Redemption Lake

by Susan Clayton-Goldner

  Travis’s shoulders slumped. There was a raw-looking outbreak of acne on his cheeks. “I’ve got stuff going on. You’ll ace the exam, you always do.”

  Matt remained silent.

  Travis fiddled with a stack of papers on his bed and avoided Matt’s gaze. “Some friends are coming here tonight to do a sin study with me. You cool with that?”

  “You mean like here in our bedroom?”

  Travis nodded.

  “If you’re sure that’s what you want, I can hang out in the kitchen unless you need me for moral support. Or to supply the sins.” Matt grinned, still trying to cross the distance between them. If only Travis would take one step in Matt’s direction.

  “I’m thinking about becoming a real member of Narrow Way.”

  “Why not wait, check it out and make sure it’s everything you think it is?”

  Travis gave him a questioning look. “What’s your real problem?”

  “There was a documentary on 60 Minutes—” Matt hesitated. He wanted to tell Travis everything, but he was afraid that if he did, the gap between them would grow even wider.

  Travis stared at him for a moment in which Matt became aware the two of them drifted toward something dangerous. “I have to give up some things,” Travis said.

  Pushing his chair away from the desk, Matt stood, then slammed his chemistry book shut. “Like me. Is that what you’re trying so hard to say?”

  “I’m not saying anything like that. It’s just I need a quiet and private place.”

  “Are you suggesting I move out of here?”

  “I wish I had another option, but I don’t. We’ll see each other all the time at school. You’re still planning to help me clean out the house tomorrow, right? And you’ll come to the memorial.” There was a soft edge of emotion in Travis’s voice.

  Matt stood, looped his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans, but said nothing.

  “You sleep better in your waterbed anyway. Please, Matt. I told Karina we’d study harder for our finals if we’re separated.” Travis paused and smiled. “She was all over it.”

  “I’ll do whatever you want,” Matt said. “But Mom taped that 60 Minutes segment. I just wish you’d—”

  Travis slid his hands into the pockets of his Dockers. “You could at least see for yourself before you judge.”

  They eyed each other across the room.

  “You know I’d do just about anything for you,” Matt said softly. “But not that.”

  Again, Travis studied him. “Are you so sure you’ve done nothing that needs to be forgiven?” His look was withering.

  It was a look Matt deserved. He’d give anything to go back and undo the mistakes he’d made last Saturday. His mom’s happiness with Nate had become clear to him during the few days he’d lived in their house. She sang when she cooked and there was a bounce in her step that had disappeared for a while after she and his father split. At night, he heard Nate and his mother laughing in their bedroom.

  His dad was a jerk. He didn’t deserve the loyalty Matt had shown him. A loyalty that ruined his mother’s wedding and, in the aftermath, took his best friend’s mother. He wanted to drag a razor blade over his skin so he could feel something other than shame, but he didn’t have the courage to do that either.

  Matt’s mind scrambled for the right combination of things to say. And when no words came, he turned his face away and crammed books into his backpack.

  * * *

  Matt stumbled from his bed and looked out the window. It was nearly dawn and the moon still hung in the sky like a ghost of itself. He watched it for a moment, then sat at his desk, pulled out a yellow tablet, and wrote a poem. It had happened to him before, this awakening with a fully-written poem inside his head, but the experience still surprised him. He read it twice, made a few changes, then returned to bed.

  Hours later, his face buried in his pillow, Matt stuck his hand out to punch the knob on his trilling alarm clock. School let out early in Tucson, the entire high school finished by the second week of May. But this was seniors’ week, and they were expected to show up only for their final exams. Matt was free today.

  If things had gone according to plan, Travis’s two aunts would have rented a U-Haul truck and carted off whatever items they could use to their house in Mesa. Given how estranged they’d been from Crystal, Matt couldn’t believe Travis had called them and made the offer.

