Shadow in Serenity

thirty-nine


A sad melancholy fell over Carny, adding to the rage she was already nursing, when the rental car crested the hill and the carnival came into view, the Ferris wheels and roller coasters looming into the afternoon sky. Scratch, the sword-swallower, whom her parents had sent to pick her up at the airfield, spoke to the gatekeeper, who let them onto the fairgrounds.

“Look, Mom! The double Ferris wheel! Nathan went on one at the state fair and said it got stuck, and he had to sit up there for an hour until his dad climbed the wheel and got him down.”

Carny breathed a laugh. “I’ve told you not to believe everything Nathan tells you.”

“I’m not scared, though. Can I ride it?”

“We’ll see.” Already, the scents of cotton candy, chicken on a stick, fresh taffy, and cinnamon rolls wafted over the area, conjuring up memories of a childhood where almost every meal was eaten with her fingers while walking down the midway, unless it had been a sandwich thrown together in a moving trailer. Still, it smelled of home.

When the guard opened the gate for them, Scratch drove straight back, through the infield thick with trailers, to where her parents’ trailer was parked. The jalousies were broken on it, and it needed a good bath, and the awning that came out from the side to create a makeshift porch was torn. On the side were the words Douglas Carnivals Limited.

“Your folks had a meeting with the sheriff,” Scratch told them, getting out. “But they said to wait here. Either that, or you can walk around the park.”

“A meeting with the sheriff? Problems?”

Scratch grinned and hiked one eyebrow. “Nothing a little cash won’t fix.” Lighting a cigar, he gave a phlegmy laugh.

“What about Ruth?”

“She’s tutoring some young’uns right now. But Sas and Peg are over in the Tojo Trailer. Everybody else is working.”

“Okay. Is there a bathroom somewhere?”

“Closest donnicker’s by the House of Apes,” Scratch said.

“What’s a donnicker?” Jason asked.

“It’s the bathroom, Jase,” Carny said. “Only we can go in Grandma and Grandpa’s trailer. The donnickers aren’t usually very clean.”

“After that can we walk around the park? Please, Mom? I’m hungry, and everything smells so good!”

“Sure,” Carny said, taking the key that Scratch offered and unlocking her parents’ door. “We’ll just freshen up, and then I’ll see how many carbohydrates and buckets of grease I can pour down you.”

“All right!”

She opened the door and Jason dashed in. Over her shoulder, she called, “Thanks, Scratch.”

“No problem, Carny,” he said. “Good to have you back.”

Jason had already found the bathroom, and as Carny stepped into the trailer where she had grown up, she was assaulted by a wave of nostalgia. This was home, such as it was. This was where she’d slept, traveled, studied. This was where she’d dreamed — of finding a way out, of settling down, of having a normal family where her children’s days weren’t filled with longing and disappointment.

“Wow, Mom. This is great! Is this where you used to live?”

“Sure is,” she said quietly.

“But where was your room?”

“I slept here, on the couch bed,” she said. “Grandma and Grandpa slept in that little area at the back.”

Jason’s enthusiasm faltered a degree. “Where were your toys? Where did you play?”

“I didn’t keep many toys,” she said, “but I read a lot. And there was always the carnival. I could ride anything I wanted. And I got to play in the animal truck.”

“The what?”

Smiling, Carny hooked a finger for Jason to follow her back outside. “This way,” she said, glad she’d finally thought of one charming thing to show Jason about the carnival.

They walked between trailers to the eighteen-wheeler parked at the fringe and stepped up on the rim of the bed. There, she raised the door, revealing the treasures inside.

“Wow!” Jason cried.

In the truck, thousands of stuffed animals lay in soft mountains. Stuffed dolls and dogs and teddy bears all lay waiting to be taken to the midway as prizes to the marks who paid twenty times what they were worth to win them.

Jason grabbed an armful and, giggling, fell back onto a downy mountain of stuffed animals. “Whose are these?”

“The carnival’s,” she said. “These are all the prizes. I used to play here all the time.”

“Really, Mom? They let you?”

“Sure did. These things only cost a few cents apiece, but the marks will pay a dollar a shot to win them. By the time they walk away with one, the agents have usually scored forty to fifty dollars.”

“What are marks?”

She caught her breath. “I meant … customers.”

“Why’d you call them marks?”

