Chapter Thirty-Three Raine
Chapter Thirty-Three
Raine
Judson and I drove to Edith Durant’s house, lights glowing warm against the sky. As we approached, Molly’s voice carried. All the turmoil, and Edith had kept the child busy and active. Happy still.
In a day or two, Molly would question this “holiday” at her grandmother’s. She’d want her mother and father. But I wasn’t sure if she’d ever live that life again.
When Edith answered the door, she stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her. “Where’s Gabe? Where’s my boy?”
“He’ll be released in a couple of hours,” I said.
“Why so long?” Edith demanded.
“Because the bail was set at two million dollars,” Judson said. “Takes time to process it.”
“So much?” Edith’s face hardened. “He’s not a bad guy.”
“He’s been charged with attempted murder,” I said. “His felony conviction makes him a flight risk. And police argue they have compelling evidence.”
“What?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” Judson said.
She frowned. “Where’s he going to run to?” Edith demanded. “He has no money. His wife is in the hospital. His daughter is here with me.”
“The judge didn’t see it that way,” I said.
“What about Maria?” She folded her arms, as if to protect her body against this crisis. “What does she say about all this?”
“She wants me to take custody of Molly,” I said.
Tension spiked. “What? Why would she want that?”
“Because Molly’s father allegedly tried to kill her.”
“Gabe didn’t try to kill Maria. And Molly is Gabe’s child, too,” Edith insisted. “He’s been convicted of nothing.”
“This is Maria’s choice,” I said.
“She can’t decide that alone. Gabe has parental rights.”
“I have a verbal order,” Judson said. “And Raine has a will that designates her as Molly’s guardian.”
“Maria’s not dead,” Edith said. “None of your papers matter.”
“I’m drawing up new papers,” I said. “She and Gabe will sign them as soon as I see both in the morning.”
“You’ll have to climb over my dead body to take my grandchild.”
In cases like this, emotions ran high, but the welfare of the child had to be put first. “I’ll have a signed custody agreement by midday,” I said.
“Fine. Get it and then we’ll talk. Before then, I want you off my porch.”
Fury rose like bile. In seventeen years, I’d forgotten how much I disliked Edith. As soon as my mother had installed her in Hale House, she’d viewed her position as a mandate to wield power with zeal. “Technically, it’s my porch. I own this house.”
Edith bristled. “So now you’re threatening to throw me out of the house I’ve lived in for almost twenty-five years.”
“I take control of this property tomorrow. Don’t push me, Edith.” Would I back up the threat and throw a sixty-year-old woman out of her house? My father and mother would have.
Edith’s lips twisted into a snarl. “Once a Hale, always a Hale. High and mighty almost comes racing out of you.”
Anger and regret condensed into a tight, heavy ball in my belly. I’d spent the better part of my adult life trying to prove I was more than what people in this town said about me. “I’ll be back as soon as I have that agreement.”
“Don’t waste your time,” Edith said. “I’m getting a lawyer.”
I walked toward Judson’s car. His determined footsteps followed, but he didn’t speak. I wasn’t so sure whose side he was landing on right now, and I didn’t care.
Instead of opening the passenger door, I paused. “I’m walking back to Hale House. I need to clear my head.”
“It’s dark.” Judson made the statement as if it were a complete explanation.
“I’ll use my flashlight app. And I know this land better than anyone.”
Shadows hid his deepening frown. “You haven’t walked this area in seventeen years.”
“I’ll be fine.” Worry drifted under the words.
“Don’t let Edith get to you,” he said.
“I’m not. But I’m also tired of trying to prove to everyone I’m a good person. All anyone sees is the Hale name and money.”
“You’re angry. Understandable.”
“No. Just tired.” I shoved out a breath. “I’ll be at the jail in the morning when Gabe is released. And then I’m returning here with an order to get Molly.”
I walked down the dirt road, my light cutting into a path through the darkness. In heels, I navigated the woodland’s ruts, fallen trees, and rocks. Creeping brush and growing tree limbs had narrowed the path in several spots.
When I was a kid, my father talked about his battle with the land like a soldier fighting an enemy. “The earth would take it all back if I let it.”
He was right. When I was a kid, this path had felt huge. But in almost two decades, the earth had clawed back much of what the Hales had taken.
Tree branches grabbed my jacket sleeves.
Another clawed my cheek. A root caught the toe of my foot, and I tripped.
The path had vanished under fallen branches, logs, and thick piles of leaves.
