Poison Wood

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Riverbend, Louisiana

Pink light comes through the windows of my room. I roll over and check the time on my phone. I haven’t slept this late in months. Grant stirs next to me, still in his rumpled pants and dress shirt. We talked until we both fell asleep.

What is this guy doing to me? I want to tell myself he’s just for fun. But I know what that feels like, and it’s not what I’m starting to feel about him.

I scroll through the fourteen text messages I have in a group thread with Kat and Summer.

They’ve seen the news about Crowley, and Kat said Summer’s mom and Kat’s father are meeting them in Natchitoches.

Seems the pull of that school is reaching farther than just Riverbend.

I text back that I’m planning on heading there, too, and that we could set up a place to get together once I was there.

Grant opens his eyes. “Morning.”

I roll onto my side and face him. “Morning.”

“Why doesn’t this feel awkward?” he says with a smile.

I laugh. “I kind of wish it did. It’d be easier to kick you out of my bed.”

He reaches over and tucks a stray hair behind my ear. “The easy things aren’t necessarily the right things.”

“Nothing about this trip home has been easy,” I say. “But nothing about it feels right either.”

“Hey,” he says, pointing to himself.

“Okay, maybe one thing feels right.”

He sighs. “I need to get going.” He sits up. “I really hope your dad is in the kitchen again when I walk out in my rumpled suit.”

“Yeah,” I say, laughing. “This could be fun.”

At the bottom of the stairs, I hear voices in the kitchen. I glance at Grant.

“Where’s the back door?” he says.

“Stop,” I say. “It’s fine.”

I lead the way into the kitchen and immediately see it’s not going to be fine. Carl is sitting at the table. The three dogs run up to Grant, barking and wiggling.

Carl looks up when I walk in. “Well, hello, sleepy hea—” Then he sees Grant. “Oh.”

My dad looks up from his paper and frowns.

Debby walks out of the pantry and says, “Oh, my.”

“Morning,” I say.

Debby’s Southern manners kick in. “Good morning.” She looks at Grant. “Would you like some breakfast?”

He looks at me, and I shake my head.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says. “I would actually love some breakfast.”

I punch his arm.

I’m not sure whose face looks more protective as Grant pulls out a chair, my father’s or Carl’s.

Debby brings over a bowl of grits, a side of butter, and salt. She sets it in front of Grant. “If you ask for sugar, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”

She smiles and Grant laughs. “No, ma’am. No sugar.”

She winks at him.

I bend down and whisper, “You’ve got Debby’s approval.”

I snag a coffee mug from the cabinet and pour myself a coffee, then sit in the chair next to Grant.

Quite the breakfast meeting.

“What’s going on, Carl?” I say.

“I just wanted to come by before Erin and I head south. Wanted to visit with you and your dad.”

“You on this side of the camera now?” I say, eyeing him.

“Not like that,” he says. “I just wanted Judge Mac to know what’s going down.”

“What’s going down?” I say, sipping my coffee.

He looks at Grant. Grant pauses mid-bite. “I can leave,” he says. He finishes the bite. “Although I don’t actually have a car to leave in.”

“No, it’s okay,” I say to him. “It’s okay,” I repeat to Carl.

Carl sighs. “There’s going to be an inquiry into the evidence that was admitted in the first trial. And”—he pauses and looks at my father—“into other trials that involved your dad and the DA at the time. I wanted to tell you in person.”

I sit back in my chair and exhale.

“Also, Judge Mac,” Carl says. “There’s going to be questions about how well you knew Crowley and . . . the other thing. The rumors you used your leverage to change documents about . . . your first wife’s death.”

Debby drops the plate she’s holding over the sink.

And there it is, the topic I’ve been waiting to discuss with him, delivered directly to the breakfast table.

My father’s face turns red, and I hope like hell I won’t have to administer CPR in a minute.

“There’s a lot of layers to this one,” Carl says.

“That’s an understatement,” I say. I look at my father. “Dad, you haven’t said a word.”

“Not much to say,” he says. He pushes back from the table. “I need to get dressed. Horses haven’t been fed yet.”

