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Which is kinda sorta, you could say, how I, too, found myself wrapped up in this mess.
I’ve hurt lots of people. I didn’t hurt that girl. You can bet I have plans for who did. It’s almost too easy. Considering everyone knows who it was. Small towns do not hold their secrets well.
Before you go thinking I’m some sort of hero, allow me to save you the trouble of being wrong. I’m the furthest thing from it. I won’t try too hard to convince you. Believe me, time will take care of that.
Chapter Three
Ruth
I was born with the cord wrapped around my neck. I guess that’s where my bad luck started. Mama liked to say I was cursed. She said it like she was joking, but the older I get, the less I’m sure. She always dressed it up, usually with one of her platitudes. Mama had a lot of those. Usually, she’d add something about it making me stronger, or say that whatever ill-fated scenario was happening in my life was simply the Channing way. We are survivors, she often said, even if just barely.
This is what it feels like as I stand there waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Waiting and not wanting to see Ryan Jenkins. Or his lovely wife. Not wanting to see the agony on his face, agony that would be on any parent’s face.
Not wanting to remember.
This is also what it feels like the first time I meet Ashley Parker. Having a cord wrapped around my neck. Suffice it to say, Davis’s latest girlfriend is not my cup of tea. First the police arrive, and by police I mean Roy. He calls in a female officer, as is protocol. I would have texted her, too, at the start, but she’s new in town and so far, we’re not on a first-name basis. I was hoping that wouldn’t change. Although, knowing Roy, of course it would.
But then, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Every Channing baby for generations back was thrust in the world that same way. With our cords around our necks. Lots of Channings died before they’d ever gotten a start. There’s a whole cemetery filled with baby Channings, somewhere west of town. I never go there, but Mama did.
Only Davis had been different. He didn’t come into the world like the rest of us. It was almost like he was the chosen one or something, which Mama always thought he was.
She wanted more children and would’ve had them had it not been on account of the babies in the cemetery. I don’t know when it got to be too much for her, because when you’re a kid, there’s a lot of stuff you don’t know. But at some point it did, and that’s how even though Daddy always said he wanted a whole zoo full of kids, or a slew of them, which sounded to me at the time like he was saying a zoo, it ended up being just Johnny and Davis and me.
That’s not to say we were alone. We had—we have—tons of cousins. No one ever leaves Jester Falls.
No one but Davis.
His unconventional and ill-timed idea planted the seed that would be the ultimate manifestation of me meeting Ashley Parker face to face, here and now. Some things, they start small, and they grow and they grow and they grow. I know that. But I don’t think I knew it. There’s a difference. And as it turns out, it’s quite a big one.
One morning, out of the blue, Davis waltzed into the kitchen and, over Julia’s famous biscuits and gravy, announced that he was going on a cross-country trip. The nerve. Upsetting Julia that way. And the way he said it, like it was nothing. Like leaving Magnolia House to Johnny and me to take care of was no big deal. He dressed it up, kind of like Mama used to do with her platitudes. He said he wanted to see how other bed and breakfasts were staying afloat in the age of Airbnb and all the rental sites and whatnot. Funny thing is, Jester Falls is a tight-knit community. You could call it exclusive, if you want. That would be putting it politely. Which is why I never believed Davis. We don’t have the kind of people here who want
to rent out their homes. What happens between our walls tends to stay there.
I know because…well, let’s just say I know. The real estate developers have been coming to town with their fancy ideas and dollar signs in their eyes for as long as I can remember. Jester Falls is the type of town where they’re run right back out, with their tails tucked between their legs.
As for Davis, I wasn’t sure what he was going after. Greener pastures, maybe, and in a sense, looking at Ms. America here, I guess that’s what he found.
Davis called me from the road exactly two days ago. He should have sounded happy. He should have sounded free, but he didn’t. Anyone else in that position, they would’ve sounded happy. Anyone else who managed to escape the back-breaking labor of the hospitality industry, anyone else who’d shirked their family responsibility, would have sounded elated.
But he didn’t. He sounded pensive and worried. And perhaps a little restless.
“I picked up a woman,” he announced.
“What, like a hooker?” His voice sounded funny, like he was whispering, like he was trying not to be heard. So I didn’t know what he meant. I didn’t know what the big secret was. I didn’t expect him to say what he said.
“Like a hitchhiker.”
My brother is maybe a little naïve. But he isn’t stupid. Although Johnny would argue with that. I might too, if we were in the same room together. For posterity’s sake, Davis is wicked smart. Earned himself a full ride and passed the bar exam on the first try. He barely even studied.
“A hitchhiker?” This was exactly something my little brother would do, and still I had to ask. “Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded far away. “Anyway, she’s sort of sick. I think we’re going to lie low for a few days.”
“Lie low? Where are you?”
“New Orleans.”
