“It was all right because—because...”
Kate could feel him weakening.
Sara sat up straighter and took Jack’s hand. “Because Evan was there. He was about seven then, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. But he wasn’t there that summer. Krystal and Roy were fighting, so she’d taken my brother to her parents in Colorado.”
Kate guessed that Krystal was Roy’s second wife and Evan’s mother.
“I was bored and alone,” Jack continued. “Roy was always working on cars, and always angry at me because I wasn’t interested in them. I was, but I didn’t want to be around his constant belittling of me. I rode my bike to get away from him.”
“To here?” Kate asked.
Jack took a while to answer. “Cheryl is why I wanted to buy this house.” He looked at Sara. “It took me a year and lots of lawyer hours to get it. Remember?”
“Yes,” Sara said. “I told you to give it up but you wouldn’t.” She paused. “What was Cheryl like?”
“She was the prettiest girl in our school. Petite and blonde, with big blue eyes. And she was nice to everyone. And really smart. People liked her.” He took a breath. “She used to say that I saved her life.”
He looked back at the tree, the blazing color now gone. The approaching night had taken away its last bit of spirit. “I was riding past her house and I heard what I thought was a scream. I went to see what was wrong.”
Jack shook his head in memory. “This place always was a dump. The landlord was a bastard. Squeezed a penny until it squealed. There was some dangerous iron equipment in the back. Farm machinery, I think. Rusted and sharp. Cheryl had been hanging out clothes to dry when the pole gave way. She was tangled in the rope and the pole was across her legs. She couldn’t get out.”
“You saved her,” Kate said.
“I wanted to think so,” Jack said. “Roy had been on my case that morning telling me I was a worthless piece of crap, so I needed to feel like a hero. Cheryl invited me in once I’d freed her and gave me lemonade and cookies.”
With every word he spoke, Jack seemed to regain energy. The pleasant memories were replacing what they knew had happened to the young woman.
“We became friends,” he said. “Her mother was always gone and I wished Roy was, so we spent most of the summer together.” Jack gave a snort. “And I was young enough that she considered me safe. Cheryl was so pretty that all the guys were after her, but she refused to go out with any of them—which made them try even harder.”
“And, of course, the girls were jealous,” Sara said.
“I’m sure they were but I was eleven. What did I know? All I cared about was that for one whole summer, Cheryl Morris, the prettiest girl in school, maybe in the whole world, wasmine.”
“What did you two do?” Kate asked.
Jack lifted his chin. “Cheryl wanted to be a newscaster. Not a journalist. She dreamed of being on TV and ‘keeping the world informed.’ That’s what she called it. We worked on that.”
Sara and Kate were silent as they waited for him to continue.
“My dad, myrealfather, Henry, had a video camera. I asked him if I could borrow it and he said yes. Henry was always kind and...”
When Jack trailed off, Kate felt the bad memories threatening to take over. She guessed that Henry was yet another loved one who had been taken from this man. “What did you do with the camera?”
Jack got himself under control. “Filmed her. She wrote newscasts, read them, and I recorded it all. She wrote tragedies and funny stories, everything. She wrote parodies of the people in town, then did them in accents. I’d laugh so hard I’d fall down. She wanted to learn how to report any story with a straight face.”
As he remembered, Jack smiled. “She got really good at it but I tried to trip her up. I used to stand behind the camera and make faces at her. I would switch what she’d written with some comedy routine and see if she could keep from laughing. One time I replaced her story with tongue twisters. She read them perfectly, but afterward she knuckled my scalp so hard it was sore for two days.”
“You did love her,” Sara said.
“Oh, yeah. I did.”
Jack held the necklace out on his open palm. “Her birthday was just days before school was to start. I asked her what kind of party she was going to have. That made her laugh. She said that people like her never had birthday parties.”
He paused. “I knew what she meant. She had the kind of life I would have had. But my mother had the good sense to divorce my worthless father and marry Henry Lowell. Men like Roy Wyatt didn’t waste money on birthday cakes for kids.”
“So you gave her a party?” Kate asked.
