Chapter 8
Five-thirty that afternoon, Colin was seated on the bench to the left of the academy’s main entrance.
His father was always late arriving. But Colin remained punctual, mostly because he didn’t want his father to show up and go wandering around.
The academy was Colin’s haven, the place where he felt safe.
Now that he had mostly moved beyond the reach of his teachers, this safety was why he put up with Sojourn House and Mrs. Fitzgerald and all her rules.
The year before, Colin’s father had been made president of the North Carolina Sheriff’s Association. This besides now serving as a state senator.
Every few weeks, Roger Eames’s growing list of responsibilities brought him down to Wilmington.
A few days in advance, he or one of several assistants texted or e-mailed to say when he would arrive for a dinner with his son.
The messages from his father’s aides were always more polite and personal than those coming directly from Roger Eames.
Earlier that week, a seismic event had struck North Carolina’s political landscape.
The Republican congressman representing the state’s first congressional district suffered another heart attack, his third.
Soon as he was released from the hospital he announced his retirement, effective immediately.
Colin paid little attention to politics, but his daily search of news services for information of a different sort had alerted him.
Over the coming days, he grew certain this was the event he had been dreading—not that particular occurrence, but something that marked the start of his ticking clock.
The state’s Republican Party was now led by the former mayor of Rocky Mount.
When it came time for the governor to name a temporary replacement, it was only natural that they select State Senator Roger Eames.
This was largely a symbolic gesture, as the national elections were in less than six months.
The appointment was intended to pave Roger Eames’s way into national politics.
Colin was mentally reviewing the implications of these developments when a black Cadillac Escalade pulled into the forecourt.
Colin did not realize it was his father until the face leaned toward the windshield and waved him over.
His father had always driven four-door sedans, Fords mostly.
This massive black beast signaled a change.
When it came to dealing with his father, change was never good.
His father was talking on the phone when Colin climbed on board.
Soon as Colin shut his door, his father slapped the SUV into drive and punched the gas.
His voice held the edgy growl that took Colin straight back.
It was the warning sound, time for his son to go find the safe alcove.
Being trapped in this huge vehicle, seated high off the road, left him swallowing against the acrid taste of old fear.
His father said, “I don’t understand why you’re bringing this up at all.”
The woman who responded spoke with a strong southern accent, yet her words held as sharp an edge as his father’s.
Colin flinched as her voice struck at him from all sides.
The car’s speakers were embedded in doors, footwells, under his seat, behind him, everywhere.
“Because we need your support on this, Senator.”
“Well, you’re not going to get it.”
“I’m afraid that’s not an acceptable answer, sir.”
“Tough. I’m a law and order guy. You’re asking me to back away from the pledges I made, the reason I got elected in the first place.”
“Only temporarily. Only for this term.”
“It’s not happening. Not for a single solitary second will I give you or this cockamamie resolution my support.”
“Senator, after all the donations we’ve made—”
“I didn’t ask for a penny of your money. Not once.”
“Even so, if this is indeed your stance we will have no choice but to withdraw our support. If that happens, you risk losing what may be your only chance to enter national politics—”
“You do what you’ve got to do. And don’t ever call me again.” He stabbed the button on his steering wheel. Then stabbed it again. “The nerve of those people. I’d like to wring their collective necks.”
The SUV went quiet after that, his father fuming and Colin scarcely breathing.
His father wore what had become his standard attire, a dress shirt with a white collar, this one with grey stripes that matched the color of his trousers and silk tie.
The jacket to his suit was set out carefully on the rear seat.
The fancy clothes only magnified his father’s bullish strength, like the veneer of oil applied to a loaded gun.
Traffic on US 74 was rush-hour heavy. Abruptly his father swung the wheel, raising a trio of honks from cars behind and to his right, and powered down a side street. Going was easier then, and the open, shaded avenue seemed to ease his rage.
Abruptly his father demanded, “What were you thinking about?”
Colin looked over. “What?”
“When I showed up. You were staring into the distance, I don’t know, like you were in some sort of trance.” He showed his son that familiar gun-barrel grey gaze. “They don’t go in for that kind of stuff at that school of yours, do they?”
“No.”
He turned back to the road ahead. “Because I’ve heard things. Crazy, liberal notions that don’t have any part of my son’s life.”
Colin felt a distinct buzz at gut level.
It was as if his father had finally given voice to all the suspicions Colin had been carrying around for four months.
