Close to the Broken Hearted

by Michael Hiebert

  “I don’t know how,” Sylvie said. “I keep thinkin’ about what happened to Caleb.”

  “What happened to your brother is why you have to do this.”

  Silence. And then, “I’m scared.”

  “I know you are,” Leah said. “So am I. I’m coming as fast as I can.”

  Leah knew she had to take a break from this call and contact the station for backup, but she didn’t know how to do it without causing Sylvie to completely break down. “Listen, Sylvie? I need to radio the station. I’m not gonna hang up, but I need you to just sit tight one minute. Can you do that?”

  “No! Don’t go!”

  “Okay, okay.” Leah thought hard. Then she said to her daughter, “Caroline, pick up the radio and get Chris on the line. Tell him I need backup at Sylvie’s house. Him and Ethan. Tell him it’s a ten thirty-five.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it!”

  “Okay.” Caroline picked up the radio. As Leah continued to fumble through her pep talk with Sylvie she heard her daughter convince Chris she was who she said she was and that she wasn’t kidding around. Part of Leah became very proud of her in that moment.

  “I hear him,” Sylvie said. “Now he’s bootin’ the door.”

  “Sylvie?” Leah asked. She could tell the girl was on the verge of breaking down.

  There was no response.

  “Sylvie!”

  “Yeah,” she finally answered. She was out of breath. The night around Leah’s car seemed to close in and grow even darker as she approached the edge of town.

  “You can do this.”

  “I can do this.”

  Leah was coming up fast on the end of Main Street where the railroad tracks were, right before the turnoff to Old Mill Road, which was only a few minutes from Sylvie’s house. But a train was coming. In fact, it was almost at the road.

  Leah’s brain scrambled to make a decision. The rain streaming down made it look like Leah had more clearance than she actually did, and she slammed her foot heavy on the gas pedal.

  For a moment, all she saw was Caroline silhouetted in the train engine’s white light. “Mom!” Caroline screamed.

  Leah’s heart felt like a wet bag trying to beat its way free from her rib cage. With barely a foot to spare, the car bolted over the tracks as the train rumbled past behind them. She’d made it, but the train would definitely slow down Chris and Ethan. They would be at least five to ten minutes behind her.

  Cranking the wheel sharply to the left, Leah fishtailed onto Old Mill Road and flew up the curvy, wet street. Leah’s pulse slowed a touch as she tried to catch her breath.

  “Oh my God!” Caroline said, breathing hard. “That was crazily close.”

  Abe just sat in the backseat. If he’d noticed the train at all, he didn’t let on.

  “Sylvie?” Leah said, the phone still to her ear. “You can save your baby. Your brother would want you to.”

  Leah heard a loud crack! Sylvie cried, “He’s broken down the front door!”

  Now all that was left between Sylvie and her baby and Sylvie’s psychopathic ex was a locked bedroom door not nearly as thick as the one he’d just made it through.

  And still the rain continued to hammer Leah’s car. Her headlights barely lit up the road ten feet in front of her. The rest was showered away into darkness by the deluge of rain.

  “Oh my God!” Sylvie shrieked. “He’s coming!” Her fear flooded through the line as Leah heard Sylvie’s phone drop to the floor. Leah listened hard. She heard Sylvie say Orwin’s name, but after that, all she heard was the sound of Orwin yelling. It crackled in her car phone’s speaker and didn’t stop until . . .

  One gunshot.

  Then...

  Then there was nothing else.

  Just silence.

  The phone went dead.

  CHAPTER 34

  Leah’s car bounced into Sylvie’s driveway, her red-and-blue light giving the house and surrounding trees a surrealistic glow. She’d passed Sylvie’s old Skylark that Orwin had taken off in parked about a half mile down the road, positioned discreetly off to the side—barely visible in this torrent of rain. She already had her seat belt undone and her door partially open as she threw her vehicle into PARK and raced to the front door of the house, pulling out her gun along the way. “You kids stay down on the floor of the car!” she shouted back. “You hear me? I’m talking specifically to you, Abe. And in the name of Jesus, do not get out of that car!”

