One Last Thing

by Rebecca St. James

  “I don’t know what to do next,” I said.

  “Let’s pray,” he said.

  NINETEEN

  I walked until nine thirty, although where I went I couldn’t say. At least physically. Where I went mentally? I went to Seth at ten, into his bedroom, and saw him smiling up at some person he trusted, maybe loved, his big brown eyes wide and innocent . . . saw them widen in disbelief and fear—

  I couldn’t go there. I turned another corner and found myself face-to-face with his eleven-year-old self, lying in the dark with his black hair sticking out in anxious, hand-raked spikes against the pillow, rocking himself in his bed to try to get to sleep and escape from—

  Not a route I could take either. Nor could I watch him slide a Playboy under his T-shirt, sick with guilt, and lock his beach house bedroom door. Or take all the back alleys to some kid named Micah’s house, looking over his shoulder, terrified that his best friend might be following him. Or log onto the Internet that Christmas night in the very room where his innocence had been torn from him and spiral down to a place he would be trapped in for years.

  I stopped on Harris Street and leaned against the front window of E. Shaver Bookseller. Behind me in the showcase, dancing cupids and lacy hearts and a selection of romances reminded us that Valentine’s Day approached and we would need Danielle Steel to show us what perfect endings never looked like.

  If I couldn’t go to any of those dark, wretched places where Seth had lived, alone and frightened and seething with self-loathing—if I couldn’t . . . how could he?

  I closed my eyes and waited to fly apart into the dreaded red-and-pink confetti. It didn’t happen. I only felt one break, one final, painful rent—right down the middle of my heart.

  Once again with no place to go, I headed for the Piebald. Ike would be facing the midmorning rush. Maybe he’d need some help. Maybe I could just distract myself until six o’clock when my women would be there to help me put the two pieces back together.

  I was right that Ike could use some assistance. The line was all the way down the ramp when I got there, and some of the tables hadn’t been cleared. People were supposed to bus their own dishes, but there were always those few who left the detritus of their breakfast while they rushed off to important places, cell phone pressed to ear.

  I hung my jacket on a hook by the door and, with my purse still over my shoulder, attacked the first table. The Savannah Morning News was scattered on the tabletop and chairs, as if the reader thought covering his crumby plate and half-empty cup would make it okay. Unlike most of the rest of my life, this I could clean up.

  I picked up the front section and folded it into a tidy rectangle and tossed it to the seat of the one chair that wasn’t littered. Before I could turn to the rest of the mess, the headline grabbed me and turned my head as if it were a hand on my chin.

  CFO OF GREAT COMMISSION MINISTRY OUTED AS SEX ADDICT

  Before I could stop them my eyes went down the column.

  Seth Grissom, son of prominent Savannah attorney Randi Grissom and popular Christian pastor and author Paul—

  —source who prefers to remain anonymous reports excessive use of pornography—

  —currently undergoing treatment—

  No. Nononononono—no! This didn’t happen. This. Did. Not. Happen.

  “Tara.”

  Ike was at my side. The air in the Piebald was dead. The line of people down the ramp were all pulling their gawking gazes from me as if I was now the train wreck.

  Because I was. Because I could feel the strain in my throat from screaming all of it—from wailing again and again, “No. This can’t happen! It can’t happen!”

  “Come on, hon.”

  Ike already had his arm around me, and he half-carried me until I found myself in his office. He deposited me in the leather chair and squatted in front of me. I plucked at the newspaper and shook. Now I was coming apart. Soon, very soon, there would be nothing left of me at all.

  “What’s going on, hon?” Ike said.

  “This.” I waved the paper up and down but I couldn’t let go of it.

  “You talking about the story? The sex addict story?”

  “It’s not a story,” I said. “It’s true.”

  “Do you know this guy?”

  I gasped. Oh no. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. I couldn’t—

  And then the full impact of what I held in my hands hit me in the face like the flat of a powerful hand. It didn’t matter who I told now. Because now . . . everyone knew.

