The Mistaken (26 page)

“You need to relax,” he said.

Yeah, like that’s going to happen.

“Stay in the car while I fill it up. Do you want
something from the market?” he asked as he gestured toward the
little store centered in the gas station.

I gave my head a slight shake, but kept my eyes
trained straight ahead.

“I’ll be right back.” Then he dipped his chin and
raised his brow. “Please don’t do anything foolish.”

Even though he was pleasant enough, there was a
modest threat to his words. I nodded, and he closed the door, but
he remained standing in front of my window, contemplating me
through the glass, his jaw ticking the whole time. When he swung
away from fueling the car and walked toward the store, I turned to
watch him. He looked back over his shoulder just as he pulled the
door wide, making me spin back around. He was growing more tense
and edgy, and I was the cause. I closed my eyes and breathed
deeply. It wouldn’t do me any good to make him uptight and angry. I
jumped when he opened his door, climbed back in, and threw a bag of
snacks in my lap.

“Ready?” he asked.

I could only respond with a nod.

He pulled onto the freeway again and reached into
the bag for a bottle of water. “We’ll keep to the back roads, but I
want to at least make it over the gorge into Oregon before we stop
for the night.” When I simply nodded again, he sighed loudly. “All
right, Hannah. What’s wrong? What’s changed all of a sudden? I can
tell something’s bothering you. Just tell me what it is so we can
deal with it up front.”

“Well…it’s just I’m…a bit…worried…about
stopping...for the night.”

It was an awkward moment when he realized where my
concern lay. At first, he pressed his lips together, but his
impatience melted away before he turned to look me in the eye.

“You have nothing to worry about, Hannah. I promised
I wouldn’t touch you again. You have my word.”

He stared at me in earnest and crossed his heart
with his finger, but it was hard to ignore that part of me which
feared him. I understood he felt only remorse for what he’d almost
done, and I felt in my heart that he wouldn’t touch me in that way
again, but it was still difficult to disregard my anxiety.

“You believe me, right?” he asked.

I nodded, trusting my heart on this one, and praying
it wouldn’t let me down.

“Good,” he said, smiling to make me feel more at
ease.

But even with his efforts, it didn’t take long for
the strain to set in once again, increasing with each passing
minute of silence. Small talk seemed out of place, but I could
think of no other way to alleviate the disquiet. So I cleared my
throat and searched for an appropriate topic.

“So, um…do you have any other family besides your
brother, Nick?”

“No, actually, he’s all I have left. Our parents
died a few years ago, along with our little sister, Kim,” he said,
his shoulders sagging noticeably.

Holy cow! More dead relatives.
It was like
stepping into another tragedy. This poor bastard was surrounded by
it, like a Shakespearian play.

“Oh…I’m sorry,” I replied. “God, I can’t seem to ask
the right questions, can I?”

He chuckled slightly and reached over to pat my
hand. I flinched at the contact, but if Tyler noticed it, he didn’t
let on.

“No worries,” he said. “We all have our afflictions,
right?” His faced screwed up a bit, but he continued. “My folks
were wonderful people, and I miss them terribly. And except for the
circumstances that took them from me, my memories of them are
mostly happy.”

I was curious about what happened to them, but I
wasn’t about to insert my foot into my mouth yet again by asking. I
bit my lip to keep from doing so.

He peered over at me. “It’s okay. You can ask,” he
said, seeming to read my very thoughts.

“All right then. What happened?”

“They were killed in a car accident a little over
four years ago. Nick was driving, and though he was seriously hurt,
he survived, so that would be the silver lining, I suppose.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. God, your poor brother. How
awful for him.”

“Yeah, I feel responsible for that one, as well.
We’d planned for Nick to pick them all up at the airport. They were
flying in from Melbourne; first time in three years. Nick called me
early that morning, said he was too tired and hung-over to drive.
He was always shirking his responsibilities, and I got angry about
it. I wouldn’t let him back out, and he ended up falling asleep at
the wheel.

