The Returning (19 page)

Billy looked up from the phone, smiled again. “Oh yeah! I didn’t open Beka’s gift yet.”

Rebekah’s face remained passive, Andrea noticed, as Billy put the phone aside and sifted through the piles of scattered wrapping paper to find her gift. It too was a small package, neatly wrapped in the same paper Andrea had used. Andrea scarcely had time to wonder what it was before it was there, unwrapped and cradled in Billy’s hands, but still, she couldn’t quite make it out. She knew only that it rendered Billy as motionless as stone, his brow furrowed, his eyes misty.

Slowly he looked up at his sister. “You said that little girl got the last one.”

Rebekah gave one small nod. “She did. But I had already bought this one for you and put it aside.”

Billy cupped it to his heart, shut his eyes. “It’s the best gift ever, Beka,” he whispered.

“I’m glad you like it, Billy.”

Andrea held out her hand, and Billy laid the gift in her palm. It was the nightlight Billy had told her about, the one with the picture of a little lamb painted on the front.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-EIGHT

She was studying him;
John knew that. He could feel her gaze crawling over his skin, warm and inviting.

John shifted his position restlessly in the folding chair in the basement of Grace Chapel. He glanced up at the face of Larry Gunther, Whiskey Priest. Larry was talking about something. John didn’t know what.

He was aware only of Pamela, that she was there, looking lovely, gazing intently, tormenting him.

John glanced at his watch, then realized that his right foot was tapping the concrete floor nervously. Smiling apologetically at the guy next to him, he slid his foot under the chair, willed it to stop.

He tried to tune in to the evening program. “So we’re here by popular demand tonight,” he heard Larry say, “even though it’s the Fourth of July. Thanks for your commitment and for wanting to meet. We’ll be sure to wrap this up on time so you can get home and enjoy the fireworks with your families.”

With that, John left again, turning inward to take stock of his family. He realized there would be no one at the cottage when he got home. Andrea, Billy, and Phoebe had gone over to Owen’s for a barbecue dinner with his family and a bunch of their friends. Rebekah, no longer grounded, was working at the amusement park and afterward was going to spend the night with her friend Lena Barrett.

“Let’s begin,” Larry said, “with the Serenity Prayer.”

John looked at his hands, already clenched together in his lap. The air was warm and close in the windowless room, and he found it difficult to breathe. He mouthed the words while thinking of Andrea. She’d invited him to join them at Owen’s after the meeting. “
You can get there in plenty of time for the fireworks show
,” she’d said. He’d hedged, saying he might just go on home and turn in early. The truth was, he didn’t want to go. He didn’t like being with Owen at the restaurant, and he sure didn’t want to be with him outside of the restaurant if he could help it. Owen never said much to him—but then, maybe that was the problem. His brother-in-law’s aloofness let John know he was not an appreciated member of the family.

When the prayer was finished, John told himself to go on praying. He had done little enough of that since leaving prison. He had brought his Bible home in the bottom of that plastic bag and left it in the drawer of his bedside table, unopened. It had been his very lifeline in prison, and now he never reached for it.

He remembered what Rebekah had said at dinner his first night home: “
He got that jailhouse religion. . . . Of course, it only lasts till they get out
.”

He didn’t want her to be right. Wouldn’t let her be right.
God
, he thought,
help me. Help all of us. Show me how I can bring my family back together. Show me how to be a husband and a father. And . . . Lord, I
. . .

John looked up. A man whose name he didn’t know was reading from the Big Book, and Pamela seemed to be listening. Her face was passive, though, her expression one of disinterest. John wanted to return to his prayer, but when the image of first Andrea and then Rebekah rose in his mind, he had no idea what to say. Words were too small to touch the helplessness he felt at the thought of his wife and daughter.

He tried to pull his gaze away from Pamela, but slowly, before he could succeed, she turned her head, saw him staring. She smiled. No one else would have known it was a smile, but he knew.

Dear God
, he thought. But the words were weightless, an aborted prayer, vanishing almost before the words were formed in that region of the mind where prayers are birthed.

He got through the meeting by latching on to the speaker, feigning interest, hanging on every word without comprehending a single one. He was there and not there all at once, hopelessly divided, pulled in two directions.

Afterward, as he walked home through the twilight, he breathed deeply of the warm, moist air. Only now—now that he had escaped the church basement—did his heart begin to settle, his thoughts to quiet. He wanted the woman he had left behind, but he didn’t want to want her. He’d slipped out during Larry’s closing comments to avoid her. She could only complicate things—everything he had dreamed of and lived for while in prison. He had made careful plans, had made promises to himself, had wanted somehow to make a life with the family that was waiting for him back home.

He strode forward, keeping close to the edge of the road to avoid the occasional traffic. He didn’t have far to go when a car slowed down, easing itself parallel to him, its wheels barely turning. It was a Mustang convertible, and she was behind the wheel.

“Can I give you a lift, John?” she called.

He stopped. The car stopped. She was waiting for his response.

“Uh, thanks,” he said, “but I live just down the road from here.” He pointed with a thumb. “Not far. It’s real close. I can walk.”

Pamela seemed not to notice his bumbling response but instead leaned over and opened the passenger-side door. For a fraction of a second he thought of the stranger he had picked up the night of the accident.

“
Where you going?
”

“
Anywhere
.”

