"Down River" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hart John)

CHAPTER 3

I slept some of the pain away, and woke to a thunderstorm that rattled the old windows and put jigsaw shadows on the wall every time the lightning flashed. It swept through town, dropped sheets of water, then boiled south toward Charlotte. The pavement still steamed when I went outside to get my bag from the car.

I laid my fingers on gouged paint and traced the word.

Killer.

Back inside, I stalked the small rooms. Restless energy burned through me, but I felt at odds with myself. I wanted to see home, but knew how the seeing would hurt. I wanted to speak to my father, but feared the words that would come. His words. Mine. Words you can’t take back or forget; the kind that scar deep and heal thin.

Five years.

Five damn years.

I opened a closet door, closed it without seeing what was inside. I drank water that tasted of metal, stared at books, and my eyes passed over it without seeing it; but it must have registered on me. It must have had some impact. Because as I paced, I thought of my trial: the hate that burst against me each day; the arguments built to hang me; the confusion among those who knew me best, and how it was compounded when my stepmother took the stand, swore her oath, and tried with her words to bury me.

Most of the trial was a blur: accusations, denials, expert testimony on blunt force trauma and blood spatter. What I remembered were the faces in the courtroom, the ready passions of people who once professed to know me.

The nightmare of every innocent man wrongly accused.

Five years ago, Gray Wilson was nineteen years old, right out of high school. He was strong and young and handsome. A football hero. One of Salisbury’s favored sons. Then someone bashed a hole in his skull with a rock. He died on Red Water Farm and my own stepmother said I did it.

I circled the room, heard those words again-not guilty-and felt the violent thrust of emotion they put into me: the vindication and relief, the simple conviction that things could go back to the way they’d been. I should have known that I was wrong, should have felt it in the dank air of the slam-packed courtroom.

There was no going back.

The verdict that should have been an ending, was not. There was also the final confrontation with my father and the short, bitter goodbye to the only place I’d ever called home. A forced parting. The town didn’t want me. Fine. Just dandy. As much as it hurt, I could live with that. But my father made a choice, too. I told him that I didn’t do it. His new wife told him that I had. He chose to believe her.

Not me.

Her.

And he told me to leave.

My family had been on Red Water Farm for more than two hundred years, and I’d been groomed since childhood to take over its management. My father was easing back; Dolf, too. It was a multimillion-dollar operation and I was all but running it when the sheriff came to lock me away. The place was more than a part of me. It was who I was, what I loved, and what I was born to do. I couldn’t stay in Rowan County if the farm and my family were not a part of my life. I couldn’t be Adam Chase, the banker, or Adam Chase, the pharmacist. Not in this place. Not ever.

So I left the only people I’d ever loved, the only place I’d called home. I sought to lose myself in a city that was tall and gray and ceaseless. I planted myself there, and breathed in the noise and the flow and the pale white fuzz of endless, empty days. For five years, I succeeded. For five years I pounded down the memories and the loss.

Then Danny called, and blew everything apart.

It was on the fourth shelf, thick and spine-out. Pale. White. I pulled it from the shelf, a heavy sheaf, bound in plastic.

State v. Adam Chase.

Trial transcript. Every word said. Recorded. Forever.

It was heavily used, smudged, and folded at the corners. How many times had Robin read it? She’d stood by me during the trial, sworn that she believed me. And her faith had almost cost her the only job she’d ever cared about. Every cop in the county thought I’d done it. Every cop but her. She’d been unflinching, and in the end, I’d left her.

She could have come with me.

That was truth, but what did it matter? Her world. My world. It could not have worked. And here we were, all but strangers.

I let the transcript fall open in my hands; it did so easily, spread itself to the testimony that almost damned me.

WITNESS: A witness called by the The State,

having been first duly sworn to tell the truth,

was examined and testified as follows:

Direct Examination of Janice Chase by the

District Attorney for the County of Rowan

Q: Will you please state your name for the Court?

A: Janice Chase.

Q: How are you related to the defendant, Mrs. Chase?

A: He is my stepson. His father is my husband. Jacob Chase.

Q: You have other children with Mr. Chase?

A: Twins. Miriam and James. We call him Jamie. They’re eighteen.

Q: They are the defendant’s half siblings?

A: Adopted siblings. Jacob is not the natural father. He adopted them shortly after we were married.

Q: And where is their natural father?

A: Is that important?

