Unspeakable (54 page)

No one moved or spoke for a long time. Like strangers in an elevator, they avoided eye contact and conversation. Anything said now would have sounded banal, but perhaps the silence was even more uncomfortable.

It stretched on interminably until Jack finally spoke after loudly clearing his throat. "I was afraid to drop the knife in the river, afraid that it would be dragged for evidence. So I kept it. At first from fear of getting caught. Later as a talisman. It was a constant reminder of what I was capable of, and it frightened me. I couldn't number the times since that night that I wanted to throw it away, but, in a twisted sort of way, keeping it protected me from ever having to use it again. I couldn't even use it yesterday against Herbold until I absolutely had no choice."

"You had no choice that night, either, Johnny," Ezzy said quietly. "You acted in self-defense."

"Did I?" he asked on a bitter laugh. "I'd like to think so, but I'm not sure. I was younger and stronger than him. Maybe I could have eventually worn him down and talked sense into him. Or outrun him. Could I have done anything else? Honestly, I don't know.

"But not a day goes by that I don't ask myself if it was necessary to kill him. All I know with certainty is that when I drove that blade into him, I wanted him to die."

"So would anybody who was fighting for his life."

Jack looked at him a moment, then lowered his eyes noncommittally.

"What did you do with him?"

"Dragged him downstream. I waded for hours, towing him. When it was almost daylight, I pulled him ashore and dug a hole in the woods, using my bare hands. I covered it with boulders. I guess he's still there. It took me all the next day to make it back home. Then I slept for almost twentyfour hours. I was packing to leave when you showed up at our door asking questions about Patsy McCorkle. I was so scared I'm surprised you couldn't hear my knees knocking."

"You were only a boy, Johnny."

"I was old enough. Old enough to know I needed to get the hell out of Blewer before somebody started missing my daddy. I settled all our accounts in town, dropped off our rent with the landlord, told him we were moving and didn't know where, and hopped a freight train that night.

"I haven't stopped, not really, until now. Always looking over my shoulder. Never let myself stay in one place too long. Never formed any attachments I couldn't walk away from on short notice." He looked at Anna, then glanced away as though he dreaded seeing the effect his story had had on her. "When I heard Carl had escaped, I knew it was time to pay the piper. I risked my freedom coming back, but I wasn't really free, anyway."

Ezzy sat for a long time, contemplating the pattern in the linoleum, before painfully coming to his feet. "Well, you got Carl Herbold, and that's made you a hero. As for the other, I'm not a law officer anymore. This was strictly off the record. You've done more for me than you know, Johnny. Sorry... Jack. I'm satisfied just knowing what happened. It was a long time ago. In the grand scheme of things, I guess it doesn't matter how it happened."

"It matters to me," Jack declared, surprising him. "That night changed my life, but not forever. Not unless I choose to let it, and I no longer do. If I'd told the truth, neither you nor Delray would have held his stepsons responsible for that girl's death. Things might have been different between them."

"They were bad boys, Jack. Nothing would have made things right between them."

"In any case, he wouldn't have lived under Carl's death threat," he argued. "Anna and David's lives wouldn't have been in jeopardy yesterday." He shook his head stubbornly. "No, Ezzy, I caused a lot of people a great deal of pain—you included—because of what I did and didn't do.

"Any way you label it, I killed my father. I want the guilt off my back once and for all. This halfbaked confession to you isn't going to do it. Put it into the system. Run it through all the proper legal channels, whatever that entails. Arrest. Jail. Grand jury. Trial. Whatever. I want it finished."

***

"What do you mean you don't know where he is? Are you in the habit of losing patients? Who's in charge? I want my husband found, and I want him found now."

Down the hall at the nurses' station, Cora was giving them hell. The timid young nurse who knew about Ezzy's escape from his room was pretending to be engrossed in a file.

"Cora?"

At the sound of his voice, she turned. Despite the blistering lecture she was giving the hospital staff, she looked on the verge of cracking. When she saw him, her chin began to tremble. She clamped her lips together to keep them still, although the tears standing in her eyes were a dead giveaway that she was about to cry, and not for the first time.

He rolled his squeaky IV stand along, wishing he looked and felt more like a man and less like a relic. Seeing her for the first time since she left, he would have preferred to be clean-shaven, fully dressed, and looking like a stud. Instead his legs looked like hairy, bleached toothpicks. His feet were pale and veiny and his toenails probably needed cutting. In this silly ass-baring gown he didn't cut a very dashing figure.

