The Hiding Place

Chapter Fifty-one

When Janet came in the door, she saw Ashleigh sitting on the couch, the television playing a game show. Ashleigh never watched that kind of mindless television. She hardly ever watched television at all. But there she sat, her eyes glued to the screen. She looked up when Janet came in.

“Mom?”

Janet heard something in Ashleigh’s voice, a hint of a plea. Or fear. Something not quite right, not quite normal. Or was it just Janet herself superimposing her own emotions onto her daughter’s? Janet had driven the whole way home thinking about what she had learned that day and evening. Michael was gone, Ray with the police. Would it end right there? Would Michael just walk-run-away from her and the town and never look back? Never say good-bye?

“What’s wrong?” Janet asked.

“Did you hear all this?”

Janet understood. Whatever was happening at the police station was playing out on the news. Ashleigh knew. Everyone knew. Ray Bower was talking to the police. He might be charged.

But what about her dad?

Ashleigh read the look on her face, saw the question there.

“He’s in his bedroom,” Ashleigh said. “I think you need to talk to him.”

“He knows?”

Ashleigh nodded. “We watched it together. He came and got me out of my room. It’s weird, Mom. I don’t think he wanted to watch it all alone.”

Janet looked past Ashleigh and down the hallway toward her dad’s room. “Thanks, honey. I’ll go talk to him.”

“Mom? Do you think Ray Bower killed Justin?”

Janet didn’t look at Ashleigh as she answered. “I do, yes, but I have to go talk to your grandpa now.”

Her dad was seated on the side of his bed, his feet on the floor. The TV was off-a rarity. He didn’t look up when Janet came into the bedroom. He remained seated, his head in his hands. Janet closed the door behind her.

“You know?” he asked, his head still down.

“I heard about it.”

“I’m going down there.” He didn’t stand up, but he rocked back and forth a little, creating motion with his body. “I have to.”

“To do what?”

He didn’t answer. He kept rocking.

“Dad? What do you think you can do down there?”

He said something, the sound muffled by his hands.

“What?”

“I don’t know.” He lowered his hands and stared at the wall. “I don’t know.” His rocking stopped. “He took away everything I had. One man. He took it all away.”

“Let the police handle it, Dad.”

“He killed my…he killed Justin that day.”

Janet came farther into the room. She moved around the end of the bed to the side near the wall. She sat next to him and placed her arm around his back. “Dad?”

He didn’t resist her touch. He didn’t move closer to her, but he didn’t move away.

“Dad, I thought that since you knew all along, ever since that day, that Justin wasn’t your son…You never talked about him. You never cried for him.”

“Did what you found out about your mother make you love her any less?” he asked.

They both knew the answer without Janet saying anything. Janet had spent many hours thinking about her mother, turning the news about her and Ray over in her mind. No matter how long she worked at it, Janet couldn’t reconcile the two things: the way she felt about her mother and her mother’s infidelity. In the end, she split her mother into two. The woman who raised her and the woman who loved Ray Bower. It was the only way she could do it. To do anything else threatened to strip the gears from her mind.

“Did knowing that I’m not Justin’s father make you love him any less? Or make him any less your brother?” he asked. “I raised him. For four years, I raised him. That makes him mine. I guess I spent twenty-five years trying to pretend he wasn’t, but he is. He’s mine.”

“He’s ours,” Janet said.

Her father’s body still felt rigid under her touch, so she brought her arm down and folded her hands in her lap. She didn’t know where to go next, what to say or do to help her father. She didn’t even know how to help herself.

“Don’t go anywhere, Dad. Promise?”

He brought his hands together, intertwined the fingers and moved them around. They tangled up like knotted roots. The pressure he exerted by squeezing his fingers together looked painful and almost made Janet wince.

“What am I going to do anyway?” he said. “I couldn’t protect Justin from him back then. I couldn’t keep my wife away from him. I couldn’t protect you from…”

“From boys?”

“From a boy,” he said.

“And we have Ashleigh because of it.”

“I know,” he said. “I’ve had to absorb a lot. And accept a lot. It’s not easy for me, with you moving in. I know you had to move in when I lost my job, but it’s not easy for me.” He sighed. “Just do me a favor.”

“What?”

“I know you love that Michael Bower, and I know he’s back in town. Maybe for good. Just promise me something. Promise me that if you have to be with that guy, if you love him and want to be with him, promise me he’s a better man than his father. Can you promise me that?”

“Michael’s gone, Dad. He’s gone, and I don’t think he’s ever coming back to Dove Point.”