“Because,” she said, deciding not to deceive him or hide the truth. “You see, Jason, not everybody in the carnival is honest. A lot of the people who work here are just trying to find ways to take people’s money. And they don’t think of them as people … or even as customers. They think of them as targets … or marks.”

“Did you think of them as marks?”

She sighed. “Yeah, I’m afraid I did, back before I knew that God saw everything I did. Before I cared what he thought. I grew up calling them that.”

“Was it a bad thing?”

“Yes, it’s bad when you just want to trick them and take something from them … something that you haven’t earned. It’s stealing.” She sat down on a pile of teddy bears and leaned back against the wall.

Jason’s eyes rounded, and he looked back out the open door of the truck toward the carnival that had seemed so magical to him before. He seemed to be looking at it with new eyes, as if her words had cast a pall over it that made everything look different. Why hadn’t she just let him enjoy it?

Tears sprang to her eyes, tears she hadn’t expected. Her gaze drifted out of the truck to the midway just beyond the trailers. Coming here was like moving backward, she thought, and yet she’d had to. These were her roots. They were what made her who she was. Everybody needed to backtrack sometimes, if only to remember how far they had come.

Where did Logan go when he’d finished a con? Did he backtrack? Or was he in Tahiti, counting his money and laughing at how he’d finally gotten her trust? Did he award himself extra points because she’d been such a challenge?

Carny glanced back at her son, who seemed lost in thought. She reached for his hand and pulled him closer. “The carnival can be a fun place. Really fun, if you just know what to avoid. I hope I can teach you not to be a mark, Jason. I hope you’ll grow up knowing better than to fall for a gaff.”

“What’s a gaff?”

She’d done it again. “Don’t worry about it. There’s just something about being home that makes you slip back into your old vocabulary, no matter how hard you worked to lose it.” She supposed no matter how far she ran, she couldn’t ever completely escape who she was. It was a startling realization. She was more like Logan than she wanted to admit.

She thought of the apostle Paul, cautioning Christians to press forward and not look back. She remembered his words in 1 Corinthians 6:9, and the list of people who would not inherit the kingdom of God. The first time she saw that verse, the words thieves and swindlers condemned her. But the next verse made a life-changing difference. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

She’d been cleansed of her sins. And the fact that Logan had chosen to fake his own cleansing had no bearing on her own relationship with God.

Logan had stolen her heart, but he couldn’t steal that.

“Hey, do you think Grandpa would let me have one of these?” Jason asked, holding up a stuffed alligator.

Jason’s question shook Carny out of her reverie, and she took a minute to reorient herself. “I’m sure he would.”

“But I’d rather win one. That’s more fun.”

She tried to think of a nice way to tell him that the games were rigged, but decided to let it rest. It was like telling your child there was no Santa Claus. Part of you knew he couldn’t go on believing forever, but another part hated to destroy his wonderment. Maybe she still knew some of the agents at the game. Maybe she could get them to let him win something.

“Carny, my baby!” Carny turned at her mother’s shriek and saw the little lady with platinum-bleached hair bounding across the infield toward her.

“Mama!” Jumping down from the truck, she intersected with her mother and allowed her to crush her in a hug.

“You look like one of those cultured ladies,” her mother said, stepping back and looking her over. “Like you’ve been spending all your time in a beauty shop getting your nails done. Are you a lady of leisure now, Carny?”

“Of course not, Mama,” she said. “You know I’m a pilot. And I haven’t painted my nails in years.”

“Then you must be eating healthy. Where’s my grandbaby?”

“In the truck. Under a pile of animals. You’ll recognize him right away, since he’s the only one who’s not purple.”

“The same place I always found you,” her mother said. “Jason? Jason, come here and give your grandma a big hug!”

Jason sprang up and threw out his arms. “Grandma!”

“You’re a little man!” her mother cried. “When did you get so big?”

Jason tried to step over the stuffed animals. “Um … I don’t know.”

“How old are you now?” she asked, reaching up to grab him. “Five, six?”

“I’m eight,” he said, lifting his chin with indignation. “My birthday was yesterday.”

“Eight? My heavens, Carny, has it been that long?”

“Yeah, Mama. It has.”

“Well, we have to make up for lost time, then, don’t we? Not to mention birthday presents. Come with me, Jason. I’ll show you around the park. Maybe even put you to work, if you’re interested.”

“That’d be great! Can I, Mom?”

