Healed Page 11

  “But it sounds like you had some questions for me first,” Valerie said.

  “We want to know, quite simply, why you left,” Stone said.

  “Not why. How. How could you leave us?” Kyle asked.

  “We were so little,” Autumn said. “We needed you.”

  Valerie stared in front of her with glazed eyes. She reached in her bag and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. “Have you ever felt like you were living someone else’s life? Like you’d been stuck into a world you didn’t belong? Living with your father was…hard. Every time we’d get a little ahead, he’d blow his paycheck on booze. I worked ten-hour days cleaning other people’s houses, then came home and took care of you guys. I was dead inside—just going through the motions. And then I met a man who offered me a new life.” She shook a cigarette from the packet and held it between her fingers as if she expected one of them to offer a light.

  “Did you ever miss us?” Autumn’s voice trembled.

  Valerie fingered the cigarette and glanced up at the ceiling. “Every single day.”

  “Why didn’t you come back for us?” Autumn asked.

  “I’m sure I seem weak. You’ve all done so well for yourselves with so little. I wasn’t strong. I couldn’t rise above my circumstances. I lived in that dead-end town all my life. My own dad was a drunk who died in a bar fight when I was four years old. My mother was cruel and abusive. I got pregnant with Kyle at seventeen and had to marry your dad. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Red came along, and I had a chance to be something besides tired and poor and married to a drunk like my mama.”

  “You could’ve taken us with you,” Autumn said.

  “Red didn’t take to children,” Valerie said.

  Kyle was shaking his head as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing and hearing. “So you just tossed us aside and got in his black car and drove off.”

  “Cadillac. It was a Cadillac,” Valerie said under her breath.

  “You deserted three children for a man you hardly knew.” Kyle’s voice had grown in volume. His eyes glittered with hatred.

  “I knew him,” Valerie said. “I’d known him for a while.”

  “You left us. It doesn’t matter if you’d been sleeping with him for a month or a year, Mother.” Kyle spat out the word mother as if it were a vile disease. “You left your children.”

  “I didn’t murder you like some of those women do. The desperate ones.”

  All three of them stared at her in shock.

  “What I mean is, I did what I had to do. It was best for everyone. I was useless. A shell. I couldn’t seem to get out of the fog. I was depressed. I realize that now, but at the time I thought there was something wrong with me that I couldn’t love you. Your father was a drunk, but he loved you.”

  That was true. As useless as he’d been to look after them or even provide basic needs such as food and shelter, he’d never raised a voice or hand to them. He loved them as best he could. Maybe that was true of Valerie, too.

  Valerie’s hands shook. “I’d lost the ability to care for you. I was nothing but a ghost. Don’t you remember how I could barely get out of bed? I went to work cleaning the houses and then I’d come home and sleep until it was time to go to work. I understand now that I needed help. But back then all I could see was how wrong it was for me to stay. You were better off without me. I knew that without a doubt.”

  “We weren’t better off,” Kyle said. “I had to become a parent at eight years old.”

  Valerie remained silent for a moment. A myriad of emotions crossed her haggard features. Regret, defensiveness, anger, and finally a great sadness. “My own mother beat me on a regular basis. She told me I was worthless, and she wished I’d never been born. I never had the chance to learn how to be a good mother. And then my thoughts started turning ugly. I began to plan how I would do it. Suicide, I mean. One of you always needed something. Things I couldn’t give—that I didn’t know how to give. I couldn’t cope. It was better for me to leave. I thought if I left, your father would step up.”

  “He didn’t,” Kyle said. “When you left with that man, it broke him. He started drinking more.”

  “He lost his ability to work,” Stone said. “We had to take care of him.”

  “He was useless,” Kyle said. “In every way. He sucked down any paycheck he ever made. After you left, he didn’t last much longer at work. I had to get a job to support us.”

