Redemption Lake

by Susan Clayton-Goldner

  Matt kicked some dirt back into the rose bed. The scent of the blooms reminded him of real love—of the roses he’d sent to Danni last Valentine’s Day. “I should be the one helping Travis with the memorial. At least I knew Crystal.”

  His mother gave him a closed-mouth smile. She picked up a pile of discarded leaves, deformed and yellowed with dark spots that looked like blackheads, dropped them into her bucket of weeds and stood. “I couldn’t focus on the stained-glass window, so I decided to take care of the roses.” She took off her garden gloves and touched his shoulder. “I’ve got mac and cheese in the oven. Lots of black pepper and sharp cheddar, the way you like it.”

  “I’m not very hungry.”

  Her gaze wandered to his chinos, the open-collar button-down shirt, and the slightly too big navy blazer his dad had insisted Matt wear. “You look nice. Do you have a date with Danni?”

  He swallowed, looked away for a moment, then told her about his meeting with Detective Radhauser.

  Her face paled. “Why?”

  “Some routine questions about last night. No big deal.”

  She cocked her head and studied him for a moment. “Is there something you want to talk about?”

  A slow panic built inside him. He forced his back straight, squared his shoulders and returned her gaze. “Like what? Why do you keep asking me that?”

  “Why won’t you talk to me?” His mother’s voice sounded fragile. She dropped a hand on his shoulder. “Danielle called. She’s worried about you.”

  There was a dull roaring sound in his ears. Danni had reached out to him. “Did she ask to talk to me?”

  His mother paused, seemed to measure her words. “She wanted to talk to me.”

  “Did she want me to call her back?”

  “Did you have some kind of misunderstanding?”

  Matt cringed, fought the urge to tell her there was no misunderstanding what the linebacker from Tucson High School meant, but he remained silent.

  “You can tell me anything,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  He couldn’t tell her he’d had sex with Crystal two hours before she died. That Crystal’s death made him remember everything about Lake Powell and how it was his fault Justin was dead. Like she’d even believe him if he did. He couldn’t tell her any of it. They were his burdens, not his mother’s. He deserved them and so much more.

  She tightened her grip on his shoulder. “Are you sure you’re all right? The hospital called. They said you didn’t show up this morning.”

  He twisted away.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I told them what happened. Of course, they understood. They just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  “How can I be all right? How can anything be all right again?”

  “Listen to me. What happened to Crystal is terrible. But it wasn’t your fault. People die. All we can do now is help Travis as much as we can.”

  Matt stared at his shoes, the cordovan loafers his dad had polished. The air held the faint smell of rain and he could almost feel the dry desert floor reaching up to meet the sky.

  She glanced at her watch. “It looks like Travis is going to be late. The mac and cheese is done. Please. Have some dinner with me before you talk to Detective Radhauser.”

  When he nodded, she headed through the side door into the garage, her gait slightly askew from the kneepads slipping down her legs and settling around her ankles. She took them off and tossed them, along with her gloves, into a deep wicker basket beside the kitchen door.

  With the scent of melting cheese and toasted breadcrumbs drifting into his nostrils, he followed.

  At the table set for three, she asked if he was nervous about talking to Detective Radhauser.

  He shrugged.

  She waited a moment as if giving him time to formulate a better response. When he said nothing, she made a suggestion he write Danni a note—tell her how much he wanted to work out their misunderstanding.

  Matt kept his head down to avoid having to look into her dark eyes. But it didn’t matter. He still felt their heat—those eyes that could peel him away in layers. He ate his salad and macaroni in silence.

  “Danielle called because she was worried about you. Maybe you need to take a step in her direction now.”

  Matt thought about the poem he’d written for Danni about their bodies being like wings, flying in and out of each other. The poem her mother had found. His ears and neck grew warm. “She didn’t ask to talk to me, Mom. What am I supposed to do? Beg?”

  “I’m not suggesting you beg, only that you meet her halfway.”

