The Last Breath (24 page)

Because Cal’s read the letter, too.

“No,” he asserts again, stepping into the room. Even in his bare feet and slept-in pajamas, he somehow still manages to carry a commanding courtroom air. “What you’re forgetting is that your father’s case wasn’t that simple. There were mountains of different facts and circumstances and evidence to sort through for the appeal. A one-page letter wasn’t going to make a dent in the transcripts, which were over ten thousand pages. So let’s not go around making assumptions about things we don’t understand, all right?”

No one agrees, not even Dad. I turn back to Jake, and his expression confirms what I’m thinking. That Cal is bullshitting us. That this letter could have made a dent, and a significant one. That I understand a lot more than the Tennessee Tiger would like.

“Where is this letter?” I say to Jake.

“At my house.”

“I want to see it.”

Behind me, Cal sputters loud sounds of protest, but I ignore him. Jake does, too. He digs a hand in his pocket for keys and moves toward the door.

I turn and motion to Lexi to follow me upstairs. “Get dressed. You’re going with us.”

“Wait.” Bo latches on to my sleeve, almost jerking it off my arm. His hair is a mess, and he’s in bad need of a razor and a toothbrush. “What about me?”

“There’s no room in Jake’s cab. If you want to come, you’ll have to follow behind. We’re leaving in two minutes.”

“Now let’s all calm down, folks,” Cal says. “This is just a silly piece of paper we’re talking about. A letter from Ella Mae to a man she never knew. If it had been anything more than that, don’t you think I would have jumped all over it? This letter has no legal significance whatsoever in your father’s case.”

I hear more than just pride and a patronizing bite to his voice. There’s also the tiniest edge of panic.

“Then you won’t have a problem with us seeing it,” I say.

Cal tucks his thumbs in the elastic waist of his pajama pants, leans back on his heels and uses his best good-old-boy drawl. “It’s not the seein’ that worries me, darlin’. It’s the believin’ this letter has some kind of magical powers. I already told y’all it’s not going to change a thing.”

All at once I am even more suspicious. The longer Cal tries to talk me out of wanting to read this letter, the more magical I think it may be.

But if the Tennessee Tiger has taught me anything at all, it’s how to give good poker face. I wipe all traces of hope and distrust I’m feeling from my expression and blink up at him.

“Then maybe you should come along so you can explain it to us.”

After a long moment, Cal gives me a thin smile. “Fine. Because you’re sure as hell not leaving me behind.”

Two and a half minutes later Jake and I are flying up the hill to town in his truck, my sister wedged between us on the seat, Bo and Cal on our tail.

32

IN MY JOB,
I’ve been put in more impossible situations than I can count. I’ve watched cultures be destroyed by the people who were supposed to protect them, their citizens murdered, their artifacts looted. I’ve come face-to-face with spectacular evil in the form of genocidal regimes and aid-resistant bureaucrats and reckless idiots with semiautomatic rifles. I’ve stood before thousands of people with rations meant for half that number, and turned away weeping mothers as they chose which child to feed, and which to let starve.

But never, never have I felt as helpless as I do now.

Helpless because I can’t seem to distinguish my fury at Jake from my confusion and heartbreak at his lie of omission. I want to scream obscenities and pummel my fists into his chest at the same time I want to throw my arms around his neck and beg him to rip off my clothes. I detest his lie, and yet I think if I try really hard maybe I could learn to live with it. I love him and I hate him.

Outside the windows of Jake’s truck, the neighborhood’s scenery rushes by in the early morning glow. Makeshift twig and electric fences snaking along the edges of frozen farms and yards. Golden light glaring from windows shut against the cold on houses and cabins and double-wides. A row of brown and white cows pressed together for warmth, their tails whipping as we pass.

“I don’t understand.” Lexi’s honey hair is gathered high in a ponytail, and she borrowed a pair of my NYU sweats that sit a tad too snug across her thighs. “You never knew you were adopted?”

Jake shakes his head. “Not until a little over five years ago, after Mom—my adopted mom, that is—died.” He leans around Lexi to look at me. “I was cleaning out her house when I found the papers.”

My heart gives a painful squeeze for the betrayal he must have felt at discovering the papers, at the same time another part of me, and a not so small part, thinks the experience should have taught him better. Surely he remembers the ache he felt that day strongly enough to want to never inflict it on another person, especially one he claims to love.

I turn my gaze to the street.

“Okay,” Lexi says. “So let’s just assume for the sake of argument that Jake isn’t lying.”

I snort. “Which time?”

“That he didn’t know anything about Ella Mae until he found the papers.” She drapes a palm over my knee and turns to Jake. “That must have been devastating.”

He tosses her a humorless smile. “And confusing. And maddening. And ultimately, damn disappointing. Thanks to Google, it wasn’t very difficult to figure out what happened to her.”

“Why did you come to Rogersville?” I say, more accusation than inquiry.

