In the Cradle Lies

by Olivia Newport

  “I’d like to help if I can.”

  Tucker shook his head. “Thanks, but I don’t think so.”

  “So you’ve come to Colorado to think.”

  “I just knew I couldn’t stay there right now.”

  “Have you talked to Kris?”

  “Not really.”

  “She’s a good listener.”

  “I just want to ski, and doing it with Kris is a lot of fun.”

  “Do you talk to Jackson?”

  “Not about this.”

  They rode in silence for a few miles. Paddy was seventy-nine when everything blew up. He and Nolan talked again after that, but not about Patrick. Things were never the same.

  “Tucker,” Nolan said, “families come undone. That doesn’t mean they can’t be put back together.” The words of Patrick’s messages burned in his mind.

  “Sometimes the fabric may be too unraveled.” Tucker thumped the steering wheel several times with a thumb.

  “From everything you’ve said over the last week, I believe your grandfather loved you and you loved him.”

  “That’s true. But things go wrong that you don’t even know about. Things people never told you. And you can’t fix that. Not when they leave you.”

  “Your grandfather’s last words?”

  Tucker didn’t answer.

  “We can do what we think is right—as well as we are able at different points in time. That’s a starting point.” Nolan watched Tucker’s face, which had grown steely.

  How could he advise Tucker without knowing what Tucker faced—and knowing he was dodging the task of repairing the unraveled fabric with his own brother? He couldn’t go back and change what he thought was right at a different point in time. But he could choose differently now.

  Tomorrow. Starting with Jillian, and then Patrick.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Maple Turn, Missouri, 1947

  Even the ceiling fans his mother insisted on installing in every room in the new house couldn’t battle the midsummer heat and humidity. Matthew wrestled out of the damp sheet, swung his feet to the floor, and settled his eyes on the shape of his bedroom window in the shadows. It was open as wide as it would go, but even the night air brought insufficient relief. It didn’t move through the screen perceptibly.

  Or maybe it was his tangled thoughts that tortured him and stole his sleep yet again.

  His parents didn’t know he ever left the house in the middle of the night when slumber eluded him, much less how frequent the habit had become recently regardless of the outdoor temperature. The new house’s design, with a main staircase in front and a smaller one in the rear, left little challenge for a teenage boy to slip out of bed, down the steps, through the kitchen, and out the back door without disturbing his parents, whose bedroom hung over the front porch. Matthew had mastered the small movements of soundlessly clicking locks open and doors closed behind him. At least outside he didn’t feel the walls closing in, distorting every wish and thought.

  He loved his mother, but his days in Maple Turn were numbered. He was fifteen now. If he went to college, it was only three years off, and he would go farther than St. Louis. Even if he didn’t go to college, three years from now he’d have his high school diploma in his hands. Maybe he wouldn’t finish high school. Judd hired people without high school diplomas, and there were other factories all over the country that would hire a hard worker. Or he could join the army. The war was over. There wouldn’t ever be another one like that, not after two world wars. He’d be safe, and his mother wouldn’t have to worry. Judd wouldn’t care whether he was gone. Matthew had been working in the showroom the last few weeks, earning a little money. He’d barely spent a penny. He’d keep working after school in the fall and save everything he earned. When he was seventeen, he’d have something to leave with. By then he would pass for eighteen, or even twenty.

  In the backyard, he paused at the stone bench in the flower garden that gave his mother such pleasure. In the old house, she’d only had a couple of small beds to putter in. Now she had a real garden, and this was the first summer they had fresh flowers in the main rooms of the house every day all summer. Primrose and coneflower and red columbine and foxglove and lobelia and cardinal and iris and day lilies.

  Matthew would figure out a way to make it right with his mother. He still had a couple of years to sort that out. But he couldn’t stay. Surely she could see that. Or she would by then.

