. “If I knew you weren’t able to help yourself…”

  “If you knew that, you’d be able to tell the world I was a nutjob, a full-on undiagnosed psycho, and that way you couldn’t be to blame.”

  She regarded him closely, trying to see her son past the stranger, to see a real human being who actually gave a damn. “Before you did it,” she said, “did you realize it would end this way, with you being locked up probably for the rest of your life?”

  To her surprise he seemed to give it some thought. “No, I guess I didn’t think about that,” he replied, “but it’s OK. I can handle it.”

  She gestured to his knuckles.

  “Yeah, that’s how it works in here. It’s a different world. You don’t want to know about it.”

  She couldn’t deny that, because she really didn’t. All the same, it was hard to think of what he might be going through, even if some, most, would say he deserved it.

  She shouldn’t care either. After what he’d done, the way he’d destroyed so many lives, she should simply turn her back on him now, walk away, and let him rot in this dreadful place.

  Had anyone ever felt such a cruel conflict of loyalties and emotions? If so, could they please tell her how to handle them?

  “Tell me what to do,” she begged. “What do you need…?”

  “You can’t fix this,” he growled. “No one can.”

  “But if you’d accept some help…”

  “You’re not listening. No amount of help is going to change what I did.”

  “Would you change it, if you could?”

  After a while he started to shake his head. It gleamed with the reflection of a lightbulb overhead. “Not Connor,” he said. “Never him.”

  “But the others. Chantal, Neil…”

  “I know who they are, you don’t have to spell out their names.”

  “If it’s too hard to hear them, then you do have a conscience.”

  “Whatever.” He suddenly pushed away from the table. “Time to go,” he declared.

  “Ben, wait,” she implored as he stood up.

  “For what?”

  “I haven’t finished.”

  “Yes, you have. We’ve said everything we need to, and what we’ve decided is that you don’t need me in your life, and I sure as hell don’t need you.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  He shrugged. “Your choice.”

  “I want to come again,” she called after him.

  Keeping his back to her, he raised a hand to wave goodbye.

  “Then write to me, or ring.”

  He didn’t answer, just carried on through the door that led him to a place she could never go.

  A week later she received a brief note at Rob’s address that she’d kept with her ever since.

  Dear Mum,

  I probably ought to say thanks for coming and even pretending you care, but it would have been better if you hadn’t. It was kind of easier before, telling myself I hated you and that you hated me…It made sense of stuff, or I think it did. It’s easier to be angry, it feels like who I really am, a shit psycho who’s got to keep it together to survive in here. I can do that, but not if you come to see me. You make me weak and that’s not good.

  So forget about me, Mum. Go on with your life and if it helps for me to say I’m sorry about Abby, then I’m sorry about Abby. She always hated me, but that’s OK, I hated her too.

  Don’t bother to answer this. I won’t read it anyway.

  The person who used to be your son,

  Ben

  Culver, Indiana

  Justine watched Sallie Jo fold the letter and take a deep, troubled breath as she struggled to absorb the enormity of it all.

  How could anyone? It was outside most people’s sphere of understanding, never mind experience.

  In the end, looking up, Sallie Jo said, “I can’t begin to imagine how you felt when you received this, or how you feel now.”

  Since she hardly knew herself, Justine simply shook her head. “He’s my son,” she said. “That will never change, much as I wish to God it could at times. We’ll never get past what he did; it’ll be with us, all of us, for the rest of our lives. I had someone talk to me in the early days about forgiveness being the way to move on, but he’s right, I’ll never be able to forgive him for Abby. I don’t think I’ve ever even properly grieved for her, because it’s always been all about him, and in a way it still is. Matt’s there, I’m here…He’s made that happen. We tell ourselves it’s for the best this way, but how can anything be for the best when so many families are ruined?”

  Not even trying to answer the question, Sallie Jo said, “Since he wrote this letter, has he shown any other signs of remorse?”

  Justine glanced at it bleakly. “Not that I’m aware of,” she said, “but I’ve had no real news of him since I left. Matt and I decided it would be best that way.”

  “Is it hard?”

  “In some ways, yes. In others it’s a relief.” She sighed and reached for the letter. “To be honest, I try not to think of him at all, but of course I hardly ever stop. He’s always there, either as he was the last time I saw him, or as a boy…I hear him laughing, shouting, crying, roaring, swearing…I keep asking myself if I did put Abby first, and sometimes I think I did. Not deliberately, but I was so busy with the deli, or an event; the house was always full of people dropping in, or staying for a weekend, even a week; and I was often away traveling with Matt…I can see now that I didn’t pay enough attention to my children, and whereas Abby managed to cope with it, it obviously wasn’t the same for Ben.” Her eyes went to Sallie Jo. “It’s why I want to make sure I’m always around for Lula. If I work, it’ll only be during school hours.”