“My mother and father died instantly, but Kim… Well,
they told me she was brain dead, but it took me awhile to accept
that and let her go. Eventually, I had to make that choice and turn
off her life support. She passed quietly. Nick was seriously hurt
and suffered through a very long and difficult recovery. Months of
rehabilitation and physical therapy.”

“
My God. That’s
terrible.”

“Yeah, he got a raw deal. But then it got even
worse. He became addicted to his pain meds, and then later to
booze. It was the only way he seemed to be able to make it through
the day. I couldn’t understand it back then, but I do now,” he
said, pausing with his own thoughts. “Anyway, I put him in rehab,
but it didn’t work out. Things kind of fell apart between us after
that.”

“Oh? How so?” I asked, surprised. They seemed pretty
close, even in their criminal endeavors.

“Well, Nick got into trouble trying to finance his
habits. He started running with a bad crowd. I tried to intervene,
but all I got for the effort was a beating by his thug
friends.”

“
Wow. What did your brother
do?”

“Not a whole hell of a lot. Told me to stay out of
his business. My wife agreed, so I relented.”

“Oh, so you and Jillian were married for a while
then?”

“No, we were together for several years, but we’d
only recently married. Nick’s accident happened just after we first
met. That’s part of the story, really. I was selfish. I had plans
with her the morning my folks flew in, and I didn’t want to change
them just because Nick was too busy getting drunk the night
before.” He shook his head. “Story of my life.”

Okay, now would be a good time to change the
subject
. I didn’t particularly want to go down that road again.
Everything I asked seemed booby-trapped with sentimental landmines.
The subject of Jillian was different though. He liked talking about
her. And though their story was bittersweet, he enjoyed sharing his
time with her.

He told me how they met, and how he fell head over
heels in love for the first time in his life. I heard about their
wedding and honeymoon. But when he came to the part about Jillian’s
pregnancy, he was too choked up to share much at all. And while I
knew their story didn’t have a happy ending, I was astounded by how
tragic it really was. Through it all, it was obvious how devoted
and committed he had been to his wife, how much he loved her. They
were like two halves making a whole; take one away and the other
was incomplete.

“You know, as sad as your story is, Tyler, you were
very lucky to have loved someone like that and know she loved you
in return. A lot people never achieve that.”

He kept his eyes on the road and nodded gently.
“Right. When you put it that way, I guess I was pretty lucky,” he
admitted reluctantly. “You know, you’d make a good shrink.” He
glanced back over with a crooked smile. “Enough about me now. What
about you?”

I snorted. “What about me?”

“Anyone else in your life besides your jerk of a
husband?”

“Soon to be ex-husband,” I corrected.

“Good for you, Hannah.”

“Well, I do have a son, Conner. He’s fifteen and a
typical teenager, I guess. He’s suffered a lot because of his
father being gone so much. I try to make sure I don’t come between
them. It’s hard though. Beck’s such an ass. Conner’s with him for
the next few days. It’s the first time since we split that Beck’s
had visitation. It was hard to let Conner go when I dropped him off
this morning.” Thinking back on it, I couldn’t believe it had been
less than a day since I had delivered Conner to his father. It felt
like a lifetime had gone by.

“Now that you’re divorcing, will you move out of
that neighborhood you hate so much?” he asked.

“I’d like to. That place is more Beck’s style than
mine. I’ve only made a handful of friends, and only one good one,
at that, so there’s nothing actually keeping me there. And I really
don’t think I’d be missed anyway.”

It was difficult to admit out loud just how lonely
I’d been over the last few years, how there was not really anyone
who would even know I was gone or might become alarmed if they
happened to see the current condition of my house.

“Somehow, Hannah, I doubt that very much,” he said
with a genuineness that made me smile. “It seems to me that neither
one of us has had the happy ending we want. What a pair we make.”
He chuckled then, but it carried more than a hint of bitterness.
“Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to find a place to pull off the
road and have a bite to eat, stretch my legs a bit. This car is a
bit cramped for me. Does that sound okay to you?”