Once he leaves the kitchen, I turn back to Carl. “Wish you’d have called me first.”

Debby starts washing pots, and even though she looks preoccupied, I know she’s listening.

“That makes two of us,” Carl says. “Sorry.” He fidgets with his coffee cup. “Grant Greene? Correct?” he says to Grant.

Grant nods. “Carl Frost, correct?”

Carl nods and says, “This is not going to be a good look if it gets out.”

“No, it’s not,” I say.

Grant reaches over and pats my arm. “We’ll handle whatever happens. I’m here.”

I know he means it and not just because he’s trained to help people. Because he’s walked the walk and been honest with me about it.

Carl pushes back from the table. “Take care of her,” he says, looking at Grant.

“I will,” Grant says.

“I don’t need someone to take care of me,” I say to both of them, pulling my arm away from Grant. But even as I say it, there’s a part of me that likes the idea. I’ve always held fast to taking care of myself, been proud of that, but Grant makes me question things I never questioned before.

“I’ve got to get back to the hotel and pack up,” Carl says. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

Grant looks from me to Carl. “Actually, there is something. I need a ride back to the hotel. I’ve got to pack my things up as well.”

I smile up at Carl. “You offered.”

Before they leave, I make sure Grant shows him the back way out and has the code, and I also tell them to avoid the front of the hotel.

“Not my first rodeo,” Carl says, and he walks to his car.

Grant lingers a minute, looks down at me. “You are so unexpected.”

“You’re the unexpected one,” I say.

“That’s exactly how I felt when I brought that casserole to your dad,” Debby says, drying her hands on a checkered dish towel.

Grant and I laugh. “Thanks for that, Debby,” I say.

He leans down and kisses me. “See you later.”

My dad has taken his truck to the horse barn, so Debby said I could take Pearl Ann.

Today no coat is needed. People joke the temperatures in this area are as random as lotto numbers, and today that number is around seventy-five.

Birds swoop and chirp in the open hay shed as I climb down from the spotless F-150. The sounds of my youth are in this barn. The smells. A world away from what I hear and smell in Dallas.

My dad exits, carrying a bale in his gloved hands.

“Dad!”

I race over and try to help, but the twine cuts into my fingers, so I end up just following him, like the three dogs.

He drops it next to the stalls, takes a pocketknife from his jeans, and cuts the twine.

“Two biscuits for each,” he says, using the term he likes.

I grab two sections of hay and take them to the first stall while he opens the feed room. I can hear him dishing out feed inside.

I toss the hay in each of the three stalls, one for my father’s old sorrel gelding, one for Debby’s mare, and then one for my old guy, Buddy.

He came to us one day when our neighbor rode him up the road and said he couldn’t care for him anymore.

We took him in, and he helped fill a giant hole in my heart. I was eleven.

Even though this place was a rotating foster home for cats and sometimes dogs, once the horses were here, they never left. The horses stayed until their last breath. A thought comes in so quickly I can’t stop it: Just like my father.

He comes out carrying three buckets of feed.

I grab two from him. “I can help with that.”

He keeps all three. “I’m fine.”

I shake my head. At least I know where I get it from.

He doles out the feed and locks the buckets back in the tack room. There are no more chores to be done.

When he comes back over to where I’m standing, I point to two outdoor patio chairs sitting against the tack room wall. “Can we talk?”

Butterflies flutter in my chest. I’ve covered mass-casualty events, countless murders, and car accidents, but confronting my father about this truth feels like it could cut deeper than any of those things.

He sits in one of the chairs, and I sit next to him.

“What happened with Mom?” I say.

The dogs tussle with each other in the grass in front of us. “Boys, cut it out,” he says.

I give him a second, but when he doesn’t speak, I say, “Dad?”

He keeps his eyes straight ahead. “It was an accidental overdose.”

My chest starts to feel tight. Four things I can see: the barn, the dogs, the hoses on the wash rack, the white iron fence. Three things I can hear: the horses eating, the dogs playing . . . my father . . . crying?

I open my eyes as he’s wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his plaid work shirt. I can’t tell if there were tears in them, but it sounded like there were. He inhales slowly, then releases it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I say.