  Having taken the brunt of the responsibilities, it wasn’t surprising that his brother had no mercy for their father. Stone, however, remembered a few tender moments. The guy had tried, but life was just too much for him. He was a weak man overwhelmed with the pain of life. However, maybe if he hadn’t been weak, they wouldn’t have grown so strong?

  “Kyle raised us,” Autumn said.

  Valerie examined her hands. “I’m sorry. Truly. I’m sorry we were your parents. You deserved better.”

  For a moment that seemed like a week, no one said anything.

  “When did your father pass?” Valerie asked.

  “He died right after Autumn went to college,” Stone said. “Peacefully in his sleep.”

  “That’s something, I guess,” Valerie said.

  “I always thought so.” Stone met his mother’s eyes. A moment of sympathy passed between them. An understanding that life was often cruel, and any small mercy was a blessing. The best his father could hope for was to die in his sleep. How far he and his siblings had come from their father’s legacy.

  “He was asleep for most of his life,” Kyle said. “Why should his death be any different?”

  Valerie met Kyle’s hostile gaze with a soft murmur in the back of her throat. “I can understand why you’re angry. At both of us. We didn’t do our jobs. I’m sorry, Kyle. I wish I’d been capable of being the mother you deserved.” She cleared her throat. “As far as your dad goes—he never really had a chance. His family was poor. There weren’t diagnoses for learning disabilities…for people like us. I feel certain he was dyslexic. He could barely read. I don’t know if you knew that. His entire childhood was about shame. And shame leads to only bad places.”

  Kyle leaned forward and fixed his gaze on their mother with eyes that seemed capable of boring a hole through her head. “Do you know what the other kids called me?”

  Valerie shook her head.

  “Pig Boy,” Kyle said. “They called me Pig Boy. Do you know why? Because I smelled bad. And do you know why that was?”

  Valerie didn’t say anything, just looked at him with tired, red-rimmed eyes.

  “Because you and Dad didn’t do what you were supposed to do. You left us with a man-child. So we went to school with dirty clothes and no baths because God knows it was much better to blow an entire month’s paycheck or welfare check on booze instead of getting the hot water turned on.”

  “Kyle,” Autumn said softly.

  Kyle ignored her and kept his eyes on their mother. “What is it that you want?”

  Valerie looked at each of them in turn. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was a terrible mother. I’m sorry I left you to raise yourselves. Leaving was the only way I could survive. Red provided that chance.”

  “Was Red good to you?” Stone asked. “Did you have the life you wanted?”

  “We didn’t stay together but a few years. He left me for someone else—he couldn’t live with someone who was sad all the time. Years later, I was diagnosed with depression, and the doctors gave me medicine that helped a lot. I married again. Jason was a good man who took care of me until he got sick. He died of cancer two years ago. There was a lot of debt from his medical bills. I lost our house because of it. I have a job down at the dollar store as a clerk and live alone in a small apartment. I get by. Paycheck to paycheck, but it’s enough. I have my shows on television. I have a library card so I can read whatever I want. Sometimes my friend from work comes over to watch a movie. It’s a fine life.” Tears ran down her weathered face. “But there isn’t a day I do
n’t regret leaving you kids.”

  “Why didn’t you come back, then?” Autumn looked like the little girl she’d once been, all eyes in her wan face.

  “By the time I got myself on the depression medication, too much time had passed. I knew I wouldn’t be welcome. I’d caused you all enough turmoil without showing up again.”

  “Why now?” Kyle asked softly. Stone couldn’t be sure, but he thought his brother might be softening a smidge.

  Valerie stuck the cigarette in her mouth, then perhaps remembered where she was and plucked it out again. “I wouldn’t have bothered you, but I’m in a little trouble.”

  Here it was. The ask.

  Stone exchanged a glance with Kyle. He raised one eyebrow as if to say, I told you so.