  Matt climbed out of bed, got showered and dressed. He was tying his shoes when his father knocked on the bedroom door. “I need to talk to you. Is it okay if I come in?”

  Matt opened his door.

  Loren, carrying an oversized glass ashtray and his pipe, looked tired and older than Matt had ever seen him look. Normally he’d have left for work by now, but he was still dressed in his pajamas and short, burgundy robe. There was a strain to his breathing. For a moment, Matt felt sorry for him—for the way their once solid relationship had changed over the past few days.

  “I’m glad to have you back in your own room,” his father said. “I missed you.”

  “I was only gone for three nights.”

  “It seemed much longer. By the way, your mom called about the missing cufflinks from your tuxedo rental. The store inquired about them.”

  Again, he saw Crystal undo them and drop them into his shirt pocket before she’d rolled up his sleeves. Oh my God. What if her fingerprints were on them? The police had surely found them by now. Why hadn’t Radhauser questioned him about them?

  “I guess I must have lost them.”

  His father nodded, didn’t appear to think missing cufflinks was a big deal. “Could we sit down for a minute?”

  Matt slumped into his desk chair, his hands falling limp at his sides.

  His father set his ashtray on Matt’s bookcase. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. He put them in his robe pockets, then pulled them out and wiped them on his pajama bottoms. Finally, he sat in the small leather chair beside the bookcase. It creaked a little with his weight.

  “Travis expects me. I’ve got to get going.”

  “It’s sure to come out now. And as difficult as it is, I think it’s better if you hear it from me.”

  Matt sat up straight. “I’m listening.”

  His father cleared his throat, looked at the floor. “I’m not going to lead up to this or try to justify it in any way, I’m just going to say it.” He talked quickly, like someone determined to get it over with. “Crystal Reynolds was the other woman in my life.”

  Their eyes met. “No,” Matt said. An image rose of Crystal lying on the sofa in only her red bikini panties and lacy bra. He tried to push it away. Then he saw his mother’s pale face, the tears when he’d stood, statue-like in the driveway, refusing to move into a condo with her and Sedona. The trip he and his father had made to the ER after Sedona called them and said his mom wouldn’t wake up. It all jumbled together with the basketball net his mom and Nate had hung on the garage of their new house. The bedroom she’d kept for him. Mom and Crystal laughing in the stands at a little league game, back before Justin died when Matt played third base. The images came so fast he could barely recover from one before another arrived. “No,” he said again. “You were only trying to help her.”

  His father’s face froze for just a moment and the strain in his breathing returned. He coughed, cleared his throat again. “I’ve been involved in a sexual relationship with Crystal Reynolds for three years. I tried on several different occasions to break it off, but the break never lasted more than a couple months. And that’s the reason your mother left.” Something in his dad seemed to collapse.

  For a moment, Matt just stared, open-mouthed. “Why tell me this now?”

  “Because it’s the truth. And Detective Radhauser will eventually discover and disclose it. I never planned to keep it from you indefinitely. But the longer I didn’t tell you, the more difficult it got to bring it up.”

  Matt shut his eyes, tried to relax, but felt only the steady tighteni
ng of a coil inside his chest. He thought about Mom and how angry he’d been at her for leaving. “She was Mom’s friend. My best friend’s mother.” Matt was being a hypocrite, but he couldn’t hide the judgment in his voice.

  His father looked away, slipped his pipe from his jacket pocket, and drilled out the bowl. He tapped it methodically against the side of the ashtray, emptied the bowl and then repacked it. “Yes. I’m not proud of it. When your mother told me she was leaving, I promised I’d break it off for good, but it didn’t matter. Karina was finished with me and filed for divorce.”

  The coil inside Matt snapped. He crossed the room in three strides and knocked the pipe out of his father’s hand, spilling tobacco onto the carpet. “Stop hiding behind your pipe.”

  His father leaned forward and picked up the pipe and set it in the ashtray.

