Last Ragged Breath (43 page)

Authors: Julia Keller

“Vera lied from the start,” he murmured. His voice was so low that Bell had to strain to hear him. “She lied when she said my father saved me. Because he didn't. Vera told Bessie the real story a couple of days after the flood. Bessie pressed her on it. And Vera confessed. Nobody lied to Bessie. Not when she was looking at you with them eyes of hers.” He took a breath. “My father just tried to save his own miserable skin. Didn't do a damned thing for my mother and me. He got himself out of the house first thingâwithout a single look back at his wife or his child. After that Mama grabbed me and held me and we got out the window, and when she was lost, somehow I got up on that ridge. Maybe a stranger did it and nobody got his name. All I know is that it wasn't my father.”

“But why did Vera lie, all those years ago?”

“Made a dandy story, didn't it? Lots of dramaâa daddy saves his little boy instead of saving himself. People ate it right up.” He shrugged. “Vera got her name in the paper. She was the center of attention and it felt damned good to her. That's what Bessie said. And once Vera lied, once she'd told the tale, the other folks up on that ridge didn't want to go against her. And maybe they weren't sure what they'd really seen, anyway. I mean, it was a terrible day. And such a wonderful storyâthe kind of story people needed to hear right then, you know? So that things might seem a little less sad for a while.”

Vera, Bell thought, had been ready to take Hackel's money for lyingâwhen she'd really be telling the truth, at long last.

Her hand still held the bar, tighter than she meant to. She loosened her grip.

“How long have you known?”

“Bessie told me when I was ten years old. When she thought I was old enough to handle it. She'd never liked my father. Hated him, matter of fact. That's why she moved away from Lundale. That's why she wasn't living there when the flood came. Said she couldn't stand to see my mother with him. Said my mother was way too good for that whiskey-soaked SOBâthat's what she called him, every timeâbut she wouldn't go. âHe's the father of my baby boy,' my mother always said, when Bessie begged her to leave.”

“So you just repeated what everybody wanted to hear,” Bell said. “You never told the truth.”

“The truth? The truth would've made my mother look like a fool. A fool for marrying that bastardâand a coward for staying with him. Bessie felt the same way. If we'd said what really happened, we'd dishonor my mother's memory.” His voice had turned raspy, roughed-up. He was holding back a giant wave of emotion, emotion that pushed and surged and threatened to break through the walls he had built inside himself.

“Listen, Royce,” Bell said. “Your parents were so young when they died. Your father never got the chance to be a different kind of man. You don't know how he might've turned out, if he'd had longer to live.”

He thought about this. “Well, maybe. All I know is that he didn't deserve my mother's love. And he didn't use up his last breath on this earth to save anybody. Not even himselfâthe only person he ever cared about. He was a selfish bastard
and
a failure.”

“It's not what you do with your last breath that matters, Royce. It's what you do with your life.”

“Yeah. Right.” He snorted his disdain. His words came in an accelerating mess of self-loathing: “And what've I done with
my
life? Not a damned thing. Just can't ever take hold. Can't stick. Always running away. Times I tried to reach out to peopleâor them to meâI just couldn't do it. Something took over inside me and told me I had to go. Go, go,
go
. Had to get out of there, fast as I could, so's I could
breathe
. That girl BrendaâI cared about her, all those years ago. I did. And I ruined it. She's married herself nowâyou met him, it's Andy Stegner, he's a good manâso she's done okay. I don't see her much, but I guess she's happy and that's good. But still. Tears me up something awfulâremembering. How I couldn't stand to be touched. Still can't. I just can't deal withâwith
people,
you know? Not a one of 'em. Never. Only time I feel halfway normal is when I'm with my dogs, because they don't ask me questions, they just like to run and run andâ”

“Royce,” she said. “Your story's not over yet.”

*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *

From her chair in the living room, Bell heard the honk. Goldie bounced down from the couch, her tail making wild scribbles in the air as she barged toward the front door. Even before Bell opened it, Goldie had somehow sensed that Royce was on the other side. Bell had never seen her quite like this: It was as if every molecule of her being was on tiptoe.

Once the dog spotted Royce, her tail went into a kind of hyperdrive. She rushed out onto the porch.

“Hey, girlie,” Royce said. He handed something to Bell. And then he went down on both knees so that Goldie could reach his face with her tongue, and he rubbed her up and down while she licked and sniffed. “Hey there. How's my girl?”

Bell stood back and watched the reunion. Goldie had forgotten all about her. Had she meant nothing to this dog? Nothing at all? Then she reprimanded herself: Royce was Goldie's world. Others might come and go, and Goldie might care for them, but Royce was her world. That would not, should not, change. That was how it was supposed to be: Royce and Goldie. They were part of each other's story, moving in rugged tandem across the days and the years.

Bell knew now, in a way she could not have fully understood before, that her life story was not her own. She was part of other people's stories, too, the paths tangling and untangling and overlapping, until finally there was only one story, infinitely thickened by all the stories gathered within it since the beginning of stories themselves.

She didn't know what would happen to Acker's Gap, now that the resort and its promise of economic uplift were gone. She only knew that this place was a part of her story, and she of its. She was also part of Carla's story, and the stories of Shirley and Nick and Mary Sue and Rhonda and Pam Harrison andâmaybeâClay Meckling.

Royce stood up again and shook her hand, without meeting her eyes. They'd said what they needed to say to each other back at the courthouse. He touched the top of Goldie's head. “Ready to go, girl?” A sharp bark, and another crazy swoop of her tail.

The dog followed him out to the silver pickup truck driven by Chess Rader. Bell waved at Chess, but he didn't see her; he was focused on the map he'd spread out across the steering wheel. They had six more stops to make and he was checking the locations.

Bell looked down at the object Royce had handed her. It was a notebook with a black-and-white cover, the one she had given him at the start of the trial. She opened it to the first page.
Death Imprint,
it said. She would read it tonight, when she sat in her chair and tried to keep her mind away from the ache of losing Goldie.

Her attention was drawn back to the curb. Royce was clapping his hands and calling out, “Good girl, that's my good girl, now,” as Goldie leapt into the back of the truck without the slightest hesitation. She barked and quivered and turned in circles, out of sheer exhilaration. Royce was with her now, and she was with him. No matter where she was going, she was already home.

About the Author

JULIA KELLER
spent twelve years as a reporter and editor for the
Chicago Tribune
, where she won a Pulitzer Prize. A recipient of a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, she was born in West Virginia and lives in Chicago and Ohio. You can sign up for email updates
here
.

ALSO BY
JULIA KELLER

A Killing in the Hills

Bitter River

Summer of the Dead

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Contents

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Keller, Julia.

Â Â Â Â Last ragged breath / Julia Keller.âFirst edition.

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â pages; cm

Â Â Â Â ISBN 978-1-250-04474-7 (hardcover)

Â Â Â Â ISBN 978-1-4668-4319-6 (e-book)

Â Â 1. West VirginiaâFiction. I. Title.

Â Â Â Â PS3611.E4245L37 2015

Â Â Â Â 813'.6âdc23

2015017000

eISBN 9781466843196

First Edition: August 2015