The Storm King(120)
Tom had resigned from the police force as soon as he was released from the hospital. There’d been an internal investigation. Nate wasn’t sure what arrangements were made or deals struck, but Tom’s father retired from his longtime post as Greystone Lake’s chief of police soon after. Nate didn’t know how much of Tom’s involvement in Lucy’s death or the chief’s tampering with evidence had come to light. In hard times, small towns make their own rules. What Nate did know was that Johnny had made substantial campaign contributions to several local politicians facing difficult elections next year.
The Lake loved its stories, but it enjoyed its secrets, too.
Nate’s phone chimed, and he pulled it from his pocket.
JAMES: INSPECTION GUY SAYS OK FOR TUES
Tom was managing the contractors tasked with rebuilding the Union, with James and Tara assisting. There was structural damage to the building, and it’d be months before it reopened. When it did, the twins would help manage the place.
“You’re a kind boy,” Grams said. Sometimes she wasn’t there at all, and other times she seemed to possess a kind of telepathy.
“Working on it.”
Nate understood now that the Storm King’s equations of pain were problems that could never be balanced. One side was always in deficit. Its math was designed for reciprocity, its stakes going ever exponential.
Nate’s grandmother would never be whole in either mind or body. Tara hadn’t meant to hurt Grams when she set fire to the Union, but she had. It gnawed at Nate. Every day it was like a blade in his gut. The unfathomable unfairness of chance.
He had so little practice with forgiveness. When Grams repeated herself, or forgot trips to the stony beach, or was stumped by Livvy’s name, he had to remind himself that Grams wouldn’t blame Tara, and that she wouldn’t want Nate to, either.
She’d tell him that it was never too late to be good.
Because everyone is guilty of something.
Everyone deserves to be punished.
So where does it end? Because it had to end. It had to.
For her part, Tara knew this clemency wasn’t easy for Nate. That’s what made it worth so much. That’s what made it matter.
Still running at full speed, Livvy leaped at Tom. He had a welted scar cupped like a hand from his jaw to his left ear, but it didn’t scare her. His eyes went wide for a moment before their collision. When he caught Livvy, his face broke into the same pure smile he’d had as a boy.
A pod of Daybreakers cut through the waters to the south. Their dry suits were dark flecks against the vast mirror of the lake. Nate couldn’t tell if June was among this group of swimmers, but wherever she was, he hoped that the ghosts that drove her to these cold waters haunted her less fiercely than they had. He believed that she’d be happy with the way he planned to live this third life.
Strong but also true. Tough and also kind. Not assembled, but whole.
But to start it right, he knew he had to start it clean.
He’d told Meg everything. After surviving what he had, telling her about the boy he’d once been and the things he’d done hadn’t been as hard as he’d feared. The truth had changed things in subtle ways between them, just as it had changed Nate himself. But they were okay. They were good. And this gift exceeded every other stroke of fortune Nate had enjoyed, because he knew he’d spend his life trying to deserve it.
Meg kissed Livvy’s head, and their hair mingled in the wind. With Tom, the three of them grinned at something as they made their way toward Nate, Johnny, and Grams.
The vicious boy Nate used to be had a lot of ideas about the future, but he couldn’t have imagined an afternoon like this. A day when power wasn’t confused with happiness or fear mistaken for love.
If he could, Nate would tell that boy that a life built on revenge and buttressed by rage is no kind of life at all. He’d tell him that mercy and strength could be the same thing. That no matter how dark things seem, good days are ahead of him. Really, he cannot imagine how good these days will be.
Meg, Tom, and Livvy reached Nate. A different kind of smile on each of their faces.
The lake returns what it takes.
It’s a warning, but it’s also a prayer.
Acknowledgments
THIS NOVEL WOULDN’T have been possible without Mark Tavani’s clear-eyed vision and razor-sharp advice. I also owe a colossal debt of gratitude to Tracy Devine, who brought this book through its critical last drafts with great insight and devotion, even going so far as to take the manuscript with her on an enriching sojourn to France and Germany. It was a very lucky manuscript, and I’m a very lucky author to have had two such fine editors lend their talents to me.
An essential sounding board for tribulations both great and small, my agent, Elisabeth Weed, has been a source of unfaltering support for The Storm King since the days when this novel was little more than an image in my head of a broken boy walking down an abandoned pier.
I’m deeply indebted to Jane Fleming Fransson, Alessandra Lusardi, Robin Wasserman, and Sarah Landis for their heroic work through the course of many (many!) drafts. Their smart counsel and incisive notes were the keys to puzzling out many tricky moments within these chapters.
The guidance I received from Jennifer Hershey, Jenny Meyer, Jody Hotchkiss, Hanna Gibeau, Betsy Cowie, Dana Murphy, and Hallie Schaeffer was expert, essential, and enormously appreciated.