Beneath Devil's Bridge(96)

“You’d be proud of her, too, Lacey. I know you would. You gave her a chance.”





TRINITY


NOW


The following summer.

I stand near the barn on Green Acres farm. In the distance is the line of poplars where only months ago Gio and I watched the green tractor move. But today, those trees are full of bright-green leaves that flutter in the sunlight.

I walk down to the trees. There’s no Granger to turn me away. He no longer lives here, and this time Rachel has invited me. She told me I would find her and her family along the riverbank on this glorious Sunday.

The strawberries are ready for picking, and some of the raspberries, too. I see the seasonal pickers moving along the lines of plants. The smell is of warm earth, herbs, and flowers. Rachel has planted rows of those, too. And a little farm stall has been built to sell her harvest. On the phone she told me that Maddy and the girls have moved out here and will live on the farm, or use it as a base, for the foreseeable future.

Last November, when I first approached Rachel for an interview, clouds had tumbled thick down the peaks. Today the mountains are exposed. Etched against a bluebird sky.

I hear the river as I near the row of poplars that grow along its banks. I hear squeals of kids’ laughter and a dog yapping. As I near, I realize there are four children. A boy and three girls. A pool has formed off the river. It looks knee deep. They’re splashing in there. Rachel is with them in the water, wearing shorts. Scout runs up and down along the bank. I see Maddy in a deck chair on the bank, watching them. Parked behind Maddy’s chair is the quad that she now uses to get around the farm in order to supervise the pickers and other workers.

I observe them for a moment, but Rachel sees me. She shoots up a hand and waves.

“Just in time,” she calls. “We’re about to have lunch.”

As I approach I see the picnic basket. The blanket. I see Johnny farther up the river with a fishing rod. He throws looping casts to drop his fly upon the surface.

“Hey, Maddy,” I say, ruffling Scout’s fur when he runs over to greet me. “How are you doing? . . . Are those Johnny’s kids?”

“Yeah. Good to see you, Trin. He’s spending a lot of time up here.”

“I can see why. There’s, like . . . I don’t know, a healing quality to this place.”

She laughs. “Wait until winter.”

I sit on the blanket beside Maddy and think of something my gran said after my mother passed in early December last year. She said that while my podcast journey had burned a lot of people, sometimes a forest with too much dead growth tangled in the understory needed a fire. And from the scorched earth could come fresh shoots. New growth. A stronger forest that could withstand fierce storms. And that’s what Green Acres feels like to me. From the black, wet earth that Rachel was plowing that day has come fruit. Beauty. Sustenance. Complicated, but growing and reaching for light.

Maddy holds up a bottle.

“We have bubbly in your honor. Congratulations. And where is he?”

I grin. I feel happy. As though I belong in some strange way to this disparate group of people, as if somehow, here in the Twin Falls area, where I come from, I have found some kind of family.

“Gio is working,” I say. “He had to meet with one of the producers. It’s coming together, the Netflix show. Thanks to you all. If all goes to plan, the streaming of It’s Criminal, the TV Show goes live this coming fall, starting with the retelling of Leena’s story—‘Beneath Devil’s Bridge.’”

“Did the Rais agree to be involved?” asks Maddy. She knows that Darsh, Ganesh, and Jaswinder were debating this.

“Yep.” I smile. “Everyone’s on board. And part of the proceeds will go to the new Leena Rai Scholarship Foundation that they’ve set up. Thanks for putting in a word.”

Rachel calls the kids out of the water and whistles for Johnny downstream. He raises his hand and starts bringing in his line.

“Show us the ring,” Rachel says as Maddy pours prosecco and orange juice for the adults and plain juice for the kids.

I hold out my hand. The tiny diamond winks as it catches a ray of sunlight. “It was Gio’s grandmother’s. We had it resized.”

Rachel has tears in her eyes. “Have you set a day?”

“We’re working on it. Want to see if we can wrap up the filming for the first season of It’s Criminal, the TV Show.” I say it with an exaggerated swagger.

They laugh.

“So has Gio always been, like, the one?” Maddy asks as we clink our plastic glasses and sip to the sound of the river and the clapping of leaves in the wind. An osprey circles and hovers up high, eyeing prey in the water.

“Maybe,” I say. “I just never saw it, until . . . I managed to clear a mental block. I never understood until I went through those interviews with my father how much it meant to me to know who I was, who he was, what happened, where I came from.” I sip. “I never realized in how many ways it was affecting me, and my interaction with others.”

Maddy catches her mother’s eyes. Johnny turns away and stares out over the river as the osprey dives. I wonder if he’s thinking of Leena, and what he did to her, and what his wife did.

“I get it,” Maddy says quietly. “I really do.”