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I thought I didn’t believe in fate, but maybe fate doesn’t care what you believe. Because this final, awful result seems inevitable. For all my fleet-footed games of bob and weave, all the ways I tried to avoid the carnage in front of me, it came to pass anyway. Perhaps it was set in motion long ago: when one man wrested power from another; when two children fell in love and weren’t allowed to be together; when my mother looped a length of rope over the branch of an oak tree and tightened a noose around her neck.
My father’s blood mingles with President Lattimer’s, runs in rivulets through the pristine white snow that is still falling, until it forms a single river. Impossible to tell which is Westfall and which is Lattimer. I’m as frozen as the air, unable to move toward my father, unwilling to risk reaching for Bishop only to see him pull away. So I simply stand, hands curled around the iron railing and watch the snow drift down, watch the flakes turn to bloody ice on the bodies of our fathers.
Chapter Twenty
I hear a crow calling overhead, the whistle of wind through the snow-laden branches. But other sounds are distant. A knot of policemen is moving up the driveway and while their mouths are open, I can’t make sense of what they’re saying, don’t want to bother trying. When the first policeman reaches me, he grabs my arms, pulls my hands behind my back with a little too much force. I don’t resist, can’t bring myself to care about what they might do to me.
“Let her go,” Bishop says, the first words that have actually reached my ears since our fathers fell. Bishop is still sitting on the steps. He looks boneless; even his voice lacks any sort of force.
One of the policemen has stepped up onto the porch and is trying to gently pull Mrs. Lattimer away from the president’s body. “Mrs. Lattimer,” he says, “what do you want us to do with her?” He jerks his head in my direction. “Ivy Westfall?”
Erin doesn’t get up, only turns her head to look at me. There is a smear of blood across her cheek. She looks very young in her grief, lost and alone.
“What should we do with her?” the policeman repeats.
A whole kaleidoscope of emotions passes across Erin’s face: pain, sorrow, anger, disgust, exhaustion. I’m not sure which one is going to win. Bishop must see it, too, because before Erin can reply, he stands, hauling himself upright with both hands wrapped around the railing. “I swear to God, Mom,” he says, voice tight. “After all this”—his arm sweeps the carnage on the porch—“if you don’t do the right thing here…” He is fighting for me, but he is still not looking at me, and my heart drums an insistent, mournful beat.
Erin pushes herself up a little at the sound of Bishop’s voice, swivels her head in his direction. She must want vengeance of her own now. How can she not? And I’m the only person available from whom she can extract it. Bishop stares at his mother, his jaw clenched and his chest heaving with tears I know he is trying not to spill. Not here in front of strangers.
“Don’t do anything with her,” Erin says finally. “Let her go, like Bishop said. Just…let her go.”
The policeman releases my arms, but I don’t move. In some ways, the inside of a cell would have been a relief. I glance back at the fence and see that the people gathered there have not moved. Some are weeping, others are grouped in tiny circles, talking. All the earlier tension is muted, as if the deaths of President Lattimer and my father shocked the anger away, left both sides empty of anything but uncertainty.
Bishop walks down the steps. “I don’t want anyone else hurt,” he says. “Try to get people to go home, keep things calm, but don’t use those guns. We need to diffuse the situation, not make it worse.”
“Are you in charge now?” one of the policemen asks. “Or your mother?” No one seems to question the idea of another Lattimer taking over, same as it’s always been.
Bishop looks over his shoulder at his mother, still curled over President Lattimer’s body. “Me. For now. But I’m going to want input from all sides. Tell people to gather in city hall tomorrow at noon. Everyone is welcome. We have to start figuring out how to put Westfall back together.”
The policemen nod, then head down the driveway to begin dispersing the crowd. Bishop follows them for a few steps before veering off across the lawn toward Caleb and Ash. When he reaches them, Ash throws her arms around his neck, and Bishop hugs her back. They stay that way for a moment before Bishop turns to Caleb, pulls him into the same warm embrace. I pivot away, back toward the porch. My father’s eyes are open, flat and dark. I wish someone would close them.
“Ivy,” a voice says from behind me, something heavy landing across my upper back. An arm, I think, maybe. It’s too much work to concentrate. “Come on.” There’s pressure on my shoulder and I give in to it, allow myself to be turned. “Come on,” Ash repeats gently.
“Where are we going?” I ask her. “My father…”
Ash keeps guiding me, and I keep following her. “Somewhere warm. And they’ll take care of your father.” A tear slips down her face. I wish one would slip down mine. “And Bishop’s father, too. Don’t worry.”
Bishop and Caleb are walking ahead of us, the crossbow swinging on Caleb’s back. Bishop has picked up his rifle again, slung it in its familiar position over his shoulder. “I don’t…I don’t blame Caleb,” I say. Even my mouth feels numb, my lips working hard to form the most simple words.
“I know,” Ash says. “He knows, too.”
I don’t pay attention to where we’re going, not noticing the path we’re taking until we’re on the walkway to the house Bishop and I shared after our marriage. I stumble on the sidewalk. “Why here?” I ask, loud enough for Bishop to hear.
He stops, his eyes meeting mine for the first time since my father pulled the trigger. I can’t tell if he’s looking at me or through me. “Because there’s nowhere else to go.”
Bishop finds the spare key where we left it hidden on the front porch and unlocks the door. I climb the steps and go inside. The house smells musty and abandoned. I stand in the middle of the living room like a statue, while everyone else moves around me. A pair of Bishop’s shoes lies in the corner, a remnant of our earlier life.
“I’m go
ing to go take a shower,” I say.
No one answers me. I wander down the short hallway and lock myself in the bathroom. The water is cold, but I undress and climb into the shower anyway, hoping that the sting of icy water can bring feeling back to more than my body. I wash my hair, shampoo running into my eyes, making them burn. I scrub and scrub at my hands until all of Callie’s blood is washed away. Then I just stand there, let the water stream down my face.
I am shivering violently by the time I emerge from the shower. I leave my filthy clothes in a pile on the bathroom floor and wrap myself in a towel. I can hear Caleb’s and Ash’s voices from the living room, the sound of them starting a fire in the fireplace. I open the bathroom door as quietly as I can, cross to the bedroom, and slip naked underneath the blankets.
I’m still shaking, my wet hair soaking into the pillow, when Ash comes in a few minutes later. “Hey,” she says softly. “Victoria brought over some food.”
“I’m not hungry.”