Carny touched Lila’s arm, stopping her. “Mama, no. I’ll just keep him with me.”

“For heaven’s sake, Carny, I’m his grandma. What are you afraid of?”

Carny’s face warmed, and she wished she didn’t have to fight this battle so soon. “You sometimes … get distracted. You might forget him.”

“I won’t forget you, will I, Jason?”

“And I don’t want him being put to work.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake, what did you think I meant? I only thought that maybe he could stand on the bally of the House of Wonders and make like an announcer. How would you like that, Jason? We’ll give you a microphone and you can pantomime the recording.”

Carny thought of the freak shows inside the House of Wonders. That was where Ruth used to sit for most of her day while people paid to ogle her, and Scratch did his sword-swallowing trick, and Bounce, the contortionist, bent his body into virtual knots. That was where Allesandro, the half-man, half-woman did his act, and where Georgie Jingles practiced his illusion of being half-man, half-horse. It was where Snake disrobed to show the scales he’d had tattooed all over his body, and where Burt set himself on fire.

The exploitation and exhibitionism of the House of Wonders was one of the worst parts of the carnival, yet it was the stuff that fascinated little boys.

“Please, Mom,” Jason said, bouncing. “Let me go!”

“Mama, I promised him I’d take him on the double Ferris wheel. Don’t you want to do that, Jase?”

“Sure!” Jason shouted. “Then can I go with Grandma?”

“We’ll see,” she said, taking his hand.

Her mother set her hands on her hips and looked disgusted. “Your mother’s afraid you’ll like it too much and want to be a carny when you grow up,” Lila said. “And there wouldn’t be a thing in the world wrong with that.”

“Jason’s going to be president, aren’t you, Jase?”

“No,” he argued. “I’m going to be an astronaut. Either that or a baseball player.”

Carny smiled. “He’s given this a lot of thought.”

“Or maybe a sultan like Logan!” Jason blurted as an afterthought.

“A what?” Lila asked. “He knows a sultan?”

“No.” Carny frowned down at her son. “Do you mean a consultant, Jason?”

“Yeah, that’s what I want to be. Somebody who plans big fun stuff like Logan, and gets everybody to invest.”

Carny’s smile fell, and her dismal gaze met her mother’s. “Well, I guess that’s not so far from being a carny, after all.”

“Who’s this Logan fellow? The amusement park guy? Did you talk to him about us, Carny?”

Before Carny had the chance to answer she heard a familiar voice behind her. Swinging around, she saw her oldest friend, her dearest confidante, her teacher and mentor, and her personal philosopher, riding toward her on a golf cart. “Ruth!”

Letting go of Jason, Carny ran and threw herself into the massive woman’s arms. When she’d last seen her, Ruth weighed five hundred pounds, but Carny suspected she was even bigger now. She had long black hair streaked with gray, and the muumuu Ruth wore was the size of a small tent. Her hug was tight and warm, and her body shook as she laughed out loud. “You look beautiful, baby! Look at you.”

Carny pulled back and saw that Ruth’s eyes were moist. “And the baby … is that little Jason?”

Jason stretched to his full height, and extending a hand, he said, “I’m Jason Sullivan.”

“You can call me Ruth,” Ruth said, pulling him into a hug and sobbing as if she’d found her own long-lost child. “Oh, you feel so good! And Carny, you look gorgeous. Like a fairy princess or something. Oh, lands, it’s so good to see you.”

Carny couldn’t keep the tears from falling. Of all the people she’d grown up with in the carnival, her parents included, Ruth was the one she had missed the most. “Jason, Ruth is the lady I told you about. The one who taught me practically everything I know.”

“The computer lady?”

“Yes,” Carny said. “She’s the one with the computers all over her trailer.”

Ruth wiped at her eyes. “Well, that’s a switch. I’m usually called the fat lady. That’s what I used to be, Jason, in the House of Wonders.”

Jason looked embarrassed, as if he didn’t know how to respond to that without hurting Ruth’s feelings. “Mom talks about you all the time.”

“And I talk about her,” Ruth said, sniffing. “A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about you two.”

“Maybe she’ll listen to you, Ruth,” Lila said. “I was just trying to talk Carny into letting Jason go around with me for a little while, but she’s convinced I’m going to turn him into a delinquent.”