  “Tara?” Ike said.

  “Yeah, I know him,” I said. “He’s my fiancé.”

  Ike sat back on his heels and his face worked. Hard. As if he were trying to get control for both of us.

  “Did you know about this?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Holy crud, Tara, how were you even functioning?” He put his beefy hand on my arm. “Never mind. Just let me take you home.”

  “No, please. Can’t I just stay here until I can get myself together?”

  “You can stay as long as you want, but I really think—”

  “Please?”

  He nodded reluctantly and stood up. “Can I at least call somebody for you?”

  “No.”

  “Then you call me if you need something.” He started to the door and turned back. “I just don’t want to leave you alone like this. Let me at least call Ms. Helen. Can I do that?”

  “She’ll be here soon,” I said. Crazily. Like someone who was losing her mind.

  “Sit right here,” Ike said. “I’ll be back.”

  The minute the door closed behind him I panicked. He was right. I couldn’t be alone. What if I came all the way apart? Who would stick the pieces back together?

  I looked down at my hands, which still gripped the sides of the folded newspaper, so tight my fingers were smeared with newsprint, so hard the paper was beginning to dissolve. Maybe if I could make it go away, no one would know. No one would know about Seth.

  My breath was coming out in shreds. I inhaled, long and full, and then again. I couldn’t lose it now. Everyone was going to know—and everyone couldn’t find me in a pile of rubble when they got to me. Everyone—

  I stood straight up, shoving the chair back behind me. Daddy was going to see this. No. Nononononono—I had to get to him first.

  Still clinging to the paper that was now no more than a rag in my hands, I bolted from Ike’s office and somehow made my way outside without smashing into any of the people who stood between me and the corner door. I paused, anxiety shooting needles, and tried to think. It would be faster to run home, get my car, and drive to Daddy’s office than to run straight there. Yes.

  I took off, coatless, the purse that was still on my shoulder flailing out behind me. Twice I barely avoided colliding with a car at a corner. Miraculously it wasn’t more than that because, as I tore insanely toward Gaston Street, all I could think of was getting to my father before he saw.

  The fact that I ever imagined that as a possibility was proof of how much of myself had broken off from me already. It was ten a.m. Dennis Faulkner had probably read the Morning News, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times by then. I lost all hope when I opened the back door and the alarm was off. Daddy was standing in the kitchen, leaning on the counter with the front page spread out in front of him.

  Somehow, that made it real. It could happen. And it had.

  “Daddy?” I said.

  The eyes that met mine were livid.

  “Please don’t be mad at me. I couldn’t tell you.”

  He was on me so quickly and so firmly I stopped breathing. His hands gripped my shoulders and he pulled me close to his face.

  “Sugar, why—”

  “Because I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone!”

  “No. Listen to me. Why would you ever think I would be mad at you?” He shoved me into his chest and then pulled me out again to search my face. He might not be mad at me, but the anger in his eyes
still raged. “You knew, then.”

  “I did. I’m sorry.”

  “Stop! Just stop that right now. There’s no sorry—unless it comes from him.” He let go of me and smacked the paper with the back of his hand. “Have you read it? Is it all true?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Daddy spaded one hand into his pocket and used the other to massage his forehead as he paced the kitchen. “This explains a lot—but dear Lord in heaven, I thought this kid had at least the sense of a stump.” He stopped in front of the sink and stalked back to me and tilted my chin up with his fingers. “Are you all right? I mean, do we need a doctor? This has to be tearing you up. I wish your mother were here.”

  I gasped, for the second time that day. At once we both said, “No.”

  “Can we please not tell her while she’s up there with GrandMary?” I said.

  “I wish we didn’t have to tell her at all. All right, you and I can handle this, Tara. What can I do for you? Besides go out to Wyoming or wherever he is—”

  “Colorado—”

  “And beat the—”

  “Daddy.”

  “What do you need, sugar?” His face edged toward collapse. “What do you need?”

