Cheryl Bradshaw - Sinnerman

I sat a couple feet away from her on the bed.

“Do you know why I question the real reason you’re here?” she said.

I shook my head.

“No one has ever come looking for Laurel. Not a single person. Since the day she walked out the door, she hasn’t been missed by anyone in this town.”

“What happened?” I said.

“She up and left with another man when the boy was only seven. Now you tell me, what kind of mother does that to her child? Leaves him without so much as a note, a phone call, a visit? I’ll tell you—the trampy kind. That woman was only interested in one thing since the day she set eyes on my son—herself. And she only cared about one thing—money.”

“If that’s true, why’d she leave all this?” I said.

“She found money somewhere else.”

“What about her son?”

“She never wanted that boy from the moment she found out she was pregnant with him. She told Decklan kids weren’t part of their deal, like a child was some sort of business transaction two people make with each other. It sickens me to think about it, even now. I was surprised she lasted seven years.”

I’d never had children, but the notion that a mother could abandon her child seemed callous. I wondered what kind of world we lived in where so many women who were desperate to have babies were denied that right while others who were undeserving pumped them out like balls in a paintball gun, one right after the other. It didn’t seem fair.

“That must have been a difficult time for your grandson,” I said.

“It was hard on them both. My son gave that woman everything her heart desired. He built her that art studio downtown and gave her whatever she asked for. But, it’s like I told him. Women like that are never happy. They wrestle with themselves their whole life, and in the end after all he’d done, I was right, and she still walked out.”

“How did he take it when she left?”

“He didn’t want to talk about it. He just focused on his work.”

“And your grandson?” I said.

“He was never the same after she left. Poor boy.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You need to understand, my grandson was a quiet boy to begin with. And when that poor example of a woman up and left, it got worse. He’d lock himself in his room for hours. Turned out he was writing her letters. He’d write her every day and beg her to come back. Decklan told him we had no place to send them, but he wrote the letters anyway. He’d created this fantasy, maybe it was his way to cope so he didn’t have to face reality. When I could get him out of his room, he planted himself on the front porch and waited for her to drive up. He’d convinced himself she would come back, and no one could make him believe any different. It amazed me how much he loved that loony woman. He didn’t seem to notice that she didn’t give a damn about him.”

I took out the note Sinnerman left for me in the park and folded it so she couldn’t see the words.

“By any chance did the paper he wrote on look like this?”

Her eyes scanned it and then expanded to the point that I no longer needed a verbal answer.

“Where did you get that? Do you know my grandson—do you know where he is?”

I pressed harder.

“Is this the paper?” I said.

“Yes.”

“How long has it been since you’ve seen your grandson?”

She tapped one of her fingers over her lips and then said, “I don’t know. He left.”

“How long ago?” I said.

“It’s been years now, about two decades.”

“Do you have any idea where he went?”

A tear oozed from her eye and splashed down on her wrist. She took her index finger and cocked her head to the side and dabbed the wet spot with it.

“Decklan set aside a big chunk of money for my grandson that he was entitled to when he turned eighteen. The day after he took out his inheritance, he left town, and I’ve never seen him since.”

“Have you tried to get in touch with him—to find him?”

She nodded.

“And?” I said.

“I have no idea where he is. Have you ever tried to find someone who doesn’t want to be found?”

I had and what I’d learned was that no matter how hard someone tried to hide, there was always a trail.

“Couldn’t you track him through his bank account, credit cards, that type of thing?” I said.

“He cashed it out.”

“All of it?” I said.

“Every penny.”

I had the feeling there was a lot more to the story, and I wasn’t about to leave before I found out what it was.

“Why did your grandson want to leave so bad?” I said.

She shook her head.

“I’m sorry, I can’t. Even after all this time…it’s just too hard.”

It was time for the sympathy vote, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her about my suspicions.

“You asked me before why I was here,” I said.

She nodded.

“I’m looking for your grandson.”

“Why?”

“I think he knew my sister,” I said. “In fact, I believe he might have been the last one to see her alive.”

Giovanni and Decklan appeared at the door.

“What are you two talking about?” Decklan said.

I gave Giovanni the I-need-more-time look and hoped he grasped my meaning. He did.

“I’d love to see the rest of this magnificent house,” he said to Decklan.

Decklan’s house paled in comparison to Giovanni’s, but Decklan took the bait, which was all that mattered. When they were safely out of sight, Decklan’s mother grabbed my arm.

“Is your sister—”

“Yes,” I said.

“How long ago did she pass away?”

“A few years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” I said. “I hope you can see now why I need to find him.”

“How are you so sure the man you’re looking for is my grandson?”

“Because he wrote me a note on that piece of paper I showed you, and I believe his mother’s art studio was the only place around that used it.”

“I see.”

“What made him leave?” I said.

She sighed and then breathed in and exhaled with force, like she was prepared to give a long speech.

“Decklan had a hard time after Laurel left. He didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat. All he thought about was her. And you need to understand that every time he looked at my grandson, he saw Laurel staring back at him. It pained him to even talk to the child. At first, he just distanced himself from him, but after a while, just to have him around was more than he could bear.”

“So he ignored him—his own son?”

She hung her head like she’d just been disgraced in public.

“He sent him away.”

“Where, at what age?”

“To an all-boy school about three months after his mother left, and when he came back, he was like a different person.”

“In what way?” I said.

“He had fits of rage and night terrors. He’d wake up at all hours and scream for his mother. This went on for years. He was so angry.”

“How did Decklan react?”

“He didn’t know what to do. I’m sure he loved the boy, but you have to understand, he’s never had a high tolerance for that type of behavior.”

That type of behavior? I couldn’t believe she’d uttered those words. The child lost his mother. How could his father expect anything less?

“And he was violent,” she said. “The older he got, the worse it was, and it escalated to the point that he went after Decklan one night with a knife.”

“Was he hurt?” I said.

She shook her head.

“It was more rage than anything. He thought his father hated him, and by then—well, he pretty much assumed his mother felt the same way too. All those years and he never heard a word from her. But the night he got physical with the knife—well, that was the last straw for Decklan.”