Wish You Were Gone(96)
They drove through downtown, where families strolled and couples window-shopped, clutching their coffees from Ben’s in one hand, the leashes on their tiny dogs in the other. Up into the hills where the roads were winding and skinnier, the houses set farther and farther back from the streets. When they’d first moved out to Oakmont, James had only wanted to look at houses in the hills. This was where the wealthiest of the wealthy lived, after all. It was where Darnell and Gray lived now, having moved out here a few years after James and Emma had. But then he’d found the house in the valley—the largest, most private piece of land in town. Privacy. James had wanted privacy. And besides, their house had been just as big, just as ostentatious, as any of these.
“Where’re we going?” Kelsey asked, staring out the window at felled trees. This neighborhood had been hardest hit by the hurricane, the force of the winds up here nearly four times as fierce as they’d gotten in the valley. One of Gray’s friends had lost half her roof. Another, who owned acres, had lost more than fifty trees. As Emma continued to drive, they passed crew after crew of workers—there were wood-chipping trucks everywhere.
“I want you to know that you mean more to me than anything else in the world,” Emma said as she took another turn, climbing higher into the hills. “You and Hunter.”
“Mom. You’re starting to freak me out.”
“Sorry, it’s just… everything you and your brother just told me… no one should ever have to go through something like that, and it kills me that you did. It doesn’t matter what Hunter says. Life with your father… that wasn’t the life I wanted for my kids. I let it go on for far too long, obviously.”
“Mom—”
“It’s my fault, Kelsey. I’m your mother. I’m supposed to take care of you guys. I should have left him years ago. And I’m sorry that I didn’t. I’m sorry that, because I wasn’t strong enough, you went through all the things you went through.”
She found what she was looking for then. A truck-sized wood-chipper, running at the side of the road. The crew nowhere in sight, probably off grabbing coffee or taking a pee break. She looked at her daughter. Her face was red with embarrassment or pleasure or both.
“From this moment on, I’m going to take care of you.” She unbuckled her seat belt. “Get out of the car.”
“Mom.”
“Kelsey, just trust me. Get out of the car.”
She stepped out herself, walked around, and popped the trunk. Kelsey joined her hesitantly a moment later. They both looked down at the bat.
“Mom?”
“I thought you should do the honors,” Emma said, and tilted her head toward the wood-chipper.
Kelsey stared at her. She stared at the bat. Emma hoped she was getting her point across. That she would never tell anyone what she knew. That she forgave her daughter. That she wished she had been there, that she had stopped it, that she had protected her child, but that she was proud of Kelsey for protecting herself. Emma knew she couldn’t say these things out loud—not without her voice cracking or her eyes tearing up. Not without saying it wrong or having it taken out of context. Because she meant all these things, but she was also sickened and disappointed and confused and terrified about what came next. The only thing she knew for sure was that they had to destroy this bat.
“What’re you going to tell the lawyers?” Kelsey asked. “The Baseball Hall of Fame?” There was a touch of sarcasm in her voice.
Emma lifted her hands. “How am I supposed to know what James did with the damn bat?”
Kelsey smirked. She reached into the trunk and picked up the weapon with two hands. Then she walked over to the chipper, paused, and tossed it inside the dark maw. Emma closed her eyes as the mechanism groaned and grated, chewing up the only physical thing left on the planet that could tie her daughter to her husband’s death. Then they got in the car and drove away.
Epilogue GRAY
There was nothing Gray Garrison loved more than a job well done, and the James Walsh situation was no exception. As she and Emma and Kelsey sat back in their cushy pedicure chairs that Saturday afternoon in December, she knew there was only one thing left to take care of. Luckily, as always, she knew a guy.
“Taylor and his crew are coming out next week to start construction,” she told Emma as she dipped her feet into the warm footbath. On Emma’s far side, Kelsey typed away on her phone. She’d just learned of her acceptance to Daltry a few days ago and was busy making friends at her new school.
“They’ll work the week before Christmas?” Emma asked, flipping a page in her magazine.
“They’ll work whenever as long as the price is right.”
In fact, it had been a bitch to get Taylor to agree to the timeline—a holiday-shopping week when the sky threatened snow and the temperatures were dipping below freezing—but she owed Emma a new garage, and she was going to make damn sure her friend got one. Emma was putting the house on the market in the spring, and giving part of the proceeds to Lizzie to help pay for Willow’s college. This was not a move Gray agreed with, but she wasn’t about to fight that battle. She’d done enough already.
“Lizzie! Over here!”
Emma waved and Lizzie spotted them, weaving through the manicure tables to the back of the shop. She took the chair next to Gray and placed her gingerbread coffee on the small table between them.