  “One day, I saw an article in the Eugene paper about the car accident.” Valerie’s face crumpled. She sucked in a labored breath. “After I got better, I kept tabs on you three. I had a few friends still in town, and I’d call and ask for updates. You all seemed to be doing well. I learned about Kyle’s scholarship to USC, and I was so happy for you. I knew his education could be the ticket out for all three of you. Then, like I said, I saw the article about the accident. I knew those Miller people. The two who caused your accident were the sons of the Miller I went to high school with. He was a mean boy. An even meaner adult.” A darkness crossed her face. “When we were in high school, I had some trouble with him.”

  “Trouble?” Autumn asked.

  “The worst kind of trouble. When I was fourteen—at a party. Well, anyway, you can fill in the blanks.”

  Autumn made a sound like a wounded animal.

  “I hated that whole family before, but after I heard what they’d done to you, it was like I went temporarily insane. Autumn, you were the same age as I was when…the thing happened. Maybe that was part of it, but I couldn’t stop thinking about revenge.”

  Stone held his breath. Where was she going with this? Why would she bring up the car accident?

  “We don’t talk about that night,” Stone said.

  Autumn’s pretty features had turned stony. When she spoke, her voice was level and firm. “When we all found one another again, we talked it all through. We came to terms with what happened and agreed that we would no longer let it define the direction of our lives or our family. We have nothing else to say about it. We’ve moved on. Together.”

  He’d do almost anything to avoid talking about the incident that had torn them apart. As Autumn said, when she and Stone had found Kyle, they’d hashed it all out and come to an understanding. Kyle had felt the accident was his fault. The guilt ate at him—made him believe they were better off without him. Except for sending money regularly, he dropped out of their lives for twelve years. He even changed his last name from Hickman to Hicks.

  Now, though, the memory of that night wedged into his rapid thoughts. Stone had been home trying to patch a hole in the roof of their trailer in the rain. The downpour had gone on for weeks and ravaged the house. While he worked, Kyle and Autumn had gone into town for groceries. Coming out of the grocery store, they’d run into the Miller brothers.

  The Miller boys had been violent bullies since grade school. For years, Kyle was their target. When Stone was fourteen, he beat the bullies within an inch of their life. The bullying of Kyle had stopped. However, from then on, they had a vendetta against the Hickman siblings. Stone had known it was only a matter of time before they tried something. That night, they did.

  They’d approached Kyle and Autumn in the parking lot of the grocery store. Drunk. One of them had tried to grab Autumn—threatened to have their way with her. Kyle had managed to shove them to the ground and get her into the car. He’d torn out of the lot and down the highway. The Miller brothers had chased them. The roads were slick. Speeds were high. A collision happened. Autumn was badly hurt.

  The Miller brothers had caused the accident that scarred them all for life.

  “Those young men were terrible people,” Valerie said.

  “We know.” Kyle’s mouth twisted bitterly.

  “They died in a house fire,” Valerie said, as if that might be news to them.

  “We know that too,” Kyle said.

  “I set that fire.” Valerie lifted her gaze to peer at each of them in turn and continued, so softly he had to lean closer to hear her. “I knew we’d never get justice for what they did to my little girl. So I took care of it.”

  They all stared at her.

  A hot iron rod pierced Stone’s chest.

  Their mother had set the fire. She’d covered the house in gasoline and tossed a match onto the porch and let the entire thing burn to the ground. The Miller brothers had been asleep in the front room. Cops surmised they’d been passed out from a bender, given the booze bottles in the same room where they died.

  Stone couldn’t breathe. His stomach clenched. He thought he might be sick.

  “You set the fire?” Autumn whispered. “They knew it was arson. The cops investigated Dad, but he had an alibi. He was at the bar with the other regulars. Stone was at school. His teachers vouched for him. I was at physical therapy. Kyle was already away at college. They told us it would probably remain unsolved. Which it did.”

  “Not that we cared,” Stone said, finding his voice, but keeping it low, aware that Mary was downstairs. “Autumn and I were just relieved it wasn’t Dad.” He’d experienced several days of terror, worried the old man had set fire to the house in a drunken rage. Who would have ever guessed it was their absent mother? Not him.

