Chapter 23 #2
“That’s when she noticed he was missing. She came back and got me. We grabbed a couple others and searched the house. He shoulda been in his room. He had cake and his toys and the telly. But he was always getting out, wandering off.”
“Who found him, do you remember?”
He nods. “Mir did. She pulled him out of the pond, pounded on his chest, breathed into his mouth, but none of us really knew what to do.”
“None of you knew CPR?”
He shakes his head. “Do they teach Yanks that in school?”
I don’t remember learning it in high school, but I sure as fuck learned it in the Navy. “In some places, I think.”
“They teach it here now,” Fred says listlessly.
“But not then. None of us knew. None of us could save him. Mir kept screaming at us, no ambulance, no police. She said she had it handled. So none of us called them. I called Tilly but I knew it was too late by then. His lips were blue and his eyes were open. He never blinked once while she pounded on his chest and breathed into his mouth. A little water came out of his nose but that’s all. He never made a sound.”
Because he was dead.
“What happened after you called your sister?”
“She came and got me. The Porters were home by then. I’m not sure who called them.
It wasn’t me. Mr. Porter wrapped Nicky’s body up in a sheet and took him somewhere.
Mrs. Porter and Miranda and a couple of the girls were sitting in the lounge, crying.
I left with Tilly. I didn’t see Mir for a while after that. She went away with her parents.”
“Where did she go?”
“Switzerland. Her mother needed treatment.”
“Psychiatric treatment?” I ask.
Fred nods.
“Did Miranda get psychiatric treatment as well?”
“If she did, she never said.”
“When did you next see her?”
“She came back the next summer.”
“Did you see much of her after that?”
He lifts one shoulder. “Not as much as I’d have liked. She went off to the City for Uni. Became a doctor. Married that fella.”
“Did you and Miranda see each other after she got married?”
A spark flares and dies in his eyes. “Sometimes.”
“As friends?” I ask.
He nods.
“As more than friends?”
“Guess you’ve heard about that.” He sighs. “Yeah, we saw each other while she was married.”
“And while you were married?”
“Yeah.”
I clear my throat. This feels like kicking a dying dog. But my best friend is counting on me. I push on.
“You and Miranda Porter had an affair while you were both married?”
“Yeah.”
“When did the affair end?”
“Little over five years ago. When she met him. She wouldn’t talk about him. Wouldn’t tell me his name or who he was or what he did, but I followed her. Saw them together. Big guy. Dark hair. Spoke like he was from up North somewhere.”
Jesus, Logan.
“Did you ever speak to him? Confront him?”
He shakes his head. “I wanted to, planned to. I went to the place they were staying together and waited, but Miranda came out first. She sent me away, promised we’d talk.”
“Did you?”
He huffs a little breath through his nose. “She talked to my wife.”
“What did she say?”
“Told her everything. Every time we’d been together. Every word I’d said to her.”
“What had you said to her?”
“The truth. Shell got pregnant and I did the right thing by her, but she wasn’t my girl. She wasn’t the one I wanted to spend forever with. I was with her for the kid, but that was it.”
“What happened after that?”
“Shell left me. Took Jennie with her and wouldn’t let me see my own kid. She said she’d ruin Miranda’s career at the hospital if I ever tried to contact them again. Moral turpitude or something.”
I make a note to look for a moral turpitude clause in Miranda’s employment contract.
“Why would you care about Miranda’s career if she’d just destroyed your marriage?” I ask, genuinely puzzled.
Fred shrugs. “I love her.”
My chest seizes and I swallow hard, both horrified and awed by the simplicity of that statement.
“Have you seen her since then?” I ask.
“Seen her? Yeah. I followed her for a while, trying to get her to talk to me. She got a restraining order. Said I was threatening her. I wasn’t. That I’d hit her. I didn’t. Not once. I just wanted to understand why she shut me out.”
Because she fell for Logan.
“Did you ever find out?”
He shakes his head. “Broke the restraining order, didn’t I?” He pulls up the leg of his faded jean and shows me a thick, plastic collar locked around his ankle. “Can’t leave the village.”
“How long do you have to wear that?” I ask, horrified. It’s one thing to be chipped by my friends to keep me safe. It’s another to be leashed by a legal system Miranda’s manipulated.
“Two more months.”
I curse under my breath.
Fred shrugs again. “Better than jail, I guess.”
I nod, unwilling to imagine what might happen to this broken man in prison.
“When you get it off, what will you do?”
Fred lets out a tired sigh. “Dunnow.”
“Anything else you remember about the day Nicky died?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
I run quickly through the legalities before I turn off the camera, pack up my little folding tripod, and put everything in my bag.
I lean across the table. “Fred, you can tell me to fuck off, but as soon as that anklet comes off, leave this fucking place. Take the first flight to Spain, find your daughter, and find some way to be part of her life again.”
He looks at me, his mouth falling open slightly. “Wha—?”
“Miranda doesn’t love you. I don’t think she loves anyone. She’s not coming back. Don’t wait for her. Stop letting her ruin your life.”
His mouth works but no sound comes out.
“You have a daughter. Don’t abandon her. She’ll forgive you even if your ex never does. Kids just want their parents to love them. They’ll forgive you practically anything, but you gotta be around to be forgiven. Go find your kid.”
The faint spark in his eyes becomes a sheen. He looks away. “You got kids?”
“Not yet. I was that kid. I know how it feels. I’d have forgiven my dad anything if he’d wanted to be part of my life. Neither he nor my Ma ever gave me that chance. Don’t deprive your daughter of her father.”
“I don’t-I don’t have much to give her,” he mumbles.
“Just being there is a start,” I insist. “You’re giving her nothing if you’re gone.”
“Shell hates me. She won’t let me near Jennie.”
“How long did you chase after Miranda, trying to get an answer out of her?”
The faintest color rises in Fred’s gray cheeks. “More’n a year.”
“Give your daughter the same time. It’s the very fucking least she deserves.”
Fred swallows, his prominent Adam’s apple working. “I don’t know what to say.”
I pull out one of my business cards, which just has my name and a cell number I don’t mind people having and slide it across the table at him. “In a year, send me a thumbs up or a thumbs down. You don’t have to say anything else. I’ll know.”
His hand shakes as he takes the card and shoves it into the pocket of his jeans.
“I’ll see myself out,” I say, to avoid the inevitable, awkward goodbye.
He shuffles after me to the door anyway. I shake his hand when he offers it, and when he closes the door behind me, I see a faint spark in those watery eyes.