“He’s not the only one you could go see for answers.”
I nodded, my throat tight. “Leon is more my father than my own father ever was, and he deserves the chance to explain what he did.”
“Then I’ll take you to him,” he said.
My heart leapt with hope, before crashing back down in sadness again. I wanted to see my uncle and get answers more than anything, but I couldn’t drag Worthy down that rabbit hole with me. “No,” I said. “I’ll take a bus or…maybe rent a car.”
“No. I’m driving you. If you insist on being stubborn and taking the bus or renting a car, I’ll take the same bus or follow your rental car.”
I glared up at him, but he seemed unfazed. “Wouldn’t you rather just wait here, like a good boy, and pretend you never met me? I’m sure you’d have no problem finding a girlfriend without my baggage, who doesn’t mind you flitting off for days at a time with no explanation.” And, Uncle Leon wasn’t well known for his tact or gentleness, and I expected what he had to tell me would be brutal. When Tennyson’s hunting dog had been killed by a coyote, Leon told him about it matter-of-factly over breakfast. Tennyson, who was twelve at the time and the most sensitive of my cousins, threw up all over his plate of pancakes.
Worthy gripped my chin in his hand and looked into my eyes. “I’m sorry, Remy. I don’t know how else to say it. If I was a different guy, I could lie to you about where I went and why I didn’t call, but I can’t lie to you. I also can’t tell you why I left and why I didn’t contact you, except to say that it involved my family. I want you to be my girlfriend, but if that’s not what you want, I understand. Either way, I’m not going to let you make this trip alone. I’ll tie you to Byron’s bed if I have to.”
“Suit yourself,” I said, pretending nonchalance. I didn’t doubt Worthy could and would follow through on his threat, but I could still pretend I had the upper hand. “We’re leaving now.” I marched out of the room, but my decisive action didn’t work, since Worthy had the car keys and insisted on having time to pack a bag.
CHAPTER NINE
By the time we got on the road, it was after midnight and I was exhausted. Worthy, who drank a cup of coffee while he packed, insisted on driving so I could sleep. I only meant to take a little cat nap, but when I woke up, the sun was rising and Worthy’s car was struggling to make it up a familiar mountain road.
“You sure this heap of junk is going to make it up the mountain?”
“Well, good morning sunshine,” Worthy said. “How convenient of you to wake up when we’re fifteen minutes from your home.”
I felt a twinge of guilt, but I got over it quick. “Hey, you insisted on driving. You could be in your own bed right now and I could have been sleeping on a bus.”
He smirked. “A bus that would have dropped you off in town, so you would have been hiking up the mountain this morning.”
He had a point, so I ignored him. I pulled out my phone and called into work sick. Then I texted Harrison to take notes for me and Worthy in biology.
Worthy glanced at me, his eyes shifty. “Do you think we ought to give your uncle a heads-up?”
“Nope,” I said. “He lied to me. I don’t think he deserves much of anything.” I rubbed my eyes and looked out the window. The sun’s rays were a brilliant yellow illuminating the fall colors, and something in my chest loosened and settled as Worthy’s rusty car chugged up into the mountains. Home. I was home.
“Since, we’re going to ask him for information, I just thought we might want to start out polite.”
“Nope.”
The car kicked as Worthy tried to accelerate up a steep bit of road and I let him focus on driving while I took in the beauty of the mountains. The refrain I’d started to get used to, murderer, Rachel Blue Vinton, living father, faded a bit in the face of the eternal mountains and the brilliant fall day. It reminded me of waking up on sunny days, and having breakfast with my uncle. He’d homeschooled me, but he worked full-time, so my schooling usually took place in the evenings and I did a lot of work through online courses. Leon believed in education and hard work, but he also believed in enjoying the beauty of the mountains. He said a day like this was a gift and sitting inside all day was spitting in God’s face.
