Down River Part 4

Q: We'll get to that. Tell us about the party.

I closed the transcript and replaced it on the shelf. I knew the words. The party had been at midsummer: my stepmother's idea. A birthday party for the twins, their eighteenth. She'd hung lights in the trees, engaged the finest caterer, and brought a swing band up from Charleston. It started at four in the afternoon, ended at midnight; yet a few souls lingered. At two A.M., or so she swore, Gray Wilson walked down to the river. At roughly three, when all had left, I came up the hill, covered in the boy's blood.

He was killed by a sharp-edged rock the size of a large man's fist. They found it on the bank, next to a red-black stain in the dirt. They knew it was the murder weapon because it had the boy's blood all over it and because it was a perfect match, in size and shape, for the hole in his skull. Somebody bashed in the back of his head, hit hard enough to drive bone shards deep into his brain. My stepmother claimed that it was me. She described it on the stand. The man she'd seen at three o'clock in the morning had on a red shirt and a black cap.

Same as me.

He walked like me. He looked like me.

She didn't call the cops, she claimed, because she did not realize that the dark liquid on my hands and shirt was blood. She had no idea that a crime had been committed until the next morning when my father found the body halfway in the river. The way she told it, it wasn't until later that she put it all together.

The jury debated for four days, then the gavel came down and I walked out. No motive. That's what swung the vote. The prosecution put on a great show, but the case was built entirely on my stepmother's testimony. It was a dark night. Whoever she saw, she saw from a distance. And I had no reason in the world to want Gray Wilson dead.

We barely knew each other.

I cleaned the kitchen, took a shower, and left a note for Robin on the kitchen table. I gave her my cell number and asked her to call when she finished her shift.

It was just after two when I finally turned onto the gravel drive of my father's farm. I knew every inch of it, yet felt like an intruder, like the land itself knew that I'd surrendered my claim upon it. The fields still glistened from the rain, and mud filled the ditches that ran beside the drive. I steered past pastures full of cattle, through a neck of old forest, and then out into the soy fields. The road followed a fence line to the top of a rise, and as I crested the ridge I could see three hundred acres of soy spread out below me. Migrants were at work in the field, baking in the hot sun. I saw no supervisor, no farm truck; and that meant no water for the workers.

My father owned just north of fourteen hundred acres, one of the largest working farms left in central North Carolina. Its borders had not changed since the original purchase in 1789. I drove through soy fields and rolling pasture, crossed over swollen creeks, and pa.s.sed the stables before I topped the last hill and saw the house. At one point it had been surprisingly small, a weathered old homestead; but the house I remembered from childhood was long gone. When my father remarried, his new wife brought different ideas with her, and the home now sprawled across the landscape. The front porch, however, was untouched, as I knew it would be. Two centuries of Chases had stood on that porch to watch the river, and I knew that my father would never allow it to be torn down or replaced. "Everybody has a line," he'd said to me once, "and that porch is mine."

There was a farm truck in the driveway. I parked next to it, saw the water-coolers in the back, their sides wet with condensation. I switched off the ignition, climbed out, and a million pieces of my old life coalesced around me. A slow, warm childhood and my mother's bright smile. The things my father liked to teach me. The calluses that grew on my hands. Long days in the sun. Then the way things changed, my mother's suicide, and the black months fading to gray as I fought through its aftershock. My father's remarriage, new siblings, new challenges. Then Grace in the river. Adulthood and Robin. The plans we made all blown to bits.

I stepped onto the porch, stared over the river, and thought of my father. I wondered what was left of us, then went in search of him. His study stood empty and unchanged: pine floors, overflowing desk, tall bookshelves and piles of books on the floor next to them, muddy boots by the back door, pictures of hunting dogs long dead, shotguns next to the stone fireplace, jackets on hooks, hats; and a photograph of the two of us, taken nineteen years earlier, half a year after my mother died.

I'd lost twenty pounds in the months since we'd buried her. I'd barely spoken, barely slept, and he decided enough was enough and it was time to move on. Just like that. Let's do something, he'd said. Let's get out of the house. I did not even look up. For G.o.d's sake, Adam....

He took me hunting on a bright, fall day. High, blue sky, leaves not yet turned. The deer came in the first hour, and it was unlike any deer I'd ever seen. Its coat shone pale white under antlers wide enough to carry a grown man. He was ma.s.sive, and presented himself, head up, fifty yards out. He stared in our direction, then pawed the ground, as if impatient.