  “I just need you,” I said.

  His arms came around me, and all the pieces of me cried. He put me back together.

  Daddy convinced me to lie down around one o’clock and I feigned sleep on the family room couch, just so for a while I wouldn’t have to watch the pain and the anger volley back and forth in him. I heard him slip out the back door and opened my eyes to peek at my cell phone: one thirty. I sat up and found a note on the ottoman.

  Going to the Morning News to put a muzzle on this thing.

  We’ll have dinner together. Rest.

  Daddy.

  P.S. I stand behind you.

  I scribbled a note of my own on the back, promising to be home by six thirty, and did some damage control on my face and hair. Giving that up as hopeless, I headed back to the Piebald.

  I knew Ike wouldn’t be expecting me, but it was the only thing I could think of to do. He watched me walk up the ramp and shook his head. “Not happenin’, Tara.”

  “I have to—”

  “Go sit at your table. Do it, or you’re fired.”

  I did. Within moments, Ms. Helen was there.

  “Betsy and Gray will be here as soon as they can get off work,” she said. “Now, have you eaten anything?” She waved me off at once. “That is a ridiculous question. Let me get you—”

  “Done.”

  I looked up at Ike, who was putting a bowl of something warm and lumpy and creamy in front of me.

  “Make her eat the whole thing, Ms. Helen.”

  “That was my plan.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I’m done,” I said.

  “What part of ‘you aren’t working today’ don’t you understand? When you’re done, you’re going home.”

  He walked away muttering something about me being a hardhead.

  “So,” Ms. Helen said, once I’d taken several spoonfuls of what turned out to be potato leek, although it could have been wallpaper paste for all I knew. “Which linguine noodle are we working on right now?”

  I let the spoon splash into the soup and said what I didn’t know until that moment. “I am so angry, Ms. Helen.”

  “And who are we angry with?”

  “Whoever that anonymous source was. I just want to find him . . . or her . . . and scream in their face. Who would do this?”

  “Aw, man, I was hoping you’d know so we could all hunt the coward down.” Gray slipped into the chair next to me, face flushed and hands hot as they grabbed mine. “Don’t you have any blood? You need a mug of something.” She peered into the soup. “Something stronger than this.”

  “I don’t know who did it,” I said. “Who would hurt Seth like that?”

  “And you,” Ms. Helen said.

  “Somebody who knew, obviously,” Gray said. “Think about it while I get you a tea.”

  “Only five people knew besides me,” I told Ms. Helen. “And you three, and I didn’t tell you his name or anything . . . not that I think you would.” I pulled my hair back until I felt my eyes slant. “I don’t know what I think.”

  “Then I’ll tell you what I think.”

  She didn’t have a chance. A warm presence was suddenly there, and a pair of wonderful lips pressed my forehead.

  “I am so sorry, sweet thing,” Betsy said. “How you holding up?”

  “Better, now that I’m with y’all,” I said. “I just wish I knew who did this.”

  Betsy sat across from me and folded her brown hands neatly on the table. “And what will you do if you find this person?”

  “Vent?” I said. “I’m so angry I could spit. Maybe I’ll spit at them.”

  “I got a life-sized picture of that happening.” Gray set a steaming cup in front of me. “Chamomile,” she said. “I had to tell that Wendy child three times to heat up the milk. She’s out there someplace.”

  Ms. Helen turned to me. “What this person did is unconscionable, yes, ma’am. But isn’t the one you’re really angry at . . . Seth? That’s his name?”

  “I can’t scream at Seth,” I said. “He has more to deal with than I knew about until I read his letter this morning. I haven’t had a chance to tell you about that.”

  Gray put the cup of tea into my hand and all but wrapped my fingers around it. They all waited while I sipped. A telepathic conversation seemed to go on between them.

  “What?” I said.

  “You have every right to be angry,” Ms. Helen said.

  “And it might help you to be able to go off on whoever exposed this whole thing to the press,” Gray said. “Okay, it would feel great.”