Q: Just trying to establish the nature of these relationships, Mrs. Chase. So the jury will understand who everybody is.

A: He’s gone.

Q: Gone where?

A: Just gone.

Q: Very well. How long have you been married to Mr. Chase?

A: Thirteen years.

Q: So, you’ve known the defendant for a long time.

A: Thirteen years.

Q: How old was the defendant when you and his father were married?

A: He was ten.

Q: And your other children?

A: They were five.

Q: Both of them?

A: They are twins.

Q: Oh. Right. Now, I know this must be difficult for you, testifying against your own stepson…

A: It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Q: You were close?

A: No. We’ve never been close.

Q: Um… Is that because he resented you? Because you’d taken his mother’s place?

Defense Counsel: Objection. Calls for speculation.

Q: Withdrawn.

A: She killed herself.

Q: I beg your pardon.

A: His mother killed herself.

Q: Um…

A: I’m no homewrecker.

Q: Okay…

A: I just want to be clear on that up front, before his lawyer tries to make this out like something it’s not. We were never close, that’s true, but we’re still family. I’m not making this up and I’m not out to get Adam. I have no agenda. I love his father more than anything. And I’ve tried with Adam. We just never got close. It’s that simple.

Q: Thank you, Mrs. Chase. I know that this is difficult for you. Tell us about the night that Gray Wilson was killed.

A: I saw what I saw.

Q: We’ll get to that. Tell us about the party.

I closed the transcript and replaced it on the shelf. I knew the words. The party had been at midsummer: my stepmother’s idea. A birthday party for the twins, their eighteenth. She’d hung lights in the trees, engaged the finest caterer, and brought a swing band up from Charleston. It started at four in the afternoon, ended at midnight; yet a few souls lingered. At two A.M., or so she swore, Gray Wilson walked down to the river. At roughly three, when all had left, I came up the hill, covered in the boy’s blood.

He was killed by a sharp-edged rock the size of a large man’s fist. They found it on the bank, next to a red-black stain in the dirt. They knew it was the murder weapon because it had the boy’s blood all over it and because it was a perfect match, in size and shape, for the hole in his skull. Somebody bashed in the back of his head, hit hard enough to drive bone shards deep into his brain. My stepmother claimed that it was me. She described it on the stand. The man she’d seen at three o’clock in the morning had on a red shirt and a black cap.

Same as me.

He walked like me. He looked like me.

She didn’t call the cops, she claimed, because she did not realize that the dark liquid on my hands and shirt was blood. She had no idea that a crime had been committed until the next morning when my father found the body halfway in the river. The way she told it, it wasn’t until later that she put it all together.

The jury debated for four days, then the gavel came down and I walked out. No motive. That’s what swung the vote. The prosecution put on a great show, but the case was built entirely on my stepmother’s testimony. It was a dark night. Whoever she saw, she saw from a distance. And I had no reason in the world to want Gray Wilson dead.

We barely knew each other.

I cleaned the kitchen, took a shower, and left a note for Robin on the kitchen table. I gave her my cell number and asked her to call when she finished her shift.

It was just after two when I finally turned onto the gravel drive of my father’s farm. I knew every inch of it, yet felt like an intruder, like the land itself knew that I’d surrendered my claim upon it. The fields still glistened from the rain, and mud filled the ditches that ran beside the drive. I steered past pastures full of cattle, through a neck of old forest, and then out into the soy fields. The road followed a fence line to the top of a rise, and as I crested the ridge I could see three hundred acres of soy spread out below me. Migrants were at work in the field, baking in the hot sun. I saw no supervisor, no farm truck; and that meant no water for the workers.

My father owned just north of fourteen hundred acres, one of the largest working farms left in central North Carolina. Its borders had not changed since the original purchase in 1789. I drove through soy fields and rolling pasture, crossed over swollen creeks, and passed the stables before I topped the last hill and saw the house. At one point it had been surprisingly small, a weathered old homestead; but the house I remembered from childhood was long gone. When my father remarried, his new wife brought different ideas with her, and the home now sprawled across the landscape. The front porch, however, was untouched, as I knew it would be. Two centuries of Chases had stood on that porch to watch the river, and I knew that my father would never allow it to be torn down or replaced. “Everybody has a line,” he’d said to me once, “and that porch is mine.”

