Mother May I(57)

In the light of Robert’s disappearance, Spence’s death became smaller than it would have at any other time. When I got to the Wilkersons, our trip to Gadsden, he spoke again.

“Adam Wilkerson. I’ve heard that name?” He looked down, thinking. And then he had it. “Marshall asked me about him. Earlier today. But I don’t know him, Bree.” There were no tells, no twitches. His gaze on mine was anguished and sincere.

“You do,” I said. “But it was a long time ago.” I’d kept the small framed photo I’d ripped off Adam’s wall. I pulled it out of my purse and showed it to him. He stared down, uncomprehending. Then he blinked and raised his eyes to mine.

“That’s senior year, I think?” he said. “I’m with Spence and Justin Weller, the president. But . . .”

I pointed at Adam Wilkerson. He looked, and then his eyebrows came together, and he shrugged. “That’s Ansel.” As soon as he said the name out loud, his furrowed brow cleared. “Ansel Adams. We called him Ansel because his name was Adam and because he was a pretentious little shit with an old Nikon. Like a shutter stop kind of thing. He was always taking pictures. Even turned his dorm into a darkroom. He only got a bid because he was a legacy.”

Then understanding hit him, and his eyes met mine, horrified. He’d made the connection between Ansel/Adam and his own past and what was happening now. He knew. I could see it. He understood the trade the mother had offered me, exactly as Adam had when he saw the pictures of Spence and Trey. I could feel my largest question hanging in the silence between us.

What did you do?

Its words and shapes kept forming in my mouth, and they tasted so accusing. I clamped my lips shut tight against them. I would not ask him in that tone. I didn’t have to ask at all. He would tell me. I knew he would, because I knew him. And how many blaming questions was he holding back? Before he told me how he and Spence and Adam were connected, I wanted him to know I was carrying my share.

I said, “I looked away. I was watching the rehearsal. I should have—”

He cut me off, near instantly. “This is not your fault. No person sits inside a fortress staring at their kids. You were at the school. Where you felt safe. Where you and the kids damn well should have been safe.” He was defending me in the brooks-no-bullshit lawyer’s voice I usually heard only when he was practicing a closing argument. A tiny piece of me, very tiny, wondered if this was a performance, too, covering how much he blamed me at his core. Then his professional voice cracked, and a raw and naked pain leaked through. “You didn’t do a damn thing wrong, Bree. Even with Spence, you didn’t do wrong, and I don’t care what the law says. His death is on the woman who took our child and lied to you and tricked you. Any mother would do what you did.”

God, but that forgiveness, granted before I even asked, just waiting for me, felt so sweet. I did blame myself for Spencer, terribly, and tears started in my eyes. It hit me all over again, how deeply I knew this man: his strength, his character, our history. My fear of his answer lost volume in my heart.

This was Trey, who had gone with me into labor rooms, three times. The one who’d held me up at Betsy’s funeral. Those were the only other times I’d been reduced down to an animal, as I was now, and three of those occasions had ended in such joy. He’d always given me exactly what I needed in my hardest moments, and his instant grace now felt like a promise. He would give me what I needed now.

“Tell me,” I said. He knew what I meant.

“Lexie Pine.” My heart sank to hear her name again. “What did Ansel—Adam tell you?” Now he was the one looking anxious, trying to find judgment in my eyes. I had none for him, though. All I had was love and waiting.

“Just that name,” I said. “His son is missing, too. He and his wife aren’t doing well. She’s medicating heavily, and she lost it. He gave us the name and threw us out.”

Trey stood up and walked away, and I could see fury in his back and spine. “So Lexie Pine took Robert? Lexie Pine was the woman you saw outside our window?”

“No,” I said. “We believe the old woman is her mother. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

He scrubbed at his face with both hands, and I saw that his eyes were leaking. The knowledge that Robert was in the hands of a crazy, vicious woman who had already harmed one child and that it was connected to his own past, it had wrecked him.

“I should have believed you when you first said there was a witch in our yard. I should have gone out and found her, held her, had her arrested.”

“Stop it,” I said.

He didn’t. “And it’s my history. Mine and Spencer’s, and Ansel’s, too, that caused all this.”

“You can tell me.” I went to him and took his hands, squeezing hard.

“It’s not a good story. I don’t look good in it. But it’s not—” He squeezed my hands back, more tears leaking. “I didn’t do anything that would justify her taking Robert.”

“Nothing on earth justifies that,” I said. Robert had yet to take a step or speak a word. “I blame her. Not you. But I have to understand how this began. So we can end it. You have to tell me. You have to tell me all of it.”

He closed his eyes. He swallowed. And he did.





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