Chapter Forty- Five
Chapter
Forty-Five
Lucas wished there was more he could do. He’d
helped Mark sort through pictures of his father and listened to the
stories behind the different photographs. He’d taken the afternoon
of the funeral off work and waited anxiously in Mark’s apartment,
ready to comfort him when he returned from the ceremony. He’d done
everything he could think of, but it didn’t feel like enough.
“He’s doing okay,” he told Elise when she
asked, and he didn’t think it was a lie, exactly. Mark was okay.
The days were passing and Mark was recovering. But he’d lost more
than his father, and he was clearly drifting a little. Two family
members dead, one refusing to speak to him. A career that was still
in limbo. He didn’t seem to be talking to anyone but Lucas about
any of it, and Lucas really wasn’t sure he was equipped to give the
man any real help.
He’d stopped working so many hours at the
farm in order to spend more time with Mark and he was cleaning up
for the day when he saw an unfamiliar car pull into the drive.
Elise was in town and Alex was somewhere around the back of the
barn so Lucas stepped forward to greet the new arrival. He stopped
moving when the car door swung open and he saw the driver.
Mark’s mother didn’t even glance around her.
Her gaze was locked onto Lucas like a falcon spotting a field
mouse. He tried not to step backward as she picked her way across
the gravel driveway toward him.
“I want to talk to you,” she said firmly.
“Privately.”
He couldn’t help it—he backed up a little.
“What about?” But did it matter? It wasn’t like he was going to
refuse a simple request from this woman. “This is pretty private,
probably. Alex is around somewhere, but—”
“Fine. I want to talk to you about my
son.”
Well, that wasn’t surprising. There really
wasn’t anything else the two of them had in common. “What about
him?” Lucas asked cautiously.
“I want to make sure you know how unhappy he
is right now.”
Lucas wasn’t sure he’d seen that. Obviously
Mark was struggling with the loss of his father and was worried
about the rift with his mother, but… “He seems okay.”
“Does he? And you’re basing that opinion on
the long years you’ve known him? The vast experience you’ve had
with his emotions and behavior?”
“I haven’t known him long, but I know him
now. And he seems okay.”
“He’s not.” She tapped her fingers together
impatiently. “And if he’s not sharing that with you I guess you two
aren’t as close as I thought you were. Which is a relief, of
course, but since you’ve cut him off from everyone else in his life
it means that he has no one to really talk to.” She paused
as if for a response, but Lucas couldn’t think of a damn thing to
say. Maybe she was right. Maybe Mark was more unhappy than he
seemed. And maybe Lucas was too clueless to do anything about
it.
Mrs. Webber looked pleased that he was facing
the truth. “Three years ago he was a happy young professional.
Loving family, good job, the respect of his community. And then
you came along.” Her tone was almost conversational but the
words were clearly designed to hurt. “I have no idea why you’ve
decided to destroy my family, but you’ve done an excellent job.
Jimmy was…” She shook her head almost violently and for one brief
moment Lucas could see the genuine pain behind her cool facade. But
she got herself back under control quickly. “At least Jimmy was
quick. With Mark, you’re dragging it out. I don’t know why.” Now
her glaze was steely. “I don’t know why but I want it to stop.”
She looked around the farm as if seeing it
for the first time, then turned back to Lucas. “Maybe it’ll take
money. If so, we can negotiate. I’m thinking a lump sum now and
monthly payments for as long as I feel it’s necessary. Until Mark
comes back to his senses and I’m confident that he won’t fall prey
to you again. I’m prepared to be quite generous. Should we say
twenty thousand dollars for the lump sum, with five thousand
dollars a month following that?”
Lucas stared at her. Working a minimum wage
job, twenty thousand dollars was about all he was going to make in
a year. She was offering him that much in a single month? With more
money to follow? The numbers were mind blowing but he didn’t feel
the slightest temptation. “No,” he said simply. “I don’t want your
money.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Forty thousand lump sum,
still with the five thousand dollar monthly payments.”
Jesus, how much money did this woman have?
But the answer was still easy. “No.”
“Name your price, then. I’ll see what I can
do.”
Lucas let himself play with the idea, just
for a moment. “Offer me a million dollars,” he said quietly.
“I don’t have that kind of money,” she
scoffed.
“Then stop offering me less. I still would
have turned you down at a million, so you’re wasting your
time.”
But she didn’t seem discouraged. “How about
your freedom, then? Are you interested in bargaining with that?
Because you’ve got a parole violation hearing coming up the day
after tomorrow.” She looked like she thought he’d be surprised that
she knew about that and he didn’t bother correcting her. He just
listened as she said, “I can go there and testify about how you’ve
been nothing but trouble since you’ve been released. I can tell the
judge about the continuation of your vendetta against my family,
the way you’ve pursued and seduced my only remaining son, the way
you’ve vindictively ruined his career and capitalized on his
vulnerability. The judge scheduled to hear your case? He’s my
husband’s ex-partner. Did you know that? Do you really think he’ll
turn a blind eye to all this, less than a week after crying on my
shoulder at my husband’s memorial service?”
Lucas forced himself to swallow so his voice
would be controlled when he spoke. “I guess you’ll do what you have
to do. And if they send me back to jail, I’ll deal with it.” He
squinted at her as a thought occurred to him. “But you don’t think
they will. ’Cause if they do, that’ll solve all your problems,
right? Mark’s not going to wait around for another three years.”
Lucas couldn’t fool himself about that. “So if I go back to jail,
Mark and I will be over anyway. If you thought I was going, you
wouldn’t have offered me all that money.”
She frowned at him for a while before
admitting, “It’s Plan B.”