I paused and looked back. The trees had closed around me, extinguishing the lights of Edith’s house.
A breeze whispered through the trees. A creek trickled. Easy to imagine troubled ghosts.
The day my mother died, she’d escaped her room and Hale House.
We’d found her lying in the cool, muddy creek bed a mile upstream, her pale, sickly face staring up to the sky, arms outstretched.
Her features were stricken, as if glimpsing death had terrified her.
The doctor said she’d suffered a heart attack.
I stumbled. I took two large steps to catch myself. More branches grabbed the fabric of my jacket.
Panic swamped me. I walked faster, feeling the blackness closing.
Memories of Gabe and Amy pushed out of the mist. I’d stumbled home early on a random day. Gabe and Amy had been sitting in his pickup truck, parked in front of Hale House. She’d told me he’d offered to drive her back into town.
Her sincerity made it easy to believe her.
The black sky was crammed with stars. I felt small.
I shoved out a breath, raised my chin, and walked down the path. An animal dashed through the woods, breaking branches and crushing leaves.
When Hale House came into view, I wasn’t relieved. Hale House had never been welcoming. But it was familiar, and I’d settle for that.
I sat on the stairs, took off my muddy shoes. Up the front steps, chilled, I unlocked the front door. Inside, the air was cool.
I dropped my backpack and carefully hung Mom’s suit on a favored cedar hanger.
In the shower, dirt swirled around my feet and down the drain. The water cooled quickly. I shut off the water and grabbed a towel.
I slipped on an old robe that smelled of dust and age, brushed out my hair. I saw more of Mom. I backed away, almost laughing at life’s inevitabilities.
Whenever thoughts of Mom crept across my mind, I chased them away. I’d never win a Daughter of the Year award.
Earlier, I’d ducked quickly into the room and grabbed the suit. Now as I hung it back up, I paused, remembering her again.
Her jewelry box rested on her lap. Going through it had always been a favorite pastime for her. Each piece marked a happier moment in the past she could barely recall now as her fingers skimmed over the cool metal, cut diamonds, and smooth pearls.
“I’d like to give this to you,” Mom said.
I sat on her bed, fidgeting with my high school ring. “Mom, I don’t need pearls.”
“Darling, everyone needs pearls.”
“I won’t need it in school.”
Her gaze tightened with frustration. “Let me do something nice for you.”
“I don’t need anything.”
Her brow knotted. “You’ve never forgiven me, have you?”
Had I? No. But talking about it would scrape at a wound still fresh with puckering stiches. “Mom, it’s fine.”
“Forgive me. Take the pearls, so I know you aren’t mad anymore.”
I’d glanced at her outstretched hand and the small white pearls dangling from her thin fingers. I took the pearls, sliding my fingers along the smooth surfaces. “Better?”
“You forgive me?”
“What’s there to forgive?”
“If I’d been a better mother, you wouldn’t have done what you did.”
What I’d done.
My first real sin had been breaking into my father’s liquor cabinet. He’d died days earlier, and it was now just Mom and me.
The first glass had tasted toxic. But the slight buzz that followed eased so much of the loss that I went back the next night.
I’d quickly learned the art of using mixers, and soon I was swallowing orange juice and bourbon.
When the bourbon was gone, I turned to the whiskey.
Each night was more peaceful, and each brought a pounding headache that made the early-morning sunrises unbearable.
And then came the night when I’d combined what was left on the bar and whatever painkillers I’d found in Mom’s room. I wasn’t thinking about dying. I just craved numbness as I reached for the blade and slid it over my wrist.
As my eyes drifted closed, I’d reached for a knife on the bar.
My next memory was of the emergency room. A tube down my throat, the cramp of my stomach as it ejected all its contents, my wrist bandaged.
That’s how I ended up with a “gap” year. The camp in Montana. We never spoke of it again, but I could feel the weight of Mom’s guilt.
Carefully, I traced the faint scar on my wrist. If I’d cut a little deeper . . .
Maybe my entanglement with death was why I liked Amy. I understood loss. Loneliness.
The winds outside picked up, rattling against the windows. There was an anxious silence in the house. From downstairs, my phone rang, echoing against plaster walls. I hurried down the stairs and dug my phone out of my purse.
It was the hospital. Dr. Webber couldn’t get ahold of Gabe. The bulleted facts she fired off were simple:
Maria’s damaged heart had failed.
She’d coded.
They’d rushed in crash carts.
Six people worked on her for over an hour.
Did everything they could.
But she’d slipped away.
Maria was dead.