A Bend in the Road (3 page)

Jonah Ryan.

He was a nice
enough kid: shy and unassuming, the kind of child who was easy to overlook. On
the first day of class, he’d sat in the back row and answered politely when
she’d spoken to him, but working in Baltimore had taught her to pay close
attention to such children. Sometimes it meant nothing; at other times, it
meant they were trying to hide. After she’d asked the class to hand in their
first assignment, she’d made a mental note to check his work carefully. It
hadn’t been necessary.

The
assignment—a short paragraph about something they’d done that summer—was a way
for Sarah to quickly gauge how well the children could write. Most of the
pieces had the usual assortment of misspelled words, incomplete thoughts, and
sloppy handwriting, but Jonah’s had stood out, simply because he hadn’t done
what she’d asked. He’d written his name in the top corner, but instead of
writing a paragraph, he’d drawn a picture of himself fishing from a small
boat.  When she’d questioned him about
why he hadn’t done what she’d asked, Jonah had explained that Mrs. Hayes had
always let him draw, because “my writing isn’t too good.”

Alarm bells
immediately went off in her head. She’d smiled and bent down, in order to be
closer to him. “Can you show me?” she’d asked. After a long moment, Jonah had
nodded, reluctantly.

While the other
students went on to another activity, Sarah sat with Jonah as he tried his
best. She quickly realized it was pointless; Jonah didn’t know how to write.
Later that day, she found out he could barely read as well. In arithmetic, he
wasn’t any better. If she’d been forced to guess his grade, having never met
him, she would have thought Jonah was just beginning kindergarten.

Her first
thought was that Jonah had a learning disability, something like dyslexia. But
after spending a week with him, she didn’t believe that was the case. He didn’t
mix up letters or words, he understood everything she was telling him. Once she
showed him something, he tended to do it correctly from that point on. His
problem, she believed, stemmed from the fact that he’d simply never had to do
his schoolwork before, because his teachers hadn’t required it.  When she asked a couple of the other
teachers about it, she learned about Jonah’s mother, and though she was
sympathetic, she knew it wasn’t in anyone’s best interest—especially Jonah’s—to
simply let him slide, as his previous teachers had done. At the same time, she
couldn’t give Jonah all the attention he needed because of the other students
in her class. In the end, she decided to meet with Jonah’s father to talk to
him about what she knew, in hopes that they could find a way to work it out.

She’d heard
about Miles Ryan.

Not much, but
she knew that people for the most part both liked and respected him and that
more than anything, he seemed to care about his son. That was good.  Even in the little while she’d been
teaching, she’d met parents who didn’t seem to care about their children,
regarding them as more of a burden than a blessing, and she’d also met parents
who seemed to believe their child could do no wrong. Both were impossible to
deal with. Miles Ryan, people said, wasn’t that way.

At the next
corner, Sarah finally slowed down, then waited for a couple of cars to pass.
Sarah crossed the street, waved to the man behind the counter at the pharmacy,
and grabbed the mail before making her way up the steps to her apartment. After
unlocking the door, she quickly scanned the mail and then set it on the table
by the door.

In the kitchen,
she poured herself a glass of ice water and carried the glass to her bedroom.
She was undressing, tossing her clothes in the hamper and looking forward to a
cool shower, when she saw the blinking light on the answering machine. She hit
the play button and her mother’s voice came on, telling Sarah that she was
welcome to stop by later, if she had nothing else going on. As usual, her voice
sounded slightly anxious.

On the night
table, next to the answering machine, was a picture of Sarah’s family: Maureen
and Larry in the middle, Sarah and Brian on either end. The machine clicked and
there was a second message, also from her mother: “Oh, I thought you’d be home
by now . . . ,” it began. “I hope everything’s all right.

. . .”

Should she go or not? Was she in the mood?

Why not? she
finally decided. I’ve got nothing else to do anyway.

