Fifty-Four
Reece
Will we get through this? Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t see that we have any choice but to try.
I’ve only told this story to you because I trust you. Trust that you won’t go to the police. We’re not telling them. McCabe
has her theory of how things went down and as far as she’s concerned, the case is closed. We’d like to keep it that way.
Diana and I are very cognizant of what keeping something bottled up did to Holden. But we think—we hope—it can be different
with Gage. He can talk to us anytime. As long as we’re alive, we’ll let him go over this again and again as often as he needs to if that’s what helps.
Better us than some therapist who might not feel bound by any oath of confidentiality.
Will he ever get over it? No. Just like I won’t ever forget killing Dalton Crane. Or seeing my mother die in my brother’s
arms.
But you have to find a way to deal with these things.
This is the point we try to impress upon Gage when he’s overwhelmed with guilt and considers calling Detective McCabe to confess:
“Your grandfather made the ultimate sacrifice to protect you. Don’t let him have done it for nothing. Make it count. Live
your life. Make a difference.”
We hope it sticks.
I’m not talking to Holden much these days. It’s going to take a long time to forgive him for dragging Gage into this mess. I understand how he needed to unburden himself to someone, but it shouldn’t have been our son. And it sure shouldn’t have been Alicia.
It should have been me.
Whether I’ll ever forgive him is an open question, but at the same time, I have to keep him inside the tent. He knows what
happened in that room. That’s his new secret to keep. At least he was smart enough when talking to McCabe not to mention how he’d found the gun in the pond and
kept it all these years. He quietly disclosed that detail to me after Gage’s confession. If McCabe had known that, she might
have found a way to put Holden—and Gage—in the room, and we didn’t want that.
Don’t get me wrong about Holden. I’m not without sympathy. I can easily imagine what’s eating him up this time, and it’s as
bad or worse than what was tearing him apart before.
Holden went there that day for a showdown with his mother. And through his actions, the mother he never knew he had died.
Try to get your head around that.
He never had a chance to talk to Leah Kennard. Never had a chance to learn what traits, what inclinations, what interests
he might have inherited from her. We knew, from the album that she’d kept, that Leah very much wanted that connection, that
she was a mother who wanted an opportunity to love him as only a true mother can.
That’s a heavy load. I don’t know whether Holden will be able to carry it. So one of these days, I’ll call him, see how he’s
doing. Find out whether he’s using, if he feels another trip to Sharnwood might help. If he does, at least he won’t be running
into Alicia Zane again.
I saw him at the funeral, of course. Where we buried our parents together. I don’t know whether that’s what they would have
wanted. We went with a family-only service.
Oh, and I’ve got a job interview next week, writing one of the evening newscasts. One of the stories about my mother’s murder
mentioned I’d been fired from WorldWide, and an old friend who works at the CBC called me up and said they had an opening.
If I don’t mess up the interview, looks like the job is a lock.
The estate is getting sorted, and my parents’ house is on the market.
My understanding is real estate agents may be obliged to disclose what happened there.
The murder at the end of the last century, and the more recent tragic events.
But hey, check out that beautiful pond. Surely that outweighs the negatives.
Dad’s Barracuda is up for sale too. Gage said my father told him he wanted him to have it, that it would be his to drive when
he turned sixteen, but Gage doesn’t want it.
So, fingers crossed, we’ll ride this out somehow.
But there are still nights, when Gage has a nightmare and cries out in his sleep, Diana or I will go into his room and hold
him until the terrors subside.