Shadow in Serenity (23 page)

But she couldn’t tell her father that what she’d given him was more personal than money.

“Then it shouldn’t matter what he took from everybody else. They probably deserved it.”

For a moment, she stared at her father, the man to whom she’d been so loyal all her life. “Pop, I’ve defended you for years and told myself that you did have a conscience. That you weren’t just out for yourself. I’ve even fooled myself into believing you did it for me. To feed your family. To survive. And I let myself think that about Logan Brisco too. But you know what, Pop? We can con
ourselves
better than anybody. All the alibis and excuses and justifications … they’re nothing but scams we turn on ourselves.”

“You don’t believe that, Carny.” Her father got up and went to the small refrigerator.

“Yes, I do, Pop. The truth is that
nobody
deserves to have their pride trampled, or their trust destroyed, or their innocence mocked. Nobody deserves to wake up one day and find out that they’ve been nothing but a sick pawn in a greedy power game!”

“I’m not buying that he didn’t con you too,” Dooley said. “He stung you somehow, so you came home to take it out on us.”

Lila touched his arm to calm him. “It’s all right. That’s what parents are for.”

Carny wanted to laugh, but it wasn’t funny. Instead, the tears fell faster. “I didn’t come home to take anything out on you. I came because I needed a time-out. But I’m so tired of all the lies, Pop. Aren’t you tired of them?”

“I told you we’re trying to retire, Carny. We’re doing the best we can. We always have.”

But that was just another lie.

Wearily, she got up and covered Jason on the little sofa bed she had slept on as a child. Wiping her face, she said, “I’m gonna go say good night to Ruth. I’ll be back in a little while.”

“We’ll have your pallet ready,” her mother said quietly, sounding relieved that this uncomfortable conversation was over. Lila had never liked for Carny to make a scene, unless it had been rehearsed.

Outside the trailer, Carny reached into her purse for her phone. She had turned it off in the plane today, as she always did, and after landing she’d decided not to turn it back on. Dreading what she would find, she pushed the power button. Eight messages came up. Three from her in-laws and Joey … and one from Logan.

She stopped between trailers and listened to her voice mail.

The first was from J.R. “Carny, what’s with the decision to take off without sayin’ goodbye? Call us when you can and let us know when you’ll be back.”

She heard the beep, and Joey’s voice came up. “Carny, you didn’t send the picture. I still need it. If Logan hasn’t broken a law yet, I can’t just go after him. But if I can get the picture to the FBI, they might have something on him. Call me.”

She sighed. She’d run off without thinking about that stupid picture. But now it would have to wait — it was on her camera at home.

Finally came Logan’s voice. “Hey, Carny. Listen, I know I said I’d be in church today, but I got a call this morning and I had to go to Dallas. Call me and I’ll tell you about it. I was thinking that maybe spilling my guts isn’t the right approach just yet.”

She couldn’t stand it. Fighting the urge to throw her phone, she deleted the rest of the message and turned the phone off. So he was still at it, wheeling and dealing, with no mention of his supposed change of heart and his newfound commitment to God. Had he forgotten, or was it even true? Had he only told her what she wanted to hear?

His profession of love was a lie too, just another game.

Fuming, Carny trekked across the fairgrounds to where Ruth’s motor home was parked. The lights were still on; Ruth was probably on her computer.

She knocked softly, and heard Ruth say, “Come in.”

As she stepped through the double doors, specially designed for Ruth’s massive frame, Carny felt a truer sense of home. But the trailer didn’t look quite the same. Ruth had upgraded with the latest computer equipment. Several recent-model computers were lined up on a long built-in desk against the wall — the same desk where Carny had
gotten her education, where she’d spent so many hours as a child, where she’d found someone to confide in, where she’d felt most accepted and welcomed. She wondered if that little girl she’d seen sitting on the steps of the Duck Shoot was one of Ruth’s students now. She hoped so. The child probably needed someone like Ruth in her life.

“Hey, baby,” Ruth said from the love seat that her huge body filled. “I was hoping you’d stop by. Are you ready to tell me what’s bothering you now?”