  “You have that now,” Sallie Jo reminded her.

  “Thanks to you, and I’ll always be grateful.”

  Sallie Jo frowned. “I’m sensing a but.”

  Justine paused for a moment. “I know you meant it when you said you’d never repeat what I’ve told you today, and I believe you, I trust you, but it will color the way you feel from now on…No, it will,” she pressed when Sallie Jo tried to object. “I’ve seen it so many times, and I don’t blame you—how can you not be affec
ted by knowing what you do?”

  “But that’s not you and who you really are. It’s only a part of it, and we all have things in our past that we’d rather no one knew anything about.”

  “Not like this.”

  “OK, yours is bigger, which makes it harder, but you’re here to try and overcome it, to prove to yourself that it is possible to carry on, and to give Lula a good life.”

  “I want to believe it, I really do, but I can see now that I’ve been deluding myself thinking no one will ever find out. They will, sooner or later—not that I think you’ll tell them, they just will, and once everyone knows my son, Lula’s brother, is the McQuillan Monster, they’ll never be able to accept us the same way again. It’s the first thing that’ll come to mind every time they see us, and kids can be very cruel. So can adults. I don’t want to live with the stigma, and I really don’t want Lula to, so I need to start making plans to move on.”

  Sallie Jo shook her head in quiet despair. “But where would you go that isn’t going to throw up the same problems you’re facing now? You can’t live in total isolation, so there’s always going to be a risk of new friends and neighbors finding out about Ben, and like you say, they probably will. So before you do anything hasty, why not give it some more time here?”

  Justine forced a smile. “It’s really kind of you to say all that, and I appreciate it, I really do, but you haven’t given yourself any time to think, and once everything I’ve told you starts to sink in you might find you’re not keen for Hazel to carry on being friends with Lula. Ben’s…problems might run in the family.”

  Sallie Jo’s eyebrows rose. “I really don’t think that’s likely,” she protested, “and I already know I don’t want you to go. I’ve come to think of you as a friend, a real close friend, and I can promise you what you’ve told me today isn’t going to change that.”

  Justine wasn’t sure what to say; she only knew that it didn’t feel right to continue arguing.

  “Listen,” Sallie Jo said, more forcefully, “I understand that if it gets out you’re going to face some prejudice for a while, ignorant, narrow-minded people who can’t see any further than the backs of their Bibles, but you’ll have me to help take care of that, and believe me, folks around here, they know better than to get on the wrong side of Sallie Jo.”

  This time Justine’s smile was real. It was true, Sallie Jo was a force to be reckoned with at times, and no one was ever going to take that away from her. “I still say you should give yourself some time to think it over,” she responded.

  “OK, if that’s what you want, but I’m telling you my mind’s made up, and there won’t be any changing it. What’s more,” she ran on, a sudden light sparking in her eyes, “no way am I letting you go anywhere till we’ve been into that house on the lake and found out all there is to find out about your grandma.”

  Justine felt herself blanch.

  Sallie Jo smiled. “But I get that it isn’t going to happen today.”

  Present Day—Culver, Indiana

  It wasn’t until a week later that Justine spoke to Matt again. By then a blaze of fall colors was gleaming like fresh candy up and down the streets of Culver, all around Lake Max, and throughout the Academies. The whole town was glowing with the season’s radiance, the people seeming uplifted by its brazen flamboyance. She couldn’t remember the change happening so fast or so dramatically in Britain, which had something to do, she remembered once hearing or learning at school, with this being a continental climate, while the UK’s was maritime.

  Whatever the geographical or environmental reason, it was more beautiful than any fall she’d ever seen and made her feel ludicrously, though pleasingly, proud to be an American. As if nationality could lay any claim to nature!

  When Matt called she’d just returned from viewing an apartment uptown in a block next to the Culver fire station, where Lula and Hazel had joined a group of other children at the weekend to climb all over the engines. Afterward parents and kids together had traipsed across the road to the town park, where they’d picnicked, played on the swings, and had some fun wondering about two empty Adirondack chairs that had appeared on the beach. Who had put them there? Would they ever come back? Maybe the chairs were just out to enjoy the weather. Were they contemplating a swim?

  It had all been silly, innocent fun that Justine and Lula had enjoyed. Then Justine had spotted a group of girls from the Academies on their way into town, and it had seemed to drain the light from the day. They had looked so engaging in their navy blue uniforms, so full of easy laughter and untroubled confidence. Just as Abby had when she was their age, not so very long ago.

