“Goddamn it, Lydia!” the man roared. “What are you trying to prove?”
“I wanted you to marry me!” She was screaming now and Michelle stared in open-mouthed shock at the door, totally forgetting her brothers wailing in the car, forgetting everything but this incredible statement that she would bet the contents of her entire piggy bank her father didn't know anything about at all.
Go, go, go!
Her brain was screeching at her but Michelle's legs wouldn't budge. Her thighs were trembling but somewhere deep inside, a part of her was dying to hear this to the end.
I knew it, I knew it! Lydia doesn't love Dad. She never did
.
“I loved you!” she heard next, Lydia's voice chuffing out between hysterical sobs. “I still do, John, goddamn you! I can't bear to live with it day after day!”
OhmyGod, ohmyGod
, Michelle thought.
Johnâ¦John Ryan, from church? OhmyGod
.
“Lydia, you have to go,” the man said, his voice deadly. “Never come back here. I can barely face Daniel when I see him, after what you did to him.”
Lydia laughed then, and it was a terrifying sound. “After what I did to him? That's rich, John, that's rich.
I bore your son!
I could kill you right now!”
OhmyGod!
“Go, Lydia,” she heard again. “Get out of here.”
“John, pleaseâ” Lydia's voice rose, high and keening.
There were sounds of scuffling then and Michelle frantically thought,
Should I call the police
? A beige phone was perched not 10 feet from her. But in the next second the door was flung open, revealing John Ryan, a tall and very formidable man in a dark suit, a man Michelle knew but who looked at present utterly unfamiliar: his chest was heaving with hard breathing, his face was red and pinched, his mouth invisible beneath the thick black mustache. She noticed things the sickening way one did in nightmares, snail-paced, in great detail. He had Lydia's upper arm clenched in one big hand. Lydia's hair was wild, coming down from her scalp in chunks, and her eyes, too, were feral, glistening, her cheeks streaked with black mascara. John shoved her roughly out the door, not noticing Michelle, who wanted to die on the spot. All of the air left her lungs. Like a child younger than 15 she covered her eyes just as her stepmother stumbled over her and fell to the green carpet, landing hard on her hands and knees. Michelle curled into a ball, unable to look up. A crippling silence filled the room.
“Jesus Christ in heaven,” John Ryan said in a strangled voice. “Jesus Christ.”
Lydia scrambled to her feet then, yanked Michelle up by her arm. All of her impotent rage was now directed at her stepdaughter and she shook her viciously, until Michelle's teeth clacked together. “You little bitch! What are you doing in here?” she screamed, her face nearly purple. Lydia let go, wound up and cracked Michelle across the face with her right palm, nearly knocking her to the ground. Sobbing now, Michelle knelt at Lydia's feet and buried her face in her hands.
“Get out of here! This minute!” John yelled in a furious hiss at Lydia. And he closed the inner door behind himself.
“
Coward!
” Lydia screeched at the sudden emptiness, wishing she had a gun. She whirled back to Michelle, yanked her to her feet again, brought her lips to within an inch of Michelle's right ear. “You listen to me,” she hissed, and her breath was hot and stale against the side of the girl's face. “You will never tell anyone what you heard in here today. Do you hear me?
Never!
You do and I will make you regret it the rest of your life!”
Michelle nodded, could do nothing but nod. Lydia's hair fell in scraggly clumps to her shoulders. She scraped it up with shaking hands, inadvertantly releasing Michelle, who turned and bolted. Moments later Lydia followed her into the silent hallway, filled only with dust motes on this slow-paced Tuesday afternoon. She splashed her face with water from the drinking fountain and then made her way back outside, to the station wagon where her stepchildren and screaming bastard son waited for her.