Carny smiled and wiped the fresh tears under her eyes. “What makes you think anything’s bothering me?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Those tears mean something. Besides, you wouldn’t have brought your baby here if you hadn’t really needed to come home.”

Carny dropped opposite her onto Ruth’s couch and pulled her knees up.

“Your heart is broken, girl,” Ruth said. “I can see it. Don’t forget, I’m the one whose lap you used to sit on, when you were shorter than a yardstick, crying and not knowing why. But I always knew.”

“You did, didn’t you, Ruth?”

Ruth chuckled, the sweet sound warming Carny’s heart. “Don’t blame your folks, child. They do the best they can.”

“So they say,” she whispered. “But the truth is, they should have never had a child.”

“Probably not. But I’m awful glad they did.”

Getting up, Carny went to sit on the arm of the love seat and hugged the woman who seemed to grow bigger each year. “I always wished you were my mother,” she said.

Ruth laughed. “Imagine me as a mother. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?”

“No,” Carny said seriously. “Not at all. You were probably the only one I really missed when I left the carnival.”

“And I missed you like crazy too,” Ruth said, “but I was awfully glad for you. I had big hopes for your happiness. You haven’t let me down, have you?”

“No,” she said. “I’ve been happy. Really happy. It’s just lately …”

“You fell in love with him, didn’t you, baby?”

Carny’s shoulders slumped. Wearily, she went back to the couch. Resting her elbows on her thighs, she stared at the floor. “Yes, I did. It’s got to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. Besides marrying Abe.”

“I didn’t blame you for marrying Abe,” Ruth told her. “He was your escape. You were nothing but a child then, but you’re grown now. To fall in love with a flimflam man, when you’d found such happiness there with decent folk … I don’t know, Carny. It doesn’t sound like you.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Carny said. “Ruth, I’ve thought and thought about this. Did I fall in love with him because he’s so much like Pop? Would my subconscious deliberately seek out someone who led the very lifestyle I hated?”

“Maybe you’ve been bored in that little town, child. There’s a lot of gypsy in you. Maybe part of you misses the excitement. Maybe that’s what he represented.”

Carny found that explanation unsettling. “That would mean I deserved it. That I invited it. Just like Pop said.”

“Dooley told you that?”

“Well, not about Brisco. But that’s his general contention about all marks. And that’s just what I am. Brisco’s mark. Only I
didn’t
ask for it, Ruth.”

“Are you saying that you don’t still have a wanderlust? A need for excitement?” When Carny hesitated, Ruth went on, “Then explain the plane you fly, and the bungee-jumping you wrote me about, and the motorcycle you ride around town. I remember you as a little girl, child. I know you.”

“But that doesn’t mean I haven’t put the lies and deceit and all the ugliness behind me, Ruth. And it doesn’t mean that I’d go looking for it again. I’ve made a good life for Jason and me.” She got up and walked into the kitchen area, leaned against the counter. “Ruth, everything changed for me in Serenity. I went to church there, and Brother Tommy told me I could start fresh. He made me believe that whatever I’d done and whatever I’d been in the past could be wiped clean.” She went back to the couch, and sat facing Ruth. “Everything changed.
I
changed.”

“And then you turned into my teacher and told me all about it,” Ruth said. “And I changed, too.”

“Everybody there loved me, because that’s what they do. They love.” Her voice broke. “So if I finally had what I’d always wanted, why did Logan make me want more?”

Ruth shook her head. “Something about him made you want to believe. Something inside you needed what he had.”

“Then what does that say about me?”

“It says that you’re just as human as anybody else, child. And that you’re not so tough. That’s why people like Dooley and Lila keep getting away with the same scams. They paint pictures of hopes and dreams. They make hard people trust.”

