Blindside

34

A t ten o’clock Thursday morning the rain had lightened to a thick gray mist, mixing into the low-lying fog that crept up the sides of the mountains, blanketing the land.

“Do you really think it’s over?”

Keely pursed her lips, looked doubtful. “I don’t know, but I sure hope so. Last night was real scary, Sam.”

Sam sighed, thought that every night since early last Friday morning had been scary, and leaned in more closely. “Yeah, I know, but your mom and my dad, they took care of us.” He sighed again, deeply. “But since everything is over now, you know what that means, Keely.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re gonna have to leave and never come back.”

“I’ll tell Papa that I don’t want to leave, okay?”

“Do you think he’ll let you stay here and live with Mama and me?”

“I want him to stay, too,” Sam said, and pulled Minna’s soft wool blanket more closely around both him and Keely because it was getting colder.

“If your papa doesn’t want to stay, what are you going to do, Sam?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said finally and he fisted his eyes. “I’m only six. Nobody listens to me.”

“They listen to you even less when you’re five. I heard my grandma talking to Linnie just a while ago. She told Linnie that your papa and my mama should get married and that would be that.”

“What would be that?”

“Well, I guess it means that if you leave, I get to leave with you.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good.”

“Your father would be my steppapa.”

“Yeah, and Katie would be my stepmama. That’s weird.”

“We could fight and stuff and no one could say anything about it.” Keely punched his arm, gave him a huge grin, then settled her head on his shoulder.

They were sitting in Minna’s porch swing. Since Sam’s legs weren’t long enough to reach the porch, he’d taken a walking stick out of the umbrella stand that had belonged to Keely’s grandfather. Every few minutes, he shoved the stick against the wooden floor to make the swing go back and forth.

“I don’t want you to go away, Sam.”

“I know and I’ve been thinking, Keely. Papa isn’t stupid. He’ll marry your mom.”

Keely said, “You’re six years old. You don’t know if your dad’s stupid or not. My mama says this is the most beautiful place in the world. Even if your dad was stupid, he could be happy here. I know, tell him we’ll take him rafting on the Big Pigeon River. That’s in the Smokies.”

“Papa’s been rafting before. I’ll tell him, but you know, Keely, he’s got that big helicopter business in Virginia. Since those bad men took me he hasn’t gotten much work done.”

Keely pondered this for a while. “I know, tell him that Mama is the best rafter in Tennessee and she’ll teach him. Oh, and tell him that Sam Houston taught in a log schoolhouse when he was eighteen. I’ll bet your dad will be impressed. Tell him we’ll take him there. Tell him he can e-mail to his business.”

“Keely, if my papa and your mama got married, what would your name be?”

Keely didn’t have an answer to that. Sam shoved the walking stick against the porch floor and the swing swung out widely. They laughed and hung on.

Children’s laughter, Katie thought, there was nothing like it. She and Miles were standing just inside the screened door. Neither said a word and they didn’t look at each other. So this was why her mom suggested they take a look at the beautiful hazy fog that was climbing the sides of the mountains.

Miles said quietly as he stepped back, “They look like a Norman Rockwell painting.”

It was true, with their heads pressed together, the swing gently going back and forth, but any words Katie would have said stuck in her throat. She nodded and looked toward the mountains, blurred and softened by the fog, like fine smoke. Her mom had told her that looking at the mountains on a morning like this was like reading without reading glasses.

“Even in the winter, when it’s so cold your toes are curling under and the mountains look weighted down with snow, they’re still so beautiful it makes you want to cry just looking at them. And down at Gatlinburg-”

“Katie, what the kids were talking about…”

She turned to face him then. The emergency room doctor hadn’t stitched Miles’s face, just pressed the skin together using Steri-strips. She’d told him to rub on vitamin E and there wouldn’t be a scar on his handsome face, unless he wanted to look dangerous, and she’d waggled her eyebrows at him. Katie said, “I guess this means you don’t want me to tell you about the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.”

