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“He’s been working with me,” Walter said.
“That’s great, Walter, but it doesn’t change the fact that Ben has been lying to me.”
“Sounds like Lucy’s been lying to you, too,” Sandra said, her voice ominous.
Oh God, he did not want to get tangled up in this. He wanted to get his boys back home and figure out what to do next in the privacy of his own house. He’d been wrong to ask Lucy for help, that much was obvious. Annie would have been furious with him right now, spreading their dirty laundry around to the neighbors.
“Come on, Ben. Casey. Let’s go.”
“Hold on a second,” Walter said, holding out a hand. “If he can’t stay and work for Lucy, can he stay and work for me?”
“What are you talking about?” Lucy asked.
Ben was staring at the old man like he didn’t know what was going on either.
Walter lifted his chin. “Everyone thinks I need a nurse. Well…I want Ben to be my nurse.”
16
They all sat around an empty table.
I should get some food, Sandra thought. But she didn’t. No one was going to eat it. Everyone was too full of emotion to eat.
Jack had his head in his hands, his hat on the table beside him. “Dad, he’s just a kid.”
“He helped take care of his mother,” Walter said, looking like a man who’d just managed to get out of trap.
This is how badly he wants me to leave, she thought. He would have a child in my place.
“You did?” Jeremiah asked Ben. “You took care of your mom?”
Ben nodded. “Before she got so bad she had to go to the hospital. I just got her a lot of ice when she asked. Read her some books. It wasn’t a big deal.”
But it was. She could tell by Jeremiah’s face that it was a very big deal.
“That’s incredibly noble, Ben,” Mia said. “It’s amazing, really, but Walter—”
“Is sitting right here,” Walter said.
“Fine,” Mia said, sitting up in her chair and looking right at Walter. “You’ve been sober…what? A week?”
“Two and half.”
“And you’ve been taking your medicine how long?”
“Three months.”
“You’ve terrorized every person we’ve brought in and I’m supposed to believe that you’ll let this…child help you?”
“He is who I want.”
“Nonsense,” Sandra said, getting to her feet. “You just don’t want me.”
Everyone turned to look at her and she didn’t care. “You are so desperate for me to leave that you are willing to use this boy.” She stared at Walter. “Do you deny it?”
Walter shook his head. “I do want you to leave.”
“What the hell, Walter?” Lucy snapped. “She’s been nothing but good to you.”
Walter wouldn’t look at her eyes and she felt the devil in her, the devil that used to make her punch kids in the playground for saying things about her mother. About her own worn, ill-fitting hand-me-downs. The devil took control.
“If you want me to go, tell them the truth. Tell them why.”
Walter shook his head.
“Dad,” Jack whispered. “What is going on here?”
The silence in the room had screws and all of them felt the pain. Finally, Walter looked up. “Your mother was right,” Walter said, looking his son in the face.
“About… about what?” Jack asked, looking quickly at Mia, who only shrugged.
Walter looked up at Sandra, and the shame on his face gave her pause. Made her wish she had better control of her devils. “I loved Sandra.”
The entire room gasped and Sandra nearly smiled. So strange that listening to him confess it made her happy.
Jeremiah stood, his hands on the shoulders of the boys beside him. “We’re going to go.”
Walter stood, too, and looked at Ben and Jeremiah. “I know it’s different. And I know why you don’t exactly trust me. Or Ben. But—” Walter cleared his throat and the room was silent. Sandra held her breath. “But Ben’s doing good work for me. And he’s working hard.”
“I…” Jeremiah shook his head. “I’m going to have to think about it.”
“Do that,” Walter said.
Ben and Casey followed Jeremiah out the door and then, surprisingly, Ben turned back around. “Thanks Walter.”
“You’re welcome, Ben.”
In the hallway Jeremiah’s face registered shock and a profound pain, and beside Sandra Lucy gasped, her hands knotted in her lap.
When did it happen, Sandra wondered, that Lucy started to feel so much for Jeremiah Stone?
“Dad—” Jack stood. “What did you think would happen when you had Sandra come here after Mia’s accident this summer? Did you…I mean, were you hoping—” Jack looked supremely pained and Sandra almost laughed, but the tension in the room was suffocating. “To be with her?”
Walter shook his head. “I just…I just wanted to make things right. Sandra belongs here. This was her home and I let Vicki take that away from her.”
“But now you want her to leave?” Mia asked.
“It was one thing when she didn’t know…” Walter stopped, shook his head and then abruptly turned away. He snatched his cane from the side of the table and lurched out of the room, down the darker hallway.
