Riven (34 page)

He gradually allowed himself to be drawn back into work at Village Church, especially when the little flock had to replace pastors. That happened four times in nine years, not unusual for a small church. They saved money on interim pulpit supply because Thomas was there and willing. But just as in every other area of his spiritual life, he found little to encourage his own soul.

What was he missing? What more could he do? He had made an irrevocable commitment to spend his life—and he meant that—in the service of God. Was there to be zero payoff for that this side of heaven? If the answer was yes, so be it. It wouldn’t change his decision. But his enthusiasm for the task waned with the years and showed in his graying hair and the deep lines in his face.

At work, too, despite the monotony of his chores, things had changed. Governor George Andreason, after serving two full terms, retired to sit on a number of corporate boards and ended up filling a vacant seat on the state’s Department of Corrections board as well. Eventually he came out of retirement to replace Frank LeRoy as head of the DOC, moving that office out of the Adamsville prison and into the nearby state capitol building.

This had actually been Warden LeRoy’s idea, allowing him to concentrate solely on running the penitentiary.
Well,
Thomas thought,
at least someone around here looks and acts like a new man.
He decided that if he himself were in a better frame of mind, he would have been inspired by Yanno’s seeming new lease on life.

Now Yanno was at the prison all the time, freshly committed to the task. Adamsville State Penitentiary was going to remain the jewel in the state’s DOC crown, financially strapped as it was, and Yanno kept asking Thomas if it didn’t make him proud to be part of it.

“You bet it does,” Thomas said, coming as close to lying as he had as an adult.

Thomas was shocked one afternoon when his daughter knocked and entered his office. He leaped to his feet.

“Rav! What brings you here?”

“You won’t believe it. Dirk and I are moving to Adamsville.”

“Seriously?”

“Dirk is working for the county, and I have just been hired as a public defender. You can guess where a lot of my caseload will come from.”

“Here?”

“I trust we won’t get into each other’s way too much.”

“You could never be in my way, sweetheart. You look fantastic, by the way.”

“Well, this suit is Penney’s, not Saks, as it would be if I were in a big firm. But I like to look the part.”

“And you certainly do. I need to coach you on dealing with men like these, Rav.”

“Wide open to input, but I suspect I’ll have to learn as I go.”

“Your mother will be thrilled to have you so close. You will come visit, won’t you?”

“Of course. I think we can all be civil.”

Addison

For a time it appeared Brady Darby might actually have turned a corner. It didn’t take long for his new employers to catch on that he might have exaggerated his history of landscaping experience, but he proved, at first, to be diligent and hardworking. As long as someone told him what to do and walked him through it a time or two, he found he could learn anything.

He planted trees, laid sod, moved trees and shrubs. He mowed, weeded, edged, fertilized, even created rock formations.

Brady found the work—the first he had really done in ages—exhausting and painful for the first few weeks. And when Peter could not drop him off or pick him up, he had to hitchhike several miles to the office, where he rode with a crew to the various job sites.

He loved his uniform and found reasons to delay removing it at the end of the day. Brady liked to be seen in it here and there, especially around the trailer park. The old Laundromat had been replaced by a filling station, where he bought his smokes and snacks and dreamed of someday again having a car he could pull into there for gas.

With his history, Brady had zero credit and could get neither a credit nor even a debit card and thus had to run his entire personal financial life on cash. His expenses consisted of only a stipend to his mother for rent—they barely spoke and when they did were rarely cordial—and the occasional five or ten to Peter for the use of his car, which was infrequent.

Poor Peter was charged with making sure Brady got up in time to get to work every morning, and that became more difficult all the time. Brady was proud of his job and his steady, if not generous, income, but he had come to reward himself every evening by going to the movies, smoking some dope, trying to find a one-night—or more likely a few-hour—stand, then lounging in front of the TV until the wee hours.

He knew if his parole officer knew he was even associating with people who sold grass, he’d be right back in the joint. But at least he didn’t drink or do the harder stuff anymore. Life was boring, no question, and Hollywood was a forgotten dream. But this was better than doing time.