  Looping around the side of the house, he crossed the front lawn. It didn’t slope like Grandpa Ted’s, but he was too old to roll down a hill anyway. His mother was the one who insisted on leaving the grove of maples standing between the house property and the business, rather than leveling everything when the equipment was there to work on the grading and dig the foundations. It was healthy for the family, she said, to have boundaries between home and business. They should be able to look out their windows at home and see natural beauty, not reminders of work to be done. It was convenient to live next to the business, but Judd needed a place of retreat.

  The speech was nice. She had practiced it—Matthew could tell. “What do you think this character might be feeling?” Miss Lampier’s question had hung over his childhood in ways she had never known. His mother was proud Judd made something of himself and gave something to the town. But it had come at a cost, and she didn’t want to see the cost when she gazed out her windows or sat on the front porch. That’s why the maples still stood, why she hadn’t let the landscapers even thin them.

  She hadn’t ever been inside the showroom or offices of Ryder Manufacturing after opening day. Not once.

  Matthew rounded the maples and considered the sleeping building. Already Judd had expanded the parking lot. He knew how to sell into the hardware stores in the area as well as manage retail sales and fill orders outside the region. The shipping dock was always busy. Matthew knew which doors were which now. Two led into where supplies were delivered. Two led out when shipments were ready to leave. Two served for employees to come and go, and two more for the fire and emergency exits. By process of elimination, the remaining door must be the external entrance to the private storage area in the private hallway behind his father’s office. But he had never seen that door open, not from the outside nor from the inside. Not a single time in more than a year of being in business.

  Most days he thought nothing of it. He went to school, helped his mother around the house and yard, went to church as expected—at least Jackson was there—played some baseball with Jackson and other friends when he had time, and stayed out of his father’s way. Only this summer had he begun working in the showroom for the first time because Judd announced that he would, and complying was easier than causing his mother distress. Judd still traveled occasionally, but not with the same regularity as when he had sold supplies to hospitals in the region. He had a business to run, and he had a sales staff of his own now. Matthew just kept his head down and counted the days.

  He circled to the rear of the building, following the wide route he always took on his nocturnal excursions. If he wasn’t sleepy, he would take another lap. If he could, he’d go farther, but it wouldn’t do to be two miles away if he was ever discovered missing. His mother would panic, and Judd would nail him to the wall for causing her panic. This way, if the lights suddenly came on at home and voices shouted his name, he could call back and claim he had only needed some air. Especially at this time of year it was understandable.

  Mr. Harding had been pleading with Judd to install a security light at the back of the building, but Judd perpetually dismissed the notion as a waste. Matthew stepped carefully through the darkness.

  A door opened, and a quick shaft of light illumined a figure with a sack.

  The door.

  Matthew ducked under the loading dock.

  The sack looked like a rumpled bag of laundry. The door shut, and the figure—a woman—moved toward a dark sedan. The factory did have some minimal laundry needs, but why would it be picked
up at this hour? This was far later than the normal janitorial hours. And there was no laundry service truck, just the sedan. When the car door opened, a cry came.

  He thought it was a cry. It was too brief to be sure. A child? That made less sense than the laundry.

  Matthew stumbled over something soft and lumpy, and a cat gave an angry snarl before shooting out from behind his legs.

  He exhaled heavily. No child. Just a stupid, grungy, stray cat. The sedan’s engine started, and it pulled away.

  The cat didn’t explain laundry from the storage door. Sometime, in the daylight when Judd was not around, Matthew would have a look. He was not as good as Jackson at jimmying a lock, but he could try.

  Matthew’s heart raced. This walk hadn’t been calming at all.

  At breakfast in the morning, Matthew’s mother, who still preferred to cook for her small family even though Judd urged her to hire help, had eggs and bacon on the stove. Judd was already eating.

  “You’re late,” Judd said. “We had to say grace without you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Matthew said. “I had trouble sleeping.”

  “It was awfully warm last night.” His mother filled a plate and set it in front of him. “Papa was just saying that he plans to be out of town for a while.”