There was a farm truck in the driveway. I parked next to it, saw the watercoolers in the back, their sides wet with condensation. I switched off the ignition, climbed out, and a million pieces of my old life coalesced around me. A slow, warm childhood and my mother’s bright smile. The things my father liked to teach me. The calluses that grew on my hands. Long days in the sun. Then the way things changed, my mother’s suicide, and the black months fading to gray as I fought through its aftershock. My father’s remarriage, new siblings, new challenges. Then Grace in the river. Adulthood and Robin. The plans we made all blown to bits.

I stepped onto the porch, stared over the river, and thought of my father. I wondered what was left of us, then went in search of him. His study stood empty and unchanged: pine floors, overflowing desk, tall bookshelves and piles of books on the floor next to them, muddy boots by the back door, pictures of hunting dogs long dead, shotguns next to the stone fireplace, jackets on hooks, hats; and a photograph of the two of us, taken nineteen years earlier, half a year after my mother died.

I’d lost twenty pounds in the months since we’d buried her. I’d barely spoken, barely slept, and he decided enough was enough and it was time to move on. Just like that. Let’s do something, he’d said. Let’s get out of the house. I did not even look up. For God’s sake, Adam…

He took me hunting on a bright, fall day. High, blue sky, leaves not yet turned. The deer came in the first hour, and it was unlike any deer I’d ever seen. Its coat shone pale white under antlers wide enough to carry a grown man. He was massive, and presented himself, head up, fifty yards out. He stared in our direction, then pawed the ground, as if impatient.

He was perfect.

But my father refused the shot. He lowered his rifle and I saw that tears brimmed in his eyes. He whispered to me that something had changed. He couldn’t do it. A white deer is a sign, he said, and I knew that he was talking about my mother. Yet, the animal hung in my sights, too. I bit down hard, let out half a breath, and I felt my father’s eyes. He shook his head once, mouthed the word, No.

I took the shot.

And missed.

My father lifted the rifle from my hands and put an arm over my shoulder. He squeezed hard and we sat like that for a long time. He thought that I’d chosen to miss, that in the last second I, too, had come to believe that life was more precious somehow, that my mother’s death had had this effect on both of us.

But that wasn’t it. Not even close.

I wanted to hurt that deer. I wanted it so badly my hands shook.

That’s what ruined the shot.

I looked again at the photograph. On the day it was taken, I was nine years old, my mother fresh in the ground. The old man thought we’d rounded the corner, that that day in the woods had been our first step, a sign of healing. But I knew nothing of signs or forgiveness. I barely knew who I was.

I put the photo back on the shelf, squared it just so. He thought that day was our new beginning, and kept the photo all these years, never guessing that it was a great, giant lie.

I’d thought that I was ready to come home, but now I was no longer sure. My father was not here. There was nothing for me here. Yet, as I turned, I saw the page on his desk, fine stationery next to an expensive burgundy pen my mother had once given him. “Dear Adam,” it read. Then nothing else. Emptiness. How long had he stared at that blank paper, I wondered, and what would he have said, had the words actually come?

I left the room as I’d found it, wandered back into the main part of the house. New art adorned the walls, including a portrait of my adopted sister. She was eighteen the last time I’d seen her, a fragile young woman who’d sat every day in the courtroom, yet had been unable to meet my eyes. She was my sister, and we’d not spoken since the day I left, but I didn’t hold that against her. It was as much my fault as hers. More, really.

She’d be twenty-three now, a mature woman, and I looked again at her portrait: the easy smile, the confidence. It could happen, I thought. Maybe.

The picture of Miriam turned me to thoughts of Jamie, her twin brother. In my absence, responsibility for the crews would have fallen to him. I went to the big staircase and yelled his name. I heard footsteps and a muffled voice. Then, stocking feet at the top of the stairs, followed by jeans grimed at the cuff, and an impossibly muscular torso beneath pale, thin hair spiked with some kind of gel. Jamie’s face had filled out, lost the angles of youth, but the eyes had not changed, and they crinkled at the corners when they settled on me.

“I do not freakin’ believe it,” he said. His voice was as big as the rest of him. “Jesus, Adam, when did you get here?” He came down the stairs, stopped and looked at me. He stood six four, and had me by forty pounds, all of it muscle. The last time I’d seen him he’d been my size.

“Damn, Jamie. When did you get huge?”

He curled his arms and studied the muscles with obvious pride. “Gotta have the guns, baby. You know how it is. But look at you. You haven’t changed at all.” He gestured at my face. “Somebody kicked your ass, I see, but other than that you could have walked out of here yesterday.”