“We’re going on the double Ferris wheel,” Carny said, stroking Jason’s hair. “Aren’t we, Jase?”

“Now, Mom? Can we go now?”

“Sure can.” She leaned over and hugged Ruth again. “I’ll be back in a little while, and we can catch up, okay?”

“You know where I’ll be,” Ruth told her. “You hold on to his hand, now. The crowd has gotten rougher than it used to be, and it’s easy to get lost around here.”

“Good grief,” Lila said, waving them off. “It’s the same as it’s always been, and Carny grew up just fine. Just look at her now.” She leaned over and kissed Jason’s cheek. “Make her stop by the Ring Toss to see Grandpa Dooley, Jason. He’s filling in for the agent there while he takes lunch. He can’t wait to see you.”

Jason looked ready to erupt. “Now, Mom? Can we go now?”

“All right,” Carny said, laughing. Waving back at Ruth and her mother, she let Jason pull her off toward the midway.


Jason’s eyes danced with excitement as they got off the Ferris wheel, and he looked up at her as he cried, “Can we go again, Mom? Please?”

“Later, Jason. There are a lot of other rides.” “You were so lucky when you were little! Did you really get to ride any time you wanted?”

“Pretty much. But it didn’t seem so lucky at the time.” “Why? How could you ever want anything else?” As they passed a trailer selling corn dogs, she caught the scent of rotting garbage. The noise of battling songs at rides across from each other and the voices of people screaming were beginning to give her a headache.

She took Jason’s hand as they strolled up the midway. “I wanted the things you have, Jase. A real house with a backyard, friends I could play with, school …”

“But those things are boring.”

“Only to those who have them.” She glanced up the row of game booths and saw a little girl with stringy blonde hair and a dirty face sitting on the steps leading to the booth door. She didn’t know the agent — he was probably one of the newer ones — but she recognized the waif-like look on the child’s face and knew without a doubt that she was a carny’s kid. “See that little girl over there, Jase?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s probably traveling with the carnival.”

“How do you know?”

“The way she’s sitting on the steps, like she belongs there. The way her eyes are scanning the crowd. You know what she’s thinking, Jason?”

“What?”

“She’s thinking about the children she sees. The ones who are holding their parents’ hands, like you. The ones who are excited to be here, the ones who see it as a treat. She’s wondering what kind of houses they live in, and if they take ballet, and if they play softball. She’s wondering if their parents take them to church or how many kids they have in their classes at school. She’s wondering if they have birthday parties.”

He looked up at her with saucer eyes. “Didn’t you ever have birthday parties, Mom?”

“Sometimes some of the carnies would get together and get me a cake and sing “Happy Birthday.” But I always had dreams of having lots of little girls over, all dressed in fancy dresses …” She felt that longing that she thought she’d discarded long ago. “Only I never knew many little girls.”

“But you knew the sword-swallower, and the magician, and the fire guy.”

“Yeah, I did,” she said, chuckling softly. “I sure did.”

“Hey, kid, did your mama put a bowl on your head to cut your hair or did you cut it yourself?”

Jason swung around and saw Tojo the Clown sitting in his dunking booth, targeting him. “Is he talking to me, Mom?”

“I’m afraid so,” she said. “His gaff is to insult people until they get so mad they want to pay money to dunk him.”

“Can I?”

“Hey, kid, you can’t dunk me. You’d have to let go of Mommy’s hand first.”

Jason dropped her hand as if it had burned him. “I bet I can.”

Carny recognized the agent taking the money and passing out baseballs to be thrown at the plate that would dunk Tojo. “Jello? Is that you?”

The old man chuckled. “Carny?” Laughing, he stretched his arms wide, and she hugged him. “Your folks said you’d be coming today. How are you, kid?”

“Great. Jello, this is my son, Jason.”

“So are you gonna stand there scratching yourself, kid, or are you gonna make a fool out of yourself with that baseball?” the clown shouted.

Jason eyed the dunking booth. “Mom, I’ve gotta dunk him.”

Carny laughed. “You sure do. Look out, Tojo,” she shouted to the clown. “He’s pretty good.”

“Is that you, Carny?” the clown shouted back. “What swamp did they drag you out of?”

Undaunted by the standard insults she’d heard all her life, she paid Jello for the privilege of drowning the clown, got her three balls, and gave them to Jason. Knowing they were weighted and rarely hit the plate, she said, “Aim high, Jase. These aren’t regular balls.”

