“The old man needed to go into a residential care place. When I heard he was selling, I asked if I could make him an offer before he put it on the market.” Knox smiles at the memory.
“And he let you?”
“Yeah. On the day of the signing, he reduced the price by one hundred and thirty-four dollars.”
“Why?”
Knox laughs. “It had a line item that said Fish Tip. Said it covered all the fish we’d left him over the years.”
“Does it make you sad? Being somewhere with such big memories?” I ask.
Knox tugs me close and brushes his lips over mine. “Just made some new big memories.”
I let him kiss me, but don’t let him off the hook for the question. “You know what I mean.”
“I’ve just always felt closer to him here. Once I’d bought the house, he’d come over and spend time on the porch. Said the fun had gone out of the fishing, that it wasn’t quite as illicit as when we were kids.”
“I understand that logic, somehow.”
Knox grins. “Me too. Haven’t fished down this end of the property since the day I moved in.”
“I’m sorry,” I admit. “For all of it. For my father. For your brother.”
“Thank you.”
“I know there was an investigation and my father was cleared. But I’ve never really believed my father is a moral man.”
“You think your father hid something?”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to give you any kind of false hope about the truth because I don’t know anything about what happened that day. But he’s always had a strange relationship with power. He’s always believed the badge made him…invincible. Like, he believes the badge, in isolation from any kind of culpability for his actions, commands respect. In a different life, with a different background, he could have been a dictator of a small country.”
“What happened to your mom?” Knox asks.
I finally move and sit up, placing my back against what will forever be known as the outdoor sex tree. “The truth is, no one really knows. My grandmother took a call from her, crying, saying she couldn’t do this anymore and that she was leaving, and to take care of me. Dad said it was for another man. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had lots of thoughts about it.”
Knox stands and rights his clothes. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know that I’ll ever forgive her for leaving me behind with him, whatever the reason. Like, how could any mom do that? But as a human being who deals with my father, I can also understand how he wore her down and chipped away at her until she felt there was nothing left.”
He offers me his hand to haul me to my feet, then cups my cheeks. “I’m sorry you don’t have closure on that. I’m sure it hurts.”
His grip is warm and steady, grounding me, such that I don’t feel the usual trip in my gut when I think about Mom.
“You know, it’s easy to focus on what I don’t have. But my grandparents were truly wonderful people. You’ve seen the apartment. They barely had room for me, and yet, they never made me feel like a burden. At least, for the window of time I was allowed to live with them, there was some joy.”
“I’m glad you had that.” Knox pulls a leaf from my hair. “C’mon. Let’s get you back and cleaned up before we start growing roots out here.”
He takes my hand and leads me back to his house after pulling his knife from the tree. We don’t rush. In fact, I take my time, looking at the way the light falls through the trees. The way the light makes the tips of the gentle ripples of water dance.
The path is uneven beneath our feet as we walk, but Knox never lets go.
My fingers stay threaded through his.
The house comes into view slowly through the trees. But before we take the steps up to the porch, Knox stops. He places the jacket on the steps and turns before brushing my cheeks with his thumbs.
“Did you like that? What we did out there.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “I did. I think…” I try to compose the whispers of thought floating in my head into sentences I hope he’ll understand.
