Redemption Song

by Tanya Anne Crosby

  Laura reciprocated, and then splayed both her sweet hands on Caía’s cheeks. “Please, please walk me home after school today?”

  She was always so very melodramatic. So full of passion for life. Caía wanted a little of that back. She glanced up at Laura’s uncle. He was watching curiously, but said nothing, and Caía experienced a moment of dread. This was it. She would send Laura inside, and then she would have to make a choice. She could walk home with Nick—if that’s where he was inclined to go—and tell him the truth, or she could beg off and say she had somewhere else to be.

  Where?

  Nowhere.

  You’re a coward.

  Now was the time she should opt to face him, and Caía imagined herself asking him to grab a cup of coffee. They could go to Rincon—or somewhere else. Somewhere Caía had never been before, in case he made a scene. This could be her moment of truth, the moment she’d been waiting for . . .

  Do you know who I am? her eyes pleaded.

  With both her hands, Laura turned Caía’s face again, forcing her to look at her, rather than at her looming uncle. Nick stood by quietly—not at all the sort of guy Caía had expected to find. Solemn, even cheerless at times. Except when he was speaking to his niece. “I can’t,” Caía said. “I have . . . something to do. But I will see you . . . when you come home, vale?”

  For once, the child didn’t press the issue. She nodded and Caía kissed her cheek, and stood. “Thanks,” she said to Nick, not understanding why.

  “See you later,” he said, and Caía bolted away, in the opposite direction, toward the market where she and Marta had first met.

  She didn’t dare turn and look at him. She kept walking until she reached a quiet alley and then ducked inside. Right there, without any witnesses, Caía sat on a stoop and cried—for Jack. For the sense of betrayal she was feeling right now, for having spent a single minute not missing her son. For being who she was—a woman with too many secrets. What are you doing? she asked herself.

  What are you doing, Caía?

  What are you doing?

  What the hell are you doing?

  Eleven

  Can I see another’s grief, and

  not seek for kind relief?

  – William Blake

  It was time for a redirect. Ambivalence where Nick Kelly was concerned wasn’t getting Caía what she needed—whatever that was.

  You don’t belong here, Caía.

  She had come for a reason, and now that she was here, so close to her goal, she was letting her emotions rule her. She was allowing some primitive yearning for fellowship intrude upon her primary objective. Okay, so maybe she didn’t want to make Nick Kelly pay in some gruesome and unacceptable manner. But she did need him to look her in the face and tell her what in his life had been so damned important that he could allow himself to be distracted while sitting behind the wheel of his car. She needed him to see her—Jack’s mother—and feel remorse.

  She could easily firebomb everything right now. Come clean. But the truth was that once she confessed, all ties to Marta and Laura must be severed. They would look at her with something akin to horror. They might even call the police. Well, why wouldn’t they? Caía wasn’t who they thought she was. And, of course, she would have to move out. She would have to go home. Because home was where the heart was, after all. Right?

  But what if the heart were nowhere? Unanchored by people or places. Given this lens, it shouldn’t seem so crazy for someone to leave everything behind and set out searching for answers. Wasn’t this the impetus for discovery? Marco Polo went searching for spices. David Livingstone went in search of the Nile. Leif Ericson—well, he simply got lost, but in each of these cases, Caía was certain there was nothing keeping these explorers at home, and there was one powerful motivator luring them away: the pursuit of truth. In the end, neither spices nor rivers were Caía’s objective, but if reasons were subjects in the land of rationale, truth must be king.

  Don’t get distracted, Caía.

  Don’t let your heart trip you up.

  If you do, all will be lost.

  Before Jack was born, Caía had dreamt of traveling the world. Even after marrying Gregg, she had envisioned the two of them traveling together. Gregg, on the other hand, had never had the first inkling to leave Athens—not even after he got the job offer in Chicago. It was Caía who had talked him into it, and at the time, she’d accused him of having no sense of adventure.

  He, on the other hand, accused Caía of having a wandering heart. He’d asked why she couldn’t be content to stay at home, with him—the irony being that she would have remained faithful until her dying breath while Gregg got going the instant the going got tough.

  But that was no longer here nor there. What Caía was coming to realize was that she, unlike Gregg, had shallow roots. Gregg’s ancestors had fought in the Civil War. He owned a rifle that once belonged to Jefferson Davis. His second cousin in Atlanta once worked in the drug store where Coca-Cola was invented, where they sold the hangover remedy for five cents a glass. Gregg was content in Athens, and in the end, Caía was certain he’d grown resentful that she’d pressed him into moving away. They were not the same, she and he. Caía had always understood, deep down, that once her parents were gone, she would be as unfettered as a dandelion seed. All that had presumably changed with Jack. Once her son was born, Caía had felt . . . anchored. And when he died . . . Poof. One good puff, and like a dandelion seed, up, up and away she went.

  Except, she was gone before that. Physically, she had remained there, on that couch in Roscoe Village, with her notebook on her lap . . . surfing and daydreaming about another life.

  What if she could finish her language studies? What if she could get a job in Washington? Or anywhere, really. She didn’t need to hold any highfalutin job. Caía just wanted something more out of life than what she had—a husband who spent more hours away than he did at home, and a son who didn’t appreciate the sacrifices Caía made.

