John Hart - Down River

“She was… how did you know that?”

“You took Janice shopping and left Miriam at the hotel.”

Suspicion crept into his voice. “Why are you asking about this?”

“Just one more question, George.”

“What?” Still doubtful.

“What hotel did they use?”

“Tell me why you want to know?” He was sobering up, suspicion growing, so I did what I had to do. I lied.

“It’s a harmless question, George.”

A minute later, I hung up, and for two more, I did nothing, just closed my eyes and let everything wash over me. The pain climbed to the next level as the drugs wore thin. I thought about the morphine pump, but kept my hand on the bed. When I felt able, I called the hotel in Charlotte. “Concierge desk, please.”

“One moment.” The phone clicked twice, then another man’s voice. “Concierge.”

“Yes. Do you have cars available for your guests?”

“We have a private limousine service.”

“Do you loan cars to your guests? Or rent them?”

“No, sir.”

“What car rental company is nearest to your hotel?” He told me. It was one of the big ones.

“We can take you there in a shuttle,” he said.

“Can you give me their phone number?”

The woman who answered at the rental desk was standard corporate issue. Monotone. Unflappable. Unhelpful when I asked my question. “We cannot give out that information, sir.”

I tried to stay calm, but it was difficult. I asked three times. “It’s very important,” I said.

“I’m sorry, sir. We cannot give out that information.”

I hung up the phone, caught Robin on her cell. She was at the station house. “What is it, Adam? Are you okay?”

“I need some information. I can’t get it. They’d talk to the police, I think.”

“What kind of information?”

I told her what I wanted and gave her the number of the car rental company. “They’ll have records. Credit card confirmations. Something. If she jerks you around, you can always try the corporate office.”

“I know how to do this, Adam.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize. I’ll let you know. Stay by the phone.”

I almost smiled. “Was that a joke?”

“Cheer up, Adam. The worst part is over.”

But I was thinking of my father. “No,” I said. “It’s not.”

“I’ll call you.”

I sank into the pillow and watched the big clock on the wall. It took eight minutes, and I knew in the first second that she’d gotten what I wanted. Her voice had that keen edge. “You were right. Miriam rented a green Taurus, license plate ZXF-839. Miriam’s credit card. Visa, to be precise. Rented that morning, returned that afternoon. One hundred and seventeen miles on the odometer.”

“That’s round-trip to the farm and back.”

“Almost to the mile. I checked.”

I rubbed my eyes. “Thanks,” I said.

She paused. “Good luck, Adam. I’ll come see you this afternoon.”

The next call had to wait until business hours. I called at nine. The woman who answered the phone was dangerously happy. “Good morning,” she said. “Worldwide Travels. How may I be of service?”

I said hello and got straight to the point. “If I wanted to fly from Charlotte to Denver,” I asked. “Could you route me through Florida?”

“Where in Florida?”

I thought about it.

“Anywhere.”

I watched the clock while she tapped keys. The answer came in seventy-three seconds.

I closed my eyes again, shaky, strangely out of breath. The pain in my leg climbed like it might never stop: sharp spikes that radiated outward in waves. I buzzed the nurse. She took her time.

“How bad is this going to get?” I asked.

I was pale and sweaty. She knew what I meant, and there was no pity in her face. She pointed with a well-scrubbed finger. “That morphine pump is there for a reason. Push the button when the pain gets too bad. It won’t let you overdose.” She started to turn. “You don’t need me holding your hand.”

“I don’t want any morphine.”

She turned back, one eyebrow up, voice dismissive. “Then it’s gonna get a lot worse.” She pursed her lips and left the room on wide, slow-moving hips.

I pushed into the pillows, dug my fingers into the sheets as the pain bared its teeth. I wanted the morphine, wanted it badly, but I needed to stay sharp. I fingered the postcard.

SOMETIMES IT’S JUST RIGHT.

And sometimes it’s wrong.

My father arrived at ten.

He looked horrible: drained eyes, broken posture. He looked like a damned soul waiting for the floor to drop.

“How are you?” he asked, and shuffled into the room.

Words failed me. I looked for the hate and couldn’t find it. I saw the early years, and how the three of us had been. Golden. The feeling rose in me and I almost cracked.

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

He said nothing.

“Mom knew about Sarah and the baby. That’s why she killed herself. Because of what that did to her. That betrayal.”

He closed his eyes and bowed his head. He didn’t have to say it.

“How did she find out?” I asked.

“I told her,” he said. “She deserved that much.”

I looked away from him. Some part of me had been hoping that this was all a mistake. That I could still come home. “You told her and she killed herself.”

“I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“A little late to worry about that.”

“I never stopped loving your mother-”

I cut him off. Did not want to hear it. “How did Miriam find out? I’m pretty sure you never told her.”

He turned his palms up. “She was always so quiet. She lingered around corners. She must have heard Dolf and me talking about it. We did from time to time, usually late at night. She probably figured it out years ago. It’s been at least a decade since I spoke of it out loud.”

“A decade.” I could barely get my head around the way Miriam must have suffered with that knowledge, what she must have felt when she saw the old man’s face light up every time Grace walked into the room. “You hurt so many people. And for what?”

“I’d like a chance to explain,” he said, and like that, the glass in my mind started tumbling.

“No,” I said. “I don’t want to hear you justify what you did. I would either throw up or come out of this bed and beat you where you stand. There is nothing you can say. I was wrong to even ask. My mother was weak, worn down by poor health and disappointment, already on the edge. She found out you had a daughter and it pushed her over. She killed herself because of you.” I paused under the weight of what I was about to say. “Not because of me.”

An invisible force seemed to crush him. “I’ve had to live with it, too,” he said.

Suddenly, I could not stand it. “Get out of here,” I said. He started to turn, and the ice flowed back into me. “Wait. It’s not going to be that easy. Tell me what happened. I want to hear it from you.”

“Sarah and I-”

“Not that part. The rest of it. How Grace came to live with Dolf. How you lied to both of us for almost twenty years.”

He sat without asking, dropped from the knees. “Grace was an accident. It was all an accident.”

“Damn it…”

He tried to straighten. “Sarah thought she wanted the child. Thought it was fate, meant to be. She took her to California to start a new life. Two years later she came back, crippled, disillusioned. She didn’t much care for being a parent. She wanted me to take the child.”

“Why do you keep saying ‘the child’ when you mean Grace?”

He tilted his head. “Grace is not her real name. I gave her that name.”

“Her real name…?”