  Matt took two steps backwards. “Can you blame her?” he shouted. “Can you honestly blame her?”

  “No,” his dad said softly. “I can’t.”

  It all seemed so sick. Both he and his dad had slept with the same woman.

  A part of him wanted to lash out even more, wanted to whip his dad with the details of how Crystal had looked in that bathtub of blood with her hair all chopped off. He wanted to tell his father how she’d needed comfort, how her eyes had filled with tears when she’d talked about how hard it was to lose someone you love. She’d been talking about his dad. He thought about what Travis had said about Crystal’s hotshot boyfriend. “Does Travis know?”

  “Your mother, Crystal, and I agreed not to tell you or Travis.”

  “How do you think he’ll feel when he finds out?”

  “I can only guess. I’ve already disappointed too many people I care about.”

  Matt stared at him in disbelief. Disappointed? What a weak word. It sounded like he’d missed a school play or a band concert. His father didn’t have a clue. “Yeah, you care so much about disappointing Travis you aren’t even going to show up at his mother’s memorial service.” Matt spoke between nearly clenched teeth, his voice so low he barely recognized it as his own.

  His father jerked back as if he’d been slapped. “Your mother said she’d wait and let me tell you myself.”

  Matt’s eardrums thundered. He didn’t want to get his mother in trouble. When he realized he was holding his breath, he exhaled quietly. “Travis hung out here all the time. You taught him to swim in our pool. Mom used to make his Halloween costumes and take him trick-or-treating with Sedona and me. No meeting is more important than Crystal’s funeral. A woman you loved—or did you? Maybe you just used her for sex and threw her out afterwards.”

  “I think you know the real reason I won’t be there. I don’t want to put Karina through that.”

  “Did you know Crystal was pregnant?”

  “Yes,” his father said. “And I’m wondering how you knew.”

  “Maybe she told me. In case you didn’t know it, I loved Crystal, too.”

  His father stared at him, but said nothing.

  Matt dropped his gaze to the floor. “Did you break up with her on the night she died? Is that why she was so sad?”

  His dad cocked his head and gave Matt a puzzled look. “Did you go there?” He stopped himself as if he didn’t really want to know the answer.

  Matt saw what the last few days had done to his father, the toll they’d taken. His eyes were red and swollen from lack of sleep and large brown crescents hung beneath them, but Matt couldn’t stop. He paced five steps across his room and then five steps back to his desk. Despite his suspicions, Matt was leveled by his father’s confession. “Mom was the one most hurt by what you and Crystal did.” Again, Matt flashed on that night in the emergency room. “And I can guarantee you she’ll be there for Travis.”

  His dad hung his head for a moment, then looked at Matt. “Your mother is a far better person than I am. And I thought it would be easier on her if I didn’t attend.”

  “That’s bullshit. It’s not like you and Mom haven’t been together lots of times since the divorce. She and Nate even invite you over for dinner with no reason. And in case you can’t see for yourself, she’s happy with him, happier than she ever was with you.”

  The arrow hit its mark. His father’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want your mother to watch me mourn the woman she blamed for the breakup of our family.”

  Shame as well as understanding washed over Matt. He had no right to accuse his dad. At least Matt knew his father’s big secret now. Would anyone ever know Matt’s? He covered his face with his hands. They smelled like sweat and anger.

  “Does Sedona know about Crystal? Is that why she hates you so much?”

  He winced. “Neither your mother nor I told her. But I suspect she knows.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t hang around to hear any more confessions. I need to help Travis clean out the only home he’s ever known, Dad.” He drew out the word dad, made it sound long and disgusting, then grabbed the poem he’d written that morning, pivoted, and walked to the bedroom door.

  “No one is perfect, son,” his dad whispered, more to himself than to Matt. “We all have secrets.”