In spite of all that, she seemed damn glad to see him. She hurried down the hall toward him but pulled up just short of touching him. "They called me last night and told me what happened." That was all she could manage before she lost control of her lower lip again.

"You back?" he asked.

"If you want me."

"I always did."

He opened his arms and she stepped into them. She would learn all about the Herbolds from the media blitz the story was getting, especially since the bodies of Cecil and Connie had been discovered. There would be time later to fill her in on Jack Sawyer's story, and to impress upon her how different their life would be now that the mystery of that summer night had been solved for him.

He would file the confession as Sawyer had requested. But if he knew Cora, she would argue that John Sawyer, Jr., had been merely a boy in an extremely unfortunate situation, and that he deserved mercy, not punishment, especially since he had killed public enemy number one and saved Ezzy's life, and that if there was an inquest, Ezzy should testify on Sawyer's behalf, and that they should invite him and Anna Corbett to their house for dinner to demonstrate their unwavering support.

She would probably be surprised when he agreed with her.

But all that could wait. For now, he simply hugged her tightly, loving her, and loving the feeling of being whole again.

***

With dread, Jack dragged his eyes up to Anna's face. He smiled sadly and raised one shoulder in a sheepish shrug. "You once asked me for my story. Now you know why I was reluctant to tell it. And I just want to say, well, that it meant a hell of a lot to me that my history didn't seem to matter to you when, you know... when we were together. That you were so accepting of me. That for a little while you loved me." He nodded toward the door. "But you're under no obligation to me, Anna. You walk out, I'll understand. You'll never see me again." Anna responded in the language she was most comfortable with. She began to sign. " I askedwhat your story was because I wanted to know you, Jack, not judge you. It's an unhappy story,and I hate that for you. But it doesn't change how I feel about you. In fact, it makes me love youmore. It makes me want to give you unlimited happiness because you've had so little.

" I don't believe that you'll be charged with the death of your father. Not after saving all our livesyesterday. But if you are, I'll be right there with you every step of the way. I'll stand by you nomatter what happens because... because you love me. Me, " she repeated, pressing her chest.

" My parents' love was tinged with guilt. Two hearing people had a deaf child. They blamedthemselves. They wondered what sin they had committed that was so bad their child waspunished with deafness.

" I know Dean loved me. If he had lived we would have had a wonderful life together. But helooked upon my handicap as an enemy we must battle. He was willing to fight it, but because hefelt it was something that needed to be fought, I knew he hated it.

" Delray loved me too. At least in his own mind he did. But his love was... was choking. No, notchoking. A word like that. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't be what I wanted to be.

" My parents felt responsible for my deafness. Dean wanted to defeat it. Delray took advantage ofit. But with you, Jack, it has made no difference. None. You accept it as part of me. That's why Ilove you.

" That's the main reason. There are others. I love you for caring about David. That's no smallthing. I could never fall in love with a man who didn't also love my son. I know your affection forhim is real and honest.

" I also desire you. Every hour of the day I think about making love to you. My fantasies make mehot. I had them before... but certainly now that I know what it's like to be with you. I tingle.Here." She touched her breasts, her lower tummy.

" I look at you, and my heart beats faster. I think about you, and I can't catch my breath. Youtouch me, and this... this wonderful feeling bubbles up inside me and I want to laugh and cry atthe same time. I can't contain the feeling. I think it's joy. Joy. Because even though we're facingdifficult times, I'm happier than I've ever been. You've made me happy because you love me.

" You'll try and talk me out of staying with you. I know you. You'll say that you've brought Davidand me nothing but trouble. You're wrong. I knew there was much missing from our lives, but Ididn't know what it was until I saw you. And then I knew. We need you even more than you needus. Let us be your family, the one you never had.

" If you want us, we want you. If you want me, I want you. Flaws and all, if you take me, I takeyou. I love you, Jack."

Holding his eyes with hers, she lowered her hands to her lap and was still. Jack hadn't taken his eyes off her face. He had read the words as her lips formed them, searched her eyes for meaning, evaluated inflections by her changing expressions. To him her speech had looked like a graceful ballet, rife with emotion, conveying her innermost thoughts and emotions, her fingertips acting as an extension of her soul. He had no idea what she had said, but he knew what she had communicated.

He reached for her hands, kissed them in turn, then pressed them tightly between his. He didn't speak.

After her eloquent profession of love, any spoken language would have been superfluous.