• • •

Miles Ryan made
his way down Madame Moore’s Lane, a narrow, winding road that ran along both
the Trent River and Brices Creek, from downtown New Bern to Pollocksville, a
small hamlet twelve miles to the south. Originally named for the woman who once
ran one of the most famous brothels in North Carolina, it rolled past the
former country home and burial plot of Richard Dobbs Spaight, a southern hero
who’d signed the Declaration of Independence. During the Civil War, Union
soldiers exhumed the body from the grave and posted his skull on an iron gate
as a warning to citizens not to resist the occupation. When he was a child,
that story had kept Miles from wanting to go anywhere near the place.  Despite its beauty and relative isolation,
the road he was following wasn’t for children. Heavy, fully loaded logging
trucks rumbled over it day and night, and drivers tended to underestimate the
curves. As a homeowner in one of the communities just off the lane, Miles had
been trying to lower the speed limit for years.

No one, except
for Missy, had listened to him.

This road always
made him think of her.

Miles tapped out
another cigarette, lit it, then rolled down the window. As the warm air blew in
the car, simple snapshots of the life they’d lived together surfaced in his
mind; but as always, those images led inexorably to their final day together.

Ironically,
he’d been gone most of the day, a Sunday. Miles had gone fishing with Charlie
Curtis. He’d left the house early that morning, and though both he and Charlie
came home with mahi-mahi that day, it wasn’t enough to appease his wife. Missy,
her face smudged with dirt, put her hands on her hips and glared at him the
moment he got home. She didn’t say anything at all, but then, she didn’t need
to. The way she looked at him spoke volumes.

Her brother and
sister-in-law were coming in from Atlanta the following day, and she’d been
working around the house, trying to get it ready for guests. Jonah was in bed
with the flu, which didn’t make it any easier, since she’d had to take care of
him as well. But that wasn’t the reason for her anger; Miles himself had been
the cause.

Though she’d
said that she wouldn’t mind if Miles went fishing, shehad asked him to take
care of the yardwork on Saturday so she wouldn’t have to worry about that as
well. Work, however, had intervened, and instead of calling Charlie with his
regrets, Miles had elected to go out on Sunday anyway. Charlie had teased him
on and off all day—“You’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight”—and Miles knew
Charlie was probably right. But yardwork was yardwork and fishing was fishing,
and for the life of him, Miles knew that neither Missy’s brother nor his wife
would care in the slightest whether there were a few too many weeds growing in
the garden.

Besides, he’d
told himself, he would take care of everything when he got back, and he meant
it. He hadn’t intended to be gone all day, but as with many of his fishing
trips, one thing had led to the next and he’d lost track of time. Still, he had
his speech worked out—Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything, even if it
takes the rest of the night and I need a flashlight.It might have worked, too,
had he told her his plans before he’d slipped out of bed that morning. But he
hadn’t, and by the time he got home she’d done most of the work. The yard was
mowed, the walk was edged, she’d planted some pansies around the mailbox. It
must have taken hours, and to say she was angry was an understatement. Even
furious wasn’t sufficient. It was somewhere beyond that, the difference between
a lit match and a blazing forest fire, and he knew it. He’d seen the look a few
times in the years they’d been married, but only a few. He swallowed, thinking,
Here we go.

“Hey, hon,” he
said sheepishly, “sorry that I’m so late. We just lost track of time.” Just as
he was getting ready to start his speech, Missy turned around and spoke over
her shoulder.

“I’m going for
a jog. Youcan take care of this, can’t you?” She’d been getting ready to blow
the grass off the walkway and drive; the blower was sitting on the lawn.

Miles knew
enough not to respond.

After she’d
gone inside to change, Miles got the cooler from the back of the car and
brought it to the kitchen. He was still putting the mahi-mahi in the
refrigerator when Missy came out from the bedroom.

“I was just
putting the fish away . . . ,” he started, and Missy clenched her jaw.

“What about doing
what I asked you?”

“I’m going
to—just let me finish here so this won’t spoil.”

Missy rolled her
eyes. “Just forget it. I’ll do it when I get back.”

The martyr tone.
Miles couldn’t stand that.

“I’ll do it,” he
said. “I said I would, didn’t I?”