  For no reason she could think of, her eyes drifted to the top of the water tower behind Papa’s, where two dozen or more vultures sat watching the world, ready to strike. It made her feel deadened and queasy, as she was reminded of Ben in the tree with his crossbow. Telling Sallie Jo about him had been like smashing open a piñata to find all her happy memories infested with bugs and poisonous things. She had to try to put it behind her, close a door on the past, but even if she could, she knew it would always find a way in.

  That night they’d gone to Sallie Jo’s for supper, and to her relief no mention had been made of Ben. Sallie Jo had only brought the subject up once since learning the truth, when she’d said that she didn’t intend to keep asking about it, but if Justine wanted to talk again, at any time, she would always be there.

  “She seems to have taken it much better than I’d expected,” Justine told Matt after updating him on the conversation she’d had with Sallie Jo.

  “Then she’s gone up even further in my estimation,” he responded. “Luckily not everyone’s as uncharitable or unforgiving as some of the people we’ve encountered this past year.”

  Shuddering even to think of those occasions and how shockingly ready people could be to throw out judgment and blame—as if she and Matt didn’t blame themselves enough already—Justine said, “I tried calling you at the weekend, but there was no reply.” His failure to ring back right away had left her imagining him in that brutal visitors’ hall with Ben, or perhaps he’d been somewhere with Hayley.

  “I was at the prison for some of the time,” he told her. “The rest I was at my mother’s and I forgot to take my mobile. I guess I get so few calls these days that it’s no longer the first thing I reach for when I leave the apartment.”

  Knowing it would be the same for her if it weren’t for Lula, she said, “I don’t suppose Simon and Gina were there?” Even saying their names was hard; picturing them, imagining what they were still going through, how wretchedly empty their lives must feel without Wes, was enough to make her want to cower away in a dark, punishing place that might in some bizarre, merciful way alleviate the other families’ pain.

  “No, they weren’t, but apparently they’re settling into their new place, which is only a couple of miles from Mum’s. I think they feel the need to be close to her, and she wants it too.”

  Justine could understand that. After such a life-changing tragedy they’d obviously turned to each other for comfort and support, which meant that for a while Matt had lost his mother and brother on top of everything else. He and Catherine saw each other regularly now, but Simon never joined them, and she knew how much Matt missed his brother. She didn’t doubt that Simon missed Matt too, but how were they ever going to spend time together without thinking of why their lives had been so brutally torn apart? “Rob mentioned in one of his emails,” she said, “that Simon had applied for a job with the Hampshire force.”

  “Yes, and he got it. He’s due to start at the beginning of next month. Gina’s getting involved in all sorts of volunteer works apparently, a lot of it with Mum.”

  Gina had always put herself out to help others, so it was no surprise that she was trying to provide support for strangers in spite of being so much in need of it herself. Justine remembered how desperate she herself had felt over this past year to reach out to those in need, to share compa
ssion and understanding, empathy and warmth, but no one would have wanted it from her. It was strange how giving comfort to others could provide a kind of comfort itself. “I don’t suppose,” she said, “there’s any news of Cheryl and Brad?” Thinking of Cheryl was sometimes almost as hard as thinking of Abby, mainly because Cheryl was still out there but had never tried to be in touch. They’d been so close, and Cheryl had relied so heavily on their friendship for moral as well as emotional support. At the very worst time in her life, she’d been unable to turn to Justine, and that alone nearly broke Justine’s heart. How fortunate, yet undeserving, she was to have found a new friend in Sallie Jo. Had Cheryl been able to find someone else to help her to face the future? Were she and Brad still together? How supportive had he been during those darkest, most horrific of days?

  “Not that Mum mentioned,” Matt was saying. “I think they stayed in touch with Simon and Gina for a while, but I’m not sure if they’ve kept it up.”

  “What about the others? Melanie, Maddy…?”

  “All I can tell you is what you already know, that they left the vale soon after we did and no one’s been back. The whole area is deserted, apparently. No one goes down there from the village; it’s only the ghoulish type of tourists who make the trek and post selfies online: Guess where I am? I saw on the news that someone actually tweeted a picture of himself with a crossbow.”

  Justine’s eyes closed as though to shut out the sick image. “Why was it on the news?” she asked.

  “Because of its bad taste. There’s a lot going on about that sort of thing lately.”

  This was why neither of them belonged to any of the social media sites. They really didn’t need to know what the world at large, mostly people who’d never even met them, thought of them or would like to do to their son. “Has anyone managed to sell their house?” she said.