The Slow Burn of Silence (A Snowy Creek Novel)

by Loreth Anne White

  “Publicity,” he calls back. “Under a bright media spotlight so they all know why I’m back. I want everyone to start watching everyone else’s reactions. I want them second guessing each other. That’s where the cracks will happen. That’s where the light will get in. I’m going to the paper—I have an interview with the Leader editor tomorrow. I set it up yesterday.”

  I’m momentarily stunned.

  He kicks the stand back on his bike, fires his engine to a throaty growl.

  “You can’t—I won’t let you do this. I am the paper!”

  But the rumble of his engine and the rush of wind through pines drowns my words. He pulls out from under the trees and grumbles up the driveway. I hear the sound of his engine change as he reaches the highway and accelerates. He’s going north. He’s going home to Wolf River.

  I run to the edge of the path in my socks and stare after him into the dark. Wind whips my hair and the blanket around me. Time stretches and I start to shudder—a deep, muscular seizure that has nothing to do with cold and everything to do with being moved from one world to another.

  A band of yellow light suddenly knifes through the dark behind me.

  “Rachel?”

  I whirl round. Quinn. Standing in the doorway in her pajamas, backlit by the light in the hall. Trixie comes running out from behind her, sniffing the ground where Jeb stood.

  “Is something wrong, Rachel?”

  I hurry back to the house. “Oh, honey, no, everything’s fine. Come, let’s go back to bed.” I call Trixie in, close and lock the door. The warmth inside doesn’t even begin to touch the cold in me.

  Quinn doesn’t move. She’s staring at me. Quickly I wipe my face. I must look a wreck. I’m still shaking. I can’t hide this from her.

  “Was it him?” she says. “Was he here?”

  “Who, Quinn?”

  “The man.”

  I crouch down, anxiety lacing through me. “No one was here.”

  “Don’t lie to me! I heard voices. I heard his bike. Trixie woke me.”

  “Come, let’s go back up to bed.” I place my arm around her. She balks.

  “What did he say?” she demands. “Why did he come? Did you chase him away?” Accusation glints in her eyes.

  “Listen, you like him, I can see that. But why do you like him so much? He’s a stranger. You don’t even know him.”

  “My mother sent him.”

  “What?”

  “From heaven, to protect me.”

  My jaw drops. “What makes you say that?”

  Her eyes shine, and her lips start to wobble. “Because there are angels in heaven who come down when . . . when . . .” She sputters and tears fill her eyes.

  Reciprocal emotion burns into my own eyes, the weight of it all pressing down heavily. “Oh, Quinnie, come here.” I gather the small body of my niece into my arms and hold tight. I wrap the fleece blanket around both of us, a protective cloak, bonding us together. I put my face into her hair and drink in her scent, and I let my own tears fall. She senses my need. Her little arms wrap around my neck, tentatively at first. Then she squeezes so tight it steals my breath. We stay like that for several moments, blanket around us, cocooned against the world. The way I want to keep it. I will fight for this kid. And I am so worried now that Jeb will have more right to her than I.

  “Aunt Rachel?” She mumbles into my neck.

  Aunt, she called me aunt.

  Quickly, I swipe the tears off my face with the hem of the blanket, and I sit back.

  “You okay, Aunt Rachel?”

  I nod fast, hug her close again. So tight. A feeling of love blossoming hot and soft through my chest. A powerful energy, an urge to protect. Is this what it feels to be a mother? This terrifyingly vulnerable yet powerful thing, this overriding desire to shelter and safeguard your child?

  Irony strikes home harder than ever. Not my child. Jeb’s child. Quinn and I are finally bonding and he’s come to ask me to keep her safe. Keep their secret. Because then he wants to take her away. And all I’ve been worrying about was him discovering the truth. My whole world has suddenly been tilted on its head.

  “You want some of that soup now?” I manage to say. “Because I sure could use something warm.”

  Quinn nods.

  She sits on a stool at the kitchen counter while I warm soup. We eat together. We’re closer than we’ve been in six months. And now Jeb is threatening to tear it all apart.