  “Does she know about Crystal?”

  “I’m sure she would have mentioned it if she did. As far as I know, it hasn’t made the news yet. Detective Radhauser may have a reason to keep it quiet for now.”

  She pushed the salad around on her plate.

  The clock on the stove ticked loudly, like someone had turned up the volume, the way clocks sounded at midnight when no one else was awake.

  “So,” she finally said, a hint of defeat in her voice. “Have you made your decision about colleges yet?”

  “I’m leaning towards Iowa,” he said, relieved for a subject that didn’t make his skin crawl. “I need to accept and get the deposit in by May first.”

  She lifted her eyebrows and nodded, a slight smile on her face.

  “It has this really cool program where they design a freshman curriculum and a reading list based on my questions. I already have three good ones. ‘Can a person do something horrible and still find redemption?’”

  Her smile disappeared. She unraveled a thread at the armhole of her shirt, glanced at the photo of Matt and Justin at Lake Powell.

  Matt had an unmanageable lump in his throat. He drank some water. “Do you want to hear my other two?”

  She nodded.

  “‘What does it mean to be human?’ And ‘do we have an immortal soul?’”

  Her face brightened again. “That school sounds perfect for you. Send off your acceptance letter.”

  “Dad wants me to go to Penn, like he did.”

  “It’s your decision, not your father’s.”

  “I’m also thinking about the University of Arizona.”

  “I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but Travis will be okay,” she said. “He’ll hit homeruns for the U of A. He’ll be a superstar. We’ll be around to cheer him on. And if Travis needs anything, Nate is very good with young people.”

  Matt’s new stepfather was the guidance counselor at Marana High School. According to Travis’s girlfriend—a student there—the kids rushed to him with problems they couldn’t tell their parents. And Mr. Nathan Sherman kept their confidences as if he were a priest. Matt imagined Travis hanging out with Nate—the two of them buddies, going to games or a movie together while Matt was in Iowa. A surge of jealousy spread through him. He checked his watch, stood. “I have to go. I don’t want to keep Detective Radhauser waiting.”

  * * *

  When the doorbell rang, Loren hurried into the entryway, flipped on the porch light and opened the door. Karina stood under the yellow glow. She wore a pair of denim cutoffs, a teal blue T-shirt with a pink flamingo on the front, and pink running shoes—looking as if she’d just come in from a game of badminton behind her college dorm.

  He had no right to it but jealousy stabbed him hard. “Karina. Is Matt okay?” He stepped aside so she could enter.

  Loren had always been able to gauge her moods from a distance of fifty feet. She was scared, a little nervous, and definitely on a mission.

  “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, but I’m worried.” She told him what he already knew, Matt was in Catalina being re-interviewed by Detective Radhauser.

  “It’s routine. Nothing to worry about,” Loren said. “He’ll be bringing Travis in for additional questioning, too.”

  She looked everywhere except into his eyes. “It’s more than that.” She told him about the blood on Matt’s tuxe
do shirt.

  Loren tried to remain calm. “Did you ask him about it?”

  She tossed him a sideways look. “Nosebleed.”

  “Is there some reason you don’t believe him?”

  She followed him into the family room. “Yes. He’s lying. And if Radhauser discovers it, Matt will be implicated in Crystal’s death.”

  Loren knew better than anyone his ex-wife could spot a lie from half a mile away.

  “At first, he said he’d spilled something on the shirt. Later, when I confronted him with the blood, he invented the nosebleed.” She talked fast and Loren heard a tremble in her voice. “There was a lot of blood—smeared all over the front, like he’d used his shirt to clean his hands.” She set her purse on the table and either ignored or didn’t see the copy of his new textbook.

  “The wedding wasn’t easy for Matt.”

  Karina sighed, took a seat on the burgundy leather sofa, crossed and then uncrossed her legs. She wore the perfume she’d always worn, Oscar de la Renta, and the powdery scent unnerved him.

