Redemption Road(32)

She led Channing into the shade, then up a winding trail that was beaten flat by all the people who’d walked it over the years. It grew steep in places. They passed bits of litter and gray-skinned trees with initials carved into the bark. At the top of the mountain, the trail emptied onto an overlook that offered views of the city on one side and of the quarry on the other. In places, trees grew from shallow soil; in others there was only rock. It was a stark and beautiful place, but the drop into the quarry was two hundred feet straight down.

“Why are we here?”

Elizabeth stepped to the edge and peered down at the vast expanse of cold, black water. “My father’s a preacher. You probably didn’t know that.” Channing shook her head, and Elizabeth’s hair lifted in a breeze that rose up sheer walls like an exhalation from the water. “I grew up in the church, in a small house behind it, actually. The parsonage. Do you know that word?”

Channing shook her head again, and Elizabeth understood that, too. Most kids could never understand church as a life, the prayer and dutifulness and submission.

“The church kids would come here on Sundays after church. Sometimes there were a few of us, and sometimes a lot. A couple of parents would drive us up the mountain, then read the paper in the cars while we hiked up here to play. It was good, you know. Picnics and kites, long dresses and lace-up boots. There’s a trail that leads to a narrow ledge above the water. You could swim or skim stones. Sometimes we’d have campfires.” Elizabeth nodded; saw yellowed memories of a day like this, and of an unsuspecting, narrow-hipped girl. “I was raped under those trees when I was seventeen.”

Channing shook her head. “You don’t have to do this.”

But Elizabeth did. “We were the only two left, this boy and me. It was late. My father was in the car, down the hill. It happened so fast.…” Elizabeth picked up a rock, tossed it, and watched it fall into the quarry. “He was chasing me. I thought it was a game. It probably started out that way. I’m not really sure. I was laughing for a while, and then suddenly was not.” She pointed at the trees. “He caught me by that little pine and shoved needles in my mouth to keep me from screaming. It was fast and awful, and I barely understood what was happening, just the weight of him and the way it hurt. On the walk down, he begged me not to tell. He swore he didn’t mean to do it, that we were friends and he was weak and it would never happen again.”

“Elizabeth…”

“We walked a quarter mile through those woods, then rode home in my father’s car, both of us in the backseat.” Elizabeth didn’t mention the feel of the boy’s leg pressed against her own. She didn’t describe the heat of it, or how he reached out once and put a single finger on the back of her hand. “I never told my father.”

“Why not?”

“I thought it was my fault, somehow.” Elizabeth lobbed another rock and watched it drop. “Two months later, I almost killed myself. Right here.”

Channing leaned over the drop as if putting herself in the same place. “How close did you come?”

“A single step. A few seconds.”

“What stopped you?”

“I found something larger to believe in.” She didn’t mention Adrian because that was still too personal, still just for her. “Your father can’t make it better, Channing. Your mother can’t make it better, either. You need to take charge of that yourself. I’d like to help you.”

Emotion twisted the girl’s face: anger and doubt and disbelief. “Did you get better?”

“I still hate the smell of pine.”

Channing studied the narrow smile, looking for a lie, the shadow of a lie. Elizabeth thought she would lose her. She didn’t.

“What happened to the boy?”

“He sells insurance,” Elizabeth said. “He’s overweight and married. Every now and then I run into him. Sometimes, I do it on purpose.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because in the end only one thing can make it right.”

“What?”

“Choice.” Elizabeth cupped the girl’s face with a palm. “Your choice.”





9

Ellen Bondurant married young and well, then at forty-one learned a bitter truth about fading looks and selfish men. At first she was bewildered, then heartbroken and sad. In the end she was numb, so that when her husband presented papers, she signed them. Her attorney said she was being na?ve, but that was not the truth, either. The money embarrassed her and always had: the cars and parties and diamonds as large as acorns. All she wanted was the man she thought she’d married.

But he was long gone.

Now, she lived with her dogs in a small house by a creek in the country, and her life had become a simple thing. She trained horses to make money and liked to walk the open spaces when she could: low country by the river if she was feeling contemplative; ridgelines to the old church and back if she wanted views.

Today, she chose the church.

“Come on, boys.”

She called the dogs, then set out on foot, the route taking her on a steep angle to a trail that followed a line of hills to the southeast. She felt light as she moved, and younger than her forty-nine years. It was the work, she knew, the early mornings in the saddle, the long hours with longe line and whip. Her skin was leathered and lined, but she was proud of what her hands could do, how they worked unceasingly in snow and rain and heat.