Jason threw the ball with all his might and missed.

“You haven’t lost your spark, have you, Carny? Letting your kid take your shots for you?”

“Try again, Jason,” she said. “Aim higher this time.”

“Hey, Carny, we could use you back in the carnival. They need another dancing girl.”

Jason shot and missed again. “You do this one, Mom. Please, we’ve gotta dunk him.”

“Carny, you still haven’t caught a husband you can keep?”

She set her chin. “Better hold your breath, Tojo.” Taking the ball, she mentally eyed the plate and tried to concentrate.

“You’re gonna need a dozen more to get me down, Carny.”

“Just one will be fine, Tojo!” she shouted.

With one rip of her arm, she threw the ball, hit the plate, and sent the clown into the water beneath him. Jason jumped up and down, whooping. “You did it, Mom! You did it!”

“Somebody had to.” Dusting off her hands, she took Jason’s hand again and pulled him away. “See you later, Jello.”

“Later, Carny,” the old man said, chuckling.

“You can’t do it twice,” Tojo sputtered, climbing back onto his swing. “I’ll bet you can’t come back here and do it again.”

“I can be conned,” Carny said under her breath, “but it takes a lot more than some wet clown shouting insults at me.”

Jason looked up at her, confused.

She sighed. It took someone as slick as Logan Brisco, someone who deserved an Oscar for his work, someone who didn’t stop until he’d conned everybody in his way. Someone a world smarter than Tojo the Clown, though he didn’t have any more scruples.

They came closer to the booth where her father was substituting, and she heard his laughter over the crowd. The sound made her chest tighten. It wasn’t his usual laugh — it was his con laugh. The one that drew people in, set them up to be taken.

“There’s your grandfather,” she said.

Jason tugged her hand. “Let’s go talk to him!”

“Not yet,” she said, holding back. “Wait until that customer leaves.”

They watched while the young man laid down more of his money for a few more rings to toss, missed, and then looked longingly at the stuffed animal he’d been trying to win for his date. “I’m out of money,” he said. “You wouldn’t take a check, would you?”

Her father seemed to consider that for a moment. “Well, we don’t normally, but … well, okay. In this case …”

Anxiously, the man wrote his check, tore it out, then handed it to Carny’s father. “Twenty-five dollars’ worth, huh? You’re pretty serious about this, aren’t you?”

He gave the mark enough rings to win every animal hanging from the ceiling — if only the game wasn’t rigged. He tossed all of them, but hit only one on a winning peg.

The young man’s date looked crestfallen, and the athletic boy seemed humiliated as they started to walk away. “Look,” Carny’s father said, holding up a hand to stop them. “Everybody has a bad day now and then.” Taking down a stuffed dog, he tossed it into the man’s hands. “And as for the check — don’t worry about it.” He tore it up and let the pieces fall to the floor at his feet.

“Thanks, sir,” the young man said. “I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well, you were probably going to stop payment on it tomorrow, anyway, weren’t you?”

With a laugh that said he’d been caught, the man shrugged, handed the dog to his girlfriend, and strolled awsay.

As Carny and Jason stepped up to the booth, she saw her father pull the real check out of his sleeve and chuckle as he put it in the cash box. The one he’d torn up had been fake.

“Hi, Pop,” she said.

He looked up. “Carny! I thought you were probably here by now!” He ran out the door of the booth and embraced her. “Have you grown taller?”

“No, Pop, I don’t think so.”

“Well, you sure haven’t put on any weight. Where’s the boy?”

“Right here,” she said.

“No!” Her father looked down at Jason and shook his head. “That can’t be him. This boy’s at least ten years old. My grandson couldn’t be more than four.”

Jason frowned, unsure whether to be flattered or insulted. “I’m eight. My birthday was yesterday.”

“Eight! That can’t be.”

Carny tried not to laugh. “It is, Pop.”

“Well, I think maybe we’d better take him over to the age booth and let Morris see if he can guess his age. He’s bound to win something. He’s big enough to play linebacker for Notre Dame!”

Slowly, Jason began to smile. “I am?”

“Well, practically. Within another year or two, you’ll be a number-one draft choice.” Taking Jason’s hand, he said, “Come with me. I’ll show you. If Morris guesses your age, I’ll swallow that sword of Scratch’s.”