He was perfect.

But my father refused the shot. He lowered his rifle and I saw that tears brimmed in his eyes. He whispered to me that something had changed. He couldn't do it. A white deer is a sign, he said, and I knew that he was talking about my mother. Yet, the animal hung in my sights, too. I bit down hard, let out half a breath, and I felt my father's eyes. He shook his head once, mouthed the word, No.

I took the shot.

And missed.

My father lifted the rifle from my hands and put an arm over my shoulder. He squeezed hard and we sat like that for a long time. He thought that I'd chosen to miss, that in the last second I, too, had come to believe that life was more precious somehow, that my mother's death had had this effect on both of us.

But that wasn't it. Not even close.

I wanted to hurt that deer. I wanted it so badly my hands shook.

That's what ruined the shot.

I looked again at the photograph. On the day it was taken, I was nine years old, my mother fresh in the ground. The old man thought we'd rounded the corner, that that day in the woods had been our first step, a sign of healing. But I knew nothing of signs or forgiveness. I barely knew who I was.

I put the photo back on the shelf, squared it just so. He thought that day was our new beginning, and kept the photo all these years, never guessing that it was a great, giant lie.

I'd thought that I was ready to come home, but now I was no longer sure. My father was not here. There was nothing for me here. Yet, as I turned, I saw the page on his desk, fine stationery next to an expensive burgundy pen my mother had once given him. "Dear Adam," it read. Then nothing else. Emptiness. How long had he stared at that blank paper, I wondered, and what would he have said, had the words actually come?

I left the room as I'd found it, wandered back into the main part of the house. New art adorned the walls, including a portrait of my adopted sister. She was eighteen the last time I'd seen her, a fragile young woman who'd sat every day in the courtroom, yet had been unable to meet my eyes. She was my sister, and we'd not spoken since the day I left, but I didn't hold that against her. It was as much my fault as hers. More, really.

She'd be twenty-three now, a mature woman, and I looked again at her portrait: the easy smile, the confidence. It could happen, I thought. Maybe.

The picture of Miriam turned me to thoughts of Jamie, her twin brother. In my absence, responsibility for the crews would have fallen to him. I went to the big staircase and yelled his name. I heard footsteps and a m.u.f.fled voice. Then, stocking feet at the top of the stairs, followed by jeans grimed at the cuff, and an impossibly muscular torso beneath pale, thin hair spiked with some kind of gel. Jamie's face had filled out, lost the angles of youth, but the eyes had not changed, and they crinkled at the corners when they settled on me.

"I do not freakin' believe it," he said. His voice was as big as the rest of him. "Jesus, Adam, when did you get here?" He came down the stairs, stopped and looked at me. He stood six four, and had me by forty pounds, all of it muscle. The last time I'd seen him he'd been my size.

"d.a.m.n, Jamie. When did you get huge?"

He curled his arms and studied the muscles with obvious pride. "Gotta have the guns, baby. You know how it is. But look at you. You haven't changed at all." He gestured at my face. "Somebody kicked your a.s.s, I see, but other than that you could have walked out of here yesterday."

I fingered the st.i.tches.

"Is that local?" he asked.

"Zebulon Faith."

"That old b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

"And two of his boys."

He nodded, eyelids drooping. "Wish I'd been there."

"Next time," I said.

"Hey, does Dad know you're back?"

"He's heard. We haven't spoken yet."

"Unreal."

I held out my hand. "Good to see you, Jamie."

His hand swallowed mine. "f.u.c.k that," he said, and pulled me into a bear hug that was ninety percent painful backslapping.

"Hey, you want a beer?" He gestured toward the kitchen.

"You have the time?"

"What's the point of being the boss if you can't sit in the shade and drink a beer with your brother? Am I right?"

I thought about keeping my mouth shut, but I could still see the migrants, sweating in the sun-scorched fields. "Someone should be with the crews."

"I've only been gone an hour. The crews are fine."

"They're your responsibility-"

Jamie dropped a hand on my shoulder. "Adam, you know that I'm happy to see you, right? But I've been out from under your shadow for a long time. You did a good job when you were here. No one would deny that. But I manage the daily operations now. You would be wrong to show up all of a sudden and expect everybody to bow down to you. This is my deal. Don't tell me how to run it." He squeezed my shoulder with steel fingers. They found the bruises and burrowed in. "That would be a problem for us, Adam. I don't want there to be a problem for us."