  Meanwhile, two blocks north, in his perfectly restored brownstone, lived the man who would run down her world. Literally.

  Of course, they hadn’t known each other then. In a neighborhood with more than thirty thousand people, it was impossible to know, much less recognize all your neighbors.

  Caía wanted to hate Nick Kelly. But it was difficult to watch him with Laura and not see a different man. She needed to think of him as a monster, but it wasn’t the case. He was only a man. A man who had given up a successful partnership in Chicago to come help his sister-in-law and niece transition through his brother’s death. For all the things Caía had heard about him back home, all the things she’d witnessed here in Spain declared something else.

  While everyone was out, she slipped into Nick’s room, snooping to see how he lived. While there was little doubt his quarters in this house were grand, it was just a bedroom in a house, no different from Caía’s suite downstairs—or rather, hers was nicer. But neither room compared to the five-thousand-square-foot brownstone he’d sold in Roscoe Village, a house that had listed and sold for nearly two million dollars. Essentially, Nick had given up everything to come live like a teenager in his mother’s house. Except that, instead of sitting around playing video games all day long, he cared for his niece, giving her his undivided attention, and maybe even forsaking his own chances for a family in the interim. Put so bluntly, it made him seem like a saint . . . a saint who’d just happened to kill her son.

  Nothing made sense anymore.

  Caía’s brain was incapable of filtering through what was logical and what was not logical. But one thing she realized . . . her presence in this house was not normal. It was not logical. Lines were being blurred—and crossed.

  And those weren’t the only lines blurring. Caía noticed, more and more, that rather than teach Laura proper English, she more often lapsed into Spanish, insinuating herself into their routi
nes. And contrary to what she may have believed, it wasn’t making her feel worse. Bewildered by this fact, she peered up at the stars.

  Tonight, the wind was brisk. It carried a mean chill, but in the shelter of the patio, it was still nice. Nevertheless, seated where she was, there was a limited view of the night sky.

  The jardín was enclosed by vine-covered stucco walls that were easily thirty feet high. Along the edges were small raised gardens with miniature roses.

  The house itself was like a storybook palace, and there was even an ancient well in the center of the yard, flanked by citrus trees—one lemon, one orange. The orange tree sat outside her bedroom window. She stared hard at the well, imagining the hands that built it. Having gone without rain for so long, the scent of water was absent here, but Caía could easily picture servants standing next to it, hauling up buckets to fill the upstairs baths. Quite likely, that well had been there since before both world wars, and that woman upstairs—the one who’d never once suspected Caía of anything—was related to the people who’d built it, or rather, who’d had it built, as the case must be. Marta couldn’t help it; she had a genteel demeanor that had no doubt taken her family centuries to ingrain. Even her grief was more refined, while Caía’s was raw and festering, like a leper whose wounds couldn’t heal.

  And Caía’s biggest fear of all: What if her heart were damaged beyond repair? What if this was who she was now? Cold, deep down.

  Rather than start a fire in the brazier, Caía borrowed a blanket from her bedroom, because despite Marta’s insistence that she should treat this house as her own, Caía couldn’t make the leap from guest to resident, and so, of course, she would never really consider herself a member of this family, no matter how long she stayed . . . no matter how much she insinuated herself into their lives. And once this was all over, where was home?

  Not Chicago. As fabulous as that city was, Caía had never belonged there. And yet, even in Athens, where she had grown up, Caía never really felt as though she’d belonged there either. Her parents had worked hard to build a comfortable home in a quiet neighborhood, but as a family, they had been like fish out of water.

  For the most part, growing up, Caía’s mother and father had kept to themselves, stoic and silent. Their joy was entirely invested in Caía, and even though Caía made a few good friends in Athens, her parents weren’t the type to reach out to other parents, or drink margaritas on the deck. For her dad, game day beers in a cooler held no appeal. He worked hard every day, and came home to put his love and support into his family. Her mother had been his world and, as their only child, Caía had been the light of her parents’ lives. So, when Jack and both her parents died, so too did her roots.

  Admittedly, Caía had never had the same sense of familiarity with Gregg, but she understood now that she was probably equally responsible for that. In fact, only now did she understand that she had married Gregg for all the wrong reasons—to have a family. Jack had been her one true anchor. And once her son was gone, she might have kept trying, except Gregg wasn’t equipped for that. He too had married Caía for all the wrong reasons—because it was the thing to do. Not the right thing. Just the thing. Because they’d dated all throughout high school and because they’d had sex in his parents’ car. And also because his dad gave him “the talk.” “Keep your dick in your pants, son, ’less you plan to put a ring on her finger, hear me?”

  Well, Gregg did that . . . and once he took the dick out of his pants and put the ring on her finger, the romance was gone. No more sex in cars. No more sex in their bedroom either—at least not often. And then he’d gone and put his dick, again, where it didn’t belong.

  Caía didn’t care anymore, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still furious with him. Not because he’d cheated, but because instead of dealing with his own sense of loss—with Caía and her grief—he’d shut her out. Throwing away all their years together, he’d left her when she’d needed him most, pushed her off into other people’s hands—like unwanted things. Castaways. Worthless trash.

