Simon hugged the door tighter, his face pale. “D-did you kill my mom?”
Michael grimaced. “I did not. I loved that girl with all my heart.”
“Aunt Savannah said you killed her.”
“She lied!”
Simon was silent for a moment. Then he seemed to reach a decision. He sat up straight. “Aunt Savannah doesn’t lie.”
“Well, she did this time.”
“Stop the truck. I want to get out.”
Michael ground his teeth. “No. And no more back talk. I need to think.”
Simon’s face flushed. “Let me out!”
Michael backhanded him. “Shut up!”
Simon grabbed for the wheel. “Stop the truck now!”
Michael shoved Simon away, then punched him in the face. The pain in his hand flared. “Get control of yourself, boy! Act like a man! A Willard man!”
Simon retreated to the far side of the cab again, his lower lip bleeding. “I hate you! And I’m never going to be a Willard man!” He opened the door.
Michael swore and slammed on the brakes. Fortunately, the road was deserted. He glared at Simon and the boy glared back, his blue eyes filled with defiant hate. He’d lost the boy, maybe forever.
“Fine!” Michael reached over and shoved Simon out the open door, sending the boy sprawling on the roadside gravel.
Michael slammed the door and drove off. He resisted the urge to look in the mirror. Simon had rejected Michael, his name, and his family. The boy was dead to him now.
Who was left alive?
Michael brooded on the question as he drove. Marie and Jess were both gone. There were lots of other Willards, but his line would die out with him. Simon had been his last hope for the future, the final green shoot.
He hadn’t felt like this since Marie died. He’d been a young man then, with his life ahead of him. Now he had nothing. He was just an old man who’d spend the rest of his days alone, running from the law.
His thoughts wandered back to the day of her death, as they often did in black moments. He hadn’t spoken to her after she drove away with Pierre and his henchman, but Michael saw her from time to time. She looked broken—slumped shoulders, unfocused eyes, never a real smile unless it was for her girls. People said she was day-drinking and popping pills, and Michael didn’t doubt it.
Then one stormy morning came the news he’d feared and expected: Marie was dead. The night before, she had driven off a sharp curve near Magnolia Springs. Her car had plunged into Eslava Branch and she drowned. Toxicology reports found alcohol and antidepressants in her blood, and the crash was ruled an accident.
The day after she died, he got an envelope from her. It contained a final handwritten poem:
I wander
Hemmed in and hopeless
In a gray and sunless land
The wind mutters
Among sharp, cold rocks
Whispering rumors of shame and judgment
The ferryman waits
By the river’s edge, silent and shrouded