He’d never gotten upset with me when I’d spent a day in the woods instead of doing my school work. He’d ask me what I’d seen and what I’d learned, saying a day in the forest was as much an education as a day at a computer screen with book learning, as he called it. His attitude was a big part of the reason it took me until I was nineteen to finish my high school curriculum. I was pretty certain that if Leon had insisted I stay inside and study, though, I wouldn’t have done as well as I did.
“What was your nightmare about?” Worthy asked, interrupting my reverie.
I’d forgotten the nightmare, until Worthy said that. When I thought about it, I realized I’d dreamed again about the man attacking me. I could still feel the slight resistance as I shoved the blade of the hunting knife between his ribs. “I don’t remember,” I said. “Was I screaming or something embarrassing?”
“No,” he said. “I could just tell. And you don’t ever have to be embarrassed about anything with me. I won’t judge you.”
“Turn here,” I said, almost missing the entrance for our driveway. I’d never left the house to be able to return to it.
Worthy slammed on the brakes and spun his car into the driveway. It was dirt and pot-holed, to discourage people who didn’t belong there from exploring.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t let him know we’re here?” Worthy asked again.
“Stop being so pusillanimous,” I said. “It’s fine.”
We bounced down the long driveway, my excitement rising as we neared my uncle’s house. There was the tree fort we’d built when I was ten. There was the old chicken coop that ended up being a prison for our games of war after all the chickens were eaten by coyotes. And there was the house, a white clapboard, two-story farmhouse with a wrap-around porch. And standing on that porch was my uncle, pointing a shotgun at Worthy’s car.
“Um, Remy,” Worthy said. “Want to let him know now?”
Worthy stopped the car between potholes and I got out and waved my arms. “Uncle Leon,” I yelled. “It’s me, Remington.”
Uncle Leon lowered his shotgun and squinted into the sun to see me. “Remington!” he shouted. Then he bolted off the porch and ran to me. Actually, with his barrel chest and big body, he lumbered more like a bear. His face was lined by the passage of forty-eight years, but he was still a handsome and fit man. I ran to him and he scooped me up and swung me around. “It’s so good to see you, baby girl.”
He dropped me to my feet and froze. “Who’s your friend?” he asked, his jaw tight.
Worthy stepped forward and extended his hand. “I’m Lawrence Hayworth, sir.”
Leon gripped Worthy’s hand and shook it like he was trying to rip his arm from his body. I hadn’t completely forgiven Worthy, but my anger toward him had started to soften. He’d been good to me and I should be able to cut him some slack for disappearing for private family stuff. He was entitled to his secrets, especially if they weren’t his to reveal.
“Uncle Leon.” I placed a hand over my uncle’s and squeezed. “Let him go. Worthy’s a good guy and he’s been a good friend to me.”
Leon relaxed a bit, but his frown remained. “Worthy?”
Worthy cleared his throat. “That’s what my friends call me, sir. I’m sorry to intrude, but Remy needs to talk to you, and I didn’t want her to make the trip alone.”
Leon paled. “Remington? What’s going on?”
My heart was pounding so hard I found it hard to breathe, and I wanted nothing more than to forget everything I’d come there to say to him. I knew it would change things between us, maybe destroy our relationship. Worthy laced his fingers through mine and squeezed, and a bit of calm washed over me. I needed to know the truth. “Remington’s not my name is it? I’m Rachel Blue Vi
nton and my father was never an accountant.”
Leon swayed on his feet and I got ready to catch him in case he passed out. Maybe I should have broken it to him more gently. He pressed a calloused hand to his greying temple and seemed to recover. “Why don’t you two come on in? I’ll fix you some breakfast and we can talk.”
Leon turned and started for the house. Worthy pulled me back when I tried to walk inside with Leon. “I can wait out here until you’re done,” he said.
I considered his offer. “No. I’m tired of secrets. You may as well hear what he has to say.” I understood the irony, that I was allowing all of my secrets to be revealed to Worthy while he kept his from me, but I didn’t care. He could keep his secrets. I didn’t want to hide who I was.
