The Color of the Season (18 page)

Under normal circumstances, if I wasn’t expecting to see Riley, this person would have walked right past me and I would never have known he was my brother. Today, however, I knew it was him. I felt the link between us, despite the fact that his looks had changed considerably.

The last time I saw him he was tall and disturbingly thin, and he wore a buzz cut with tattoos on his scalp. The man walking toward us was nothing like that at all. He had grown muscular over the years—he must have gained at least thirty pounds—and his dark hair was thick and wavy with traces of gray, which concealed the tattoos.

“Holly?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Wow.” His expression warmed and I took note of the deep friendly laugh lines at the outer corners of his eyes. “Look at you. I can’t believe it. The last time I saw you, you were what…thirteen?”

“I was.”

He held out his arms and I eagerly stepped into them. “It’s good to see you,” he softly said. “I’m glad you wrote.”

“Me, too,” I replied as we stepped apart.

He turned to Josh. “And it’s great to see you too, man.” They shook hands. “How weird is this? After all these years…”

“Thanks for having us,” Josh said.

Riley glanced back and forth between the two of us and wagged a finger. “So…are you guys a couple, or what?”

“No, we’re just friends,” I quickly explained. “We only reconnected a few days ago. Josh has been helping me out. Getting me through…a few rough patches.”

Riley continued to stare at the two of us as if baffled by my explanation but he didn’t seem to want to pry. Instead, he gestured toward the main doors. “My car’s parked just outside. Do you have any bags to pick up or just your carry-ons?”

“Just these.” I pulled my suitcase on its squeaky wheels. “Did your wife come with you?”

“No, Lois had to pick up the kids at pre-school, but she’ll be home when we get back. She has dinner planned. Hope you like hamburgers.”

“Love ’em,” Josh said as we followed Riley to his car—a Nissan Sentra that looked as if it had seen better days. I suspected he’d picked it up secondhand.

As soon as we were on the road—a narrow, straight highway with a flat, endless open field to the right—we muddled through the usual small talk. Riley asked questions like: ‘How was the flight?’ ‘So you’re in med school now? That’s amazing.’ ‘And you’re a cop, Josh? What division?’

Before long, the small talk switched gears and took the inevitable turn.

“How’s Leah?” Riley asked. “She must be what…in her third or fourth year of a residency by now? What did she end up choosing as a specialty?”

My lips fell open and a slow wave of dread surged through me. I glanced over my shoulder at Josh who was seated in the back. He shook his head with regret and gave me a sympathetic look.

“How long has it been since you’ve been in touch with anyone?” I carefully asked Riley.

“At least five years,” he replied.

“That’s a long time.”

“Yeah.” Riley kept one hand on the wheel and rubbed the back of his neck with the other. “Eventually there just came a point when Lois was at her wit’s end with me. She insisted I stop trying to make contact. She wanted me to leave the past in the past and focus on the here and now.”

“I see.” My stomach began to churn. Of course, it had occurred to me that Riley might not even know about Leah’s death, but this confirmed it.

“Would you mind pulling over for a minute?” I pointed to the side of the road. “We need to stop.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Riley shot me a worried glance, then checked his rearview mirror and flicked the blinker. The wheels hit the gravel and it grew noisy in the car until the vehicle came to a halt.

Riley shifted into park and shut off the engine. Other cars zoomed past us.

Realizing I had no choice but to deliver devastating news to this man who was in many ways a stranger to me, I reached for the door handle. “Let’s take a walk.”

Riley hesitated before getting out of the car.

Chapter Forty-four

A strong wind gusted across a field where we got out. Riley came around the front of the car to meet me. Together we moved away from the shoulder of the road and walked toward a farmer’s fence.

“I have some bad news,” I said, pushing my windblown hair out of my eyes. “I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this.”

His eyebrows drew downward in a frown. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not,” I replied, turning my back to the wind. “Just over two years ago, Leah was diagnosed with ALS.”

Riley shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “You’re joking.”

“No. Unfortunately it progressed quickly and…” I looked down at my shoes. “I’m sorry, Riley. She passed away a few weeks ago.”

A driver sped by on the road and honked his horn at another.

Solemnly lifting my gaze, I gave Riley a moment to take in what I’d just explained.

“No,” he said, shaking his head in denial. “That can’t be.”

I didn’t know what to say. The look of agony on his face broke my heart and took away my ability to form coherent sentences. A vein pulsed at his forehead. His eyes filled with tears and he turned away from me toward the distant horizon.

Abruptly, he walked off.

“Riley…” I made a move to follow but he held up a hand, as if to warn me to stay back.

I watched him walk along the edge of the fence until he was some distance away, then he stopped and bowed his head. He dropped to his knees, bent forward on his elbows and squeezed fistfuls of his hair while he rocked back and forth.

His despair caused a rise of emotion in me that was almost paralyzing.

Turning toward the car, I saw Josh get out. He shut the door, met my gaze and approached.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said helplessly while my head filled with aching, throbbing anguish.

“Just give him a minute,” Josh replied as he squinted into the wind.

Finally, Riley sat back on his heels, then rose to his feet. He wiped his cheeks with the backs of his hands and turned to face us. I felt his pain and anger crash over me like a tsunami. I wanted to crawl under a rock and hide there.

Tramping heavily over the tangled, matted grass, he returned to where we stood waiting.

“Why didn’t I know?” he asked. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? It was
him
, wasn’t it?”

“You mean Dad,” I said.

He nodded. “He didn’t let you call or write. My God, my sister was
dying
! Why didn’t you just stand up to him and do it anyway?”