Smiling reluctantly, Carny followed them and watched Jason win another stuffed animal for fooling Morris about his age.

Carny tried not to leave Jason’s side that day, not because she wanted to ride everything in sight, but because she didn’t want to give her parents the opportunity to be alone with him. By the time night had fallen and they’d ridden the roller coaster, Jason was feeling a little woozy, and his feet dragged as he walked.

“Where are we gonna sleep tonight, Mom?”

“With Grandma and Grandpa. It’ll be a tight fit, but —”

“In the trailer? That’ll be cool.” But his voice didn’t have its usual fervor. No wonder — he was exhausted, and Carny had to admit that she was as well.

Still, the thoughts that had rustled beneath the surface all day kept flitting through her mind. She hadn’t come here to ride the rides and rekindle old memories. She had come home to nurse her wounds. To wrestle with the fact that she, who’d thought she was immune, had been conned.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been warned. Logan had laid his bet at the very beginning. Winner take all. And he had won.

Jason was asleep within five minutes of lying down, and Carny found herself sitting at the table that had served as her dining table, her desk, her dollhouse, her ironing board, and a million other things as she was growing up. Her father sipped a beer he’d gotten before the carnival had closed down, while her mother nursed the customary hot toddy she had every night before bed.

“So tell us how plans for the park are shaping up,” her father said, not bothering to keep his voice low for Jason’s sake.

“I told you, Pop. It’s not going to happen.”

“But you didn’t say why.”

She leaned back in her chair and wished she had never brought up the subject of Logan with her parents. It had never been easy for her to discuss feelings with them. Her father was a stick-to-the-facts kind of guy. His main interest was the bottom line. And the bottom line usually had to do with how much money it could make him.

“He was a grifter, Pop. It was all a scam.”

“Hmm.” Her father tossed back the last of his beer and set the glass in the same wet ring he’d taken it from. “Too bad. It was a terrific idea. So where’d he go?”

“If I knew that, I’d go get everybody’s money back.”

“Do you think he’s trying it in another town?” her mother asked.

A sick feeling came over her. “I hope not. But I guess he probably is. Unless he’s just lying low for a while, waiting until everything blows over. He’s smart. He probably left the country. He made enough to live on for a while.”

“He must be good. I wish you’d introduced him to us.”

Something about her father’s attitude brought back all her old bitterness about their lifestyle. “Why, Pop? So you could get in on the action? Trust me. He would have conned you too.”

“I doubt it,” Dooley said, chuckling. “You can’t con a man who doesn’t want to be conned.”

Carny leaned forward on the table, facing off with her father. “That’s a lie and you know it.”

“Carny!” Lila admonished. “Don’t call your daddy a liar!”

Carny chuckled, but there was no mirth in the sound. “All these years, you tried to tell me you weren’t doing anything to people that they didn’t want done. But it isn’t true. You both rip people off all day every day, and you have no qualms about it. It’s not true that your victims want to be conned. They don’t deserve it, Mama! People shouldn’t be punished for trusting!”

Her parents just stared at her. Finally, her mother said, “What’s going on with you, child? You didn’t come here just for a visit, did you?”

She sighed, and wished she could unload all her heartache on them. But they’d never cared about them before. “I just needed to retrace my steps.”

Her mother took her hand, a rare, affectionate gesture that took Carny by surprise. “Honey, this isn’t your home anymore. You’ve grown so far away from it, you don’t even recognize it now. And it seems to me you have nothing but contempt for it.”

Carny sniffed and wiped her eyes. “It’s funny. No matter how far you go, you’ve still got one foot tangled up in your roots, like it or not. And that’s the foot that’ll always trip you up.”

“Did you give him money, Carny?” her father asked. “Is that why this Logan character bothers you so?”

She breathed a laugh and wiped her eyes. “No, Pop. I didn’t give him money. I did know better than that.”

But she couldn’t tell her father that what she’d given him was more personal than money.

“Then it shouldn’t matter what he took from everybody else. They probably deserved it.”

For a moment, she stared at her father, the man to whom she’d been so loyal all her life. “Pop, I’ve defended you for years and told myself that you did have a conscience. That you weren’t just out for yourself. I’ve even fooled myself into believing you did it for me. To feed your family. To survive. And I let myself think that about Logan Brisco too. But you know what, Pop? We can con ourselves better than anybody. All the alibis and excuses and justifications … they’re nothing but scams we turn on ourselves.”