  Matt stopped for a moment. His father was right. At only eighteen, Matt had made some colossal mistakes, done at least two terrible things. He hurried down the hallway and across the family room, as if he could walk fast enough to leave his guilt behind him. But it tracked him as he walked, an ugly dark shadow on the carpet.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  When Matt, still shaking with anger toward his father, turned onto the dirt road leading to Travis’s house, the Mustang skidded. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and pumped the brakes. Just as he got the car under control, he spotted Detective Radhauser’s Bronco parked in front of the house across the street. The texture of the air changed and Matt’s chest tightened with the effort to breathe. Radhauser was questioning Mrs. Lawrence. He would figure out it was Matt’s dad who’d been fighting with Crystal.

  Other neighbors had likely seen his father’s car in her driveway. If he’d been having an affair with Crystal for three years, surely his Lincoln had been parked there often. It wasn’t a car people missed.

  But neither was Matt’s Mustang. The carport was on the backside of the house. One of the neighbors could have been walking in the desert and seen it in the carport last Saturday night.

  It was then Matt thought about Crystal’s pregnancy. His father had just admitted to an affair with Crystal. Of course—his dad had to be the baby’s father.

  He parked in front of Travis’s house, took a stack of boxes and a roll of packing tape from his trunk, and hurried around back. As he turned toward the deck, two doves darted out from beneath it. The air filled with the beating of wings.

  Travis sat on the edge of the deck facing the back desert.

  Matt apologized for being late, said his father wanted to talk. He wished he could tell Travis the truth, but knew it would only hurt and confuse him more. “He keeps going over the same old shit. He fucked up and the rest of us had to pay.”

  Travis shot him a look. “Your father had an affair. He made a mistake. Maybe you just learned about it, but it’s history, man. And he’s the one who ended up alone.”

  He stood and opened the sliding glass door into the kitchen. “I know you’ll think I’m a real wuss, but I couldn’t go inside by myself.”

  Matt gave Travis a soft punch to the shoulder. “I’m glad you asked me to help.” Matt walked through the door first, dumped the boxes on the kitchen counter, then followed Travis around the house while he checked out every room. After Radhauser released the house as a crime scene, the owner had hired professionals to clean the bathroom. It smelled like the sheets Matt’s mother used to hang out on the clothes tree to dry.

  When Travis stepped into Crystal’s bedroom, Matt followed.

  The room felt like it belonged in a haunted house. Matt wanted to run from it as fast as he could, but he stood behind Travis as he
stared at the items his mother had arranged on her dresser—a metal tree that held her earrings, a clay ashtray Travis had sculpted for Mother’s Day in second grade, a framed poem Matt had helped him write for Crystal’s birthday. I learned change from the ocean tides, but Mother, I learned love as a boy by your side.

  It was Crystal’s life the way she’d assembled it, and Travis seemed to have a need to pick up each object, run his hand across the surface or hold it against his chest. And every time he did, a new sliver of guilt pierced Matt’s skin. The air in the room thickened with memories and things that could never be said. Travis picked up an old framed photograph of the three of them—Justin wedged between Matt and Travis. They wore bright orange soccer uniforms smudged with dirt—the winter they’d won the state championship in the eight-year-old division.

  Three boys grinning from ear-to-ear, their newly-acquired adult teeth too large for their mouths. A time of unbridled happiness for Matt. At that moment, he had loved his life so much it hurt. He loved his beautiful young mother, his distinguished father, his funny little sister, Justin, and Travis, with a kind of fierceness he’d felt in every muscle of his body. And even the memory of it now had the power to call him back to another time, another possibility. That was the amazing thing about photographs. They proved life could be perfect, even if it was only for the split second the camera’s shutter flicked open and closed.

  Travis set the photo back on the dresser. “Remember when you wrote that paper about wanting to visit the place where the dead go?”

  Matt nodded.

  “I totally get it now, man.”

  Matt had no response. No way out of the hopelessness.

  “I’ll grab the rest of the boxes and the packing paper.” Matt hurried outside to his car. Radhauser was still parked across the street.