Carny leaned forward. “The crazy thing is, when I think of Logan the way he was last night, I don’t see signs of the lies I saw before. He sounded so sincere. He told me what he really was, confessed everything. He said he wanted to change. Ruth, he told me he’d prayed … that God had washed him clean too. It sounded so real. He was going to confess to the people in church today …” Her voice cracked. “But he didn’t. He checked out of his motel and left town.” The tears made a second assault, and her face warmed as she pressed it into her hands. “Ruth, I really believed him.
But it doesn’t matter what I believed. He’s gone. He’s still got their money. I tried to tell everybody, but they wouldn’t listen. And why should they, when I was eating out of his hand too?”

She looked up. Ruth held her gaze for a long moment, processing everything she’d told her. “Maybe he’ll come back.”

“What?”

“If you believed him that much, and if all you say about him is true, I can’t help thinking that maybe it’s not over. It’s just hard for me to believe you could be taken that way, girl. You’re a good judge of people. Maybe you weren’t wrong about him. Maybe it’s not over yet.”

Carny sniffed back the pain that threatened to smother her and whispered, “Trust me, it’s over. He left a message that he was rethinking telling the town the truth. That’s not surrender to God. He’s still playing the game. He didn’t mean any of it.”

“It’s hard to change, baby. Maybe he just lost his nerve. Maybe he needs more time to do the right thing.”

Carny wouldn’t give him more time. She wouldn’t be taken again.

Back at her parents’ trailer, she tried to get comfortable on her pallet. But Logan’s words last night reeled through her mind, keeping her awake. Disappointment in him ached through her, but her disappointment in herself hurt worst of all.

She realized as she lay awake on the floor of the trailer she had been so eager to leave years ago, with her sweet, innocent little boy lying on the bed where she used to sleep, that it didn’t matter who she had been. Ruth’s affirming words had helped. In the end, it came down to whether she could look herself in the mirror each morning and know that she’d done the best she could.

She was strong, and she had survived before. She’d get over this, just like the town would. It wouldn’t be easy, and it would take time for her to heal. But she had too much going for her to let someone like Logan Brisco rob her of her spirit or the joy in her life.

After a sleepless night, dawn invaded the room, lighting the old trailer with gray tones, and Carny asked herself the final question that kept eating at her.

Why couldn’t she hate him?

That was the ultimate punch line of his con. That no matter what he did to her, she couldn’t hate him. He was the first person since Abe who had made her fall in love. And that part wouldn’t be easy to get over.

Jason stirred and turned over. “Mom? Can we ride the roller coaster today?”

Smiling, she told herself she could get by as long as she had Jason. “Sure, honey.”

“Can we stay here a long time?”

“Maybe a couple more days,” she said. “Until they tear down.”

“Really? We don’t have to rush back home?”

“No,” she whispered. “I’m in no hurry to get back home.”

T
hey had been with the carnival for three days when Carny began to sense something in her father that she hadn’t seen before. It was the integrity of a grandfather, and the dignity of an older and supposedly wiser man, trying to pass some of his experience on to a third generation.

Finally feeling that Jason would be safe with her parents, she allowed them to take him around the carnival as they handled the myriad details that had to be attended to each day before the gates opened. She watched her parents revel in the chance to entertain their grandson, and felt for the first time that the lessons he could learn here might not be all bad.

She also realized that, despite their lifestyle, she loved her parents. And in their own peculiar way, they loved her.

“Do you think a man who lies for a living can ever be trusted?” she asked Ruth as they watched Jason drive her parents off behind the wheel of the golf cart.

“Do you mean Logan?”

“I guess,” she said. “Although I was thinking of Pop.”

“Oh, come on,” Ruth said. “You trust your father. You know he’d never do anything to hurt you or Jason. He does love you, and so does your mother.”

“I know,” she said. “And that’s what makes me wonder
about Logan. Do you think that maybe Logan loved me too, in his way?”

“Of course I’ve never met him,” Ruth said, “but I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. I suspect he did. And leaving probably caused him as much grief as it caused you.”

“How do you figure that?”

Ruth shrugged her wide shoulders. “Well, honey, if a man couldn’t change, if he only knew the kind of life where you had to cheat and lie to get by, maybe the last thing on earth he’d want to do is fall in love. Maybe that’s why he left. Love was about to make him do things he was afraid to do.”

