Page 1 of The Innkeeper

1

DARBY

My father’s verdict came on a Tuesday. I’d just come into the teachers’ lounge for lunch. Mike, who taught math in the classroom next to mine, had his tablet open. A quick glance told me he was watching the news. Another glance told me it was news of my father’s case. No one else paid any attention. It was just another cop accused of a violent crime against a person of color. They’d played the footage from that night again and again until it felt as if I’d been there myself. I had, in a way. He’d been committing similar acts of degradation and physical intimidation to me all my life.

“A verdict’s come in on the Hanes case,” Mike said. He wore his straw-colored hair long but pulled into a bun on top of his head. Fixated on social justice, skiing, and craft beer in equal measures, Mike followed stories like this one and anything else that supported what he thought was the truth. As we all did, I supposed. No one ever changed their mind about something political by reading someone’s post on social media.

By now, the rest of the table had looked over at him. There were six of us who regularly ate our lunches at this time. Fifth period, as the kids call it, started at forty-five minutes after eleven. We had exactly thirty minutes to eat and relax before heading back into the thick of things. I had a hard job. But for some reason unknown to most, I loved every minute of it. High school students were sweet and confused with hormones that ruled most of their actions. Sometimes, I could get through the walls of insecurities and bravado to reach the child inside. Those were the good days.

At the far end of the table, two older women who had taught at Quinn Cooper High School for thirty years, Mrs. Rigby and Mrs. Sloane, rarely spoke to anyone but each other. From my assessment, they seemed interested in counting the days until they could retire and nothing else. They seemed to dislike our kids immensely. I could have been wrong, of course. I didn’t know them well. Other than a few snide remarks during lunch, they kept to themselves, as if afraid I’d corner them and start asking questions about how to survive teaching high school for three decades.

The principal’s secretary, Ms. Breen, was there as well. Rumors swirled that she was having an affair with our very married counselor, Mr. Knight, who was also present at the table. I wasn’t one for rumors and usually shut them down when I heard the kids talking about them. However, theyweresitting close to each other. Did they play footsie or stroke each other’s thighs, thinking that no one could see, that no one suspected?

The room smelled of Mrs. Sloane’s fish sticks. They were strong enough to almost take away the scent of burned popcorn that seemed to permanently live in the small microwave. Sloane kept a box of what passed as fish in our community freezer and microwaved it for her lunch. I had no idea who burned the popcorn or even the frequency. For all I knew, it had been years and only the smell lingered. Anyway, I’d gotten used to it. Nose blindness is a real thing. My first month had been rough, though.

I sat down at the end of the table and braced myself for what was coming. It was a difficult act, this balance between pretending I had no personal investment in my father’s trial and maintaining the illusion that I was as interested as the rest of the country. No one knew who I was. Or where I’d come from. I’d taken my dead mother’s last name when I’d started college ten years ago. After the night my father almost killed me, I left and never looked back. Until now. I’d learned of my father’s crime the same way as everyone else. On television.

And God help me, they’d played that footage from the body camera over and over. Not that I needed a reminder. After seeing the tape the first time, I couldn’t stop seeing what he did, even when I closed my eyes. He would not be able to walk away from his destruction this time. The complaints—and I knew there had been many over the years against my father—could no longer be dismissed because of the cameras. Now the whole world knew the truth about Benji Hanes. I was of his flesh and bone. How could it be that I could not kill a spider while he loved to unleash power and violence on whomever he deemed worthless or weak?

I opened my plastic lunch box and waited, holding my breath, for news of my father’s fate.

“They found him guilty,” Mike said. “Sentencing will be later.”

My stomach seemed to fall hard and fast, like a runaway elevator, followed by tingling in my hands and feet. I’d expected it, but the flood of shame and anger was swift and harsh. Why? Why had he been this way? His father had been the same way. He’d learned how to hate from him.

I’d been spared. I took after my mother. She’d loved books and teaching school. All children and animals loved her, attracted to her gentleness and the way she would listen with her whole body to whoever was speaking to her. “Do no harm,” she used to say to me. After her death when I was ten, I’d learned to silently chant it as I became the target of my father’s rage. Without her to punch and kick, he’d turned to me.

A memory came out of nowhere. I’d been about fifteen and come home from a late-night soccer game to find him in the kitchen. His face had been red from drinking and his eyes fixed on me like a rabid dog. No, I told myself now. I would not think of him. I’d gotten away from him. I was safe.

“He’ll go to prison,” Ms. Breen said. She was a skinny woman in her forties. For lunch, she had what appeared to be a bag of lettuce with some shreds of carrots. Obviously, she liked the way she looked, but to me, she seemed artificially thin with skin that seemed stretched too tightly over her bones. Defying the laws of nature.

“I wonder what the sentence will be?” Knight shuddered. He wore his thinning hair cropped close. I was pretty sure he regularly spray-tanned. His skin was a shade lighter than rust. A color never seen in nature on a white guy. “A cop in prison. That’s not going to be pretty.”

I wanted to run away and not think of any of this. My father was sixty years old. I could see from the footage I’d accidentally caught that he’d aged much since his arrest and trial: sloped shoulders, pot belly, large bags under his eyes, and a puffy face. All that drinking and lack of sleep, I figured.

He seemed old and vulnerable.

No, don’t feel sorry for him, I ordered myself.He doesn’t deserve your pity.

“These idiots need to remember they’re on camera now,” Sloane said before biting into one of her fish sticks. Her black hair was streaked with white, reminding me of a skunk.

“How about they stop committing hate crimes instead?” Mike asked. His man-bun wobbled. Mike was passionate about social justice. He never let anyone forget it, either. Although I understood his feelings and beliefs, sometimes I wished he were less heavy-handed and self-righteous. Perhaps people would be able to take in what he said if he presented things with less rancor. Instead, he made people bristle with his didactic tone.

Should I pull out my own phone and look for the coverage? Did I want to see him that way? Led out of a courtroom in handcuffs to a jail cell? He deserved it, I reminded myself. For the crimes against Russel Johnson and the others he hadn’t had to answer for. And for me too, maybe. Without realizing I’d been doing it, I realized I was touching the scar on my neck. The one he’d given to me on the night of my high school graduation. The last one had been the worst.

Mrs. Rigby sniffed and looked over her skinny reading glasses at Mike. “Most cops are good. This isn’t a reason to hate them all.”

“I don’t hate anyone,” Mike said. “But I’m not sure I agree with you about most cops. Isn’t it the criminal-minded, the power-hungry, who decide to be cops? Men who crave violence?”

No one answered him. I suspected no one agreed with him, either. His venom for my father and what he’d done was obvious.

“Again, I don’t hate anyone,” Mike said. “But it’s a good day when justice is finally served.”

As for me, I did hate someone. My father. He’d taught me how to hate him with every punch and shove. Every time he locked me in my room and refused to feed me. But as any child raised by an abusive parent knows, it’s not that simple. The line between love and hate was always being tested. Flexed to see where the breaking point was.

I knew only that I was broken. In my brokenness, I’d found purpose. Every day was a chance to make a mark on the world through my students. I could see the ones in trouble. I couldn’t always save them, but I could try. Some of these kids had no one.

“You’re quiet, Darby,” Ms. Breene said. “What do you think?”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com