“You don’t believe that, Carny.” Her father got up and went to the small refrigerator.

“Yes, I do, Pop. The truth is that nobody deserves to have their pride trampled, or their trust destroyed, or their innocence mocked. Nobody deserves to wake up one day and find out that they’ve been nothing but a sick pawn in a greedy power game!”

“I’m not buying that he didn’t con you too,” Dooley said. “He stung you somehow, so you came home to take it out on us.”

Lila touched his arm to calm him. “It’s all right. That’s what parents are for.”

Carny wanted to laugh, but it wasn’t funny. Instead, the tears fell faster. “I didn’t come home to take anything out on you. I came because I needed a time-out. But I’m so tired of all the lies, Pop. Aren’t you tired of them?”

“I told you we’re trying to retire, Carny. We’re doing the best we can. We always have.”

But that was just another lie.

Wearily, she got up and covered Jason on the little sofa bed she had slept on as a child. Wiping her face, she said, “I’m gonna go say good night to Ruth. I’ll be back in a little while.”

“We’ll have your pallet ready,” her mother said quietly, sounding relieved that this uncomfortable conversation was over. Lila had never liked for Carny to make a scene, unless it had been rehearsed.

Outside the trailer, Carny reached into her purse for her phone. She had turned it off in the plane today, as she always did, and after landing she’d decided not to turn it back on. Dreading what she would find, she pushed the power button. Eight messages came up. Three from her in-laws and Joey … and one from Logan.

She stopped between trailers and listened to her voice mail.

The first was from J.R. “Carny, what’s with the decision to take off without sayin’ goodbye? Call us when you can and let us know when you’ll be back.”

She heard the beep, and Joey’s voice came up. “Carny, you didn’t send the picture. I still need it. If Logan hasn’t broken a law yet, I can’t just go after him. But if I can get the picture to the FBI, they might have something on him. Call me.”

She sighed. She’d run off without thinking about that stupid picture. But now it would have to wait — it was on her camera at home.

Finally came Logan’s voice. “Hey, Carny. Listen, I know I said I’d be in church today, but I got a call this morning and I had to go to Dallas. Call me and I’ll tell you about it. I was thinking that maybe spilling my guts isn’t the right approach just yet.”

She couldn’t stand it. Fighting the urge to throw her phone, she deleted the rest of the message and turned the phone off. So he was still at it, wheeling and dealing, with no mention of his supposed change of heart and his newfound commitment to God. Had he forgotten, or was it even true? Had he only told her what she wanted to hear?

His profession of love was a lie too, just another game.

Fuming, Carny trekked across the fairgrounds to where Ruth’s motor home was parked. The lights were still on; Ruth was probably on her computer.

She knocked softly, and heard Ruth say, “Come in.”

As she stepped through the double doors, specially designed for Ruth’s massive frame, Carny felt a truer sense of home. But the trailer didn’t look quite the same. Ruth had upgraded with the latest computer equipment. Several recent-model computers were lined up on a long built-in desk against the wall — the same desk where Carny had gotten her education, where she’d spent so many hours as a child, where she’d found someone to confide in, where she’d felt most accepted and welcomed. She wondered if that little girl she’d seen sitting on the steps of the Duck Shoot was one of Ruth’s students now. She hoped so. The child probably needed someone like Ruth in her life.

“Hey, baby,” Ruth said from the love seat that her huge body filled. “I was hoping you’d stop by. Are you ready to tell me what’s bothering you now?”

Carny smiled and wiped the fresh tears under her eyes. “What makes you think anything’s bothering me?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Those tears mean something. Besides, you wouldn’t have brought your baby here if you hadn’t really needed to come home.”

Carny dropped opposite her onto Ruth’s couch and pulled her knees up.

“Your heart is broken, girl,” Ruth said. “I can see it. Don’t forget, I’m the one whose lap you used to sit on, when you were shorter than a yardstick, crying and not knowing why. But I always knew.”

“You did, didn’t you, Ruth?”

Ruth chuckled, the sweet sound warming Carny’s heart. “Don’t blame your folks, child. They do the best they can.”

“So they say,” she whispered. “But the truth is, they should have never had a child.”

“Probably not. But I’m awful glad they did.”