Despite the tension from the two men with me, my whole body relaxed when we walked through the front door and into the living room. Home. I was home. As long and as hard as I’d tried to leave that place, it still felt like home, love, comfort, and security to me. We followed Leon through the living room, with its antique furniture that seemed too small for any of us who lived there, and into the heart of the house, the kitchen. We all liked to eat, so we spent a lot of time there, chatting at the wood slab table, or arm-wrestling, or cleaning guns and hunting knives, or checking rock-climbing gear, or packing lunch for a hike. There were a lot of good memories in that room. I almost asked Leon if we could talk on the porch, so as not to mar the room with a bad memory, but then I smelled the bacon.
Leon walked to the stove, added several more slices of bacon to the pan, and then got more eggs from the fridge and more potatoes from the freezer. “Eggs, bacon, and potatoes good for you both?”
“Yes,” Worthy said, and I nodded. Leon nodded back. He wasn’t the best cook in the world, he wasn’t even a very good cook, but he could put together a delicious breakfast. Worthy watched Leon work, his knee shaking the table, his jaw tense. I had relaxed when we came into the house, but Worthy seemed to have gotten more nervous. I scooted my chair closer and put a hand on his knee. He looked at me, eyes wide and a bit panicked and pushed my hand off. I bit back a laugh and took his hand instead. He accepted that with a grateful smile. It was kind of cute how nervous he seemed to be for me.
Leon brought the food to the table, and we ate breakfast and talked about school and pretended everything was normal.
Worthy seemed to relax over breakfast and he and Leon got into a friendly conversation about the mountains and the sports and hunting available there. If I’d been there to introduce my boyfriend to my uncle, things would be going great. But that wasn’t why we were there.
Without warning, Leon sharpened his gaze on Worthy. “Are you two dating?”
“Yes, sir,” Worthy said, at the same time I said, “No.”
Leon chuckled. “I think a sign of a healthy relationship is an inability to agree on some things, but not being able to agree on whether or not you’re a couple is taking it a bit far.”
“Uncle—”
He waved me off. “I know, I know. You want to know what happened. I don’t think it will do you any good to know the truth.” He turned his attention to Worthy. “You’re hearing this, so I want you to promise me you’ll stand beside her and help her even when she’s being more ornery than a badger and acting like she doesn’t want or need your help.”
“I’m not so good about leaving her alone, even when it’s sensible,” Worthy said.
Leon studied Worthy for a long moment and nodded. “Remington, sugar, I kept all of this from you, because I thought you’d be better off not knowing. No little girl should have seen what you saw, and I just wanted to make it go away for you.”
Leon looked so sad, and I hated that I’d caused him pain. He had never been anything less than a loving father to me. “I’m not a little girl anymore and I need to know. I found out that my father, he’s…he’s alive. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I heard from Betty, your aunt, that he’s in prison, baby girl. I let you go to college, because I knew he couldn’t find you. I guess, in a way, he found you anyway.”
“Didn’t you think he would, someday?”
Leon shook his head. “I’d hoped…but you aren’t here for what I hoped. You’re here for the truth. You were called Rachel when I met you. I’d been dating Betty for six weeks and you were seven. She was babysitting you, so I invited her over to the house so you could play with my boys. They thought you were the cutest little thing they’d ever seen and treated you like a princess, when they took any notice of you. Byron was your age and he played tea party with you just because you asked. He loved you from the very first moment, just like he knew he’d be your brother someday.”
Leon cleared his throat and wiped his eyes. “I suppose it was my fault that Arle and Eunice, your daddy, got acquainted. Betty and I thought it would be fun to have everyone over to my place for a cookout and we could let all of you kids play. Eunice wasn’t even supposed to be there, but he showed up near the end of the meal and he and Arle just clicked immediately.”
“Arle?” I asked.
Leon smiled. “I’d imagine he’s had a big role in your nightmares. He’s the man who tried to kill you, sugar. He was my best friend in the world, but he…” Leon glanced at Worthy. “He refused to believe life should be hard for him. He and his wife, Allison, they had one of those fairytale romances. She walked into the factory where he worked and he was gone. He pursued her and convinced her to fall in love with him and she fell hard. She adored Arle, believed he hung the moon.