“Like
you
did?” I challenged.

“Damn right, like I did!”

Josh stood in silence, watching Riley with a dark and steady intensity.

“We didn’t know where you were,” I argued in my defense. “All this time, Mom thought you were either dead or rotting in jail somewhere—and not a single word from you to ease her mind or let her know you were okay. So please don’t accuse me of not keeping in touch.”

Riley shuddered and gritted his teeth as he spoke. “I wrote to you and I tried to call. Dad kept changing the number. He told me to stop. He said none of you wanted to hear from me. When I met Lois, I tried again, but he threatened me with a restraining order if I continued to write or if I tried to come home. I didn’t want to go back to prison.”

My breath caught in my throat. “I don’t understand.”

“He said I was causing you all great pain and suffering—that you still had nightmares about the night I broke into the house—and that I wasn’t welcome.”

“What about Facebook or something?” I asked. “You could have friended me.”

“I’d given up by then,” he explained, his tone growing quieter. “After a while, I had to because it was ripping me apart inside. It made everything so much harder.”

I suspected he meant staying clean.

We all stood in silence for a long moment, breathing hard beneath the enormous overcast sky. Riley tilted his head back and looked up at the clouds. They rolled briskly by.

“I can’t believe I didn’t even know she was sick,” he said, “and that Dad wouldn’t lift the iron curtain—not even for that.” He pulled his gaze from the sky and looked at me with a brotherly apology. “I’m sorry, Holly.”

Tears blinded my eyes. “I’m sorry, too,” I replied as I stepped into his open arms.

Chapter Forty-five

Josh and I promised to stay three days with Riley, Lois and their two children, Danny and Trudy. Josh slept on the sofa in the basement rec room while I took the upstairs guest room.

There was much to discuss about the future. Neither Riley nor I was certain how our mother would conduct herself when she learned what our father had done. Or maybe, deep down, she’d already known. Maybe she would continue to follow his rules for the rest of her life without ever challenging them. ‘
He’s my husband
,’ she’d always said, as if that explained everything.

Mostly, however, Riley and I reminisced about Leah and grieved for the tragic loss of her. We also filled in the blanks on all the missing years. After the children went to bed the first night, the four of us gathered around the kitchen table where Riley spoke of the darkest, most shocking moments of his life—the majority of which had taken place during his teen years and later in prison.

He also shared with us how he’d met Lois after an AA meeting not long after his release. “She was working in a nearby coffee shop,” he said.

Lois gave him an affectionate smile. “I still remember what you were wearing that night—blue jeans and a U2 concert T-shirt.” She turned to Josh and me to explain. “Your brother walked in and ordered a large green tea. I was so smitten, just from the way he smiled at me, that I messed up the order and gave him the wrong change.”

“You gave me too much,” Riley added.

“Yes, but you were honest and you pointed it out to me. I knew instantly that you were a decent guy.”

Riley slanted her a look. “Until you found out I went to prison.”

I noticed they were holding hands now, grinning at each other playfully.

“I still thought you were a good guy.” Lois turned to us again. “He came in a couple of times a week for a whole year. I started asking for the evening shifts just to make sure I didn’t miss seeing him. He’d always order green tea. And we’d talk.”

Riley leaned back comfortably in his chair. “This one had a way of getting me to open up and confess everything. She calmed me down, made me feel like everything was going to be okay.”

“How long was it before you started dating?” Josh asked.

“It was a year before I brought Riley home to meet my parents. Even after that, I waited a long time before I told them about his prison record. I wanted to make sure they knew him really well first.”

“What did they say when you told them?” I asked.

Lois let out a slow breath. “Well, Holly… They didn’t like it, but they’d grown attached to him by then and knew how much I loved him. Besides that, they raised me to believe that what is done is done and you can’t change it, but the future doesn’t have to be dictated by the past. All I wanted was to venture forward and start a life with this man.”

“And that’s one of the things I loved about you,” Riley said to her, raising her hand to his lips and kissing the back of it. “What I
still
love about you—that you had faith that even a man like me could change.”

“With help,” Lois clarified, turning her gaze back to Josh and me. “Riley runs an addictions support group at the church and he still goes to regular AA meetings. And when all is said and done, he’s a wonderful father.”

I felt a warm glow somewhere deep inside me as I smiled at my brother.

Josh and Riley then recollected some of their happier childhood memories and eventually spoke about the infamous Clipper Lake Hotel incident.

“Of all my experiences as a kid,” Riley said, “that probably stands out as the most vivid.”

“Me, too,” Josh replied, “though I always regretted that day.”

“Why?” I asked, laying my hand on Josh’s forearm.

He turned to me. “Because I believed it was the reason your family moved out of the neighborhood—which felt like someone had ripped an organ out of my chest.” We gazed at each other intently under the bright kitchen light.

Josh returned his attention to Riley. “Holly thinks you moved because your father wanted a bigger house, but I always blamed myself after he came home and found the cops in his driveway.”

“
That’s
not why we moved,” Riley told us with a strange laugh, as if the truth were common knowledge. “We moved because my dad thought your dad had the hots for my mother.”

Josh and I responded together.
“What?”

Riley scooped up a handful of peanuts from the bowl in front of him. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Nothing ever happened. They didn’t have an affair or anything. Dad was just incredibly jealous of your dad because he didn’t like coming home to find some other guy from the neighborhood fixing our leaky faucet or unclogging our toilet.” Riley pointed a finger at Josh and spoke with a hint of humor that accentuated the laugh lines around his eyes. “And your dad
was
a flirt. You know that, right?”