“I hope Plan C is you backing off and getting
used to it, because A and B are getting you nowhere.” He wanted to
be respectful of Jimmy Webber’s mother, and it wasn’t like he
wanted to piss off Mark Webber’s mother either. But she
wasn’t leaving him many options.
And she wasn’t leaving him alone, either. She
peered curiously at his face before slowly saying, “No. Plan
C…there’s a reason it’s the last one on my list. It’s the plan that
depends on you having some level of human decency, some tiny speck
of compassion or affection for my son. You can understand why I
didn’t think it would be successful. But at least it’ll clear the
air. When I tell you about Plan C and you dismiss it as casually as
you’ve rejected the others, then at least there’ll be an
understanding between you and me. We’ll both know that you don’t
give a damn about my son or his wellbeing, and we can carry on from
there.”
Lucas was pretty sure he didn’t want to hear
Plan C, but he was also pretty sure that there was nothing short of
violence that would keep this woman from presenting it to him. So
he waited.
“My lawyer has been speaking to the diocese.
He’s done business with the church for years. That’s why I chose
him. He has connections, and they tell him that Mark isn’t going to
be removed from his position. Not yet. But he’s going to be on a
very, very short leash. You understand what it’s like to be on
probation. Of course in your case it’s because you did something to
deserve it. Mark has done nothing wrong, but he’s going to be
treated like a criminal anyway. And the church will make it clear
that he needs to keep a low profile and keep all members of his
congregation happy.” Her glare stabbed through him. “Do you think
his congregation is going to be happy when they hear he’s been
involved in this obscene affair with the man who murdered his own
brother? Do you think that’s going to let them trust him with their
spiritual care?”
She shook her head almost sadly. “My husband
and I were never all that religious. We took the boys to church and
we tried to teach them the basics, but Mark…he was beyond us almost
immediately. He loved it. We’d hoped he’d follow his father into
law, but there was never any doubt for Mark. He’d been called and
he had to obey. He needed to, wanted to. He was single-minded and
determined and joyful about it. I’ve never met anyone more
confident in his career path than Mark.”
“I don’t think he’s so confident anymore,”
Lucas tried.
“Because of you. You’ve got him so
twisted around that he’s abandoning his family, his
calling…everything he’s cared about and worked for his entire life.
And for what?” She smiled sadly at Lucas as if she were on his side
and just forced to tell him some hard truths. “How long do you
imagine this nonsense between you and my son can continue? How long
before he wants someone who can challenge him intellectually and
support him spiritually and professionally, someone he can
introduce to his family and friends? Can you see yourself doing any
of that for him? Really, can you?”
She apparently saw something she liked in
Lucas’s expression. “You actually do care about him. That’s…it’s a
surprise to me, but I can see that it’s true. So you need to act
like it. You need to grow up and take responsibility for yourself
and the damage you’re doing! Mark is infatuated and inexperienced
with these things. He’s making bad decisions. He needs the people
who care about him to step in and help him. You need to help him,
Lucas, not hurt him.”
“I’d never hurt him,” Lucas tried. Too many
thoughts were spinning through his head and he needed to fight
through them to find the most basic truths.
“You’re hurting him right now,” Mrs. Webber
said sadly. “You’ve been hurting him since this affair began. Now
you need to stop. I love my son and I will always be there for him.
It doesn’t matter to me whether his infatuation ends today,
tomorrow, or next month…I’ll be waiting with open arms. But the
church will not be so forgiving. If this nonsense doesn’t end now,
he could lose something he’s loved and been devoted to since he was
just a teenager. And if that happens, it’ll be because of you.” She
stepped forward and looked up into his face. “How will you feel
then, Lucas? Knowing that you’ve stolen his brother and his
vocation? You’ll leave him with nothing. And you’ll walk away with
nothing yourself.”
Lucas didn’t want to listen to her. Not to
the words she was saying out loud, but also not to the ones that
were echoing around inside his head. Mark was going to be on
probation. He was unhappy. Lucas was hurting him. Hurting him.
For the first time in a long time, Lucas
wanted a drink. No, not just one. He wanted a lot of drinks. He
wanted to get completely shitfaced and then find another drunk who
was just as desperate as he was and he wanted them to beat the crap
out of each other until they couldn’t think about anything but the
pain they were feeling and causing. He turned away from Mrs. Webber
and shut his eyes, trying to block it all out.
“You care about him,” she said softly. “So
you need to do the right thing. It’s going to hurt you, but it’s
the only way to help him. You need to stay away from my son.
Forever.”
Forever. It was another horrible echo in
Lucas’s mind. Forever. He realized that he’d started to believe
Mark’s romantic dreams. He’d started to think that maybe the two of
them could actually last. But Mrs. Webber was right. Mark deserved
someone who could help him build the life he was meant to have, not
someone who’d drag him down and hold him back. How long would it be
before Mark realized he wasn’t satisfied and moved on? And how much
damage would Lucas have done before that happened?
“I need to think,” he muttered. He was
wishing for a time machine again. He could travel back just five
minutes and when Mrs. Webber started up the driveway he could take
off, running as fast and as far as he could from her cruel, true
words. He could earn himself just a little more happiness before he
had to return to reality.
But he didn’t have a time machine, and Mrs.
Webber was watching him with eyes that seemed to see right through
all his evasions.
“If you love him, you’ll leave him,” she said
simply. Then she turned and picked her way back over the rough
gravel toward her car.
Lucas wanted to shout words of defiance after
her, but he had none. If he’d opened his mouth all that would have
come out was an angry, hurt roar. Maybe not even a roar. Maybe just
a whimper.
He watched her leave, then sank down into a
crouch and leaned back against the barn wall. Too many echoes, but
not enough to drown out the truth. If you love him, you’ll leave
him. Lucas knew what he needed to do, but he wasn’t sure where
he’d find the strength to actually do it.