I fingered the stitches.

“Is that local?” he asked.

“Zebulon Faith.”

“That old bastard?”

“And two of his boys.”

He nodded, eyelids drooping. “Wish I’d been there.”

“Next time,” I said.

“Hey, does Dad know you’re back?”

“He’s heard. We haven’t spoken yet.”

“Unreal.”

I held out my hand. “Good to see you, Jamie.”

His hand swallowed mine. “Fuck that,” he said, and pulled me into a bear hug that was ninety percent painful backslapping.

“Hey, you want a beer?” He gestured toward the kitchen.

“You have the time?”

“What’s the point of being the boss if you can’t sit in the shade and drink a beer with your brother? Am I right?”

I thought about keeping my mouth shut, but I could still see the migrants, sweating in the sun-scorched fields. “Someone should be with the crews.”

“I’ve only been gone an hour. The crews are fine.”

“They’re your responsibility-”

Jamie dropped a hand on my shoulder. “Adam, you know that I’m happy to see you, right? But I’ve been out from under your shadow for a long time. You did a good job when you were here. No one would deny that. But I manage the daily operations now. You would be wrong to show up all of a sudden and expect everybody to bow down to you. This is my deal. Don’t tell me how to run it.” He squeezed my shoulder with steel fingers. They found the bruises and burrowed in. “That would be a problem for us, Adam. I don’t want there to be a problem for us.”

“Okay, Jamie. I get your point.”

“Good,” he said. “That’s just fine.” He turned for the kitchen and I followed him. “What kind of beer do you like? I’ve got all different kinds.”

“Whatever,” I said. “You pick.” He opened the refrigerator. “Where is everybody?” I asked.

“Dad’s in Winston for something. Mom and Miriam have been in Colorado. I think that they were supposed to fly in yesterday and spend the night in Charlotte.” He smiled and nudged me. “A couple of squaws off shopping. They’ll probably be home late.”

“Colorado?”

“Yeah, for a couple of weeks. Mom took Miriam to some fat farm out there. Costs a fortune, but hey, not my call, you know.” He turned with two beers in his hands.

“Miriam has never been overweight,” I said.

Jamie shrugged. “A health spa, then. Mud baths and eel grass. I don’t know. This is a Belgian one, some kind of lager, I think. And this is an English stout. Which one?”

“The lager.”

He opened it and handed it to me. Took a pull on his own. “The porch?” he asked.

“Yeah. The porch.”

He went through the door first, and when I emerged into the heat behind him, I found him leaning against our father’s post with a proprietary air. A knowing glint appeared in his eyes, and his smile thinned into a statement.

“Cheers,” he said.

“Sure, Jamie. Cheers.”

The bottles clinked, and we drank our beer in the still and heavy air. “Cops know you’re back?” Jamie asked.

“They know.”

“Jesus.”

“Screw ’em,” I said.

At one point, Jamie raised his arm, made a muscle and pointed at his bicep.

“Twenty-three inches,” he said.

“Nice,” I told him.

“Guns, baby.”

Rivers find the low ground-it is what they are made to do-and looking over the one that defined our border I thought that maybe the talent had rubbed off on my brother. He talked about money he’d spent and about the girls he’d laid. He counted them up for me, a slew of them. Our conversation did not venture beyond that until he asked about the reason for my return. The question came at the end of his second beer, and he slipped it in like it meant nothing. But his eyes couldn’t lie. It was all he cared about.

Was I back for good?

I told him the truth as I knew it: doubtful.

To his credit, he covered his relief well. “Are you sticking around for dinner?” he asked, draining the beer.

“Do you think that I should?”

He scratched at his thinning hair. “It might be easier with just Dad here. I think he’ll forgive you for what happened, but Mom won’t be happy. There’s no lie in that.”

“I’m not here to ask for forgiveness.”

“Damn, Adam, let’s not start this up again. Dad had to choose a side. He could believe you or he could believe Mom, but he couldn’t believe both of you.”

“This is still my family, Jamie, even after all that’s happened. She can’t very well tell me to stay away.”

Jamie’s eyes grew suddenly sympathetic. “She’s scared of you, Adam.”

“This is my home.” The words sounded hollow. “I was acquitted.”

Jamie rolled massive shoulders. “Your call, bro. It’ll be interesting either way. I’m just glad to have a front-row seat.”

