The Night Visitors(62)

“Like he was your own.”

He spins around and aims the flashlight at the doorway. Mattie is standing there. She’s holding a gun in her hand but it hangs by her side. His gun hangs at his side too.

“My father told me about what happened to you at Hudson . . . about the guard. He told me Caleb was yours . . . because of the rape.”

Mattie shakes her head. “I was already pregnant when I was raped. Caleb was yours.”

I can’t see Frank’s face but I can see his shoulders flinch as if she struck him. His voice cuts like steel through the dark barn. “You should have told me.”

Mattie’s voice is tired. “You were gone for ten years, Frank. The few times you came home, you didn’t want to have anything to do with me.”

“I couldn’t face you.” His voice cracks. He’s still angry but now it’s clear he’s angry at himself. “What happened to you happened because of me.”

Mattie’s face crumples like a piece of old paper. “Oh, Frank, we were kids. None of it was our fault. It was my father and your father.”

“I thought he’d made you hate me,” Frank says. “When you came home that Christmas you avoided me.”

Mattie hesitates. “I did, but only because I was afraid. I had something to tell you and I didn’t know how you were going to react.”

“You didn’t trust me,” Frank says bitterly. I don’t have to see the change from soft to hard in his face; I see it mirrored in Mattie’s.

“I didn’t trust myself,” she says. “I didn’t know my own mind yet—what I wanted—and I had to know before I saw you. It wasn’t just about you and me. It was Caleb and . . .” There’s a pleading look on Mattie’s face, so naked that I want to look away.

“And who?” Frank demands. “Who else mattered?”

“Our daughter,” Mattie says. “I was pregnant. Again. Four months pregnant. I was afraid that once you knew I’d have to do what you wanted—keep it, end it. I needed to know what I wanted first.”

Frank’s back is tense as a board. “But you never gave me a chance to weigh in.”

“We fought. And then when I got back to the house . . . well, you know what happened. After, I wanted to tell you but you had left town.”

“So you ended it,” he says, his voice flat.

Mattie bristles. “As would have been my right—”

“Are you going to give me a pro-choice speech now?”

“—but as it happens, I didn’t. I went to St. Alban’s and had the baby, a little girl. Then I gave her up for adoption.”

“Without letting me know?” Frank demands.

“Without letting you know,” she says, looking contrite. “Which I can see now was wrong.”

“Oh, can you? That’s very big of you, Mattea Lane. You were always . . . fair. I suppose you get that from your father. You get more and more like him, you know, as you get older. The same sanctimonious holier-than-thou superiority. Do you know that he pretended to my father that he didn’t know what was going on? All the cases my dad brought before him—scumbag druggies, trailer park meth heads, snotty professors’ kids—all those kids your father happily sent to Pine Crest Child Care, which was built on his land and which paid out dividends to your mother—”

“To my mother?” I can hear the surprise in Mattie’s voice as well as distaste.

“And mine,” Frank says impatiently. “That’s how it worked. The director of Pine Crest paid money into an account in both our mothers’ names. Your father pretended he didn’t know. He pretended he never inquired into his wife’s family’s money, that he left all that to his accountant. What willful blindness! As if he was Justice with a blindfold over his eyes. When what did it matter? It was all in trust for you anyway.”

“But my mother had Alzheimer’s,” Mattie says. “She wouldn’t have known what she was doing.”

“You tell yourself that, Mattie Lane,” he barks at her, his voice rising with pure anger now. “Your mother liked living in a big, fancy house and lording it over all the other women in the village. Do you think a judge’s salary was enough for that? She was happy to take the extra money and your father was happy to keep sending kids to Pine Crest. It was only when he thought the feds might be onto the scheme that he threatened to turn my father in.”

“Oh, Frank,” Mattie says with a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, “my father spent a lifetime not paying attention to my mother. And as for sending those kids to Pine Crest, I think he honestly thought it was the best thing for them.” She wipes her face. “Don’t you see? We’re both victims of what our fathers told us.”

I’d almost forgotten about Frank’s gun, so I startle when he raises his arm and points it at Mattie. “I’m no one’s victim.” His voice is so cold that I shiver and clutch Oren’s hand tight. My other hand, I realize, is empty.

“No,” Mattie says, bending her knees until she can place her gun on the floor. “You’re not a victim; you’re a survivor. You’re not your father and I’m not my father either. I don’t need to see you in jail for what you did with your father or what you did to Davis. I just need to see Alice and Oren survive this night and go on their way. Then you can do to me what you like.”