James Patterson - Cross Justice

“Alex, what’s happened?” Nana Mama demanded.

“Just tell me why you all lied to me,” I said with a groan. “That’s all I want to know.”

“I swear to you, I knew nothing about this!” Nana Mama cried after Bree told her what we’d read in the files. She looked to my aunts, said, “Is this true? Did you know?”

Aunt Hattie and Aunt Connie were holding on to each other in such a way that they didn’t have to say a word.

“Why?” Bree asked.

“Because,” Aunt Hattie said, her voice shaking. “Those terrible things that went on, they were so traumatic, so horrible, that you, Alex, blocked it all out. It was like you’d never seen what happened to your father. We figured it was nature’s way of helping you deal with it and that you’d be better off believing your mom died from the cancer and your dad from the drinking and the drugs.”

“But why lie to me? ” my grandmother demanded, as shaken as I’d been.

“You’d been through so much already and gone so far in life, Regina,” Aunt Connie said, choking. “We didn’t want to make you suffer any more than you had to. Alcohol and drugs, you could understand. Jason had been headed for that early grave already. But his killing Christina, and then the way he died. We just couldn’t tell you. We thought it would break your heart when your heart needed to be strong for Alex and his brothers.”

Nana Mama gazed off into a distance, her lower lip quivering, then looked at me and started to weep.

I went to her, got down on my knees, and laid my head in her tiny lap, feeling her anguish as my own, feeling her tears splash on my face as I said, “I’m sorry I called you a liar.”

“I’m sorry ’bout everything, Alex,” she said, stroking my head the way she used to when I first went to live with her. “I’m sorry about every bit of it.”

There was a heaviness in the air when we finally got around to eating. No one said much the rest of the night. Or at least, I don’t remember anything specific until I went to my aunts after dessert and forgave them. They cried all over again when we hugged.

Aunt Connie said, “We didn’t mean all this to come out.”

“I know,” I said. “It’s okay.”

“You sure?” Aunt Hattie asked.

“You were trying to protect me,” I said. “I get that.”

Aunt Connie said, “But you still don’t remember anything?”

“I’ve been getting flashes,” I admitted. “But not much more than that.”

Aunt Hattie said, “Maybe that’s all God wants you to remember.”

I nodded, kissed them both, and went out the door after my family. Jannie was already heading up the porch stoop to our bungalow. Bree was walking along with Ali and Naomi. Ali saw me, turned, and ran back.

I put my arm around my boy’s shoulder, said, “See the lightning bugs?”

“Yeah,” Ali said, like he didn’t care.

“Hey,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

“Dad?” he said, not looking at me. “Can we go home?”

“What? No.”

“But I don’t like this place,” he said. “I don’t have any friends, and I don’t like how it hurts you to be here. And how it hurts Nana.”

I picked up my youngest and held him tight to me, saying, “I don’t like how it hurts either, son. But I promised I’d help Stefan. And in this life, a man is only as good as his word.”

After mass that Sunday morning, Nana Mama and I dropped Bree and the kids back at the bungalow. I drove us close to the arched bridge and parked. My grandmother took my arm, and we walked slowly out onto the span above the gorge.

The Stark River was roaring down there, throwing up white haystacks, spinning into dark whirlpools, and surging against the walls as far as the eye could see downstream. I remembered my parents were always telling me and my brothers never to go near the bridge or the river.

“Dad used to say there was no worse way to die than drowning,” I told Nana Mama. “I honestly think he was scared of the gorge.”

“Because I taught him to be scared of it,” my grandmother said quietly. “My little brother, Wayne, died down there when he was six. They never found his body.”

She said nothing for a few long moments, just stared at the roiling water four stories below us like it held terrible secrets.

Then Nana Mama shook her head. “I can’t bear to think of how terrified your father must have been as he fell.”

“According to the report, he was probably dead before he hit the water.”

“And you don’t remember any of it?” she asked.

“I had a nightmare last night. It was raining and there was lightning, and I was running down the tracks and then toward the bridge. I saw flashing lights before I heard gunshots. And then there were men out on the bridge, looking over, just like we are now.”

“What a waste,” my grandmother said. “Just a wasted, tragic life.”

She started to cry again, and I hugged her until she calmed.

Wiping her eyes with a handkerchief, she said, “Do you think that’s all there is about what happened? That report?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s a couple of people I’d like to talk to about it.”

“You’ll let me know?”

“If I find something, you’ll know it,” I promised.

On the ride back to the bungalow, I drove through the east end of Birney so Nana Mama could see the house she’d been living in when Wayne died. I pulled over next to the ramshackle building. It was just two blocks from the river.

“I’ll never forget that day,” she said, gesturing at the house. “I was eight and there on that porch playing with one of my friends when my mama came out the house, asked where Wayne had gotten to. I said he’d gone off down the street to see his buddy Leon.

“She went down after him to Leon’s house, which was right there on the corner of South Street across from the gorge,” she went on. “Mama saw Wayne and Leon over on the rocks above the river. She saw him fall. You could hear her screaming all the way here. She never got over that. The fact that his body was never found just ate her up. Every spring she’d make my dad go downriver with her to where the gorge spills onto the flat so they could see if the floods had swept Wayne’s body out. They looked for twenty years.”

“I’m beginning to see why you wanted to leave this place,” I said.

“Oh, your grandfather saw to that,” she said.

“What was he like?” I asked. “Reggie.”

“Huh,” Nana Mama said, as if she didn’t want to talk about him, but then she did. “He was not like anyone I’d ever met before. A charmer, I’ll give him that. He could sweet-talk like it was his second language, and the way he told you about his adventures at sea made you want to listen forever. He swept me off my feet with those stories. And he was handsome, and a good dancer, and he made a lot of money, by Starksville standards.”

“But?”

Nana Mama sighed. “But he was away five, six months a year. I’m sure he caroused outside our marriage when he was in foreign ports because he wasn’t shy about doing it when he came home. Got to the point where all we did was fight. He didn’t mind drinking while we fought, and he didn’t mind using his fists either. I decided one day that, despite my marriage vows, that wasn’t the life I wanted, or deserved. So I divorced Reggie and got enough money out of it to go on up to Washington and start all over. All in all, it was the best move I’ve ever made.”

She fell silent then for a few moments. “You saw Reggie’s grave?”

“He’s with his parents,” I said.

“Always liked Alexander and Gloria. They treated me kind, and they loved your father, especially Alexander.”