I agreed, and after a few miles, Ty turned down a
gravel road just off the two-lane highway we were traveling. About
a quarter mile in, he pulled over and parked. While he grabbed the
bag of food, I pulled a small blanket from the trunk and spread it
out on the grass under some trees.

Ty sat down and arranged the selection of junk food
along the edge of the blanket, choosing what he wanted for himself.
I leaned to sit down and grimaced in pain. Ty offered his hand in
assistance, but I declined with a shake of my head. He studied me
closely, his eyes tense and wary. My discomfort and bruised face
seemed to make him uneasy. He turned away, but he couldn’t ignore
the issue. It was like a large elephant stuffed in a tiny closet,
and he swallowed hard at its presence.

“Hannah, I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am,”
he began, keeping his eyes averted. “What I’ve done…” he said and
sighed, “what I
almost
did… It’s truly unforgivable. I am so
deeply ashamed. I know it’s not a valid excuse, but I was just so
angry.” He peeked up at me briefly then returned to stare at the
blanket.

“After Jillian died, I just… I gave up. I allowed
myself to drown in sorrow and alcohol—a great deal of alcohol,” he
admitted. “My brother and I would lie around the house, thoroughly
wasted, and dream up ways to get even with Erin. It became a daily
obsession, really, as pathetic as that sounds.” He looked up and
captured my attention. “Every day, I’ve been consumed with rage,
bitterness, and hatred for that woman. I drank far too much, just
to dull it all into manageable moments of time.” He looked back
down in shame again, shaking his head. “I still do. It’s a real
problem for me.”

His hands trembled. He clenched them into fists to
disguise it.

“It’s been hours since my last drink—way too
many—just before I came to your door. I’ll need to...” he stopped
short of finishing, the words difficult for him to say aloud. Then
he sighed and continued. “I’ll need to deal with that very soon,”
he said as he looked up at me once more. “On top of everything
else, it’s not a good time for me to cope with withdrawal. Do you
understand what I’m saying?”

I stared into his eyes as I tried to comprehend his
motive for sharing this with me. I broke away first, nodding in
acceptance, but fearing what it would mean for me. I grabbed a
small package of crackers, desperate for something else to focus
on. As we ate in silence, Ty’s phone rang. He pulled it from his
pocket and looked at the display with concern.

“It’s Nick,” he said.

He stood up and walked away to conduct his
conversation in private. I watched him closely as he spoke with his
brother. When Ty looked over and caught me studying him, he turned
and walked farther into the trees. It was easy to discern that
their conversation had become urgent and heated, at least on
Tyler’s end. He was pretty agitated, raising his hand to his head
and stomping his foot, but I wasn’t sure if it was simply the
conversation or if his need for a drink was exacerbating the
situation. When he ended the call, he hung his head low. He put his
hands on his hips and just stood there turned away from me as he
collected himself.

He stomped his way back over to me and said, “Finish
up, we’re taking off.”

“Why? We just got here.”

“Just finish up,” he snapped, and I couldn’t help
but flinch. He was instantly sorry, holding his hand out, as if to
calm himself down. It was shaking even more than before. “Look, I’m
sorry, but… We need to go.” He put both hands in his pockets and
stormed off to the car.

I stared after him, growing more concerned by the
minute. I gathered up the food and blanket and stood up to walk
back to the car when I thought I saw someone move through the trees
about fifty yards away.

“Oh my God, Ty. Ty!” I pointed into the forest, “I
think I just saw someone over there.”

He ran over and scanned the area evenly, but didn’t
see anything. He reached down and picked up the bundle I’d
dropped.

“Get in the car,” he commanded.

He turned, took hold of my arm, and pulled me along,
throwing the bundle into the open trunk. Then he forced me into my
seat and slammed my door shut. He jumped into his own seat, started
the car, and drove off, scattering dirt and gravel behind us as the
tires spun. Ty glanced repeatedly in the rear view mirror, his
paranoia all too evident. Maybe he hadn’t actually seen anyone, but
he believed it possible that someone was there, watching us. He
seemed frightened by the possibility, and not knowing exactly what
it was he feared scared me, as well.