  The rain had turned the dirt drive to muck. From somewhere inside the house came the wailing of the baby, nearly screaming at the top of its lungs. Leah so rarely heard that baby cry that she immediately took it as a bad sign.

  This was not a time to wait for backup. She was going in alone.

  The front door of the house was swung partially open. In its center was a huge hole full of wooden splinters where Orwin obviously came through with the ax. On the side of the porch, there was just enough room for Leah to stand with her back against the siding along the edge of the door without being in the doorway. She stood there, feet at shoulder width apart, with her gun pointed down at a forty-five-degree angle, ready to be raised and fired.

  “Alvin Police!” she called out as loudly and commandingly as she possibly could. “Whoever’s inside, identify yourself!” Then, for good measure, she added, “The house is surrounded.”

  She didn’t expect an answer. What she expected was a gunfight, but she knew Orwin was young and probably working alone. She was experienced and a pretty good shot. She liked the odds.

  There was no answer, just like she figured. Just the continued screaming of the baby. At least she was okay and sounded as though she was still in the back bedroom. Leah decided to give Orwin one more chance before she turned and started shooting into the house. “Alvin Police!” she hollered again. “This is your last chance!”

  Then she heard it. And it wasn’t what she expected at all. It was the gentle sobbing of a girl. Leah could barely make it out over the noise of the baby shrieking. From the sobs, she heard Sylvie’s voice nervously call out, “I—it’s me, Miss Leah. Sylvie. I—I’m in the bedroom.”

  “Where’s Orwin?” Leah yelled back.

  “Lyin’ beside me. I—I shot him. I think he’s dead.”

  “Where’s his gun?”

  “I—I don’t know. I never saw no gun. J—just the ax.”

  “Where’s the ax?”

  “Lyin’ beside him.”

  “Throw the ax down the hall toward the living room,” Leah called back.

  There was a pause and some stumbling then a loud clump. It didn’t sound like Sylvie had managed to toss the ax very far.

  “Was there anyone with Orwin?”

  “I—I don’t think so.”

  “Okay. Sylvie? I’m comin’ in.” In the distance, over the cries of the baby, Leah heard Chris’s and Ethan’s sirens getting closer.

  Leah turned into the open doorway and braced to take a shot. With her left arm, she gently pushed the door open so she could see more of the living room. She took a step into the house, making a circle with her gun ready. The living room was clear.

  She got to the kitchen and did the same. The kitchen was clear.

  She saw the ax laying a third of the way down the hall from Sylvie’s bedroom. Slowly making her way toward it, Leah got to the ax and lifted it up. She tossed it the rest of the way to the living room. It landed with a very loud thunk!

  Unlike the front door, Sylvie’s bedroom door looked like it only took one or two swings of the ax to get through. It had popped open at the latch. Leah gently pushed it all the way open, keeping her gun ready in case she was looking at a hostage situation, and Sylvie had just been answering what Orwin had been wanting her to answer.

  But that wasn’t the case.

  Leah found Sylvie crouching in the corner, the crying baby held tightly in her arms. Lying on the floor about six feet from her, at the foot of the bed, was Orwin’s body, faceup, his arms outstretc
hed between the bed and the wall, a hole in his chest where the shot from the shotgun entered his body.

  Squatting beside him, Leah felt for a pulse, even though from the looks of the body there was no need. She could see the carpet of Sylvie’s bedroom floor through the hole the shell left behind. Nobody could look like that and be alive.

  “Is he dead?” Sylvie asked softly, still cowering in the corner.

  Leah nodded. “Very.” She went over and knelt beside Sylvie and the baby. “How are you? Are you okay?”

  Sylvie nodded.

  “And the baby?” The baby was still crying.

  “She’s okay.” Sylvie was cradling her, rocking her gently. The baby’s crying slowed down and she grew quieter.

  Sylvie stared at Orwin’s body, wide-eyed and terrified.