"Okay, Jamie. I get your point."

"Good," he said. "That's just fine." He turned for the kitchen and I followed him. "What kind of beer do you like? I've got all different kinds."

"Whatever," I said. "You pick." He opened the refrigerator. "Where is everybody?" I asked.

"Dad's in Winston for something. Mom and Miriam have been in Colorado. I think that they were supposed to fly in yesterday and spend the night in Charlotte." He smiled and nudged me. "A couple of squaws off shopping. They'll probably be home late."

"Colorado?"

"Yeah, for a couple of weeks. Mom took Miriam to some fat farm out there. Costs a fortune, but hey, not my call, you know." He turned with two beers in his hands.

"Miriam has never been overweight," I said.

Jamie shrugged. "A health spa, then. Mud baths and eel gra.s.s. I don't know. This is a Belgian one, some kind of lager, I think. And this is an English stout. Which one?"

"The lager."

He opened it and handed it to me. Took a pull on his own. "The porch?" he asked.

"Yeah. The porch."

He went through the door first, and when I emerged into the heat behind him, I found him leaning against our father's post with a proprietary air. A knowing glint appeared in his eyes, and his smile thinned into a statement.

"Cheers," he said.

"Sure, Jamie. Cheers."

The bottles clinked, and we drank our beer in the still and heavy air. "Cops know you're back?" Jamie asked.

"They know."

"Jesus."

"Screw 'em," I said.

At one point, Jamie raised his arm, made a muscle and pointed at his bicep.

"Twenty-three inches," he said.

"Nice," I told him.

"Guns, baby."

Rivers find the low ground-it is what they are made to do-and looking over the one that defined our border I thought that maybe the talent had rubbed off on my brother. He talked about money he'd spent and about the girls he'd laid. He counted them up for me, a slew of them. Our conversation did not venture beyond that until he asked about the reason for my return. The question came at the end of his second beer, and he slipped it in like it meant nothing. But his eyes couldn't lie. It was all he cared about.

Was I back for good?

I told him the truth as I knew it: doubtful.

To his credit, he covered his relief well. "Are you sticking around for dinner?" he asked, draining the beer.

"Do you think that I should?"

He scratched at his thinning hair. "It might be easier with just Dad here. I think he'll forgive you for what happened, but Mom won't be happy. There's no lie in that."

"I'm not here to ask for forgiveness."

"d.a.m.n, Adam, let's not start this up again. Dad had to choose a side. He could believe you or he could believe Mom, but he couldn't believe both of you."

"This is still my family, Jamie, even after all that's happened. She can't very well tell me to stay away."

Jamie's eyes grew suddenly sympathetic. "She's scared of you, Adam."

"This is my home." The words sounded hollow. "I was acquitted."

Jamie rolled ma.s.sive shoulders. "Your call, bro. It'll be interesting either way. I'm just glad to have a front-row seat."

His smile was patently false; but he was trying. "You're such an a.s.s, Jamie."

"Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful."

"Tomorrow night, then. May as well do it all at once." But that was only part of it. I was feeling the pain, a profound ache that still had room to grow. I thought of Robin's dark bedroom, and then of my father and the note he had been unable to complete. The time would be good for everyone.

"So, how's Dad?' I asked.

"Ah, he's bulletproof. You know how he is."

"Not anymore," I said, but Jamie ignored me. "I'm going to walk down to the river, then I'll be out of here. Tell Dad that I'm sorry I missed him."

"Say h.e.l.lo to Grace," he said.

"She's down there?"

"Every day. Same time."

I'd thought a lot about Grace, but was less sure of how to approach her than anyone else. She was two years old when she came to live with Dolf, still a child when I'd left, too young for any kind of explanation. For thirteen years I'd been a large part of her world, and leaving her alone is what felt most like a betrayal. All of my letters had come back unopened. Eventually, I'd stopped sending them.

"How is she?" I asked, trying not to show how much the answer mattered.

Jamie shook his head. "She's a wild Indian, no mistake, but she always has been. She's not going to college, looks like. She's working odd jobs, hanging around the farm, living off the fat of the land."

"Is she happy?"

"She should be. She's the hottest thing in three counties."

"Is that right?" I asked.