Rose Lake, Minnesota â Tuesday, June 20, 1995
S
hadows were growing long as
Matthew packed up for the day, starving, his trunks still damp from an evening dive into Rose Lake. His favorite times of day to swim were early morning, floating on his back and silently observing as the sky was infused with daylight, changing from the ephemeral gray of predawn to peach or rose or saffron, and then again the water drew him like a witch at dusk, when the light fled in the opposite direction. The far shore was a tree-sprigged, charcoal-colored ridge with a gentle swell, like the edge of a sleeping dinosaur. The contours of the ridge were as familiar to Matthew as his own hands, and he never failed to appreciate the sunset, each one distinct, special in its own way. Tonight clouds had massed on the western horizon, the sun turning morose as it sank inescapably and became a purple winespill behind them.
Please, don't let it rain tomorrow
, he begged no one in particular, perhaps the universe itself as he finished padlocking the returned boats and hung the rental clipboard on the nail behind the desk. He was alone on the beach as darkness came creeping across the still water on stealthy feet; it was an eerie effect in his present state of mind, and he shivered a little, grabbed his sweatshirt, and yanked it over his t-shirt. He tried not to jog back up the main path through the woods. An owl hooted softly twice somewhere in the trees above him as he made his way, muted and yet somehow sinister, and he damned it all and sprinted the last few yards, catching Erica just pulling away in her car. She braked and he bent down to her open window; the kids were all piled in there with the dogs, looking tuckered.
“Hi, sweetie,” Erica said. “I'm getting these guys home and Riley ran Debbie back into town. Wilder's doing a last walk-through and Bryce wanted to wait for you.”
His sinking heart caught and lifted up into the clouds with that. He tried not to grin, and nodded as though distracted instead. “I'll see you up at the house,” he told her.
“Sounds good,” she said, and her taillights winked at him as the car crunched over the gravel.
Bryce was standing in the doorway of the main lodge when he turned around, and he was so happy to see her, just to set his eyes on her, that he couldn't help himself and he smiled in a way that made her right hand lift up to her own lips, caused something to twist within her heart like a small blade. From 20 feet away, with the pine trees whispering all around them, his eyes bore into hers with a dark certainty.
He is for me
, she thought, blindsided by the strength of that feeling. She gripped the edge of the doorframe to keep from bolting into those huge arms that would surely lift her up and against his solid chest, and with one word would take her somewhere and make love to her until she was weak from it, from loving him, from clinging to him with arms and legs, and then he would cradle her close as they slept, and she would be safe, so totally safe.
“Hey,” he said, coming to within a few feet. “Do you want to walk instead?”
“Sure,” she said softly, and then looked back into the empty building. “Should we lock it?”
“Wilder will,” he assured her. She stared up at him, words burning on the tip of her tongue, but as he tilted his head toward the road she swallowed them.
They walked side by side on the gravel, and the breeze had picked up, making Bryce shiver a little in her t-shirt. Without a word, Matthew paused, neatly removed his sweatshirt and placed it in her hands.
“Thank you,” she told him, pulling it over her head, wrapping her body in the his delicious lingering warmth and scent. The neck caught on her barrette and her dark hair tumbled down her back in a heavy wave. He bit his bottom lip, hard.
“Hey, no problem,” he said, trying for casual as they started walking again. “Did you have a good day?”
She lifted her hair from her neck and shook it out as she replied, “Yeah, I did, actually. Riley gave me the grand tour. This place is so beautiful. I can't get over it.”
“Not like back home?”
She hugged his sweatshirt to herself, almost unconsciously, and he fisted his hands to keep from putting his right arm around her and hauling her close to his warm side. She laughed a little at his question, tilted her head up toward the treetops for a moment, looked into the sky. “No, definitely not like home.”
He craved the knowledge of everything about her. “What would your mom be doing right now, back there?”
“Probably smoking,” Bryce responded instantly, and longed for a cigarette. Tonight she would sneak out and have one, she couldn't take it anymore. “She's getting ready for work right now.”
“Where does she work?”
“At a diner off the highway,” Bryce told him. “Not exactly a glamorous job. I work there too, with the three girls from theâ¦motel last weekend.”
Matthew looked over at her and then back up the road, heart battering his chest.
“When did you graduate high school?” he asked next, seeing the porch light coming into view. He slowed his pace incremently.
“In 1992,” she told him. “How about you?”
“Class of â88. There were 27 people in my class and each and every one of them still lives around Rose Lake.”