“Because the internet only gave me the facts. I needed to know who she really was, where she was from, why she made this place her home. I needed to feel closer to her somehow.” Jake’s voice is calm, patient, placating in a way I wish offended me more. “I thought maybe if I came here, even a decade after her death, I could get to know her better somehow, so I packed up my stuff and moved here the next day.”

“Makes sense.” Lexi’s tone is filled with a sympathy I resent her for. Where’s my sympathy? I’m the one who just got her heart ripped out of her chest. My sister takes in my glare and shrugs. “What? It does. I would have wanted to know, too.” She returns her attention to Jake. “So do you?”

He glances at her. “Do I what?”

“Feel closer to Ella Mae.”

“I did for a while, but...” He looks over with hangdog eyes for long enough that Lexi gives an alarmed squeak and yanks on the wheel. Jake straightens the truck right before we land in a ditch. “Not anymore.”

My eyes burn with unshed tears. I close them and focus on finding my anger, letting it swirl all around me until my teeth and thighs and fists clench, heating my blood until it boils, consuming every inch of me. And then I open my eyes and attack the first person I see, the one sitting directly to my left.

“Why aren’t you pissed?” I ask Lexi. “He lied to you, too.”

“I know, but honestly, I don’t blame him.”

My mouth falls open in indignant disbelief.

“Think about it, Gi. You know how people in this town talk, how they make assumptions about you based solely on your kin. It would have taken Jake all of five seconds to have figured out that as soon as he mentioned Ella Mae, they’d be making assumptions about him, too. So no. I can’t work myself up into a lather, because I would have done the exact same thing in his position.”

The silence that follows stretches a good thirty seconds, maybe even a minute, and for however long it lasts, I feel something inside me cracking open, letting in light, filling me with understanding I don’t want to grasp.

Folks come to small towns like this one for their promised peace. All the years I spent tromping down Rogersville’s two-lane roads, I’d felt the serenity, too. There’s something safe and secure in knowing all your neighbors, in recognizing every face and voice and gesture. And then Ella Mae was murdered, and the tranquility grew teeth. The calm thrashed and crushed. Behind all the fences and windows and doors flashing by my window, I know it still does. If Jake’s secret gets out, it will for him, too.

In so many ways, his reasons for not telling parallel mine for not staying.

“But you should have told me. Especially after...” My voice trails as I stare out the passenger window at the brick buildings that line Main and think,
after we kissed, after we made love, after you told me you loved me, take your pick.

Jake slams the brakes, and the truck skids to a crooked stop in front of Roadkill. When he turns, his eyes are filled with so much anguish I want to turn away, but then his gaze locks onto mine and I can’t.

“I know I should have told you. I know that. I had it all clear in my head, too. Exactly what I was going to say, how I was going to tell you. And I tried, dammit, at least a million times. But then you’d look at me and my mouth refused to cooperate.”

“So tell me now.”

His gaze flicks to Lexi. “What, here?”

“Yes here.” My sister starts to squirm over top of me toward the passenger door, but I stop her with a hand to her biceps. “Stay. This involves you, too.”

Jake thrusts both hands into his hair and pulls, making it stick up on the sides. My palms itch to reach over, run my fingers through it until his dark waves fall back into place, but I make two hard fists on my lap instead. Finally, he blows out a resigned sigh and then leans around Lexi to fix his gaze onto me.

“Do you believe that some greater force controls what will happen to us in the future? Because I used to think that was a load of crap. Everybody has free will, right? We all make choices, good or bad. We all cross bridges or burn them. And then I found out that the woman I always thought of as my mother wasn’t the same woman who gave me life, and I started to wonder how I got so lucky. How did I end up with two parents who loved me so much I never questioned our bond was anything less than blood? Dumb luck. Fate. Destiny. Whatever you want to call it. That’s what brought me to them. It’s also what brought me to you.”

“Oh, Jakey.” Lexi brushes three light fingers across his sleeve. “That’s beautiful.”

I don’t respond.

“I thought I came here searching for Ella Mae, but the truth is, I was looking for you. I knew it when I offered you that slice of chocolate cake the first night we met, and I know it now. You are the reason I felt drawn to this place. I was supposed to come here to find you. Not Ella Mae.”

In my mind, I crawl over Lexi and onto his lap, grab him by the ears and cover his lips with mine. I feel his tongue in my mouth and his hands on my skin and his heartbeat beating strong and sure against my chest. I hear his flurry of apologies and his vows of forever in my ear, and the sympathy in my voice when I tell him all is forgiven. In my mind, I do all of these things.

In real life, I don’t crawl or grab or cover. I don’t feel or hear anything.

Because in real life, I don’t forgive. My too-scarred, too-scared heart won’t let me.

