All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 257

257

Saint made the journey alone.

She drove highway miles with only the rolling northwest plains and the low claw of nerves for company.

In the trunk was everything she had: gifts dated with each of his years; letters and cards. Seashells she had found, conches intact, ormer with oil slick greens and purples, and a triton that whispered crashing waves when pressed to her ear. A magnolia leaf, a conker, and a mourning dove feather.

A Monterey pine cone that survived intact because she lightly varnished it.

Alongside each she attached a small card that told of where she had been when she found it.

There were photographs she had taken herself: the sun setting over the St. Francois Mountains; morning mist over the rooftops of Monta Clare.

The old church where her grandmother lay beside a police chief who had shaped her life; Main Street and Charlotte’s hive; and the tall house where she had lived the best parts of her life. She packed in clippings she’d found in a trunk beneath Norma’s bed, each case she had worked, from Joseph Macauley through bank robberies to homicides. The day she found them she’d lain on Norma’s bed, wrapped herself in a blanket, and felt her grandmother’s love and pride envelop her. A single book, Where the Wild Things Are.

In her final letter she wrote of Charlotte, how the girl had come to stay when she was a near stranger, of how she had bucked and kicked until only recently, when Saint had discovered that trust was a two-way street. Of how Charlotte was quite brilliant, each day dazzling her with a poise and ease Saint hoped would open the world to her. She included a single sketch

Charlotte had made, the two of them sitting on the porch, from a memory replenished each evening no matter the weather.

It was over those long days and months, over dinners with her grandmother and Sammy, that Charlotte slowly came to realizations about her father, and then took to her small studio where art gave her an outlet she had been seeking. And though Sammy declared her work shit, she grew in talent, and with talent came confidence. At school her grades settled and rose, and despite a line of boys readying, she spent her weekends hiking the Thurley State Park, where she would note Saint stopped to smile at the tall man who kept the routes clear, his eyes kind, his smile always present.

Saint told him how Charlotte was heading to college, to Boston, where her mother had studied. Only Charlotte would eventually study law.

Infected with her father’s need to help others, she had already pledged her future to defending the poor, whom Sammy defined as pretty much everyone in comparison to the young princess of Monta Clare.

When Saint reached the green of Madison County she passed covered bridges and found the hamlet of Robins Elk, stopped at a gas station, and fussed with the dress Charlotte had picked out for her.

It took ten minutes to find the land, the track forged in tire widths of loose gravel that led to a red-roofed farmhouse grand and perfect.

She pulled up at the foot of their land and opened the trunk. Inside was a leather cabin box the rich color of horse chestnut seed, the brass buckles polished, the base lined with soft cotton. She had spent too long choosing it, making sure the gifts were parceled neatly, the letters bound, the chronology correct.

She lifted it out with care, set it down beside their mailbox, and did not dare think of him inside there, growing up in that house, free on that land so beautiful she felt a swell of longing grow heavier still.

She might have been okay, might have driven back safe in the knowledge that she had not interrupted his life until he was old enough to know, had she not been seen from the large kitchen window of the farmhouse.

Saint stood there with her head bowed low as the woman crossed the long driveway. It was not until she neared that Saint recognized her from the hospital room so many years before. Candice Addis, so much a woman and mother that Saint smoothed her own dress down and cursed herself for pairing it with sneakers.

There was a moment that passed between them, and then Candice crossed and hugged her tight, and Saint did all she could not to break right there in her arms.

Candice stepped back and appraised her and smiled. “I always hoped you would come.”

Candice led her to a small bench in the shade of a silver maple, and together they talked. The yield of the farm, the prices of acres, Saint’s work, and how Candice had once seen her on the news when the young man escaped from prison.

“You were there?” Candice said, brown eyes a little wide at the thought.

“I was.”

“But you didn’t find him?”

Saint thought back to that afternoon, how the state cops arrived at the large white house. How she had taken Grace from the scene and worked with Himes to keep her from the media’s glare. How together they had listened to a story that left even Himes unable to eat. Grace had told them that she wanted to stay at the house, where her mother had once lived. Saint checked in with her often, made sure she had the support. The road back would be long and difficult, but with freedom came hope.

“Joseph Macauley escaped,” Saint said, just like she’d told Himes, who’d watched her awhile, the wheels turning fast and then grinding to a halt because she’d laid foundations so strong she could not be questioned.

She knew in her heart what was good and right. She no longer needed her badge for validation.

They spoke of Theodore, of how he excelled at sports, math, English, pretty much everything he came across. For a long time Saint listened, her cheeks aching as Candice spoke of such a fine boy.

“Of course, he knows about you. Would you like to meet him?”

Saint looked toward the house and beyond it before she caught herself.

“God…no, that shouldn’t be my choice. I just…” she swallowed, resolute, each boundary crumbling as she sucked in breath and fought the tremble in her hands, bit her lower lip to stop the shaking. “I just wanted him to know…”

Maybe it was the memory of Jimmy not letting her finish, not letting her tell him she had visited the clinic but could not go through with the abortion because she had once made a promise to God, a promise that saw her friend return safe from his own hell, a promise that saw her cast out, whispered of, a pariah in the small town that she so loved.

Maybe it was the memory of the way she folded herself away from his punches and kicks and cradled the life that grew inside of her.

Or perhaps it was simply the touch that broke her, the way the older woman pulled her in and told her it was okay. It took everything she had left not to let her small body wrack with sobs, to focus on how beautiful the land was behind the house, the cross of spring-fed streams, a thousand acres

of tillable land that would be his.

“The farm,” Saint said.

Candice looked at their land.

“You’ll…it’ll be okay.” For more than a dozen years Saint had been into the law offices of Jasper and Coates and had them track the accounts for the Robins Elk Farm, resting easy in bountiful years, fretful when the returns fell.

“I’m waiting on the new farm bill, but Nicholas…he said he’d rather lose the place than overproduce,” Candice said, and in her eyes Saint saw the only trace of concern. She remembered Nicholas a little, from all those years ago when she had handed them her son and the best pieces of her heart.

“There’s something in the box, something to…to say thank you. It’s not even money I earned. I had a painting and it…and I made the check out to Theodore, but I know he’ll help you and—”

Candice tried to shake her head, to tell her no, but when she saw the imploration, the need, she simply hugged her once more.

They stood, and Candice followed her to the car, but not before Saint

heard it as the wind finally died.

“You keep bees?” Saint said.

Candice smiled. “Theodore does. He found an old hive buried in the woodland. Sweetest honey I ever tasted.”

Saint waited till she was free of their land, till Candice and the farm faded in the mirror, and only then did she pull to the side of the road and

cry.

For the girl she once was.

For the man he would become.

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