“Just like you’d
finish the lawn before you went out fishing?” He should have just bitten his
lip and kept quiet. Yes, he’d spent the day fishing instead of working around
the house; yes, he’d let her down. But in the whole scheme of things, it
wasn’tthat big a deal, was it? It was just her brother and sister-in-law, after
all. It wasn’t as if the president were coming.  There wasn’t any reason to be irrational about the whole
thing.  Yep, he should have kept quiet.
Judging from the way she looked at him after he’d said it, he would have been
better off. When she slammed the door on her way out, Miles heard the windows
rattle.

Once she’d been
gone a little while, however, he knew he’d been wrong, and he regretted what
he’d done. He’d been a jerk, and she was right to have called him on it.

He wouldn’t,
however, get the chance to say he was sorry.

• • •

“Still smoking, huh?”

Charlie Curtis,
the county sheriff, looked across the table at his friend just as Miles took
his place at the table.

“I don’t
smoke,” Miles answered quickly.

Charlie raised
his hands. “I know, I know—you’ve already told me that. Hey, it’s fine with me
if you want to delude yourself. But I’ll make sure to put the ashtrays out when
you come by anyway.”

Miles laughed.
Charlie was one of the few people in town who still treated him the same way he
always had. They’d been friends for years; Charlie had been the one who
suggested that Miles become a deputy sheriff, and he’d taken Miles under his
wing as soon as Miles had finished his training. He was older—sixty-five, next
March—and his hair was streaked with gray. He’d put on twenty pounds in the
past few years, almost all of it around his middle. He wasn’t the type of
sheriff who intimidated people on sight, but he was perceptive and diligent and
had a way of getting the answers he needed. In the last three elections, no one
had even bothered to run against him.

“I won’t be
coming by,” Miles said, “unless you stop making these ridiculous accusations.”

They were
sitting at a booth in the corner, and the waitress, harried by the lunchtime
crowd, dropped off a pitcher of sweet tea and two glasses of ice on her way to
the next table. Miles poured the tea and pushed Charlie’s glass toward him.

“Brenda will be
disappointed,” Charlie said. “You know she starts going through withdrawals if you
don’t bring Jonah by every now and then.” He took a sip from the glass. “So,
you looking forward to meeting with Sarah today?” Miles looked up. “Who?”

“Jonah’s
teacher.”

“Did your wife
tell you that?”

Charlie smirked.
Brenda worked at the school in the principal’s office and seemed to know
everything that went on at the school. “Of course.” “What’s her name again?”

“Brenda,”
Charlie said seriously.

Miles looked
across the table, and Charlie feigned a look of sudden comprehension. “Oh—you
mean the teacher? Sarah. Sarah Andrews.” Miles took a drink. “Is she a good
teacher?” he asked.  “I guess so. Brenda
says she’s great and that the kids adore her, but then Brenda thinks everyone
is great.” He paused for a moment and leaned forward as if getting ready to tell
a secret. “But she did say that Sarah was attractive. A real looker, if you
know what I mean.”

“What does that
have to do with anything?”

“She also said
that she was single.”

“And?”

“And nothing.”
Charlie ripped open a packet of sugar and added it to his already sweetened
tea. He shrugged. “I’m just letting you know what Brenda said.” “Well, good,”
Miles said. “I appreciate that. I don’t know how I could have made it through
the day without Brenda’s latest evaluation.”

“Oh, take it
easy, Miles. You know she’s always on the lookout for you.”

“Tell her that
I’m doing fine.”

“Hell, I know
that. But Brenda worries about you. She knows you smoke, too, you know.”

“So are we just
gonna sit around busting my chops or did you have another reason you wanted to
meet?”

“Actually, I
did. But I had to get you in the right frame of mind so you don’t blow your
stack.”

“What are you
talking about?”

As he asked,
the waitress dropped off two plates of barbecue with coleslaw and hush puppies
on the side, their usual order, and Charlie used the moment to collect his
thoughts. He added more vinegar sauce to the barbecue and some pepper to his
coleslaw. After deciding there was no easy way to say it, he just came out with
it.

“Harvey Wellman
decided to drop the charges against Otis Timson.” Harvey Wellman was the
district attorney in Craven County. He’d spoken with Charlie earlier that
morning and had offered to tell Miles, but Charlie had decided it would
probably be better if he handled it.