His smile was patently false; but he was trying. “You’re such an ass, Jamie.”

“Don’t hate me ’cause I’m beautiful.”

“Tomorrow night, then. May as well do it all at once.” But that was only part of it. I was feeling the pain, a profound ache that still had room to grow. I thought of Robin’s dark bedroom, and then of my father and the note he had been unable to complete. The time would be good for everyone.

“So, how’s Dad?’ I asked.

“Ah, he’s bulletproof. You know how he is.”

“Not anymore,” I said, but Jamie ignored me. “I’m going to walk down to the river, then I’ll be out of here. Tell Dad that I’m sorry I missed him.”

“Say hello to Grace,” he said.

“She’s down there?”

“Every day. Same time.”

I’d thought a lot about Grace, but was less sure of how to approach her than anyone else. She was two years old when she came to live with Dolf, still a child when I’d left, too young for any kind of explanation. For thirteen years I’d been a large part of her world, and leaving her alone is what felt most like a betrayal. All of my letters had come back unopened. Eventually, I’d stopped sending them.

“How is she?” I asked, trying not to show how much the answer mattered.

Jamie shook his head. “She’s a wild Indian, no mistake, but she always has been. She’s not going to college, looks like. She’s working odd jobs, hanging around the farm, living off the fat of the land.”

“Is she happy?”

“She should be. She’s the hottest thing in three counties.”

“Is that right?” I asked.

“Hell, I’d fuck her.” He winked at me, not seeing how close he was to a beating. I told myself that he meant nothing by it. He was just being a smart-ass. He’d forgotten how much I loved Grace. How protective of her I’d always been.

He wasn’t trying to start something.

“Good to see you, Jamie.” I dropped a hand on the hard lump of his shoulder. “I’ve missed you.”

He folded his massive frame into the pickup truck. “Tomorrow night,” he said, and jolted off toward the fields. From the porch I saw his arm appear as he draped it through the window. Then he tossed a wave, and I knew that he was watching me in the rearview mirror. I stepped onto the lawn and watched until he was gone. Then I turned down the hill.

Grace and I had been close. Maybe it was that day on the riverbank, when I’d held her, wailing, as my father hammered Dolf into the dirt for letting her wander off. Or the long walk back to the house, as my words finally calmed her. Maybe it was the smile she’d given me, or the desperate grip around my neck when I’d tried to put her down. Whatever the case, we’d bonded; and I’d watched with pride as she took the farm by storm. It was as if that plunge in the river had marked her, for she was fearless. She could swim the river by age five, ride bareback by seven. At ten, she could handle my father’s horse, a big, nasty brute that scared everyone but the old man. I taught her how to shoot and how to fish. She’d ride the tractor with me, beg to drive one of the farm trucks, then squeal with laughter when I let her. She was wild by nature, and often returned from school with blood on her cheek and tales of some boy who’d made her angry.

In many ways, I’d missed her the most.

I followed the narrow trail to the river and heard the music long before I got there. She was listening to Elvis Costello.

The dock was thirty feet long, a finger bone stroking the river in the middle of its slow bend to the south. She was at the end of it, a lean brown figure in the smallest white bikini I’d ever seen. She sat on the side of the dock, holding, with her foot, the edge of a dark blue canoe and speaking to the woman who sat in it. I stopped under a tree, hesitant about intruding.

The woman had white hair, a heart-shaped face, and lean arms. She looked very tan in a shirt the color of daffodils. I watched as she patted Grace’s hand and said something I could not hear. Then she gave a small wave and Grace pushed with her foot, skimming the canoe out into the river. The woman dipped a paddle and held the bow upstream. She said last words to the younger woman, then looked up and saw me. She stopped paddling and the current bore her down. She stared hard, then nodded once, and it was like I’d seen a ghost.

She drove the canoe upstream, and Grace lay down on the hard, white wood. The moment held such brightness, and I watched the woman until the curve in the river stole her away. Then I walked onto the dock, my feet loud on the wood. She did not move when she spoke.

“Go away, Jamie. I will not swim with you. I will not date you. I will not sleep with you under any circumstances. If you want to stare at me, go back to your telescope on the third floor.”

“It’s not Jamie,” I said.

She rolled onto her side, slid tinted glasses down her nose, and showed me her eyes. They were blue and sharp.

“Hello, Grace.”

