Chapter 27 Reuben
Chapter 27
Reuben
“It will be all right,” said Abigail. “Everything will be fine.”
“You always say that.”
“Because it’s true, as long as we don’t talk about it. We can’t talk about it.”
He turned to his sister. “And look where that’s gotten us.”
“What it’s gotten us is a roof over our heads and food on the table. That’s worth something, don’t you think?”
“Not anymore.” He turned to look out the window. So that’s the lie they’re spreading about me, he thought. That he’d been the one who drove away Anna. That he’d scared her, pursued her, when all he’d done was try to be her friend.
Gazing across the pond at Moonview’s dock, he could still picture her sitting there, as she had been the first time he’d seen her, her head bowed as if in prayer, her bare feet dipping into the water. It was a morning in June, with mist curling over the pond and the water streaked with gold from the first rays of dawn. Few people were awake at that hour, and as he’d kayaked across the pond, the only sounds were the occasional cry of a loon and the splash of his paddle as his bow cut through the water. Dawn was his favorite time of day, when he could avoid the stares, the whispers behind his back. He knew what people were saying about him. They were afraid of him. They knew what his father did.
But Anna was not afraid.
The first morning he saw her, she was wearing a thin cotton nightgown, and her black hair was in glorious disarray, as if she’d just climbed out of bed and wandered barefoot to the water. Glimpsed through the mist, clothed in her white, diaphanous garment, her black hair tumbling across her shoulders, she had not looked real. No, this was a vision he’d conjured up from the morning vapor, and he’d wondered if all the years of loneliness and longing had finally driven him insane, like his father. He blinked, half expecting the girl to vanish. But there she still was, gazing down at the water and so deep in thought that she did not notice him drifting closer. Suddenly, she looked up and saw him, and for a moment, they stared at each other across the dissipating curls of mist. He expected her to react like everyone else did when they saw Reuben Tarkin. That she’d scramble to her feet and retreat into the house. But the girl did not retreat, did not shrink away. Instead, she raised her hand and waved. And she smiled. She smiled at him , the monster’s son.
“They can’t blame you for that missing girl,” said Abigail. The sound of his sister’s voice was like a stone, dropped into the mirrored surface of that memory. The image of Anna dissipated like ripples in the water, pulling him back to this joyless present. “All Jo Thibodeau has to do is call the hospital. She’ll know we told the truth.”
Reuben turned to his sister. “When has the truth ever helped us?”
“She’s Owen’s girl,” said Abigail. “I have to believe she’ll do the right thing.”