  Later that night I’m sitting in bed listening to the howl of the wind, wondering where Jeb is, what he’s doing right now. Wondering how much I can believe him. The courts have cleared him, that much is fact. Does this negate the waiving of his paternal rights? Is it retroactive to the adoption decision? And if he wants to be in Quinn’s life, where does it leave me? Do I have any legal recourse? Does he first need to go to court to assert his rights? My emotions, my feelings, my questions, scramble about in my chest and refuse to settle.

  It feels like a lifetime ago that I was up on the mountain for the ribbon cutting this morning. Before the incident at school.

  As long as no one knows I’m her father . . . nothing can touch her . . .

  My thoughts turn to Trey outside the police detachment. Missy Sedgefield in the back of his vehicle. Stacey in the passenger seat.

  Rachel . . . I heard about the incident at school . . . I need to talk to you . . .

  Panic licks suddenly through me. Missy was the one Quinn punched. It had to have been Missy who told Quinn she was adopted. How did Missy know?

  Trey? You didn’t!

  I lunge for the phone on my bedside table. My clock reads almost midnight. I don’t care. I dial Trey’s cell. A woman’s voice, sleepy, answers.

  Shock, hurt, anger. It ripples through me all over again, and for a moment I can’t speak. Four months. I guess that’s all it takes to scrub away a promise of marriage, plans for a lifetime of commitment together. I manage to clear my throat. “I’m looking for Trey.”

  “Who is this?” The voice sounds crisper suddenly.

  “Is Trey there?”

  A pause. “Hang on.”

  I hear shuffling. Bedding?

  “Hello.” His voice is thick, sleepy.

  My heart begins to whump. I want to ask him why. How he could do this. What does he see in Stacey Sedgefield? Was I worth nothing to him?

  “It’s Rachel.”

  A pause. “Jesus.” Another shuffle. He’s getting out of bed?

  “Do you know what time it is?” he whispers sharply. I imagine him moving down the passage. In my mind’s eye I see his house, him going to his study, closing the door behind him. Then he says, “Are you okay? It was him at the school today, wasn’t it? Missy described him to me. He was following Quinn. Did you tell Adam that he’s returned?”

  Tightness clamps around my chest.

  “It wasn’t him,” I lie. “That’s not why I’m calling. How does Missy know that Quinn is adopted? Did you tell her? Did you tell Stacey that Jeb was Quinn’s father?”

  “Jesus,” he whispers. “I would never do that. We have a deal, a promise.”

  “Yes,” I say quietly. “We also had a promise to get married. Now you have another woman sharing your bed, answering your personal cell phone. Has she moved in that fully already? How do I know what you’ve told her?”

  Silence.

  I curse silently for even letting the words out. I feel as if I’m on some kind of roller coaster, plunging down, down, down, g-forces building low in my stomach. And there’s no way out but to go through it. I look out over the moonlit lake. “So, how did Missy and the other girls know she was adopted?”

  “Everyone knows that much. It was never a secret that your sister and Peter adopted a baby. When you brought Quinn to Snowy Creek . . .” He hesitates. “Stacy and I were talking, about . . . you know,
us, Quinn coming into our lives. Us breaking up. Missy must have overheard the adoption part.”

  “You told Stacey it was Quinn who broke us up?”

  Several more beats of silence. When he speaks again, Trey sounds tired. Very tired. Sad. “Stacey asks, every now and then, why we broke up. She can’t let it drop. She thinks I’m not over you.”

  I swallow.

  “I explained to her that Quinn’s arrival was just a catalyst. It was a lot of things that added up. You’re the one who made it about Quinn.” He heaves out a heavy sigh. “You want to know what I didn’t tell Stacey? That it was you who couldn’t follow through with the engagement. That you were using Quinn subconsciously as an excuse, a buffer, because you never got over Jeb, over his betrayal. And with Quinn in our house it was suddenly like Jeb’s ghost living with us full time, haunting us in our own home.”

  My hand tightens on the phone, and I squeeze my eyes shut. It takes several beats before I can speak again with a level voice.

  “What were you going to tell me outside the police station?”

