Linda Hall - On Thin Ice

“What?”

“Do you remember Paul Magill?”

She felt a shiver of fear. He was to be Alec’s groomsman. “How did he die?”

“Same as the other two. The brakes on his car failed. He hit a truck.”

“Where did it happen?”

“He lived in Augusta. It happened last night. My parents called me this morning.”

“Had you kept in touch with Paul?”

Alec shook his head. “A little. Not with Sophia and Jennifer, of course, but I kept in touch with Paul and…”

Bryan. She looked up at him but didn’t finish his sentence. She didn’t mention the name of the brother who by his horrific actions had effectively stopped their wedding and driven them apart.

Megan didn’t move. She put down her muffin and wiped her fingers on a napkin. “How is he?” Megan asked drily.

Alec looked up at her sharply. “I told you he’s dead.”

Megan put the napkin on the table. “I didn’t mean him. I meant…Bryan.”

“Good. He’s good.” Alec felt his hands stiffen at his side.

“Is he still in…?”

“Prison?” He finished the sentence for her. “No. He’s been out almost ten years now.”

“You’re in touch with him then? He lives nearby?”

Alec shook his head. “He doesn’t live near here. He moved to New Mexico when he was released.”

“New Mexico. Why did he move so far away?”

“He wanted to start over.”

“Well.” Megan looked around the room but didn’t finish her sentence.

Bryan was the little brother he had protected against all the bullies of the world, and he was still doing it. Because of his father’s failing health, his parents couldn’t make the trip to see their youngest son anymore, so Alec had taken over that responsibility. Alec said, “He works at an electronics store.”

“He was always good at that sort of thing.”

“He’s a Christian now. He accepted Christ in prison.”

Megan nodded.

Five years into his sentence, Bryan had eagerly told Alec that he had found God through a prison Bible study. God had changed him. Correction—He was changing him. It was an ongoing process that God was helping him through, he told his older brother.

Alec continued, “He still goes to church where he lives. He has a girlfriend. My father can’t fly, so Bryan and Lorena, his girlfriend, are saving up money to fly out here to get married.”

“It’s weird,” she said. “That a person can kill someone and go to jail, and then just come out and lead a normal life like nothing happened.”

He looked down at his desk, at the two e-mails side by side. He lined up their edges. “It hasn’t been all that normal. He’s been through a lot of counseling. He’s prayed and paid his debt.”

“My grandmother is still dead.”

He looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry, Megan. I shouldn’t have said that. Nothing will make up for the death of your grandmother, I know that.” He paused. “I never got a chance to tell you how sorry I was then.”

She said rather thoughtfully, “The confusing thing is that Bryan was someone that I liked. Used to like.”

Alec agreed. “We all used to like him. He had his problems but he was genuinely likable.” Megan had even dated Bryan a few times. But when Bryan introduced Megan to Alec that summer at camp, it was the end of anything between Bryan and Megan. Bryan had understood when Alec and Megan got together. He’d laughed about it, actually, made jokes about how his older brother had “stolen his girlfriend.” “The best man won,” Bryan had said, playfully punching his brother in the shoulder. They were all still friends.

“Sophia used to have a crush on him,” Megan said.

“A lot of girls did.”

“He was a bit of a rebel, but people liked him.”

Yes. Bryan was a likable guy. That’s why it had made no sense at the time that Bryan would deliberately push Megan’s grandmother down the stairs to her death. No one could believe that Bryan would actually do that. There was no cause for it. They all got along. Megan and Alec were going to have a big happy family wedding.

And then Meggie had found her grandmother at the bottom of the basement stairs, her neck crushed. She died in the hospital two days later from a massive head wound but not before she told everyone, including the police, the EMT attendants, and Meggie herself, that it was Bryan who had pushed her down the stairs.

The accusation was ridiculous, of course. Everyone knew that Megan’s grandmother was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Yet the forensic evidence proved otherwise. They found evidence of Bryan’s presence at the scene of the crime all over the place—hairs on her body, his skin under her nails, evidence of the struggle. In addition, Bryan had a gash on his right cheek made by her fingernails.

To top it off, a witness, a neighbor, said she’d seen Bryan and Megan’s grandmother arguing several times. This witness said under oath that the young man had shoved the woman very roughly in the driveway not two days before her death. As to why he would push Megan’s grandmother or what they were arguing about so strenuously remained a mystery to this day.

“Are you worried Bryan is next?” Megan asked.

Alec looked at her. That was exactly what he was worried about.

She looked away. “I can’t do all this. Our son is dead. I’ve had enough pain,” she said.

His head jerked up at her. He wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly. “Megan?” he said tremulously.

“Our son was stillborn. There was a heart defect. He never had a chance. I thought you should know.”

It felt like a punch, as if someone had hit him hard in the gut expelling all of his air. There just didn’t seem to be enough air in the room for him to find another breath. You never told me, he wanted to yell at her. Why didn’t you tell me? Why couldn’t I know this?

“What…happened?” he asked.

“I went to live with my godmother in Baltimore and it happened there. The baby was a boy. In my mind I’ve always called him Jack. After my father.”

He said, “There was nothing the doctors could do?”

Megan shook her head.

“Megan.” He looked into her eyes where a tear welled in her left eye and another wandered down her cheek. She brushed angrily at them with her fists. He wanted to go to her, hold her in his arms and never let her go.

I’ve had enough pain. That’s what she had said. She had lost her parents, his own brother had killed her grandmother and her son had died.

“Megan,” he said. “I’m so very sorry.”

How could he have done what he did to her? Oh Megan, Megan will you ever forgive me for putting my family, my brother, ahead of you and the love we had?

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