The only person in the world Brady cared about was Peter, but the kid was not blind to Brady’s weaknesses. That left him with little basis to teach or counsel his brother, but for sure he had enough experience to warn him. He told Peter to stay away from cigarettes, let alone grass and coke and booze. He praised him for holding down a steady job and keeping up with his car payments. He urged him to stay in school and graduate.

“You know the old line about doing what I say and not what I do?” Brady said.

Peter nodded.

“That’s what I’m saying. I know I’ve screwed up. You don’t have to. Promise me.”

Peter shrugged. “Aunt Lois has been asking about you, Brady. Wants you to come see them if you want.”

“What have you told her?”

“The truth, mostly. I told her you’re doing good, working, making a little money, behaving yourself.”

“So not the whole truth.”

“Well, I didn’t think it would make her day to know you like the occasional joint and that you sleep around, no.”

“Good man.”

“She wants to know where we’re going to church.”

“There’s a surprise. Did you tell her Church of the Inner Spring with Pastor Blanket and Deacon Sheets?”

Peter roared. “I’ll tell her that next time. I told her we’ve both been real busy.”

Brady nodded. “And she told you that if we’re too busy for God, we’re too busy.”

“Exactly.”

40

Late September | Adamsville

Having Ravinia Carey-Blanc and Dirk over for the first time was about as nerve-racking a proposition as Thomas could imagine. He and Grace agreed that despite their discomfort over their daughter’s marriage, it was unconscionable that they had never hosted the couple.

“Should I say that?” Thomas said. “Just confess it and ask their forgiveness?”

“I don’t know,” Grace said. “I’d leave it alone. Let’s just be as gracious and warm as we know how. Make it clear we’re finally recognizing them as a couple. She’ll always be our daughter, regardless, and it’s time we started treating her like an adult free to make her own decisions.”

Thomas was as nervous as he had been in ages. Worry about Grace’s stamina niggled at him, but mostly he was trying to frame his meal prayer. He always prayed; they would expect that. But he didn’t want to offend them either.

What was the point of this? He would be talking to God, not to them. He questioned his own motive for wanting to mention them, and he knew it would be wrong to hint what he really wanted God to do for them.

This was all too disconcerting, and as their arrival approached, he and Grace seemed nearly frozen from anxiety.

“Let’s just be good hosts and let it play out as it plays out,” Grace said.

With everything ready and dinner cooking, Grace sat on the couch, looking as if she could use some sleep. Thomas sat in his easy chair, trying to read the paper but unable to concentrate. He couldn’t sit still and began to pace.

“You’re making me more nervous,” Grace said. “Just relax.”

“Sorry. I can’t. Has it been getting dark this early already?”

She looked at her watch, then out the window. “Storm brewing?”

Thomas moved to the picture window and scanned the sky. “How perfectly appropriate,” he said.

“Oh, Thomas.”

Addison

Despite being sleep deprived as usual and logy from smoking too much grass, Brady actually didn’t mind his work so much that day. He was mostly mowing and bagging, and the weather forecast showed potential for their getting off work early.

Peter didn’t have school that day, so Brady was using his car. No hitchhiking. He would ride back to the office in the company truck and be able to drive back to the trailer park. Peter said he was going somewhere with friends, but Brady begged him to be back at the trailer by five. “I need you to be there to take a delivery for me. Very important. Guy will give you a sealed-up cookie tin. You give him the envelope from the freezer.”

“The freezer?”

“Just do it. Don’t let me down.”

“What are you buying?”

“The less you know the better.”

“I don’t want to get involved in anything like that.”

“It’s cookies, okay? A gift for Mom.”

“You’re buying cookies from some guy for an envelope full of cash.”

Even Brady had to laugh. “Just tell me you’ll do it, Peter.”

“I will, but if this blows up in my face—”

“We can both say honestly that you were just doing what I told you and that you had no idea what was going down. You don’t, do you?”

“I have a pretty good idea.”

“But you don’t know.”

“No, I don’t.”