  “But . . .” Betsy reached across the table and curled her warmth around my wrist. “Just make sure you don’t use finding this person to distract you from what you’re feeling.”

  “I’m tired of feeling,” I said. “I’m just so tired.”

  Daddy came home with takeout from Zunzi’s and a promise from the Morning News that no further stories would be released about Seth.

  “How did you pull that off?” I said.

  “I called in some favors,” he said.

  He didn’t leave me alone for the rest of the evening, which I was grateful for. Alone was the most frightening thing I could think of, and for an introvert like me, admitting it was scary in itself. I woke up at six a.m. with my head in his lap. How I got there, I couldn’t remember and Daddy didn’t explain. He just kissed the back of my hand and told me to go crawl into bed.

  I didn’t, of course. I went to St. John’s and sat in the back again and sobbed through the entire service. Ned didn’t even ask me if I wanted to talk. He just led me silently to our place on the salmon sofa and handed me a hanky. The man must have an endless supply.

  “I need to make another confession,” I said. “A real one this time.”

  “Fire away.”

  “I want to claw the skin of the person who outed Seth in the paper yesterday.”

  “Is that all? You don’t want to punch him—or her—in the face? Strip their skin off?”

  I giggled, which came out as more of a most attractive snort. “This from a priest?”

  “I was thinking for you. Me? I’d go more along the lines of an AK-47.”

  My eyes widened. “For real?”

  “No, just in my prayers.”

  “Your prayers?”

  “Have you ever read the Psalms?”

  “Sort of. The twenty-third, for sure.”

  “Let me draw your attention to Psalm 109.”

  He stood up and pulled a book from the case behind us. I was surprised to see that it was a copy of The Message.

  “Not the King James?” I said.

  “That works, too, but for this situation, I’m thinking Eugene Peterson’s our guy.” He flipped some pages and came to rest on one. “I want you to repeat afte
r me.”

  “O-kay.”

  “My God.” He looked up.

  “My God,” I said.

  “Their lying tongues are like a pack of dogs out to get me.”

  I repeated it.

  “Good, now with feeling. ‘Barking their hate, nipping my heels—and for no reason!’ ”

  “ ‘Barking their hate—’ ”

  “That’s all you got?”

  “You want me to yell?” I looked up at the ornate molding. “In here?”

  “I’d have you do it in the church if they weren’t cleaning in there. Come on, work with me. ‘Barking their hate . . .’ ”

  I yelled it. That line, and the next ones he fed me. Give him a short life. Give his job to somebody else. Turn his children into begging street urchins.

  By the time we had the bank foreclosing and his family tree chopped down and the curses raining down on him, I was almost hoarse. It was exhausting but I wanted to keep going.

  And then we got to the next part. The part where my anger dissolved into something else. Something pulled out by I’m at the end of my rope, my life in ruins. I’m fading away to nothing, passing away, my youth gone, old before my time.

  I swayed as I cried out to God that I was weak from hunger and could hardly stand up, my body a rack of skin and bones. When Ned’s voice became a whisper, so did mine. Help me, oh, help me, God, my God. Then they’ll know that your hand is in this. You do the blessing . . . my mouth’s full of great praise for God [who rescues] a life from the unjust judge.

  We were quiet as Ned closed the book and I stared down at my hands.

  “I thought I’d done all my crying,” I said.

  “Me too,” Ned said.

  I looked up to see unashamed tears running down his face.

  TWENTY

  Through my whole shift even the guys in the kitchen gave me pitying looks. Ike finally had to tell them to leave me alone and get back to work. The only person who wouldn’t look at me at all was Wendy, and for some reason that brought the anger that had been simmering in me since yesterday to a boil.

  I waited to approach her until our shift was almost over and she was squatted down rearranging mugs on the shelves behind the counter.

  I squatted next to her. “I don’t know if you overheard my conversation with Ms. Helen and everybody, but I know you’ve seen the paper or heard people talking and so you know what’s going on.”