  “That I thought Jeb might be back in town. Like I said, Missy described the man who broke up the fight, and she told me that same man was following Quinn earlier. I wanted to tell you to be careful. If it is him, if he’s back, we don’t know what he wants. He might try to get at our kids, hitting us where it hurts most.”

  I think back to the night at the gravel pit. Trey was with me the whole time. He wasn’t one of the four guys who allegedly perjured themselves about Jeb going north. He saw only what I saw—Merilee and Amy in Jeb’s car, leaving the pit. He told the court the same things I did. I want—I need—to trust Trey.

  “Whatever happens, Trey, please, you can never tell anyone who her biological father is. Even if Jeb is back, even if the shit hits the fan, Quinn cannot be a part of it. I can’t let her get hurt. I owe it to her. I owe it to my sister’s memory. You can’t let an innocent child get screwed up for life because of what might happen now. Do you understand?”

  “Of course I understand. I . . . I never wanted it to go wrong between us, you know.” He pauses. “I tried. I really tried to make it work.”

  I suck in a deep breath, and I can’t answer, because I know it’s true.

  “I’m going away with Quinn,” I say. “For the Thanksgiving break. I’m leaving tomorrow if I can get a flight. I just . . . I wanted to hear that you hadn’t—wouldn’t—tell anyone, that we weren’t going to come back to some hurtful revelation from schoolkids. Or worse.”

  “Look, I’m sorry about the incident with Missy today. God, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. And if that was Jeb watching Quinn . . . it’s good you’re leaving for a while. And, Rachel.” He pauses. “If he does come anywhere near you, call 9-1-1. We’ve got your back. All of us.”

  All of us.

  Jeb’s words circle through my mind.

  Sometimes in a small town like this, a community knows that a contract to forget can be as powerful as a promise to remember. Sometimes the secrets are lying right there, in plain sight, but everyone chooses to turn away from them, pretend it never happened, because then they won’t have to question their own lives, their own children, their own husbands and brothers . . .

  “Thanks.” I hang up. Nausea is slick and cold in my stomach. Jeb has succeeded. He’s sown doubt in my mind. He’s started rattling my cage.

  Annie Pirello sat alone in her squad car, parked in deep shadow across the street from the Salonen house. Deputy Chief Constable LeFleur had assigned her to watch the house. LeFleur believed the man who’d come onto school property and followed Salonen’s niece today was a violent sexual offender who’d been recently released from prison. A man who once used to date Salonen. LeFleur believed the man might try to approach Salonen or her niece again.

  It looked as though the deputy chief was right; a man in leather, on a bike, had arrived at the Salonen house shortly after ten p.m.

  Annie had called it in, but she’d been told to hold her position, just watch, wait for a possible 9-1-1 dispatch. But no emergency call had come. She’d gotten out of the car and crept closer. Through the trees she’d glimpsed Salonen and the dark-haired man talking, arguing. Touching. Talking some more.

  There was unfinished business between those two. Something very intimate. He’d brought news that appeared to have shocked Salonen badly.

  When he left, heading north on his bike, Annie had called it in again, but she’d been ordered not to follow. No laws had been broken. They had nothing on him. Yet.

  The lights upstairs in the Salonen house went out around midnight; she could just glimpse the upstairs windows through the trees from the road. Annie reached forward, fired the ignition. Her headlights came on.

  She drove back to the station to clock out for the end of her shift.

  CHAPTER 9

  As Jeb pulled onto the old property, ectoplasmic fingers of soft, green northern light reached across the sky, grasping, withdrawing, curling, taunting, in a silent music of the cosmos. In the trees it was dark, deserted, the cabins hulking shadows along the silvery river.

  Jeb parked his bike in a grove near his mother’s old log house. He removed his helmet and sucked the chill air down deep into his lungs. He could scent loam, pine resin, forest detritus, things you didn’t smell behind concrete walls and barbed wire. This was now his land, left to him by his mother when she had died six years ago, five acres among towering cedars along the Wolf River. The homestead was isolated, surrounded by nothing but wilderness for miles. Endless forest and rivers and soaring mountains and plunging valleys stretched west—all the way to the Tilqua Ice Cap and beyond. To the east lay Snowy Creek. Ski town. Tourists. This was a place in the middle. Like Jeb himself, never belonging fully to the reserve over in the next valley, nor in the ski resort.