  “Aren’t you even a little bit concerned Matt may be implicated in a murder case?”

  “She committed suicide.”

  “I don’t know how you can be so sure when the police aren’t,” she said.

  Loren sat on the platform rocker, leaned back and lit his pipe, giving himself a chance to regroup. The cherry-scented smoke wafted into the air. “No,” he finally said. “I’m not worried. I know my son. I trust Matt. But you know as well as I do he’s been different, darker and less talkative, since…”

  Karina grimaced. “It’s been almost six years. Why do you still think everything Matt does is connected to Justin’s death? What about the divorce? Haven’t you read studies about depression and anger in teenagers with divorced parents?”

  The stone smoothness of her words chilled him. He stood, paced around the family room for a minute, puffing on his pipe and trying to find an appropriate response. The grandfather clock in the entryway chimed 7:30.

  He forced his back straight, his shoulders square—the ramrod posture of self-confidence once enforced by his military father. “I didn’t mean to hurt you or break up our family,” he said for the hundredth time. “Surely you know that.”

  She steepled her fingers. “What I know is you’re so concerned about your image you can’t see our son could be in trouble.”

  “That’s not fair. You know how much I love Matt.”

  “Then talk to him. Make him understand that lying to the police will make him look guilty.”

  “Guilty of what?” He glanced at her hands—at the diamond solitaire and matching wedding band from Nate. Loren wondered what she’d done with the marquis-shaped diamond ring he’d given her. “Matt had nothing to do with Crystal’s death.”

  Through the big wall of windows, the sun was setting, dropping its pink blanket of light over the mountains.

  “Truth has a way of coming out,” she said. “I still believe Matt needs to hear it from you.”

  “I know I haven’t been a perfect father, but I’m better at it now that Matt’s growing up. I’m not a liar, by nature. I couldn’t stand the idea of Matt not trusting me.”

  He’d seen what even justified suspicion had done to Karina. It was like acid, everything it contacted corroded. It ate through shiny surfaces, sometimes even its own container, and left permanent scars in its wake—scars he’d hoped his son would never have to bear.

  She looked at him with her dark eyes, both brave and a little apprehensive. “I’m scared, Loren.”

  He stood. With every ounce of his being, he wanted to go to her, to wrap his arms around her, to make her feel safe again. Instead, he took a step back, lost his balance and fell into the rocking chair. He smiled. “As you can see, I’m the picture of grace and composure.”

  She laughed.

  “It’s going to be okay.” He wished he were half as sure as he sounded.

  Karina, whom he knew would never shy away from self-examination, looked off into space for a moment, her brow furrowing. “It’s human nature. We all like to hide the selves that aren’t moral, ethical or smiling,” she said, with sadness, not judgment, in her voice. “But no matter how deep a hole we dig, they get hungry, like bears just out of hibernation.”

  “Matt’s not like me,” he said.

  “Matt adores you. He’s emulated you since he was a toddler.”

  “I talked to the volunteer supervisor at UMC. The oncology staff and the lab all love him. Not to mention the kids.” He kept his voice soft and modulated. “He doesn’t have any indicators for violence.” Loren thought about the phone call he’d gotten from the high school principal, the essay Matt had written about the place where the dead congregated. They were passive gestures. And then Loren remembered the fist-sized hole he’d found punched into Matt’s closet wall.

  “For God’s sake, Loren. I’m not suggesting he killed her. Only that he was there. Maybe he was looking for Travis, stumbled on her body and tried to help her. You know how fond he was of Crystal.” Abruptly, she stood.

  “Do you want me to talk with him about the blood?”

  “No. I’ve probably made too much out of it already.” As she passed through the family room, she stopped and lifted his textbook from the table. She turned the book over and examined the author photo for a moment, before returning the book to the table. “Congratulations. You look proud. Loren Garrison, the expert on morality and ethics.” She gave him a closed-mouth smile.