  Valerie straightened, and for a split second Stone saw Kyle in the angry tilt of her chin. “I made sure you all had alibis. I’d do it again. Those pigs didn’t deserve to live.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Stone said, gently. He didn’t think anyone could hear them and the bookstore was mostly empty, but the clandestine nature of their discussion worried him.

  Kyle had not moved or taken his eyes off their mother. “You set the fire. You killed the Miller brothers.”

  “For vengeance,” Autumn said.

  “I figured by now no one would ever know it was me. Turns out someone did. Someone does.” Valerie set aside her cigarette. “Or at least that’s what they want me to believe.” She dug into the inner pocket of her jean jacket and pulled out an envelope. “I got this in the mail.” She handed it to Stone. It was addressed to Valerie Hickman from Cathy Kemper.

  The letter inside had been crumpled and then smoothed. He uncurled it from its trifold. It was a typed letter on ordinary computer paper.

  Dear Valerie,

  I’m not sure you’ll recognize my name, so I’ll explain who I am. My mother was your friend Trish Kemper. She passed away last month. Before she died, she wrote down a confession about her part in the fire you set. She felt a lot of guilt about the murder of two young men. I’m prepared to go to my own grave with the knowledge, but it’s going to cost you. Around here, it’s real well known that your son Kyle is rich. If you want me to stay quiet, he needs to send a cashier’s check for five hundred thousand dollars. Real simple. Either he sends me the money, or I go to the police with what I know.

  Please email me at cathyk@dmail.com to let me know you’ve received this letter and when I can expect my check.

  Sincerely,

  Cathy

  The letter fluttered from his hands and landed on his lap. With shaking hands, he gave it to Autumn, who read it, then passed it to Kyle.

  “This is extortion,” Kyle said. “We’ll go to the police.”

  “If it’s the police, they’ll know what happened and arrest her,” Autumn said.

  “What did this Trish Kemper do to help you?” Stone asked Valerie.

  “Nothing really, other than she told me where you would all be. I waited until Kyle was away at college. And she told me your routines. Where you would be certain times of the day…” She trailed off, looking defeated. “I never actually told her what I was going to do, but she must have come to her own conclusions a
fter the news broke.”

  “What should we do?” Autumn asked Kyle.

  Kyle crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not giving this woman a dime. If I do, she’ll come back for more. That’s how these things work. We have to figure out a different way to get rid of her.”

  Valerie was shaking her head vigorously. “No, you’ve misunderstood. I don’t want you to pay the money. I came here to tell you what happened—to explain myself—before I turn myself in.”

  “What? No,” Autumn said. “Those people have already taken enough from us. You’re not spending the rest of your life in jail.”

  Valerie started to cry, silently. Stone handed her a napkin from under his coffee cup. His chest ached. Despite the past, this woman was their mother. She was so skinny and fragile. He hated to see her cry. She’d obviously had crippling depression, which explained why she left them. He couldn’t help but see the parallels between Kyle and their mother. They’d both thought Autumn and Stone were better off without them. As far as whether she loved them or not—murdering the Miller brothers was certainly a crime of passion.

  He tried to conjure remorse for the Miller brothers, but nothing came. All he could see were their mean, beady eyes and bloodied noses. They’d trapped Kyle under the bleachers by the football field. When Stone found them, he’d pummeled them without mercy, fueled by a rage born from years of his brother’s slouched shoulders and fearful eyes. One of them had looked up at him from the ground where they lay sprawled. “You can’t protect that virgin sister of yours every moment.” He’d raised his foot to bash in their teeth. Right then, the truant officer had come out the back doors of the high school. Stone and Kyle had run.

  For the next two years he had kept a close watch on Autumn. Either he or Kyle was with her when she wanted to go into town. They made sure she went straight home after school. Kyle would bring her into the diner while he worked as a busboy if Stone had to be somewhere in the afternoons.