“That's kind-of the way it is in Middleton,” she said. “I remember my senior math teacher telling us that small towns have tractor beams, keeping everyone close even if they resist.”
“Nicely put,” he said. Then, because he couldn't help himself, he added, “I love the way you say things. Your accent,” he went on when she glanced up at him with her eyebrows raised in question. “I guess I didn't realize that Oklahomans had southern accents. It's adorable.”
She flushed and giggled a little, said, “Why,
thahnk
you,” exxagerating her slight drawl, and he was snapped by a backlash of desire so forceful that his heart nearly slammed out of his chest. She seemed to sense it and looked pleased with herself, and he would have damned it all and hauled her against him where she belonged, but they came to the driveway just then and heard the kids on the porch. It was a good sound, and Bryce felt an unexpected swell of happiness within her body, small like the light of a lantern, but warm and strong. She sighed with it, hugging Matthew's huge soft sweatshirt to her body as they made their way together up the driveway, shoes scraping the loose gravel, already smelling the lilacs.
“Hi, guys!” Cody called, and bounded over to meet them. “I'm catching fireflies!”
“Me, too!” Emma hollered from the far edge of the darkening yard, and Matthew smiled to hear them sounding like themselves again. Evelyn was curled on the porch swing beside her father, her bare feet in his lap. Wilder was lightly rocking them, sipping a bottle of beer, and Matthew said, “Hey, have one of those for me?”
“Right in the fridge, little bro,” Wilder told him. “Beat you two back after all.”
“You must have taken the back route home,” Matthew said as he paused to let Bryce up the steps first, then bounded inside.
“Bryce, come sit with us, honey,” Wilder said, and gestured at a cushioned chair to their right.
“Thanks, that would be great,” she said. Small talk was coming easier to her now that she was getting used to them. “It was fun hanging out at the campground today.”
“It is fun, isn't it?” Wilder acknowledged. Bryce was suddenly grateful for the presence of the kids; she could sense that Wilder would not go into any conversations of real depth with them around. Not that she didn't have plenty of questions for him, but answering his was not what she wanted to do right now. No, simply sitting with them under a sky that was becoming peppered with stars, breathing the sharp green and clear purple scents in the evening air, that was what she wanted to do. Matthew came out the screen door an instant later with two bottles and Evelyn joked, “Hey, thanks, Uncle Matty.”
He lowered his eyebrows at her in simulated sternness. “Good try. No, this here bottle of really expensive and high quality brew is for Bryce.” She hesitated a second, but Wilder didn't seem poised to grab the alcohol from her not-quite-21-year-old fingertips, and so she accepted the drink, her fingers brushing Matthew's as the bottle exchanged hands.
“Thanks,” she told him, and he settled himself on the floorboards of the porch, facing Bryce, bending his long legs and resting his forearms atop.
“Busy day,” Wilder commented. From the kitchen, Erica called, “Guys, I'll have dinner ready in just a sec!”
“No problem, baby,” Wilder called to her, and Evelyn added, “You need any help, Ma?”
“No, no, you guys relax. I'm just waiting to pull the pizzas from the oven.”
“She's a rock,” Wilder said in a lower voice. “Evelyn, your mother is a rock.”
“Don't I know. Try disagreeing with her,” the girl said, then poked Wilder's knee with one foot. “Daddy, rub my toes, will ya?”
He grunted but obliged her, while Bryce tried to wrap her mind around a father who was not only present and accounted for, but actually seemed to find tremendous joy in his family; the strangest part was, he shared DNA with her mother.
Evelyn , do you know how goddamn lucky you are?
Bryce let her gaze flash over to Matthew, who had been watching her in silence, his back to Wilder and Evelyn on the swing. His jaw was dark and scratchy, his hair tousled along the sides of his forehead, his gaze resting lightly on her. Her heart pumped hot blood into her face and low in her belly.
“Matty, remind me that the grill grate in 31 is busted,” Wilder said, and Matthew turned to look at his older brother while Bryce took a long, long drink from the cold bottle.