As Brady worked that day, he couldn’t stop thinking about having run into Agatha at the convenience store that morning. She had really let herself go. She had walked her five-year-old to the free day care bus stop and had her two younger ones in tow. Without makeup and under a pink baseball cap, she looked twenty years older.

“Jim’s on the road overnight,” she whispered. “In case you wanted to drop by, I mean.”

Brady couldn’t imagine anything he’d less rather do.

As he watched her leave the store in her too-short shorts, especially for a big girl, and her flip-flops—even on a chilly autumn morning—he saw his future. The Touhy Trailer Park was like a jail term, and he feared he was a lifer.

But today Brady’s ship would come in. There would be enough dope in that afternoon’s delivery to set him up as a real player. He could quit this crushing job, get his own car, even his own place. He hated dragging Petey into the middle of it, but it would be only this one time.

Adamsville

“Let’s see what the TV is saying about this,” Thomas said, flipping on the set.

Just as he did, a flash of lightning killed the power and a horrific clap of thunder shook the house.

“Oh no,” Grace said.

“Temporary,” Thomas said. “Always is.”

“Find some candles. They’re going to think we changed our minds and aren’t even here.”

Thomas laughed. “You don’t think they’ll see that the whole area is affected?”

He found the flashlight and put candles in the kitchen, the living room, and on the front windowsill.

Addison

The first flash of lightning sent the landscaping crew racing for the truck. The last two there had to ride in the bed—no fun once the rain began—but Brady didn’t mind. The only thing he didn’t like was that he was an hourly worker, and cutting out early meant less pay. Another reason to get on with his other career.

On the other hand, today was payday, so his check would be waiting at the office. He always splurged on payday, only this time he hadn’t even decided how yet. With the profit he could make on the delivery Peter was accepting for him, right about then as a matter of fact, he could party all the time.

About a mile from the office the rain turned to hail, and Brady and his cohort rapped on the window of the cab of the pickup. The driver and the other two workers at first laughed and trash-talked, but finally the truck pulled over and the two in the back squeezed inside.

Five dirty yard workers crammed into a truck made it almost impossible to drive, and of course there ensued endless laughing and jabbing and swearing.

When they finally rolled into the parking lot of the office, however, no one was getting out. The tiny hail pellets had been growing steadily larger, and now they rained like golf balls, drilling deep dents in the hood and imprisoning the laborers.

Suddenly a chunk of ice as big as a lemon shattered the windshield. The five men ducked and tried to elude the freezing gusts blasting through the truck. When the wind rocked the rig and threatened to roll it over, somebody said, “We gotta get out!” and they opened both doors and dashed for the office.

Brady covered his head, taking fierce, stinging blows to his hands until he got inside. As they listened on the radio and watched from the window, the truck was lifted off the ground and rolled up onto its side, then slammed back down. In the distance, high-tension poles swayed and wires snapped, shooting showers of sparks across the highway.

The lights went out, but Brady could still see the havoc as the pea green sky roiled. A generator kicked in and the radio came back on, filled with news of twisters in the area.

Brady ran to the back and looked out into the employee parking lot for his brother’s car. Strangely, in that one spot, except for the weird light, no one would have suspected a storm. Hardly any wind. No damage. As soon as the hail stopped, Brady was going to try to get out of there.

Adamsville

Dirk parked at the curb in front of the house, and he and Ravinia came bounding up to the door through the rain, a quickly sogged newspaper serving as a makeshift umbrella. Thomas waited with the door open and helped them in.

“You need a lighthouse!” Dirk said, vigorously shaking Thomas’s hand. He embraced Grace, and Thomas noticed her stiffen before hugging him back.

As Thomas expected, Dirk and Rav were in business attire, but Dirk immediately accepted Thomas’s offer to shed his suit jacket and tie. He was a hard man not to like, effusive, loud, articulate, funny. He was smart enough to have to be aware of the elephant in the room, but it was apparent he had adopted the son-in-law role and planned to relish it. It was as if he thought the in-laws could hate him if they wanted, but he was theirs to hate.