“Not right this minute, no.”

“Okay. You mean us getting married?”

“Yes,” he said. “Maybe we should give it some thought.”

Katie had firmly believed, up until, say, just four minutes ago, that she’d rather be incontinent than get married again. But now?

“Katie? Miles? I brought some cinnamon nut bread for the kids.”

Her mother had excellent timing, Katie thought. She always had, particularly when there’d been horny boys around during high school. She’d given them enough time to overhear the kids talking, enough time to think about it, even say it out loud. They were both smiling when they turned to see Minna coming with a platter that smelled delicious from twenty feet away.

“I’m starving,” Miles said, surprised. “I hadn’t realized.”

“Glad I had some clothes for you, Miles. Katie’s dad was tall like you, so at least your ankles aren’t showing. Sweetie, those jeans are nearly white they’ve been washed so many times, but you look just fine. Now, I’m going to take these goodies to the kids. They’re having a hard time, you know.”

“Can we have some first, Mom?”

“Sure. Take as many slices as you want. You two just go into the living room and I’ll take care of the kids.”

Minna waltzed back into the living room a few minutes later, and announced, “Sam and Keely aren’t happy campers. I don’t envy you having to separate them.”

And now, Katie thought, just a touch of the spurs. Katie grinned at her mother, knowing exactly what she was doing. Miles, however, didn’t.

“We’re not looking forward to it,” he said and sighed. He leaned his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes.

Minna said, “Linnie called while you were in the shower, sweetie. She said the TBI is going nuts and they’re coming in force today about noon-that was so you could nap a little bit after that long night. Evidently one of the inspectors couldn’t wait to see exactly what had happened here in Jessborough, a town, he said, that’s never had anything more than some dippy DUIs and underage smokers in its extremely long life, until now. Linnie said not to worry, that the inspector really sounded excited. She also said the mayor and all the aldermen couldn’t wait to see you, to hear every gory detail, I expect.”

Katie said, “Oh yeah, Mayor Tommy will probably want a dozen meetings to thrash everything out.”

Minna nodded. “Well, it is the most excitement Tommy’s had since he caught his best friend making out with his girlfriend behind the bleachers back in high school. You really can’t blame him. Nor the aldermen. I’m an alderwoman, Miles, and so I’ve already gotten a dozen or more calls.”

“No,” Katie said. “You’re right, it’s been a long dry spell for Tommy.”

Miles called his sister-in-law, Cracker, told her it was finally over. He’d considered asking Cracker if she’d ever known Sam to be ill while Miles had been away, but decided against it. He knew to his soul that if Alicia hadn’t told him about taping Sam with blood on his palms, she wouldn’t have told anyone else. But she had given it to someone. Who? Perhaps her ancient priest, an old man who’d been kind and was failing physically and mentally. If she gave it to him then he must have passed it on to someone else, someone who’d given it to Reverend McCamy. They would never know now, and, truth be told, it didn’t matter. The video was now ashes buried beneath more ashes and shards of burned wood.

When he’d hung up the phone, Katie had nodded. The last thing Sam needed was to have the media proclaiming him the newest candidate for sainthood, or a freak, or a helpless pawn. She could just see a TV guy asking Sam to please try to make his hands bleed again for the cameras. And here was Dr. X, psychologist, to give a historical perspective on the visible stigmata. Or those proclaiming he was a fraud or a victim of abuse, and exploited for it. Thomas Boone could say whatever he wanted, but everyone knew what he’d done, so she doubted anyone would believe him if he talked crazy.

And he’d said more to himself than to Katie, “What else did she keep from me?”

Katie hadn’t said anything, merely taken his hand.

They would come up with exactly what to tell everyone, including the mayor and the aldermen, including her mother, but just not now, not when they were both so tired, like they’d been hung out to dry.

She looked over at Miles, a paper plate on his lap, a half-eaten slice of cinnamon nut bread sitting in the middle. He was sound asleep.

She smiled and nodded off herself.