Ever since he learned his father had become engaged.
To a divorced woman with two young boys of her own. “They don’t teach anything like that.”
“So what is it you were thinking?”
He knew he shouldn’t say it. Even before the words emerged, he knew it was wrong. Dangerous. But the words just seemed to punch out of him, like they had been waiting for this precise moment, and would not be denied. “Do you ever go back to the beach?”
His father flushed beet red. “What kind of question is that?”
Colin had no idea why he spoke as he did. Even so, the words could not be denied. “You asked what I was thinking. I was remembering how Mom sat on the sand and watched the ocean—”
“Today of all days, you can’t give that a rest?” A tremor shook his body and partially shredded the words. “I’m taking you to meet your new family and this is …”
Colin could almost see the rage taking hold, the struggle his father went through to keep it under control.
His own response surprised him. His heart raced, he crammed himself tight against the side door, his body felt frigid and clammy at the same time.
And yet the fear seemed to belong to someone else.
He heard himself say, “Did she have family? Where was she—”
His father’s voice took on the same rough edge as when he spoke to the woman. “Here we are, eight years later, and you won’t let it go.”
The questions that woke him in the night pressed out, struggling against his desire to smash them back inside. “Why don’t I remember her funeral? I remember going to the hospital with you—”
Roger Eames slammed on the brakes so hard Colin would have shot against the windshield were it not for his seat belt. “Brenda is dead. All that has no place in our future.”
They drove the final mile and a half in silence.
When they pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot, Roger Eames cut the motor and just sat there.
Gripping the wheel with such force his knuckles were bone white.
“Brenda’s family is from Jacksonville. Downeasters, they’re called.
Been there for two hundred years. Not a penny to their names, house falling down around their ears, the biggest snobs on earth.
They were furious when she agreed to marry a sheriff’s deputy. They cut her off.”
He kneaded the wheel, the leather squeaking in protest. “Your mother asked me to contact them when she got ill that last time. They hung up on me before I was finished. Two days later, her old man showed up. Offered to pay thirty thousand dollars toward her hospital bill if I’d let them take the body back home.
The medical expenses had me drowning in debt.
Where that vile, bitter old man got the money is a mystery.
Once I agreed, he said everyone would be better off if I didn’t attend the funeral.
Not one question about you, their own kin. Not a word.”
Roger Eames rose from the car, slammed his door, and strode away. Leaving his son still seated in the new Escalade, wishing he had never come. As usual.
The Port Land Grille was his father’s regular hangout in Wilmington, with its dark wood and heavy leather furniture and huge steaks.
When Colin entered, his father stood talking with his new wife while her two sons glared in Colin’s direction.
Everything about Jessica Eames was precise, measured, cautious.
Her two boys were ten and thirteen, and both were much bigger than Colin.
As they took their seats, Roger’s new wife eyed Colin with frigid displeasure.
He had angered her husband, her gaze seemed to say.
He deserved whatever punishment Roger wanted to give him.
Her two boys eyed Colin across the dining table with predatory gazes.
Following a nearly silent dinner, once the table was cleared, his father told his new wife, “Why don’t you show him?”
She extracted an envelope from her purse, pulled out a group of photos, and spoke directly to Colin for the first time that evening. “These are pictures of our new home.”
His father took the photos, sorted through them, and slid one over in front of Colin. “This is your room.”
The words chilled him to the point where his tremors could not be fully suppressed.
Colin sat with his head bowed over the picture, clenched tight with the effort required to remain as still as possible.
The pale ivory room contained a caramel-colored carpet, a small desk, empty bookshelves, a narrow bed. Lifeless and deadly.
He endured an endless parade of pictures, each one marked by his father’s description. Front yard, living room, kitchen, den, office, on and on the parade of images continued. Each one hammering the same message with massive force. Colin was almost out of time.
His father directed Colin into the front passenger seat for the drive back to the academy.
His new wife took up a place between her sons.
When they pulled into the academy forecourt, Roger Eames broke the silence with, “When school is out, we’ll start making some changes.
Jessica is home schooling her two boys. We’ll just add you to the mix.
” He watched Colin open his door. “You’ve been involved with these liberal nutjobs long enough. ”
Colin stood by the academy entrance and watched his father drive away. As the Escalade pulled into traffic, the two boys leaned toward the side window and shot Colin a warning look.
He had to get this right.