  There was a moment of silence. Words dangled on Loren’s tongue. He wanted to say something to make the awkwardness between them go away. He wanted to tell her, despite his wandering, he’d loved her more than anyone.

  “Look,” she said, as if still able to read his thoughts. “I didn’t mean for things to get antagonistic. I just wanted to give you a heads-up about the blood.” She told him how they’d washed and bleached the shirt. “I plan to return it to the rental shop in the morning.”

  “So Radhauser didn’t ask for it?”

  “No. And after the bleach, I doubt there is anything left to identify. But you need to pay attention, Loren.”

  His nerves crawled like worms beneath his skin. “Maybe you need to believe what he tells you.”

  Two circles turned red on her cheeks. She closed her eyes for a moment as if there were no other gesture that could convey her exasperation. “Where does the truth fit into your life, or is that something you don’t worry about anymore?” She pushed her hands into the back pockets of her shorts—a familiar gesture.

  A fist of remorse unfurled in Loren’s gut as he watched her turn away and walk through the front door. When the crunching of the driveway gravel stopped, indicating she’d driven onto the paved street, Loren hurried into Matt’s bedroom. He flipped through a stack of papers on his son’s desk, stopping at a partially finished poem Matt had titled The Real Room. Loren read the first stanza.

  Inside the real room there are mirrors—

  Stained, scratched, shattered.

  I am everywhere. And the worlds I’ve destroyed

  Lie in pieces all around me.

  In their deaths, the mourning begins.

  Inside the real room there are masks,

  And I have worn them all.

  His son had attempted another half dozen or more lines, but had smudged many of them out.

  He struggled to read the last legible stanza, his hands shaking.

  The real room is a battlefield filled with corpses.

  In their blue hands they hold pieces of my shame.

  When I pry them out, my blood, impossibly red,

  Flows onto their gray and lifeless skin.

  He returned the pages, careful to place them exactly how he’d found them, then opened the bookcase headboard on Matt’s bed.

  A recent issue of Playboy magazine sat on top of a line of books, most of them classics. He smiled. Boys will be boys, even studious and well-mannered ones. He pulled out Tom Sawyer, wanting to re-r
ead the inscription Karina had written. It was then he noticed a black leather journal Matt had hidden behind the other books.

  Loren picked it up, stared at the cover. He’d never snooped in his son’s room before. In truth, he didn’t believe it was right. A journal was a private thing. But he was a parent, worried about his son. Afraid he may have done something—Loren stopped. He wouldn’t allow himself the thought.

  The journal held only one entry, dated September 8, 1983—less than two months after Justin drowned. Loren read the words Matt had printed.

  Justin Speaks From His Grave

  Before I plunged into the water, I took a deep breath. My heart pounded and I felt both brave and excited, like the time we went on Space Mountain at Disneyland. You were right, Matt, I could do it.

  I sank and sank. Went down deeper than I’d ever been before. My right foot grazed the rocks, then wedged between two boulders.

  At first I thought it was no big deal, but when I couldn’t get my foot loose, I panicked and tried with all my strength to pull my foot out. It started to bleed. I needed to breathe. My body accumulated carbon dioxide and that made me want to breathe even more. I tried not to. I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help it. I sucked in a breath, but it wasn’t air, it was lake water.

  When water reached my upper airway, I coughed and then I swallowed more lake water, coughed again and swallowed even more.

  I was more scared than I’ve ever been in my life—even the time we rode the roller coaster at Hershey Park. Like the baby you said I was, I cried for my mom.

  My throat began to spasm when water reached my lower airway. It was my body trying to seal off the path to my lungs. With nowhere else to go, the water went into my stomach. It felt like I’d eaten three Earthquakes at Baskin Robbins. I wanted to barf. And then I stopped fighting and lost consciousness. I didn’t feel this, but my throat relaxed and water went into my lungs. No one could have saved me. I was dead in two minutes.