“Seems weird, sitting here talking about this stuff without Grandpa, doesn't it?” Evelyn said then, and Wilder gently pulled her feet against his chest and hugged them.
“Honey, I know,” he said. “We'll miss him.”
Evelyn's blue eyes gleamed with tears and her lower lip trembled a little. Across the yard, her younger siblings were roughhousing merrily, and she looked over at them with the fingertips of her right hand pressed against her mouth. She drew a shaky breath, then blurted, “It seems like he's just on a trip or something, like you were last week, Uncle Matty. I keep thinking he'll come driving up the lane in his truck.”
Matthew tipped his chin down to his chest and Wilder pressed his full lips together for a moment, looking with concern at his oldest. Bryce was stunned to hear herself saying, “I wish I had known him.” Her voice was very soft, but all of them looked over at her, Daniel's oldest grandchild, who sat before them with her huge dark eyes and thick hair drifting all around her like a cloud, slim and vulnerable-looking in Matthew's enormous sweatshirt.
“Dad would have loved to know you, too,” Wilder told her quietly. “Time just flew, Bryce. It seems like yesterday you were here with Michelle, just a tiny little thing.” He paused abruptly, glancing at his daughter again, but she was still staring off across the yard. He added, “I'm sorry that we didn't get you up here sooner, sweetheart. It's wrong, and all I can say is, I hope it's not too late.”
Bryce studied him wordlessly for a moment, this man who looked so much like her own mother. His eyes were very earnest. She matched his tone and said, “Thanks, Uncle Wilder. I⦔ and her gaze flashed quick as lightning to Matthew's, then back to Wilder's. “I'm really glad that I'm here now. I don't believe in too late, I guess.”
Evelyn suddenly said, “Oh, wow. Look, you guys.”
They all rose and moved to the edge of the porch, crowding each other to see, and Bryce gasped a little, overcome with the sight. The far edge of the yard, where Erica grew her climbing roses, was alight with fireflies. Tiny sparks of green and gold, hundreds of them, darting to and fro like fairies from another realm. The sight sent chills of wonder up her spine, and the kids yelped and pointed. Evelyn, who was nearest Bryce, reached with one hand and slipped her arm around the older girl's waist, then leaned against her for a moment, but it wasn't weird, only natural, and Bryce tipped her cheek against Evelyn's soft hair for a moment.
“It's like Grandpa's here anyway,” the girl whispered.
***
Later, after
they'd eaten two large pizzas and two dozen breadsticks, chicken wings, cinnamon dessert pizza, about 10 gallons of root beer (which Cody called “fake” beer) and almost a case of real beer, Wilder was persuaded by his kids to pull out his guitar. It was late, nearly 11:00, but the family was loathe to go to bed just yet; giddy togetherness felt worlds better than lying in separate rooms under the almost-f moon, which was leering from a pitchdark sky, thinking about tomorrow when they would bury a man they had loved enormously.
Bryce started giggling a little when her uncle exited the house carrying a classic tan-and-maroon guitar, complete with a beaded chest strap. She, half-drunk on beer, heard herself demand, “Hey, where's your cowboy hat?” and Erica fell back against the porch swing in a gale of laughter. Cody was snuggled on her lap, Emma on Evelyn's beside them, and Bryce and Matthew were side-by-side, backs against the outer wall of the porch. Erica had thrown an afghan at them, and Bryce accepted this as a greater gift than any she remembered; beneath the thick knitted cover, their elbows bumped time and again, and her insides hummed from the contact. Matthew, dimples flashing, kept stealithly edging the blanket, and therefore Bryce, towards himself.
“Sorry, kiddo, but I must maintain a certain level of dignity,” Wilder responded to her question, and Erica snorted.
“Daddy, play the airplane song!” Emma begged, and Wilder, settling himself on the cushioned chair, strummed a few notes for practice. He glanced up at his littlest, grinning, looking like he belonged on a wagon train somewhere in another century, with his hair loose and hanging down his back, his face tanned and eyes crinkling at the corners a little in the glow from the candle lanterns Erica had lit hours earlier.