“He’d worked his way up to manager at the factory and he made a good income, enough for his wife to stay home with their kids, but he thought he could do better somewhere else. He started investing in stocks. He had terrible luck and he lost so much money that Allison had to go back to work. She never complained, or questioned Arle’s decisions, and I think that was probably part of the problem. Someone needed to get Arle to pull his head out of his ass, but he wouldn’t listen to me. And me, well, I was dealing with my own problems.”
Leon’s expression hardened. “I never knew your daddy very well, sugar. Betty told me he worked with some real scary people, but she believed him when he said he worked as a bouncer at a nightclub. She knew he liked to have a good time and to gamble a bit, but she had no idea what he was tangled up in until I introduced him to Arle. I actually learned more about your daddy from your nightmares after you came here.”
I nodded, my throat tight. “I know he was doing something illegal and he was pissing people off. He took me with him sometimes and left me in the car, but I…I saw them beat him up one time. They hurt him bad.” I felt small and scared, like the little girl I’d been. I wanted so badly for Leon to say it had never happened, but he just nodded and put a hand to his chest, like he was pushing down on his own pain.
“Betty, she just thought you were a quiet, sad kid, because you didn’t have a mother and your daddy kept you home more’n he should. She never knew what was really going on. After he and Arle started working together, we found out that he’d take you out on jobs with him. Cops were less likely to suspect a man with a kid, and even the assholes he worked for and the suckers he conned hesitated about hurting him in front of his kid.”
Bile rose in my throat, and my nightmares all started to make more sense as they fell into place with what Leon was telling me.
“They worked together?” Worthy asked.
Leon sighed. “I’m getting ahead of myself. Yes, Arle and Eunice met at that cookout I mentioned. Eunice told Arle he had a way for Arle to make some fast money, to make a better life for his family in a bigger house and a better neighborhood. If Arle had ever been to that piece-of-shit house you and your daddy lived in, Remington, he might never have listened, but Eunice wore expensive clothes and he could sell ice to a freezer penguin. Arle started dealing drugs for Eunice that night. He quit his job at the factory and he started staying out late, not coming home some nights. Allison believed him when he said he’d taken o
n a night shift at the factory. She loved him and she trusted him and, if he were here now, I’d kick his ass for hurting her.”
Leon shook his head, his shoulders bending as though under a weight. “I didn’t see it either. Not until Arle started using. That’s when everything went to hell. Arle was a different person when he was high. He’d get angry and violent. He and Allison fought all the time, and he started stealing what money she was making, so that they lost the house. Allison took their three kids and she moved in with her mother. That was the last straw for Arle, something just broke in him.”
Leon took my hand and squeezed. “Your father, Remington, everything was about having a good time to him. He didn’t take much seriously and, on top of the drug-dealing, he was a thief and a con artist. It was a kind of a game for him, to see how much he could get away with. He stole Arle’s collection of baseball cards and he stole my Remington rifle, just because he could.”
“My name,” I said.
Leon smiled. “It seemed fitting.” His smile faded quickly. “The night Arle realized Eunice had stolen from us, was the same night Allison took their sons and left him. He called me to go out to a late dinner with him and I agreed. I thought I could talk some sense into him. There was no talking to him, though. He kept going on about getting revenge on Eunice. I rode around with him for a while, but I wasn’t having any part of hurting Eunice. So I dropped him off at the flea bag motel where he was staying, and I drove to Betty’s to spend some time with her.”
“But she wasn’t there,” I said.
Leon’s eyes widened a bit. “You really did remember.”
I nodded.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” he said, his voice cracking.
I shrugged, nothing to do about it now. I couldn’t look at Worthy. “Betty had to work that night, but so did my father, so I was home alone,” I said. “Arle broke into the house, he grabbed me and pushed me to the ground. He shoved a gun under my chin, and he told me he was going to kill me to hurt my daddy the way my daddy had hurt him.”
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