Carny fought back the tears threatening her again and said, “He told me I deserved an honorable man.’ “ Swallowing, she said, “I felt in my soul that he meant it.”

“Then I’m sure he did, honey. Maybe he’s more noble than you think.”

“But he backed away from his commitment to confess. He went back to his wheeling and dealing.”

“Maybe it was too much for him all at once. People with lots of sins stacked up sometimes can’t imagine life as a new person.”

Later, when Ruth was tutoring a pair of carnival twins, Carny went to the Ferris wheel. She rode it alone, and when it lingered at the top, giving her a view of the world of her childhood — a view that should have made things clear to her — she remembered Logan’s words again.
You deserve an honorable man.

He
had
meant it. She knew he had. And as crooked as he might have been when he’d come to town, something had changed in him. But it wasn’t enough.

As the sun set, she wept in her lonesome seat in the double Ferris wheel. She wept for all the dreams she’d had as a
child, walking alone down a midway teeming with families. She wept for the broken heart she kept having to mend, even after vowing it would never be exposed again. She wept for the hopes Logan had tricked her into embracing, when she’d known better all along.

“Jesus,” she whispered, “you’re plenty for me. Please help me stop wanting things I can’t have.”

The Ferris wheel came to a stop while the jockey let off some passengers, and she looked down at the lights blinking beneath her. She listened to the clashing sounds of the rock music at the Himalayan, and the twangy country music at the Bucking-Bronco-Bull ride, and the dubbed voice at the House of Wonders. It all reminded her of a childhood full of chaos and longing, where roots weren’t allowed to grow and friendships were never planted. A youth where trust was never cultivated, and life was an endless pursuit of something that didn’t exist.

That night, when she was back in Ruth’s trailer, Carny came to a sudden realization.

“He did give me something I needed,” she whispered.

Ruth’s fingers stopped on her computer keyboard. “What would that be, baby?”

“He reminded me that I could fall in love. And that I’m not invincible. That, after all these years of standing on my own, of insisting that I didn’t need anyone, maybe I really did, after all.”

“You don’t
need
anyone, Carny. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting someone.” Ruth turned her body around on the bench she sat on. “Look at me, honey. I weigh more than anybody I’ve ever met. I can hardly get up to walk across the room. For years, I made a living getting gawked at all day. But at night, when it’s late and dark and cold in this trailer, I sometimes wish …”

Carny waited, but Ruth didn’t seem able to say the words. “What, Ruth? What do you wish?”

Ruth’s eyes filled with tears, and she blinked them away. “Oh, baby, I want more for you than I have. And you do have more. You have that little boy. But you should have even more. You deserve so much. And there’s not one thing wrong with your wanting someone to hold you at night.”

Carny wiped the tear stealing down her face. “It makes me feel weak. It sets me up to fall.”

“I don’t know what’s worse, baby. Never getting off the ground at all, or taking off and falling. Personally, I think I’d choose to make the memories. Maybe there’s an ending you haven’t predicted yet, child. Maybe your story’s ending is a happy one.”

“No, Ruth. I don’t think so. How can I ever let myself be vulnerable again?”

“I believe you will, Carny. And when you do, it’ll be all right.”

But Carny wasn’t convinced. She went back to her parents’ trailer, slid onto the small bed with her son, and held him close as she slept that night.

When a week had passed, and the carnies were tearing down, preparing to head to California, Carny couldn’t avoid it any longer. It was time to go back to Serenity. Time to confront the disappointment in the faces of her friends. Time to admit that she’d been as big a fool as they’d been.

They waited until all the rides had been dismembered, until all the booths had been loaded onto their trailers, until there was nothing left but concrete and tar. Finally, Carny saw the wistful look on Jason’s young face. “It’s all gone,” he said softly. “And it happened so fast. Like magic. Only in reverse.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“The best part came first. And then there was … just nothing.”

His words were truer and more profound than he knew, and they left an ache in her heart. Yes, the best part did come first, and when it was gone, it left only dust and garbage. But the imprint of it on their minds remained.