Redemption Road(118)

“Francis didn’t want you to know about the photograph. Okay? He said you were vulnerable and weak and that nothing good could come of it. He made a good argument, and I agreed with every bit of it. You’re not thinking straight. You’re a danger to yourself and everyone around you.”

“You still should have told me.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Yeah, well”—she put the car in gear—“I guess that’s where we’re different.”





31

Elizabeth went to her parents’ house and found them pulling weeds from an overgrown flowerbed by the parsonage.

“Sweetheart.” Her mother saw her first and stood. “This is an unexpected surprise.”

“Mom.” Her father stood stiffly. “Dad.”

He pulled off work gloves and beat dirt against his pants leg. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”

“Actually, this concerns you, too. It’s about Harrison Spivey.”

The preacher’s eyebrows came together, but more worry was in his face than anger. Talk of Harrison rarely happened. They looked away instead. They judged and nursed wounds and pretended.

“I won’t talk about a parishioner behind his back unless it’s to his benefit. You know that.”

How many times had Elizabeth heard as much: togetherness and trust, a raft of days in the palm of God’s hand?

“What’s this about, sweetheart?” Her mother’s worry was impossible to miss.

But Elizabeth had little time for explanation. “Childhood. I remember something about Harrison Spivey and Allison Wilson.”

“Allison Wilson? What in the world…?”

“They dated?” Elizabeth said. “There was a fight?”

“They never dated, dear. And it was hardly a fight. He asked her to homecoming, as I recall—”

“And she laughed at him,” Elizabeth remembered. “She said he was churchbound and uptight and hopeless. Kids at school made fun of him.”

“He was quite obsessed with her, the poor boy.”

“What about me?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Obsession is a specific and powerful word.” Elizabeth pictured the photo found under the church, the tattered image of her as a seventeen-year-old girl, pale-skinned and aching and thin as a waif. “After it was all said and done—after Dad found me on the porch, after the hospital and prayers and recrimination—would you use that same word to describe his feelings for me? He raped me, after all. Held me down. Stuffed pine needles in my mouth—”

“Elizabeth. Sweetheart—”

“Don’t touch me.” Elizabeth stepped away, and her mother’s hand drew back. “Just answer the question.”

“You’re shaking.”

But Elizabeth would not be swayed. Dark wheels were turning; she felt them. “He worked at the church. On the grounds. In the buildings. You opened your home to him. You pray with him. You know him. Did he talk about me then? Does he talk about me now?”

“Tell me what this is about.”

“I can’t.”

“Then I’m not sure we can help you. We’ve worked so hard, you understand? To forgive the sins of youth, to build on the future. Harrison is not the boy you remember. He’s done such good things—”

“I don’t want to hear that!” Elizabeth couldn’t help the outburst. Even now, her feelings for her parents were complicated: pain and love, anger and regret. How could such things live side by side for so long?

Her father spoke as if he understood. “It wasn’t the choice you think, Elizabeth. I didn’t choose Harrison over you, but love over hate, hope above despair—the lessons I’ve taught you since birth: to embrace the difficult path, to accept hard choices and hard love, to be penitent and live in the hope of redemption. I wanted that for you and for him. Can’t you understand that? Can’t you see?”

“Of course I can, but it wasn’t your choice to make! To forgive or not was up to me! Your job was something different, and you didn’t do it. You didn’t protect me. You didn’t listen.”

“Nor did I walk away from my family, the church.”

“Actually, you did. You did walk away.”

“And this is God’s punishment,” he said. “To see my only daughter grown bitter and hateful and hard.”

“I’m not having this conversation.”

“You never do. You can barely look at me.”

“Mom? May I speak to you in private?”

“Sweetheart—”

“Over here. Away from him.”

Elizabeth walked away from her father, found a place in the shade where she could turn her back and not face a burning sun.

Her mother touched her shoulder. “Don’t think this is easy for him, Elizabeth. He’s a complicated man, and he grieves. We both do, but it’s a hard world full of hard choices. He’s not wrong about that.”

“Don’t make excuses for him.” Elizabeth stopped her mother with a raised hand. “Just tell me if Harrison Spivey owns a farm or commercial property. A hunting cabin, maybe. Anything not easily found.”

“Just the house on Cambridge, and it’s nothing grand.”