  The hospital had been a short-term stay, but the house was already empty when they let Caía go home. Picked clean of everything he’d valued. Caía imagined he’d set up a new house somewhere else. It all seemed so strange now, she realized. Marta would certainly think she was crazy. Nick would think she was mad. Laura wouldn’t understand . . .

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  Startled by Nick’s voice, Caía squealed in surprise.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, and automatically Caía hoisted up the blanket like a shield. Don’t give him a reason to suspect you. She forced herself to look at him standing in the threshold of the door. She’d left both the door and the iron gate open, because she’d been afraid to lock herself out. The keys were inside, on the desk, but Caía didn’t feel entitled to carry them around.

  Leaning into the threshold on one shoulder, her would-be demon dangled a Cruzcampo from one hand, his fingers toying with the ridges around the bottle’s lip.

  “I haven’t heard that phrase in years,” Caía said, trying to be casual despite the pounding in her heart. She hadn’t spoken to Nick since the morning she’d left him and Laura at the schoolhouse door. “I was thinking about . . . home . . .”

  Averting her gaze, Caía peered up at the stars, wondering what brought him downstairs at such a late hour. Like Marta’s, his room was upstairs, both at opposite ends of the long hall. Laura’s room was next to her mother’s. Caía’s was the only one downstairs. There was nothing he needed down here—except maybe his beer.

  At first, Caía had thought Nick must be banging his brother’s wife—because wasn’t that what men did? Bang women? But she saw no signs of that—no flirtation at all. In fact, Marta appeared to have set her matchmaking sights on Nick and Caía, attempting to place them together at every turn. Maybe this was why she’d so readily adopted Caía?

  All week long, Caía had remained downstairs, taking rainchecks for dinners, and even Laura’s joyful laughter hadn’t lured her upstairs. She was afraid now . . . terrified of what she might say or do. But this couldn’t go on forever. It simply couldn’t. At some point, she had to come clean—or not—but one way or the other, she had to go.

  Cicadas hummed on the power lines, the sound as frenetic as octave scales on a violin. It wound Caía’s nerves. All the while, Nick stood, looking at her, and he finally asked, “So where’s home?”

  Caía didn’t want to tell him.

  But then again, this could be the perfect opportunity to learn a thing or two about the man she’d come four thousand miles to face. Maybe then she could leave in peace?

  So here she was . . .

  And there he was . . .

  Caía lifted her blanket, tossing it up and over her left shoulder. “That’s the point, I guess . . . I don’t know where home is . . . not anymore.”

  With the beer in his right hand, he indicated the patio chair facing her. “Mind if I sit?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  Why did he have to be so damned polite?

  He moved out of the doorway and sat in the chair facing Caía—so close their knees might have brushed—except that Caía took care not to allow it. She moved her legs aside, and the gesture brought a twisted smile to Nick’s lips. He tipped his beer up, throttling the neck of his bottle as he drank and then stopped and looked at her. “So . . . are you settled yet?”

  Caía frowned, disoriented.

  He swept the butt of his beer in an arc about him. “I mean the house.”

  “I suppose.” Caía hugged herself, peering down at the blanket in her lap as his gaze examined the garden, sweeping the entire circumference of the yard. She plucked at a thread.

  “You should have seen this place before Jimmy got hold of it,” he said conversationally, and the admiration in his tone was so evident. Caía listened, letting him fill the silence, not trusting herse
lf to speak.

  Maybe in a minute. Maybe then she would say everything she’d come all this way to say. Maybe if she sat quietly, she might work up the nerve.

  He pointed at the wall at the opposite end of the garden. “Her father bought that house next door, but Marta sold it to pay for repairs.” Silence. “Jimmy designed the garden,” he said, rambling a bit. “He wanted it to be like a paradise for his daughter—the lemon tree . . . the roses.” He glanced at the well. “They put safety bars over that well, but the structure is original to the house.” He pointed to the well with his bottle, which was already half empty, Caía noticed.

  She nodded, and once again they lapsed into silence as she looked around at everything except Nick’s face. He made her uncomfortable for reasons that went far beyond her son’s death. Nicholas Kelly was an unknown commodity.

  He’d chosen a seat untouched by moonlight, but Caía could sense, even through the darkness, that his eyes were fixed on her. As it seemed they had been all week long. It took every bit of her resolve to keep from looking him straight in the eyes and asking, “Why did you kill my son?”

  “Caía . . .”

  She met his gaze. “Yeah?”

  “Have I done something to offend you?”

  Caía’s throat tightened. She shook her head, feeling ambushed. She hadn’t yet figured out how to broach the truth, what words to say. “I don’t know . . . maybe it’s the divorce.”

  He seemed to consider her answer a moment, moving slightly forward so that moonlight revealed his chin and lips. “I take it you didn’t want it?”

  “No, no, that’s not it,” Caía said, but she didn’t elaborate.

  “What then?”

  She hugged herself, feeling shivers coming on. Like an injured body in shock. How long before Jack’s body shut down. The doctors said death was instantaneous, but how could they really know?