After (73 page)

“Nadia tells me you're an ace shot. A proper marksman,” the major said to Nix with one of his wry grins when she and the family had sat down to dinner. The grin faded and he added, “You've had a great deal of practice, I imagine.”

“If you call killing people 'practice', yes.”

The major gave her a weighing look, and came back in a soft voice. “No. If I'd chosen my words more carefully, I might have said 'experience'.”

John was listening, but since they'd gathered together, he'd been tense and quiet, just as he had been over breakfast. Nadia seemed to feel the strain, but Nix wondered if she knew its source.

The major turned his piercing gaze from John, taut and miserable, to Gareth, and in the blunt manner Nix had already come to expect from him said, “Nix told me last night you've read Eva's journals.” Noticing Gareth's surprised glance at Nix, he added,

“We had an accidental rendezvous in the living room. It's where we insomniacs are compelled to gather.”

The way John and Nadia were looking at Smith, Nix wondered how many times they'd found him sitting in the dark with a bottle of scotch.

“Yes. We read them.”

“All?” Smith pursued.

“Yes.”

“Well,” Smith said, smiling now without irony, his hazel eyes lit up, “what do you think of your mother?”

Gareth smiled, looking sad. “She was smart. And brave.”

Smith laughed. “Yes.”

“And generous.”

“Terribly. No one knew that better than I. Except perhaps your other father. Riggs.

It took me a long while to believe she'd forgiven me for what I'd put her through. And though I did eventually believe, I never understood how she could. Or how she could find it within herself to be kind to James Riggs. But she had that power. To see good in people who'd done bad, to give herself to make people happy.”

“The things she wrote in her journals. It's all true,” Gareth said in his usual way of not asking things.

“Of course, all stories have more than one side,” the major answered, “but yes, she was faithful to the course of events here. Even, to the best of my knowledge, to the ones she didn't witness herself.”

“Then you really gave her to John. In front of all those men.”

John flinched, but the major didn't.

“Yes.”

“You're not ashamed of it.”

“Shame is a funny thing. It casts a strange light on one's judgment of the past when one knows the future. I knew then it was an ugly thing to do. But I regret other choices, innocuous things I've done, far, far more. I did that hard thing, put Eva through twenty minutes of hell, and quite overnight, she changed from a frightened girl into the strategist, the nurturing woman who is largely responsible for Sewanee and the other sanctuaries like it, and for the liberation of thousands of women. And in her brief life, in the short years after that night, Eva fell in love with the man I gave her to, and with me, and was happy. When I lose sleep—and I'm a chronic insomniac—it isn't that night I compulsively relive, again and again, changing it each time. That night when I was so hard, so cruel, out of desperation to do good. It's the days I didn't do the hard thing. And the days I did nothing at all. If things had gone differently though, I'd probably never look back on those days. Never be ashamed of my choices, of my inaction.”

Nix's chest went tight. Had the major been drinking again? Was he going to start wishing aloud, right in front of her, that Nadia hadn't been born so he could have Eva back?

“I'd like to know what happened. How my father took me,” Gareth said. Maybe he thought that was what the major meant.

The major was silent. John spoke up, instead. “It was all planned. When your mom went into labor, you and Hope went to stay with Riggs. It's what Hope wanted. And he was one of your dads. Avery and I weren't all that happy about it, but by then Eva really trusted Riggs with you and with Hope.”

The cold, flexing snake started coiling in Nix's belly. That silent girl.

“It was a long labor. And when Eva died, we were both too... we were in no shape to collect Hope, to tell them she was gone.”

So many years later, and there was still a pained edge to John's voice.

“I never even went to bed. It was just getting light when I heard the front door, heard Hope bounding up the stairs. Excited, I imagined, to welcome the new baby. I couldn't get out of the chair. I just sat there, holding little Nadia,” John gave Nadia an adoring smile through the tears gathering in his eyes, “and tried to pull myself together, so I could tell Hope what had happened. But the door opened, and Hope looked hollowed out and scared and her hand was bandaged and there were bruises on her arms. Finger marks. And she said you were gone, Gareth. That Riggs had taken you. It was so strange. They were the only words I'd ever heard her say.”

