K. Weiland - Storming

The preacher was saying words now—fast words probably, since every minute the grave was open was another pail of water on top of the coffin. Nan and her family stood around the hole, slickers belted over their black clothes. They bowed their heads and hung onto each other.

Nan kept glancing up at him. Probably, she wished she’d kept her mouth shut last night.

He looked around. One crooked row of headstones away from him, his father’s name was visible on a granite stone: Robert Hitchcock, 1864-1915 . Beside him would be Hitch’s mother. Elsie Griffith Hitchcock, 1869-1900. Beside her: Celia Smith Hitchcock, 1890-1912.

Why folks wanted to come out and stand over their loved ones’ graves and talk to them had never made any kind of sense. The spirits were long flown. The bodies were gone to corruption. Might as well speak into the stars, for all practicality’s sake.

But standing here, with the rain dripping down the back of his coat collar and plastering his trousers around his knees, the urge hit him like a sledgehammer between the eyes.

He stared at his father’s headstone—the one he hadn’t been here to help plant.

This time he was going to see things made right—for them, for Walter and Jael, for Griff and Nan, for himself. They had his word on it. Somehow, God willing, he would find a way. Let Zlo flood the valley. Let Campbell lock him away. Let days and months and years pass. Didn’t matter. Everything that had happened—everything that had been done—everything he had done—it did not end here today.

Movement caught the corner of his eye, and he turned back.

Nan walked through the mud, straight toward him. Her eyes were dark pits in her pale face. She’d clamped her mouth in a hard line, but tear tracks still scarletted her cheeks. Wet wisps of hair escaped the black kerchief tied under her chin. She stopped in front of him.

He braced himself. “Nan. I’m sorry. Aurelia didn’t deserve this. I’m sorry for whatever part I played in her getting caught up in it last night. Her and”—he made himself hold her gaze—“Walter.”

She pulled her mouth a little to the side and nodded. Then she looked at Deputy Milton. “Would you give me a few minutes’ speech with my brother-in-law?”

Milton touched the brim of his hat. “I don’t know about that, ma’am. Sheriff Campbell didn’t think it was right to have him talking to—”

“My sister has just died. He’s family. I need to talk to him. I know the sheriff wouldn’t deny me that right now.”

“Well… Of course, ma’am.” Milton backed off about ten feet, out of hearing.

Nan glanced down the row of headstones, toward Celia’s, then back at Hitch. “I… I don’t think she even knew she was carrying Walter yet, when you left. She’d surely have told you, if only to try to get you to stay.”

Nan was giving him an explanation, as easy as that? He’d half-expected to have to pry it out of her.

“Why didn’t she write me afterwards?” he asked.

“I don’t know. To punish you, I suppose. She took sick not long after Walter was born. She was gone before we even thought about death being a possibility.” She stared at the ground. “Even I didn’t take her serious. She was always complaining about something being wrong with her health. You know how she was.”

Yeah, he knew. But his heart still twisted.

“After she was gone, you still weren’t back.” She took a deep breath and raised her head. “So Byron and I took in the boy. He was just a baby, so he never knew the difference. Even Molly was too young to really understand he wasn’t her brother.”

The flash of anger burned again. They’d had no right to rob Hitch of eight years of his son’s life. Maybe, as things had turned out, all of his son’s life.

She met his gaze, slowly. Tears welled. “I am sorry, Hitch.”

“It’s done now.” He swallowed. Griff had been right. “It wasn’t the right decision, but I can’t say it was the wrong one either.”

The corner of her mouth trembled. She bit her lip. “I—I judged you right harshly all these years. But it wasn’t all your fault.” Her eyes grew huge, luminous with more tears. The tears finally welled over, streaking down her cheeks. “It was mine too. You weren’t here, but I was . I saw her every day, and I should have known. I should have known—when you had no way of knowing—that something was wrong, that she was dying.”

He shifted in the mud. “That was not your fault. That wasn’t truly anybody’s fault. It was just something that happens.”

“I tried to be a good mother to Walter, for her sake.”

“You were a good mother.”

She shook her head. “I wanted to love him like he was one of my own. But I looked at him, and I didn’t see Celia.” She closed her eyes. “I saw you.” She opened them again. “That’s why he doesn’t talk, you know.”

Ah, that. He’d wanted to know, of course. But before now, he’d never had a right to ask. He waited.

She stared down at where she’d clenched her hands together. “He hasn’t talked since he was five. My twins—they were just babies then, just barely walking—and he’d taken them down to the creek. They fell in—Evvy nearly drowned.” She looked up. “I was scared out of my mind, and I said things to him. Things I didn’t mean. Things I really meant to say to you.” Her mouth pulled down, her chin trembling harder than ever. “And he never talked again.”

“Nan…”

“I’ve hated you all these years. Maybe it was so I wouldn’t have to hate myself.”

He stepped toward her and raised his manacled hands, wanting to comfort her somehow. “God knows we all make mistakes. But you did things for him I never could. That much is gospel truth, and we both know it.”

She licked her lips, trying to keep back the tears. “You asked me to forgive you before. Well.” For the first time since he’d come back, the look she gave him was an honest one, open all the way down to the bottom of her soul. “If there’s any way you could go up there and find Walter, bring him back—” One more tear spilled over and mingled with the raindrops. “Then I will forgive you. And what’s more, I will beg your forgiveness.”

He reached out with his cuffed hands and snagged her fingers. “You get me free, and I’ll find a way. I promise you.”

Milton’s footsteps started slogging toward them.

Time to go then.

He kept hold of her hand. “Tonight.”

She nodded. “Tonight.”

Milton reached them. “Sorry, ma’am. But I really do got to take him back now.”

“I understand.” She pulled her hand free. “Goodbye, Hitch.”

“Goodbye, Nan.” He watched her leave. His throat tightened, but for the first time since yesterday afternoon, he was able to draw a full, cold breath into his lungs.

Milton took his elbow and turned him toward the car.

Another batch of planes roared overhead. The sound reverberated in his chest, and the old longing stirred. He could still fly away. Tell Campbell yes , get out, and never come back. Once he was gone, Campbell’d never find him.

On the other hand, if he stayed, and especially if this escape tonight worked, Campbell would prosecute him to the full extent he was capable. Like enough, Hitch would spend the rest of his life in jail.

That’s what logic said.

But when you came right down to it, he’d never lived much of his life by logic.

THE COMMOTION IN the jailhouse erupted about nine o’clock.

Hitch stopped pacing his cell.

It was hard to hear past the din of the rain pounding on the roof. But that thud had sounded a whole lot like a body hitting the floor.