Linda Goodnight - The Memory House

He pivoted to leave but stopped in a half-turn, wrestling with his conscience.

Before he could conquer the demons fighting inside his head, the scarred wooden door scraped open, catching on the threshold as if the wood had swollen with recent rain. An old woman with curly white hair and a wrinkled, pinched face leaned on a cane as she peered out at him.

Eli swallowed. “Opal Kimble?”

“Are you Eli?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She pushed the storm door open. “About time.”

He entered the house where the scent of food battled with the musty smell of age. Everything about the room was old. Old furniture. A big, boxy television on a roller cart cluttered with papers. Faded photos on the wall of people from another era. He thought of the inn he’d recently left and couldn’t help comparing the two houses. Both were old, filled with history, and yet Julia’s home was bright and inviting.

“Sit.”

Accustomed to taking orders, he complied.

“You want coffee?”

“Don’t trouble yourself.”

The old woman ignored his statement and left the room, returning with two mugs and a plate of raisin bread. “I figure you haven’t had breakfast this early.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Help yourself.”

“Thank you.” He required significant restraint to keep from wolfing down the bread like a wild animal. Careful to sip the scalding coffee between bites, he managed to eat without humiliating himself. The coffee was bitter compared to Julia’s. He didn’t care. He’d learned the hard way not to complain.

“Go on and eat all that bread,” the old woman said. “The boy doesn’t like raisins, and I’ve had my fill.”

The boy. The reason he’d come. She’d want money—he was certain of that after seeing her living conditions.

He could feel her watching him so he ate one more slice and stopped, though he could have eaten the entire loaf and still had room for breakfast.

When he’d finished, he sat back in the faded chair and waited, feeling a little better now that he’d had nourishment. She’d summoned him, demanded he come. Let her carry the conversation.

Opal, now seated across from him in a green lift-recliner, leaned forward, her fingers curled around the cane like bird claws. “You knew about the boy?”

“Mindy wrote to me.”

“You didn’t write back.”

“I thought it was for the best.” He lifted his palms in a helpless gesture. “Under the circumstances.”

“She said he’s your son.”

“He could be.” The news of Mindy’s pregnancy, received in a letter not long after his incarceration, had hit him like a ton of bricks. He’d felt like the lowlife he’d become. He and Mindy had only been together one long, hot summer before the trial that changed everything, and he’d always been cautious about relationships. But nothing was foolproof.

“Mindy wouldn’t lie. She was dying.”

Eli closed his eyes for a second. How could lively Mindy be dead? “I didn’t know until yesterday. She was too young.”

“Cancer knows no age, young man.” Opal raised her coffee and sipped, watching him with hawk eyes. After a few uncomfortable seconds, she went on. “When she knew the end was coming, she brought him to me, her only living relative. I love the child as I loved his mama. I want what’s best for him.”

Eli breathed a sigh of relief. She loved the boy. She’d take good care of him. “I’ll send money when I can.”

“Money?” Her tone sharpened.

“Child support.”

She tilted closer until he thought she’d tumble from her chair. “Child support?”

Was the woman hard of hearing? “I’m…not working much yet—” A painful admission though he’d long ago lost his pride. “When I do, I’ll send all I can.”

“I’m not asking for your money, Eli Donovan.”

“Isn’t that why you wanted to see me? Child support?”

With a shove of her cane, Opal pushed to a stand and tottered toward him, a dangerous expression on her wrinkled face. “Look at me. I’m eighty-four years old. I have congestive heart failure and diabetes. I can barely toddle around with this stupid cane.”

Dread started at the bottom of Eli’s feet and worked up through his chest and into his brain. Like a wild stallion, his flight instinct kicked in. He knew what was coming. Knew and couldn’t stop her.

“Mindy wanted you to take the boy. You’re his father.” Opal stuck a bony finger in his face. “She expected you to raise him.”

Eli bolted from the chair. “Are you nuts? Do you know where I’ve been all of his life?”

She pointed the cane at his chest. “You’re out now. And you have a son to care for.”

“I don’t belong around kids. I’m not even sure it’s legal.”

“Don’t be stupid. He’s your blood.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t take care of a child.”

A flash of Jessica’s face, bloated and white, floated through his head. Floated the way she had, facedown in the water, while he’d rocked to Michael Jackson through his Sony Walkman headphones.

“I don’t have a home or a steady job and no one wants to hire an ex-con. I’m at the beck and call of a parole officer who doesn’t like me much.” He rammed splayed fingers through his hair, panicked. “I can’t even take a leak without checking in first!”

“Stop raising your voice in my house. Do you want him to hear?”

His heart pounded as if he’d been the one under water too long. “Look, Opal, let’s be reasonable. What you’re asking is impossible. You don’t know me. I’m an ex-con. I am not father material. I wouldn’t know what to do with a kid.”

“Do you think any parent knows anything when their child is born? You’ll learn like everybody else.”

“Impossible.” He couldn’t take responsibility for anyone, especially a child. Dear God, she didn’t know what she was asking!

“Do you know what will become of the boy when I die?”

He shook his head. “Another relative, I suppose.”

“You got family that will take him? Love him?”

The ball of ice in Eli’s chest became an iceberg. “No.”

“All right, then. You’re his only other relative. He’ll go into foster care, into the system.” She spit the last word like profanity.

“Anywhere is better than with me. There are plenty of good foster parents who care for kids.”

“Mindy never wanted that for her baby.”

“I’m sorry, Opal. I can’t do this.” He stalked to the door, torn asunder but certain he was not a fit man to father a child. Ever. “I’ll send money as soon as I can.”

“Mindy defended you. She said you were a good man.” Opal’s thin lips curled. “She was wrong.”

“Yes. She was.” Tormented by the truth, Eli stormed out of the house, across the overgrown yard and into the safe confines of his car. Breathless, his chest aching, he cranked the Dodge, and was out on the streets of Honey Ridge in seconds.

At the corner, Eli stopped at the stop sign and leaned his head on the steering wheel. He was shaking worse than he had on his first day in prison.

He was the worst possible parent for a little boy, a man who had nothing to offer, a man with no future and an ugly past.

Responsibility tightened around his neck like a noose. He had a son. A son who needed him.

And he didn’t even know his name.

5

Peach Orchard Farm

1864

“Lizzy, help me.” The stench of blood and gunpowder strong in her nostrils, Charlotte called to her maid above the unholy clamor echoing through the farmhouse.

The groans and cries of distressed men tore at her compassion and frightened the children into hiding, a mercy, Charlotte thought, to spare them this horror.