I pulled up next to a brown Chevy pickup with a lawnmower in the back and switched off the engine.
I was out the car and around to Stella’s side to help her before I noticed the man watching us from the back corner of the woodshed, one hand holding a black trash bag and the other on the butt of a gun holstered to his right hip.
He was about my height, with brown hair peppered with gray that carried on into his beard. He wore jeans, a blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and black boots. There was a hard edge to his face, aged beyond his years. His eyes were sharp, though, fox-like, darting from me to Stella and back again from behind black framed glasses. His hands were dirty.
He didn’t move.
Not at first.
When he finally did approach us, he did so with trepidation, his grip tightening on the trash bag. As he grew closer, his right hand fell from the gun. He tugged the tail of his shirt down over it. He studied us both. His gaze lingered on Stella’s gloves. He ducked slightly to get a better look at Dewey Hobson, still in the back seat. Then he turned back to us, his expression flat.
“Dad?” the single word fell from my lips, so soft I wasn’t sure anyone else had heard it.
I’m not sure exactly what I expected. Maybe for this man to drop the bag, rush me, and embrace me in a hug? Tears, perhaps. A rushed explanation of the years gone, broken words covering two decades of deceit, secrets, and lies?
My God, son. You’re a man.
I’ve missed you, Dad. Every second, I’ve missed you.
None of those things happened.
“We need to get inside,” he said quietly, before turning and walking at a brisk pace toward the house on the cliff, hefting the trash bag over his shoulder.
Stella and I gave each other a puzzled glance before following after him.
He left the front door standing ajar.
This first floor of the house had an open floor-plan. The front door led to a foyer and a wide hallway with a staircase on the left and tall storage cabinets on the right. The hallway opened up to a dining area on the left and a chef’s kitchen on the right. Beyond the kitchen was a sunken living room with a large stone fireplace and two leather sofas with a matching chair and ottoman. A wall of windows overlooking a large patio and the deep blue waters of Puget Sound far below filled the back of the house. Several small boats dotted the surface. Further out, a cruise ship floated northbound for Alaska.
I had to help Stella. She was horribly weak. Her arm was draped over my shoulder and she leaned into me, her breathing labored, shivering in short stutters. Over the past day, her strength came and went with little warning. At the ferry terminal, less than an hour ago, she had been alert, her energy up. She seemed strong. Even as we approached the house, I saw hints of the girl I remembered throughout the years. I began to realize she made a conscious effort for that girl to appear, to lift from the thickening fog of her illness. And each appearance came with a price, a toll, a drain, that shortened the next.
Stella was fading.
This was different from the car two days earlier, the lake.
Something worse.
Neither of us wanted to admit to that, but it was there nonetheless.
I am to die soon, my dearest Pip. You know that, right?
Through the thick material of her clothing, I felt the heat of her body and knew she was feverish again. I got her inside the house and over to one of the leather sofas, where I gently set her down, her head resting on a soft leather pillow.
She smiled up at me, silently mouthing the wordsMy Pip.
Hobson entered the house behind me, having left the car without any coaxing. He stepped into the foyer and closed the front door behind him, then stood there, still and silent again.
Stuck, as Stella said.
My father stood at the dining room table. He had torn open the black garbage bag, dumped the contents, and was sifting through what looked like bundles of bound pages—folders, video tapes, and journals.
I went over to him.
He didn’t look at me.
“Dad?” The only word I had said to him in twenty years, now said twice. Ignored twice, as he continued to rifle through the material.
Charter was printed on most of it. Either as a logo on many of the documents, handwritten at the top of others, or stamped onto the folders—this was accompanied byConfidentialorEyes OnlyorInternal Use Only. There was a bundle of photographs, too. I picked it up, tugged off the rubber band, and flipped through them. About a dozen in all. I recognized the faces from the yearbook—Perla Beyham, Cammie Brotherton, Jaquelyn Breece, Keith Pickford, Jeffery Dalton, Dewey Hobson, Garret Dotts, Penelope Maudlin, Richard Nettleton, Emma Tackett. Pictures of my parents were absent from the stack, but I had no doubt they were once there. There was a thick folder on Elfrieda Leech—an ancient photograph of my former neighbor and my parent’s guidance counselor clipped to the outer flap. I opened the folder and found dozens of pay stubs, sizable checks payable to Leech from Charter. The earliest dated February 4, 1974, and the latest stamped August of 1980. There were memos and handwritten notes, both mentioning the same names, those same Penn State students.