“He raped her. He raped that girl,” Gareth said, his voice low and rough. “Then took me.”

“No, Gareth. It's what I thought when I saw her, but no. It was two other men. Lott and Baldwyn. They broke in, tried to make him rape her. Tried to rape her themselves.

But Riggs killed one and Hope killed the other. She got you away from him and killed him.

“Riggs, your father, knew Avery and I didn't trust him. And Hope had never spoken, never written a word before. He couldn't have imagined she'd speak up for him.”

The regret was so thick in John's mouth, it seemed hard for him to form words.

“He must have thought we'd blame him for what happened. Suspect him of raping Hope. He probably thought we'd take you away from him. If Eva had been alive, she would have listened to him. But he already knew she was dead, that the one person who would have trusted him, defended him, was gone. You were his whole world. I guess he felt like he had no choice.”

“I'd like to meet her. Hope. All of them. Diego and Evan. Jake.”

“A lot's changed,” John said. “Jake's here. He and Sarah have three girls, all teenagers, now. But Evan and Diego moved away a few years ago, to the coast.”

John rose from the dinner table drifted toward the mantle, looking at the drawings mounted above it for a long time in silence.

“I killed her,” the major said in a voice so low, maybe he was talking to himself.

“With foolish mercy. And then, so wrapped up in my love. I didn't think. Didn't take care.

Killed our beautiful girl. Our Hope.”

Nix shuddered. The man was coming unhinged, right there, right in front of Gareth.

“You mean Eva,” Gareth whispered.

“No,” John said, his back to them still, his eyes fixed on Hope's drawings. He sighed, then, and turned to face them. When John smiled, Nix thought his welling tears would spill, but they didn't. “I don't know how well it comes through in Eva's journals, but Hope, I've never known anyone so made for love. To love, to be loved. And poor thing, everyone she loved, she lost. First the dying. Then that night. She lost Eva. She lost you and James Riggs.”

John smiled that terrible, heart-breaking smile again, and Nix felt the startling urge to cry.

“God, she loved that man. Even more than she loved Eva, I think. Maybe because she intuited how desperately he needed love, how little he had, when Eva already had so much.”

He sighed.

“In the middle of the night, when she finally fell asleep after nearly being raped, after cutting a man's throat, Riggs left her. Took the child she loved like a brother, and disappeared.”

“And we were hardly any better,” the major broke in. “Of course, John was doing all he could, looking after the newborn and looking for you, Gareth. It was necessary, him being gone all those weeks. But I merely disappeared. Without going anywhere or doing anything at all.”

John said, “Diego and Evan took Hope in. I know they were kind to her. Spent time with her. But really, she was alone. Abandoned by everyone she loved just when she'd lost you and Eva, just when she'd been so hurt and taken a life. I can look back and remember seeing her for a few minutes one day between my expeditions, searching for you. She barely looked like the girl we knew. Thin and still and...gray, somehow. I remember it, but I didn't notice, then.

“One afternoon,” John said, the tears rising in his gray eyes again, “Evan and Diego came home from their duty shifts, and found her. She'd papered the whole bathroom with her drawings, pictures of Eva, pictures of you, Gareth, of James Riggs.

Pictures of the three of you. Her family, after losing her mom and dad in the dying.

Drawings of them, too. In the tub, surrounded by all those pictures, her drawings of all the people she loved, she cut her wrists. When they found her, she was already cold.”

Except for the snap and hiss of the fire, the room was silent.

“Hope's suicide,” John said finally, “is what finally brought me back here, kept me here.” He met Gareth's eyes. “It's when I stopped looking for you. I'd wanted you back so badly, I'd neglected everything else. Even Nadia. When Hope died, I decided to face the fact that I'd probably never be able to find you, that there were other people who needed me. We both saw that,” John said, looking at the major. “I knew Riggs really loved you. He'd always been good with you. Protective. Warm. Playful.” John laughed, a little bitterly. “He was like a stranger when he was with you, a different man than the one I'd known for three years. I hoped he'd be a good father. That you'd grow up safe and happy.” His voice thick, heavy, John said, “So, I stopped looking for you. And that's when we really went to work. Rescuing, recruiting, expanding the safe zone.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

“Nix.”

