Stranger in the Lake(8)
He banged through the back door into the kitchen, where Pamela was preparing dinner. “Where have you been? Dad’s home, and he’s been calling all over for you.”
Jax could hear him on the other end of the house, yelling at some poor sucker through the phone, ruining his Saturday afternoon. That call had nothing to do with Jax. It was a business call, and an angry one at that. It was the one thing he and his father had in common, this constant, all-consuming rage.
Jax leaned his rifle against the wall. “Hasn’t anybody ever told you? Lyin’s a sin, Pammy.”
“I’m not lying. And what are you doing out there in the woods all day, anyway?”
A year ago he would have brushed her off with Why do you care? You’re not my mother, but even Jax wasn’t that much of an asshole. Their mother was a sensitive subject these days. “You wouldn’t understand.”
He pushed past her for the stairs, and she skittered after him. “‘The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.’ Pastor Williams says if we keep that verse in mind, we won’t feel so alone.”
She was always doing that, flinging Bible verses at anybody who was close enough, waving them around like some magic potion for whatever ailed you. It was maddening, especially since up until a few years ago they’d been twice-a-year churchgoers at best—sunrise service on Easter morning and candlelight worship on Christmas Eve. Mom never hung crosses on the walls, never taught them to pray before meals or bedtimes. He’d lost count of how many times he’d heard his dad say goddamn.
And then the diagnosis came—ALS, the quick kind—and his sister discovered the Lord. She let some pastor dunk her in a muddy cove of Lake Crosby, and then she wanted everybody else to do the same. To be “saved.” Mom humored her, even though she was in a wheelchair by then and probably could have drowned. He and his father watched from the shoreline, both of them stewing in a combination of frustration and hope even though every doctor, every specialist and quack they’d talked to told them his mom couldn’t be saved.
At night, Pamela would huddle by their mother’s bedside for hours at a time, eyes screwed shut, lips moving in silent prayer like a chant. Mom might have had ALS but Pamela was diseased, consumed with what she swore was the healing power of prayer. For a while there, Jax had believed his sister’s nonsense in that way that if you wish for something hard enough, you become convinced it should happen. A miracle. It happened all the time in the Bible, right? That’s what Pamela promised, but his mom only got weaker.
Jax tried not to roll his eyes. “Prayers only work if you believe, which I don’t.”
Pamela blanched. “I pray for your soul, Jax Edwards. I really do.”
“That makes one of us.”
“I miss her, too, you know.” Her words stabbed Jax in the heart, and he felt that heaviness in his gut like a tapeworm, eating away at him from the inside out. He almost turned around, almost laid his soul bare until, as usual, his sister ruined the moment. “If you knew what was good for you, you’d drop to your knees and beg for forgiveness right this second. Don’t you want eternal life? Don’t you want to see Mom again?”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“It’s called faith. You should try it sometime.”
Her words made him want to punch the wall, because he had tried, damn it. He’d prayed to his sister’s Lord for faith—how messed up was that? Every night before he fell asleep and a million times during the day, he’d beg for even a smidge of belief in this higher power his sister was always yammering on about, if for no other reason than the promise of some of Pamela’s peace. What a relief it must be to know that all this was just temporary, to think that life on earth was only an annoying stepping-stone to something better, a place where no one dies and no one has to miss anyone.
But Jax didn’t believe in Pamela’s Lord, just like he didn’t believe in bigfoot or aliens or the tooth fairy. His mom was buried under a pile of dirt and rock at Whiteside Cemetery, not sitting like a guardian angel on his shoulder. How do you make yourself believe in something when you don’t? How do you convince yourself of things you can’t see? Jax had no freaking clue.
He wanted his family back, damn it. Not just his mother but the way things used to be, when the house was filled with laughter and music and the smell of freshly baked cookies. He wanted the sister who didn’t preach at him all the time, and the dad who looked up from his computer for more than five seconds, a dad who bothered to be a father. He knew they were suffering, but damn it, so was he, and they were too self-absorbed to notice. He wanted to live in this big house full of people and not feel so alone.
Oh, and while he was at it, Jax might as well admit that he’d really like to cry. A good son would have shed some tears for his dead mother, wouldn’t he? He would have stood at her graveside and felt something other than stone-cold fury.
But so far, not one measly fucking tear.
5
Sam Kincaid is the first officer to arrive and the last person I want to see. I spot his familiar face through the front window, his eyes steady on the driveway as he zigzags his way down the snarled strip of concrete, and a flash of heat lingers on my skin like sunburn.
He scrapes to a halt at the flat stretch of driveway, and I open the door, stepping out into the cold. I’ve changed into jeans and my warmest sweater, but I left my shoes upstairs. The wind has picked up since I raced up the hill, dipping the temperature into what must be single digits, carrying with it a heavy whiff of snow. Already my feet are like ice, the tips of my toes tingling with frostbite.