“Destiny isn’t preordained, Jake. It’s the sum of all the millions of choices we make, not the reason we make them. Your parents chose you out of all the babies born that day, and that was a good thing, for them and for you. But when you chose to lie to me about your identity—”

He shakes his head almost violently. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. I never lied about me. I’m Jake Alexander Foster, a name given to me by my parents, Sandra and Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Foster, both deceased. They changed my diapers and helped me with homework and tossed a football with me in the backyard. They taught me about the birds and bees and cried at my graduations and worked overtime to pay my college tuition. We didn’t share the same DNA, but they were the only parents I ever knew, the only ones I ever loved wholly and unconditionally. So I never lied about who I am, because all my life I’ve only ever been Jake Alexander Foster.”

“A lie of omission is still a lie.”

I might as well have punched him. His face dissolves from stubbornly hopeful to painfully resigned. When he doesn’t say anything, I go on.

“But what I was going to say is, when you lied to me, that was your choice. Now it’s my turn. I get to make a choice, and I choose not to forgive you.”

He lets out a sharp breath, and the look of devastation that settles on his face is too painful to watch. I turn away and reach for the handle, shoving open the door, stepping into the cold, pulling my sister out of the cab with me.

“Now let’s go get that letter so we can go home.”

* * *

The second we file into Jake’s living room, I know I’ve made a mistake. I should have waited in the car. I should have sent Lexi in for the letter. I should be anywhere but here, in a place haunted by memories of me and Jake, because I know, I know, I know they’re going to make me cry.

Jake tosses his keys onto the table by the door and heads into the hallway toward the bedroom. “Make yourselves at home. I’ll just be a minute.”

The couch, the carpet, the windowsill, the corner of the countertop by the kitchen sink, the kitchen sink. There’s nowhere to look that doesn’t give me visions of me and Jake. The room darkens, the air thins, the claustrophobia squeezes until it feels like too much to bear. I move into the hall, sink onto the floor by the wall, bury my face in my hands and squeeze my eyes shut. How long does it take to dig up a freaking piece of paper?

“Sweetheart, are you okay?”

I look up to find Lexi, crouched on the floor in front of me. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“Glad that’s all cleared up, then.” She smiles and pats my knee, falling onto the floor by my feet. “Look, I know you’re angry, but if you don’t mind me saying so, you seemed a tiny bit unforgiving.”

“That’s because I am unforgiving. Jake lied to me, Lex, and not about something insignificant. He’s my freaking stepbrother. How disgusting is that?”

“Well, this is Tennessee.”

I cut her a not-funny look. “And because of his lie, our entire relationship has been based on misinformation and me being misled.”

“So let me ask you this, then. What would you have done if Jake had told you about Ella Mae that very first night? Forget all about the fact that nobody else in town knew, and you were a virtual stranger. Forget all about the fact that he didn’t know if he could trust you with his secret, much less even liked you enough to want to share. Would you have ever spoken to him again?”

“I don’t know,” I say, even though I do know. “Maybe.”
No way.

But Lexi sees right through my lie. “Put yourself in his shoes, Gi. By the time he realized he liked you, it was too late. He was already vulnerable.”

My sister is right, I know she is. My vision blurs, and my voice dies down to a whisper. “Whose side are you on?”

“Yours, silly rabbit.” She reaches around my knee for my hand, pulling it into her lap and squeezing it between both of hers. “Always and forever, I’m on yours.”

The bedroom door swings open, and a bleary-eyed Jake steps into the hall. His gaze searches out mine but I turn my head, pressing my lips together, biting down until I feel pain. I’m still processing Lexi’s message, and my tears are dangerously close to the surface. I focus instead on the piece of paper clutched in Jake’s hand.

Because I will not let Jake see me cry.

“Take it,” he says, offering the sheet to me.

I pull the letter from his fingers. “I’ll make a copy and get the original back to you.”

“Don’t bother. I don’t want it back.”

If his words didn’t tell me his meaning, his crumpled brow does. First his mother, then Ella Mae, now me. So far this letter has brought him nothing but heartache and loss, and keeping it would only serve as a reminder.

I nod and push to a stand, gesturing to Lexi and the door. “Let’s go.”

Bo steps into the hall, his gaze bouncing from mine to the paper in my fist. “But what about the letter?”

“We’ll read it at home.” I reach for the knob and swing the door open.

But Bo doesn’t move. He lifts his palms in the air and holds them there. “Then why did we come all the way over here? I want to read it now.”

“Fine. We’ll read it in the car.”

Bo starts to object further, but Cal silences him with a hand on his biceps. “C’mon, son. Let’s get back to your daddy.”

With one last longing look at the letter, Bo files past Cal, out the door and down the stairs. My uncle follows him without another word.

I help Lexi up and pull her toward the stairs. At the door she pauses, then turns back and wiggles her fingers in a wave. “I’m so sorry, Jakey.”

Jake waits until I peek at him through my lashes to give his reply. “No sorrier than I am.”