She turned away from the dark, moonless night, the sky flecked with stars, and in the faint glow of the lantern seeping into the night from the living room window, met Gareth's gaze.

“When the op starts, you're going,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Will you let me come with you?”

“Yes.”

He closed his eyes, leaned in, rested his forehead on her shoulder. “I was scared to ask. I was sure you'd say 'no'.”

“You don't want to stay with them?”

“I'd like to get to know them better. Let them know me. It would be nice, having a family. People to come home to. But I need to go and fight. Help. And...”

“And?”

“I need you. More than I need them.” He sat up and smiled down at her. “That sounds so selfish. But I think you need me, too. More than they need me.”

“Maybe what they needed most was to know you're here. That you're okay.”

Gareth sighed.

“Coming here, I thought they'd be this happy little family. These saints in their Eden. Like Sewanee. But god, there's so much sadness. John. The major. Even Nadia.

I think my being here makes it harder for them.”

She touched his arm. Kissed his neck, soft and smooth under his ear, rough with a day's beard along his jaw.

“You showing up, it's stirred their memories. Memories of happiness, memories of hard losses. But they're glad you're here. They want you to be their son again.”

* * * *

Gareth knocked on the door—already open a crack—to John's room. When John saw him, a warm smile widened his mouth.

“Gareth, come in.” He pulled the door fully open.

Whenever Gareth was close, John seemed to want to touch him, maybe to put his arm around his shoulders, or to ruffle his thick head of dark hair. But he seemed to be making an effort to keep his distance. Gave Gareth his space.

“There's something I want to ask,” Gareth said, his rough voice soft, hesitant.

John's smile widened. “What's that?”

“Maybe it's too strange.”

“It's alright, Gareth. Ask.”

“In her journals, she talks about being filmed. With you.”

John's expression cooled and hardened. But he kept the remains of a smile on his lips, and his gaze was still kind.

“Yes.”

“I'd like to see her. Hear her.”

John drifted back, silent.

Gareth said, “I shouldn't have asked. Those tapes are private. I understand.”

“No. It's alright that you asked. Really. It hadn't occurred to me.” John cleared his throat and looked off toward the window for a few moments, like he was trying to decide what to say. “I've never seen them. If they still exist, Avery would have them. I'll ask him for you.”

“Maybe I should ask him myself.”

John's smile came back, softer, warmer. “Alright.”

Gareth moved toward the door.

“I'm sorry we were so maudlin tonight,” John said. “I don't want you to think we sit around moping all the time, feeling sorry for ourselves. Sad things have happened, but our lives are good. Full.”

“No, I understand. It's painful for you, for all of you, having me here. Having to remember things.”

John came close and, for the first time since their reunion, put his arms around Gareth. “It is hard, remembering some things. But it's not painful having you here. I'm so, so happy you're here. We all are. It's the most wonderful, unexpected joy, you finding us.” John released Gareth from his embrace and held him at arms' length. “I don't want to take anything from you, your feelings about your father, about Riggs. And I don't want you to do anything that doesn't feel right. But if you want, when you're ready, I hope you'll come to think of me as your father, too. And Avery. I know he would like that.”

* * * *

The major's mouth bent in one of his wry grins. “Oh, yes. I have the recordings.”

He studied Gareth's face for a few long moments. “I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

Three decades ago, in most families the idea would have been scandalous. Well, perverse. But, like most of your contemporaries, you hardly have any notion of 'family' in the traditional sense of the word. Those taboos are rather silly, under the circumstances.”

“John says he's never watched them.”

“Well.”

The major retrieved a wooden box from a low shelf of a book case, and hinged the lid back, revealing neat rows and columns of clear plastic boxes with hand-written labels on the edge. Eva day 1. Eva day 2. A tape for each day, weeks' worth. And then, in the bottom right corner, three tapes that were different. All three bore the simple label,

“E & A.”