  “Oh? Where are you going?”

  “Various places,” Judd said. “I’ll be coming and going quite a bit for the next few weeks. We invested a great deal of money in equipment. If we want it to pay off, we need far more sales of our original designs at mass-produced scales. I’m going to need to travel to increase sales and secure additional financing for the necessary expansion. We can’t stay a small shop for long.”

  “Will you take someone from the sales team with you?”

  “No. I will handle these matters personally. They are delicate, and our future depends on them. Your future, Matthew, since this company will be yours someday.”

  Matthew swallowed some eggs. It was surely his mother’s idea that the company should be his someday.

  “When will you leave?” She refilled Judd’s coffee cup.

  “Today, I think. For the first meeting.”

  Matthew crunched bacon between his teeth and guzzled his glass of milk. “I should get to work.”

  “No need for that,” Judd said.

  “Sir?”

  “These next few weeks will be intense for me,” Judd said. “I imagine I will be coming and going at unpredictable hours, meeting with people at their locations as well as here—whatever can be arranged on short notice. I suggest you and your mother go to your grandparents’ for a few weeks until school starts up again.”

  Matthew set down his milk glass. He wasn’t dull-witted, and he had a better memory of peculiar events of his childhood than his parents gave him credit for. And he’d heard far more conversations than they knew. This had something to do with his mother getting what she wanted all those years ago—and perhaps the house they were sitting in right now—because of the way Judd did business. Maybe it had something to do with what just happened a few hours ago in the middle of the night.

  “Mama can go,” he said. “I can take the bus out on the weekends. But I’d like to stay and work in the showroom. I enjoy being around the business.” How easily the falsehood passed his lips.

  “You’d be on your own too much,” Judd said.

  “I could stay with Jackson’s family. I’m sure they’d let me.” What objection could there be to leaving him in the care of the pastor?

  “I’m afraid that won’t do.”

  “I’m old enough.”

  “Matthew,” his mother said, “you need to be with me. Out of the way.”

  Out of the way? Out of the way of what?

  “I’m fifteen,” he said. “I don’t need looking after.”

  “The decision is made.” Judd picked up his newspaper. “Stop arguing. I’ll let Mr. Harding know not to expect you any longer and drive you out to St. Charles after lunch.”

  “Can I at least go tell Jackson goodbye? We had plans.” And the door. Maybe it was time to let Jackson jimmy the door after all—as long as he was sure Judd was out of town.

  “There’s no time for goodbyes.” His mother’s voice held firm. She might not like what Judd was up to, but she didn’t want Matthew anywhere near it. He was certain of that. “You can send Jackson a postcard from Grandpa Ted’s store. The two of you will survive until school starts in the fall. Get your things together.”

  “Fine.” Matthew pushed back his chair, made no effort to tuck it back under the table or put his dishes in the sink, and walked out of the room.

  Forget the job. Forget Jackson. Forget the door. Forget Maple Turn. He would figure a way out. If his mother kept choosing to close her eyes to whatever Judd was doing, eventually she’d be closing her eyes to Matthew too.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Coffee wasn’t the only enticement Nolan’s nostrils detected on Sunday morning.

  Jillian was cooking.

  He slid his feet into shoes, straightened his tie, and descended the back stairs.

  “Breakfast!” Nolan said. “And here I thought I’d barely have time for toast before church.”

  “You have time for oatmeal and fruit with a side of family history honesty.” Jillian topped a bowl with blueberries and set it on the breakfast bar in front of the stool where Nolan usually sat.

  “Patrick,” he said.

  “Patrick.” Jillian filled her own bowl at the stove and came around the bar.

  Coffee. Spoons. Napkins. Cream. It was all there. Nolan had no excuse to get up and procrastinate. The best he could do was splash some cream over his oatmeal and buy four seconds to collect his thoughts.