  Leah wrapped her arms around Sylvie and the baby, rocking them both together. “It’s okay, honey. It’s over. He can’t hurt you now.”

  “I know.”

  Leah pulled away and looked in Sylvie’s speckled blue eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”

  She just nodded quickly, biting her lower lip.

  “Absolutely sure?”

  “I will be.”

  Leah’s lips formed a thin smile. “You will be.” It was the most positive thing she’d ever heard the girl say.

  “So it wasn’t Preacher Eli after all? All this time?” Sylvie asked.

  Leah shook her head. They were pressed up against the white heating radiator that stood along the bedroom wall. “No, hon. That man wants only one thing,” she said. “Forgiveness.”

  Sylvie’s voice quivered. “I—I can’t give him that. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to.”

  Leah began rocking her again. “That’s okay, honey,” she said. “It’s not you he wants it from.”

  Sylvia stayed quiet a moment then said, “Guess what?”

  “What?” For a moment, Leah thought the girl’s face was bleeding, but when she touched the spot where the blood was, she found it wasn’t Sylvie’s blood. It was Orwin’s, just smeared on Sylvie’s body. Probably from when Sylvie crawled across the floor to get the ax.

  Sylvie smiled sadly. “I picked out a name for the baby.”

  Leah brightened. Outside, she heard two police cruisers pull into Sylvie’s yard. “You did? Well, it’s about time. This baby deserves a name.” They spoke almost in a whisper. The baby had stopped crying completely. “What’re you gonna call her?”

  Sylvie gazed down at the tiny girl cradled in her arms. “Hope,” she said, and gave Leah a great big smile. “I think it fits. How ’bout you?”

  Leah returned the smile. “I reckon it’s near on perfect.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Two days after my mother solved the Sylvie Carson incident, Ethan Montgomery gave her a week off work. She decided we would use the first day of this time off to finally make the trip up to Georgia to meet my new grandparents. In the end, my mother didn’t have to worry: Carry was just as excited about meeting them as I was.

  At least at first she appeared to be. Then the long drive got to Carry and, about an hour and a half in, she started complaining about her legs being cramped and having to go to the bathroom. We must’ve stopped four times on account of things wrong with Carry, but eventually we got to Columbus.

  My new grandparents lived in a pretty, one-level house with a nice lawn and well-kept gardens. The windows all had boxes full of flowers. Everything was blossoming or full bloom, making it not only look like the kind of house you see in fairy tales, but it also made the air sweet, too.

  It was late afternoon when we arrived and the sun was slamming down like a hammer striking an anvil. I don’t know that I ever felt the sun as hot as I did that day. It reflected so brightly off the yellow siding of my grandparents’ house that it looked like they lived on the sun.

  Their door was white, and under the afternoon sky, it was the brightest white I could ever imagine. The grass was trimmed perfectly and felt lush and green beneath my new sneakers as we walked to the door. I couldn’t believe how excited I was to be meeting blood relatives I didn’t know I even had barely a month and a half ago. Especially relatives on my pa’s side.

  My mother opened the screen door and knocked on the white wooden one behind it. I examined the house, wondering how often they painted it, on account of everything looking so brand-new. A few seconds later, a tall man with thinning white hair and black-rimmed glasses answered.

  The minute he saw us, a big, toothy smile came to his mouth. “Why, I know you. You’re Abe! And you’re Carry! I’d know you two anywhere!” he said. And then to my mother, he held out his hand. “And you must be Miss Leah. It’s a pleasure to meet you and I sincerely want to thank you for taking the time to make the trip out.” The sun glittered in his glasses.

  My mother shook his hand. She smiled back, but not with nearly as big a smile as my granddaddy was beaming at her. I wished hers was bigger.

  “Come in! Come in! Sure is nice outside, though. But the air is so dry. It’s drier today than happy hour at the Betty Ford Clinic.”

  I looked at my mom to see what he meant.

  “Just go inside,” she whispered.