  He’d been happiest, and saddest, here.

  The house was set back near the logging road for ease of access. Farther down toward the river stood an old barn where they’d kept chickens. In summer he and his mother had planted a vegetable garden near the barn, fenced off from deer. Bears had been a problem, the occasional grizzly coming down from the high alpine and breaking into the chicken coop. Sometimes a cougar or coyotes would also try. Along the river were eight small cabins that Jeb had helped build for the river-rafting business his mother had started before he was incarcerated. Jeb had helped guide the first trips.

  He got off his bike and dug a flashlight out of his pannier. Slowly he walked over to the old house, thoughts turning to his mother and the dreams she’d had for this place, for him.

  One of his most profound regrets—and he had many—was that she’d died not knowing it was all a lie. She’d died thinking her son was a rapist and murderer.

  Jeb ran his beam over the walls of the house. Shadows leered and shivered, then darted back into the safety of blackness as he moved. Clapboard had been ripped from windows, the glass long gone. The front door listed on its hinges. Water stains ran like dark tears beneath the vacant window holes. A sad, crying house.

  Graffiti tags had been sprayed over the sides, aggressive angular strokes that jumped and sparred with shadows as he moved his flashlight. A failed enterprise, lying rotting in the bush—that was what his old homestead looked like. A sense of violation, grief, overwhelmed him, and remorse tasted bitter on his tongue.

  Jeb clumped up the front stairs and traversed the collapsing porch, his boots heavy on old wood. He creaked open the listing door. Shadows leaped and shimmered inside. The dank smell of mold filled his nostrils. He panned his light across the floor, cobwebs lifting softly in the wake of his movements. Old newspapers, magazines, beer cans littered the floor. A circle of charred wood and ash scarred the center of what had been their living room; someone had built a fire on top of the carpet and hacked a hole into the roof for a chimney. An old mattress huddled in a far corner.

  The taste
in his mouth turned foul, and the rage he’d worked so hard in prison to control started to fester again, itching, scraping, clawing at him to get out, to wash over him with its familiar hot burn. Jeb closed his eyes and controlled his breathing. He drew Quinn, and Rachel, to mind. Anger could have no more place in his life. Not if he wanted to win them back. Breathing steadily again, he slowly entered the room. Small claws skittered over wood, a critter disappearing behind the mattress.

  As Jeb entered the kitchen, a fetid smell slammed into him. He gagged, putting his sleeve over his mouth as he panned his beam over the kitchen floor. Dead raccoon. Used condoms. Spirit bottles. Broken bong pipe. He could almost hear the mocking laughter of teens. Heavy breathing. Humping. Images filled his mind, flickering like flames in the bonfire at the old gravel pit. The sex. The nightmare that had started that night. Nausea washed through his belly.

  He stepped back outside and breathed clean air in deep. But his heart was hammering. He was fighting the rage that was trying to calcify around his heart. He would not be forced away by this. He would not be run out of town. He had a right to be here, to rebuild his home.

  He wanted to think forward. Of Quinn. Freedom. Not this.

  Not the way his mother had died here, believing in his guilt, shamed by the community on the fringes of which she’d lived all her life.

  He couldn’t change that past. That tragedy. But he had a future to fight for. And he had to fight smart.

  He moved down to the row of cabins along the water where rafting guests and fishers used to stay. More graffiti. More vandalism. The river chuckled and whispered. He turned his back on the buildings and stared out over the water.

  The northern lights reflected eerily over the dark, swirling surface, catching ripples and eddies, the odd little splash. On the opposite bank black spruce speared into the ghostly green sky.

  A sense of peace finally washed through him again as he listened to the water. No matter the desecration, this was where he belonged, this land, this valley, and these mountains. This forest where he never felt lost or alone. And down here by the water he could sense the spirit of his mother. Not in the defiled, derelict buildings decomposing into the forest.