  “The first thing I want to say is that if I could change one moment in my life, it would be that moment with Patrick.” Nolan stirred the milky liquid into his breakfast.

  “Dad, what happened?” Jillian turned sideways in her stool, her eyes pulling for his.

  He looked at her square on. “Patrick and Pop Paddy argued, and Patrick left. It broke Pop Paddy’s heart. Patrick was the apple of his eye. He found out I was there when Patrick left, and he blamed me for not stopping him.” This was the sparse version, but it was essentially accurate.

  “Could you have? Should you have?”

  “At the time, I didn’t think so.” Nolan took a bite.

  “And now?” Jillian said.

  “I don’t know. I’ll never know, because I didn’t try, and I was the only one who had the opportunity to try. He didn’t come back. Pop Paddy died a few years later without ever seeing Patrick again, or even talking on the phone, and he never really forgave me. Things were never the same between us.”

  “Oh Dad.”

  Nolan ate more oatmeal and sipped black coffee. Patrick hadn’t been interested in what Nolan had to say, but Nolan hadn’t tried very hard to say anything either. He deserved whatever fury Patrick had unleashed on their grandfather. He hadn’t seen that this time Patrick wouldn’t come back in a few weeks and act like nothing had happened. And then it was too late. But this was not the time to tell only one side to Jillian when there had been so many sides during the events.

  “What are you going to do to fix this, Dad?” Jillian put a hand on his knee. “You can’t keep doing nothing. Not when Patrick keeps calling you—and now me.”

  “You’re right. I’ll do something. Soon.”

  All those years ago, every moment was laden with choices that might have told another story. Picking up an item. Admiring it. Coveting it. Not putting it down when doing so would have changed everything. Savoring a glimpse of favoritism. Feeling the power of being the youngest. Knowing what it meant to Patrick and wanting it anyway. Accepting that piece of Pop Paddy. Not stopping Patrick. Not saying anything. Not being sorry.

  So many unchosen simpler fixes so long ago now snowballed into the avalanche of dodging his brother’s calls in shame.

  “If I can help,” Jillian said, “just ask
.”

  “Thanks, Jilly. Pray that I will be wise.”

  “You are wise. And you’re a wonderful family mediator.”

  “I will have to rely on the Holy Spirit to mediate between Patrick and me.”

  “Patrick is reaching out, Dad. Find out what he wants. That’s the starting point, isn’t it?”

  Nolan nodded.

  “Eat,” Jillian said. “Your oatmeal is getting cold.”

  Not everyone knew their grandparents. Nolan had been lucky to know all four of his. To love and be loved. If it spoiled at the end with Pop Paddy, it was his own doing. A lifetime—Jillian’s lifetime—did not change that.

  “Something happened with Tucker’s grandfather, you know.” Nolan spooned food into his mouth. “That’s why he’s here.”

  “Not just to ski like a maniac?”

  “He is a phenomenal skier, no question. But the maniac leanings have something to do with his grandfather. I’m sure of it.”

  “He seems like an upstanding guy so far,” Jillian said.

  “Tucker takes a liking to kids. I suppose he got that from his grandfather. But there must be a reason why his grandfather would choose children’s causes to give to.”

  “I didn’t come across a personal connection, but I can keep looking.” Jillian scraped her bowl clean. “The one thing I thought was interesting is that his grandfather was a very young man when he took over the company.”

  “There could be any number of reasons for that.”

  “Of course. I just found it curious. In any event, he died a few months ago, as you know. The local newspaper was full of glowing coverage of a beloved citizen. That’s about it, on the surface of things.”

  “Then we have to find something below the surface for you to go on,” Nolan said. “My gut tells me we have to get to the bottom of what happened with Tucker’s grandfather if we’re going to stop him from skiing Hidden Run.”

  “Maybe he’s always been a risk-taker. We don’t really know him.”

  Nolan shook his head. “I don’t think he’s a chancer. There’s a difference between excitement and foolhardiness, even for a person of his skill.”