  We piled into the house and began taking off our shoes when he stopped us. “Leave ’em on. Everybody does round here. Come on, your grandma’s anxious to meet you!” He took us through the living room and down a hallway into a smaller room that reminded me of the parlor at Reverend Starks’s house, only this room was bigger and had a television. A woman sat in a rocking chair in the corner knitting. The minute we walked in she beamed at all of us. Then she stood and gave us all hugs. “Oh, I’m so glad you came! Little Abe! And Carry! And Miss Leah!”

  She took a step back. “Well, let me take a look at you.”

  Awkwardly, me and Carry stood there, not certain what we were supposed to do. I felt like maybe I should do a twirl for her or something. Then she said, “I’m your grandma Sara. That there is your grandpa Jeremiah.” She shook her head at me. “Oh, boy, do you ever look like your daddy. Don’t you think he looks like his daddy, Jer?”

  I gave a broad smile back. Nobody’d ever told me I looked like my pa before. That made me very happy. “Have a seat,” my grandma Sara said, gesturing to the davenport and chairs around the room. She sat back in her rocker. “Grandpa Jer will put on a pot of coffee.”

  Looking to my mother, I got the slightest of nods from her. I was allowed to drink coffee, but only on special occasions. I guessed this must’ve counted as one of those special occasions.

  Me and Carry sat on the davenport. My mother appeared very uncomfortable, looking at all the pictures in the room. “Are you hungry?” Grandma Sara asked us. When she spoke, she did so louder than she should’ve, almost like she was yelling everything at us.

  “No,” I said back. “Carry made us stop for lunch.” I paused and added, “Almost twice.” Then, after another pause, I said, “And two more times so she could go to the toilet.”

  Grandma Sara laughed and slapped her knee. Carry just glared at me. She was keeping remarkably quiet.

  Grandpa Jeremiah came back in and told us the coffee’d be ready soon. “The pot’s on the blink,” he said. “You gotta work with it. I had to go round my elbow to get to my thumb.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. I looked at Carry, but she just looked back blankly.

  “We were so surprised when Addison told us you’d talked to her,” Grandpa Jeremiah told my mother. “We had no idea she had planned to come down and set this up. It was one of the nicest things she’s ever done for us.”

  “Can I ask you somethin’?” my mother asked him.

  “Certainly.”

  “Well, you two were at Billy’s funeral—that’s where you apparently met my pa—how come Addison never came to the funeral?”

  I saw Grandpa Jeremiah cast a nervous glance at Grandma Sara. “Well . . . that’s a bit of a story.”

  “We have time,” my mother said, which I thought
was quite rude of her. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it.

  “She was up in Boston.”

  “I know. That was gonna be my next question: How come she lives in Boston and y’all is way down here in Georgia?”

  Grandpa Jeremiah’s gaze dropped to the floor. “We sent her to Boston when she was seventeen on account of she got involved with a bad group of kids. Got hooked on all kinds of things. You know—drugs and that. So, when Billy passed away, she was up there in one of them rehabilitation clinics. We was too worried if we let her out for the funeral she might have one of them relapses.”

  My mother was clearly taken aback by this news. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

  “No, it’s fine. It’s probably best that you know.”

  “Is she still . . . ?”

  “No, she’s been clean now goin’ on . . . well, Abe’s what? Eleven?”

  “I’m twelve,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Of course, you are twelve. And you was two when Billy died. So she’s been clean near on eleven years.”

  “That’s fantastic!” my mother said. “Good for her. You must be very proud. She stays up in Boston because she likes it up there, then?”

  “She’s built herself a life up there. She’s got friends and a husband. She’s workin’ on startin’ a family of her own. She comes down to see us often enough, I suppose. Calls at least twice a week.”

  “I see.” My mother fell silent again. She still hadn’t sat down. She seemed captivated by some pictures they had displayed in frames, sitting on top of the cabinet that held the television. I looked harder and realized they were pictures of me and Carry. “You got these from my pa?” she asked.

  Grandpa Jeremiah gave Grandma Sara another quick glance before answering. “That’s right. Your pa was a good man. He sent us lots of pictures so we could see our grandchildren grow. Sure missed him when he went.”