He looks at me and clears his throat. “I just wanted to protect you. That’s all.”

“Lies don’t protect people, Dad.”

“Yes, they do.”

Something cold settles in my bones. I wonder if he is talking about more than my mother now. “Is there something else you’re trying to protect me from?”

“Just yourself.”

I lean back against the chair. “Why did you change the death certificate?”

“That was wrong,” he says, “I know that. But I did it when I was grieving because I didn’t want that to be her legacy.

I didn’t want you to think she . . . she may have taken her own life.

Which she didn’t,” he adds quickly. “It was an accident,” he says again.

“But I still didn’t want those words on the certificate.

So I asked a friend for a favor. If I could go back and change it, I would. ”

“If the media know, your reputation is about to be picked apart.”

“Let them pick.” His steely eyes harden, and even though he’s just home from the hospital, I see his strength in them.

“Tell me about what happened?”

He calls for Dos, and the dog jumps in his lap. “She had that bad fall off her horse, and she had those stupid pain pills. I knew I should have monitored her better. I should have . . .” His voice cracks and trails off. “She just took too many.”

“I wish you’d told me the truth,” I say.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

I sit up. Those are not words I’m used to hearing from him.

“Thank you,” I say. “Maybe we can start from here and have more honest conversations.”

“I think we can do that,” he says. He sighs. “I still see you as my little girl who needs protecting.”

The tears start before I even realize it’s happening.

I’ve cried more in the last week than I’ve cried in the last year.

I wipe them away and exhale. Of all the conversations we’ve had over the years, this short one drills deeper than all the others combined, all the way to the emotions I’ve kept buried since my mother died.

“I think we are off to a good start here, Dad,” I say.

“Me too.”

He stands up, and Dos jumps to the ground. I stand up too.

He pats my arm. “I love you, kid.”

I almost fall back into the chair. Like apologies, I love yous were not the norm with Judge Mac Meade.

“I don’t know if I can handle an I’m sorry and an I love you in one day,” I say, trying to bring humor into a moment that doesn’t need it.

He laughs and shakes his head.

“I love you too,” I say before the moment is gone.

Back upstairs in my room, I pack up my small bag.

If everyone else is heading south for this story, I don’t plan on being left behind.

My phone dings nonstop with pictures of me leaving the Kingston Hotel yesterday.

Article after article, blurb after blurb.

Speculations about my job, my connection to Poison Wood, and the details of my mother’s death. I delete them as soon as they appear.

Debby is scrubbing a sheet pan in the sink when I walk into the kitchen.

“I need to take his truck again,” I say.

“Sure.” She looks over her shoulder at my bag.

“Just a couple of nights.”

“Okay, hon.” She hands me the keys.

As I’m loading up, she walks into the garage with a biscuit and a cup of coffee in her hands.

“You need to slow down,” she says. “Eat.” She hands the coffee and food to me, and I take them through the truck window.

She studies my face. “You’ve got to take care of yourself, Rita,” she says, her voice cracking. “Your dad . . . he needs you.”

I open the truck door and step out. “I will,” I say, but before I can say anything else, tears stream from her eyes. It’s not even noon, and Debby, my father, and I have all shed tears.

She grabs me and hugs me. Debby and I have hugged maybe twice, ever. I hug her back, and she presses her head into my shoulder.

“I’ve been so scared,” she says, looking up and wiping her eyes.

“It’s okay. He’s okay,” I say. “He’s going to be okay.”

She meets my gaze. “I know, hon. That’s why I’m crying.”

“I understand,” I say.

She pulls back and scratches at the base of the giant bun on top of her head.

“I’ve had to hold it together for your dad.

Be strong. For him. For you.” Another tear falls.

“And now I feel I can let go a little. Maybe go back to volunteering again at the therapeutic riding center down the road. You know? Something . . . normal.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” I say.

She takes my hand. “You can let go a little, too, Rita. You might need to.”

I smile and nod and climb behind the wheel before she can say one more word about letting go.

That is the last thing I need to do right now.