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I scrambled to come up with an answer that wouldn’t give away how I trembled and my heart seemed to pump in my brain instead of my chest. How I wished I could be alone so I could cry for my father and for me and for the man he’d killed with his cruelty.
In the end, I chose to stick to the facts and leave all emotion out of my answer. “I think the case went to trial and twelve jurors believed he was guilty and now he’ll have to pay for what he did.”
“There’s no disputing it,” Knight said. “It was all in black and white, so to speak.”
Ms. Breene nodded with enthusiasm. “I agree one hundred percent. He was caught on tape. How would they have been able to find him not guilty?”
“They have before,” Mike said. “Many times.”
“Well, they didn’t this time,” I said, more dismissive than I meant. I reached into my lunch box and took out my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Not that I could eat. I’d be lucky not to throw up.
“I, for one, can’t wait to discuss this with my students,” Mike said.
“You teach math,” Mrs. Rigby said. “How is this relevant?”
“It’s my duty to teach them how to think, across disciplines.” Mike looked over at me as if to get support.
I studied my sandwich instead. Peanut butter and jelly reminded me of my mother. An image played before me. The sun had come in through the windows, warming my shoulders and the top of my head and bringing out the streaks of blond in her brown hair. She’d set a plate with a sandwich on the table before me. The crusts had been cut off, and she’d spread one of the pieces with strawberry preserves. My favorite. Then she’d brushed her cool, dry knuckles against my cheek, her eyes so filled with love that a lump had risen in my throat. “Eat up, young man. You need to grow up strong and tough.” A bruise the size of my father’s fist covered her forearm. Perhaps guessing where my gaze had gone, she snatched her arm away.
The others continued discussing the case, ultimately getting into a heated argument with Knight and Mike on one side and the older women on the other. Ms. Breene seemed to have given up on the conversation and picked at her lettuce.
The pounding between my ears went on, relentless. I forced myself to eat a few bites of the sandwich and then packed the remnants back inside my lunch box. Maybe I’d be hungry later. I didn’t bother to say anything to my companions. They didn’t seem to notice me slipping away, or if they did, they couldn’t care less. A good political fight was more interesting.
* * *
Here’sthe thing about only revealing half of your life to people. It’s hard to keep the truths from tumbling out. Any time you let your guard down and forget for a moment that you’re unlike any of your friends, you’re jeopardizing the life you’ve carefully crafted. My friends knew I was raised by a single father in LA but nothing else. They didn’t know he was a cop. Or that he made my life a living hell until I got away and went to college. And no one knew that my father was one of the most hated men in America.
Now he was going to prison.
After work that afternoon, I put on my running clothes and drove down to the riverside park. A nice, mostly smooth running or walking trail that ran up one side of the river, starting at the park and ending out by the old mill, now a museum. As I locked my old beater of a car, I admired Jamie’s new inn, just on the other side of the grassy park, looking crisp and quaint with its white exterior and black shutters. After losing her newly renovated Annabelle Higgins mansion to the forest fire that swept through much of our community, she was open for business once again. I’d been happy to be invited to the opening ceremony and had gone to give her my support. It was no longer awkward between us. Enough time had passed since our one-night stand and subsequent surprise to find each other in Emerson Pass. We’d met in Cliffside Bay and had enjoyed a no-strings-attached night together. Since moving here, we ran in the same circle. Our mutual friends often threw us together for one occasion or another. So we’d had to get over our awkwardness and move on. Not that there was anything to move on from. It had been one reckless night, never to be repeated again.
Onehotreckless night.
I hadn’t brought a ball cap, and the sun was still bright in the valley between our two mountains. Instead, I put on my sunglasses. I had my contacts in so I’d be able to see. My vision was terrible without them. This early in September, the afternoons were mostly warm and sunny. They were numbered, which meant I needed to take advantage of them all. Running this trail was my therapy. And I needed it today.
I set out on a leisurely pace, needing a few minutes to warm up. The river was low this time of year but still clear. Water bugs made ripples for the ducks who floated near the water’s edge, looking for their dinner in the reeds and grasses. Above us, a flock of geese headed south. The path, which started out as cement, changed to dirt about a half mile from the park. All in all, it was only a four-mile run, perfect for me. I’d been an athlete back in school and missed the camaraderie of team sports. Now I kept in shape not to play sports but for health and vanity. Plus, exercise warded off any gloominess. Or at the very least, dwelling in it for long, anyway.
Soon, the mountains would be covered in snow, and the skiers would come. For now, we had the town mostly to ourselves. Summer visitors were gone after Labor Day. Winter enthusiasts wouldn’t be here until after the ski mountains opened. Locals enjoyed our peaceful months when the river park and trails were all ours.
I didn’t meet a single soul all the way to the museum. Breaking for a moment to drink water from the fountain outside the front door, I turned back around to head in the other direction. I’d quickened my pace by then and somehow missed a tree trunk, tripping and falling. My head smacked into the hard ground. Sunglasses went flying. I sat up, dizzy. My pride was hurt more than my head. Or at least I thought so until I tried to get up and felt like I was drunk. I reached up to touch a sore spot on my forehead and felt dampness. Blood? Great, I’d cut open my head. What an idiot.
Not the first time I’d split my head. My father had slammed me against a coat hook in the hall. Was it the same spot?
I brought my knees close and rested my forehead on them. A rustling in the grass revealed a squirrel. He sat for a moment, his little cheeks full of nuts and his mouth twitching, just watching me.What creature is this, he might have thought,fallen and bleeding?
The day’s news had cut me off at the knees as surely as the root had.
I looked up when I heard footsteps coming toward me. Oh great, it was Jamie on a run of her own. Here to see my humiliation.
She stopped when she saw it was me. Alarm widened her eyes. She snatched her earbuds from her ears and stuffed them into the side pocket of her tight running shorts. They left nothing to the imagination, I noted. Her thigh muscles were taut and muscular. As was her stomach, flat under a spandex top. Apparently, I could still see. The bump on my head couldn’t be that bad.
“Darby, are you all right?” She fell to her knees beside me. Her scent, perhaps heightened from sweat, wafted over me. Jasmine and vanilla and something else. Blue eyes peered at me with concern from a face bare of makeup. Her dark blond hair was tied back in a ponytail.
“You should wear sunscreen,” I said, even though her skin was a golden tan. A California-looking girl, I’d thought the first time I met her.
She touched her forehead as if reminding herself of the last application. “Yes, yes, I am. I always do.”
“It doesn’t look like it.” Why had I said that? She looked flushed from her run but not sunburned. Is that what I meant? Good Lord, maybe I’d really hurt my head.