She declined to smile, and lifted the glasses to hide her eyes. She rolled onto her stomach, reached for the radio, and turned it down. Her chin settled on the back of her folded hands, and she looked out over the water.

“Am I supposed to jump up and throw my arms around you?” she asked.

“No one else has.”

“I won’t feel sorry for you.”

“You never answered my letters.”

“To hell with your letters, Adam. You were all I had and you left. That’s where the story ends.”

“I’m sorry, Grace. If it means anything, leaving you alone broke my heart.”

“Go away, Adam.”

“I’m here now.”

Her voice spiked. “Who else cared about me? Not your stepmother. Not Miriam and not Jamie. Not until I had tits. Just a couple of busy old men that knew nothing about raising young girls. The whole world was messed up after you left, and you left me alone to deal with it. All of it. A world of shit. Keep your letters.”

Her words were killing me. “I was tried for murder. My own father kicked me out. I couldn’t stay here.”

“Whatever.”

“Grace-”

“Put some lotion on my back, Adam.”

“I don’t-”

“Just do it.”

I knelt on the wood beside her. The lotion was hot out of the bottle, cooked in the sun and smelling of bananas. Grace was beneath me, a stretch of hard, brown body that I could not relate to. I hesitated, and she reached behind herself and untied the top of her bikini. The straps fell away and for an instant, before she lay back down, one of her breasts hung in my vision. Then she was flat on the wood, and I knelt unmoving, completely undone. It was her manner, the sudden woman of her, and the certain knowledge that the Grace I’d known was lost forever.

“Don’t take all day,” she said.

I put the lotion on her back but did a bad job of it. I couldn’t look at the soft curves of her, the long legs slightly parted. So I looked over the river as well, and if we saw the same thing we could not have known. There were no words for that moment.

I’d barely finished when she said, “I’m going for a swim.” She retied her top and stood, the smooth plane of her stomach inches from my face. “Don’t go away,” she said, then turned and split the water in one fluid motion. I stood and watched the sun flash off of her arms as she stroked hard against the current. She went out fifty feet, then turned, and swam back. She cut through the river like she belonged in it, and I thought of the day she’d first went in, how the water had opened up and taken her down.

The river ran off of her as she climbed up the ladder. The weight of water pulled her hair back, and for a moment I saw something fierce in her naked features. But then the glasses went back on, and I stood mutely as she lay back down and let the sun begin to bake her dry.

“Should I even ask how long you plan to stay?” she said.

I sat next to her. “As long as it takes. A couple of days.”

“Do you have any plans?”

“One or two things,” I said. “Seeing friends. Seeing family.”

She laughed an unforgiving laugh. “Don’t count on a whole lot of this. I have a life, you know. Things I won’t drop just because you decide to show up unannounced.” Then, without skipping a beat, she asked me, “Do you smoke?” She reached into the pile of clothes next to her-cutoffs, red T-shirt, flip-flops-and came out with a small plastic bag. She pulled out a joint and a lighter.

“Not since college,” I said.

She lit the joint, sucked in a lungful. “Well, I smoke,” she said tightly. She extended the joint toward me, but I shook my head. She took another drag, and the smoke moved out over the water.

“Do you have a wife?” she asked.

“No.”

“A girlfriend?”

“No.”

“What about Robin Alexander?”

“Not for a long time.”

She took one more drag, stubbed the joint out, and dropped the charred end back into the plastic bag. Her words were soft around the edges.

“I’ve got boyfriends,” she said.

“That’s good.”

“Lots of boyfriends. I date one and then I date another.” I didn’t know what to say. She sat up, facing me. “Don’t you care?” she asked.

“Of course I care, but it’s none of my business.”

Then she was on her feet.

“It is your business,” she said. “If not yours, then whose?” She stepped closer, stopped an inch away. Powerful emotions emanated from her, but they were complex. I didn’t know what to say, so I said the only thing that I could.

“I’m sorry, Grace.”

Then she was against me, still wet from the river. Her arms circled my neck. She clutched me with sudden intensity. Her hands found my face, squeezed it, and then her lips pushed against mine. She kissed me, and she meant it. And when her mouth settled against my ear, she squeezed me even tighter, so that I could not have stepped away without forcing her. Her words were barely there, and still they crushed me.

“I hate you, Adam. I hate you like I could kill you.”

Then she turned and ran, down the riverbank, through the trees, her white suit flashing like the tail of a startled deer.