“
I can take you partway
.”

“Hop in, John,” she said. “I’ll take you.”

He put his hand on the door. “I—”

She patted the seat, waved him in.

He felt as though he were stepping back and watching from a distance, even as he saw himself get into the car and pull the door shut. “I’m in the white cottage, number one-twenty-two.”

She shifted into drive, and the car moved forward. The tires spat out gravel from the side of the road and picked up speed. John watched curiously as they passed his cottage and sailed forward over the asphalt.

He almost laughed. He marveled at how easy it was to let go of all resolve. The warring was over, and he was at peace. “Where are you taking me?” he asked.

She didn’t answer right away. She seemed intent on the road. Finally she said, “Apparently I’m taking you to my place for a drink.” Her mouth drew back in a small amused smile. She turned her head, locking eyes with him. “You don’t mind, do you?”

He settled back into the seat and let her drive.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-NINE

Rebekah lay on her bed
staring up at the ceiling. She wiped at the corner of each eye with an open palm, not wanting her friend to see her cry. But it was too late.

“Listen, Beka,” Lena said, “tears are for babies and weaklings, which we are not, okay? Besides, lying there crying isn’t going to do you any good.”

“But I’m going to lose him, aren’t I?”

“Not if you listen to me and do as I say. Now get down here and give me a hand.”

Rebekah sat up and looked over the side of the bed. Lena sat cross-legged on the floor by the open closet. She wore shorts and a tank top, and her feet were bare. Her skin, browned by the sun, glowed in the flickering light of the candles lined up on the crate Rebekah used as an altar. The room was otherwise dim, as Lena had pulled down the shade and closed the curtains against the afternoon sun. Lena had also bolted the bedroom door, even though the girls were alone in the cottage. Rebekah’s father and brother were at work, and her mom had taken Phoebe to a dentist appointment in the next town over.

“What exactly are you doing?” Rebekah asked.

“Getting ready.”

“But, I mean, what’s going to happen?”

“Nothing bad. We’re just going to throw down a little wall between David and Jessica, just to make sure she stays away from him.”

“Can you make her ugly?”

Lena laughed, stopped suddenly, and narrowed her eyes. “I was going to say there’s a limit to what we can do, but I’m not so sure there is. Now get down here and help me.”

Rebekah slid off the bed and sank to the floor beside Lena. Her friend was sifting through the box of herbs and spices Rebekah had collected over the past months, bottles and bags of them.

“You got any nutmeg in here?” Lena asked.

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Good for fidelity. Ah, here it is.”

Rebekah watched as Lena added the bottle to a small pile on the floor. She looked at the pile skeptically and almost wished she hadn’t asked Lena to come over. She’d just wanted to talk, to spill her feelings to someone. She’d been crying since yesterday when she saw David with Jessica again. Jessica had been leaning casually against the wall of the pavilion. David was standing over her, one hand against the wall above her head. “
We’re just friends
,” David had sworn to Rebekah later. But friends don’t stand that close, don’t look at each other like that.

“Snap out of it, Beka,” Lena said. “You’re staring into space again.”

Rebekah shook her head. “Forget it, Lena. It’s no use.”

Lena stopped her busywork and frowned at Rebekah. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“The power you have. The power we all have.”

“I haven’t seen it work.”

“Well, I have.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Listen, haven’t I told you about Carl, the last guy my mom was dating?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I didn’t like him. He wasn’t any good for her.”

“You just don’t like your mom dating anyone.”

“She can date someone, if I approve.”

“Why is it up to you?”

“Because if she marries him, I have to live with him.”

“Okay. So what happened to Carl?”

“Well, I’m not really sure, but the point is, I got rid of him.”

“How?”

“I cast a spell,
this
spell. One night Mom and Carl were downstairs mixing up drinks and having themselves a little private party, and I was upstairs making sure it was for the last time.”

“And it was?”

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t know what happened to him?”

Lena shrugged. “He just never came back.”

“Well, you know, your mom might have really liked him.”

“She did. But I did it for her own good. Everything I do is for somebody’s good, Beka.”

Rebekah looked at her friend. As the seconds ticked by, she understood what she had only vaguely sensed before: She didn’t believe her.

And yet she wanted to.

“Listen, Beka,” Lena said slowly, emphasizing each word. “You love David, don’t you?”

Rebekah nodded.

“And you want to keep him, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s get started.”

Rebekah nodded again. She took a deep breath. She’d do whatever she had to do to keep David.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY

John sat on the top step
of the porch, a sweating glass of iced tea in his hand. He had occupied the same spot often as a boy, had sat there looking out over the water, daydreaming. He’d had so many dreams once. Nothing grandiose, nothing even very far beyond his reach. Just simple dreams of doing something with his life. Maybe owning a business, maybe designing buildings or bridges, maybe—and this was the grandest one—becoming an airline pilot and flying planes all over the world. Why not? John could do anything he put his mind to; that’s what his father had said.

He remembered once as a kid pointing toward the strange fortress across the lake and saying, “
See the Castle over there, Pop?
”

His father, sitting on the steps beside him, nodded as he squinted against the sun. “
Sure do, son
.”

“
Someday I’m going to fix it up and make it nice again
,” John had boasted. “
That’ll be mine. But I’ll make a room for you and Mom, and you can live there too. Would you like that, Pop?
”