Getting up, Carny went to sit on the arm of the love seat and hugged the woman who seemed to grow bigger each year. “I always wished you were my mother,” she said.

Ruth laughed. “Imagine me as a mother. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?”

“No,” Carny said seriously. “Not at all. You were probably the only one I really missed when I left the carnival.”

“And I missed you like crazy too,” Ruth said, “but I was awfully glad for you. I had big hopes for your happiness. You haven’t let me down, have you?”

“No,” she said. “I’ve been happy. Really happy. It’s just lately …”

“You fell in love with him, didn’t you, baby?”

Carny’s shoulders slumped. Wearily, she went back to the couch. Resting her elbows on her thighs, she stared at the floor. “Yes, I did. It’s got to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. Besides marrying Abe.”

“I didn’t blame you for marrying Abe,” Ruth told her. “He was your escape. You were nothing but a child then, but you’re grown now. To fall in love with a flimflam man, when you’d found such happiness there with decent folk … I don’t know, Carny. It doesn’t sound like you.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Carny said. “Ruth, I’ve thought and thought about this. Did I fall in love with him because he’s so much like Pop? Would my subconscious deliberately seek out someone who led the very lifestyle I hated?”

“Maybe you’ve been bored in that little town, child. There’s a lot of gypsy in you. Maybe part of you misses the excitement. Maybe that’s what he represented.”

Carny found that explanation unsettling. “That would mean I deserved it. That I invited it. Just like Pop said.”

“Dooley told you that?”

“Well, not about Brisco. But that’s his general contention about all marks. And that’s just what I am. Brisco’s mark. Only I didn’t ask for it, Ruth.”

“Are you saying that you don’t still have a wanderlust? A need for excitement?” When Carny hesitated, Ruth went on, “Then explain the plane you fly, and the bungee-jumping you wrote me about, and the motorcycle you ride around town. I remember you as a little girl, child. I know you.”

“But that doesn’t mean I haven’t put the lies and deceit and all the ugliness behind me, Ruth. And it doesn’t mean that I’d go looking for it again. I’ve made a good life for Jason and me.” She got up and walked into the kitchen area, leaned against the counter. “Ruth, everything changed for me in Serenity. I went to church there, and Brother Tommy told me I could start fresh. He made me believe that whatever I’d done and whatever I’d been in the past could be wiped clean.” She went back to the couch, and sat facing Ruth. “Everything changed. I changed.”

“And then you turned into my teacher and told me all about it,” Ruth said. “And I changed, too.”

“Everybody there loved me, because that’s what they do. They love.” Her voice broke. “So if I finally had what I’d always wanted, why did Logan make me want more?”

Ruth shook her head. “Something about him made you want to believe. Something inside you needed what he had.”

“Then what does that say about me?”

“It says that you’re just as human as anybody else, child. And that you’re not so tough. That’s why people like Dooley and Lila keep getting away with the same scams. They paint pictures of hopes and dreams. They make hard people trust.”

Carny leaned forward. “The crazy thing is, when I think of Logan the way he was last night, I don’t see signs of the lies I saw before. He sounded so sincere. He told me what he really was, confessed everything. He said he wanted to change. Ruth, he told me he’d prayed … that God had washed him clean too. It sounded so real. He was going to confess to the people in church today …” Her voice cracked. “But he didn’t. He checked out of his motel and left town.” The tears made a second assault, and her face warmed as she pressed it into her hands. “Ruth, I really believed him. But it doesn’t matter what I believed. He’s gone. He’s still got their money. I tried to tell everybody, but they wouldn’t listen. And why should they, when I was eating out of his hand too?”

She looked up. Ruth held her gaze for a long moment, processing everything she’d told her. “Maybe he’ll come back.”

“What?”

“If you believed him that much, and if all you say about him is true, I can’t help thinking that maybe it’s not over. It’s just hard for me to believe you could be taken that way, girl. You’re a good judge of people. Maybe you weren’t wrong about him. Maybe it’s not over yet.”

Carny sniffed back the pain that threatened to smother her and whispered, “Trust me, it’s over. He left a message that he was rethinking telling the town the truth. That’s not surrender to God. He’s still playing the game. He didn’t mean any of it.”

“It’s hard to change, baby. Maybe he just lost his nerve. Maybe he needs more time to do the right thing.”

Carny wouldn’t give him more time. She wouldn’t be taken again.

Back at her parents’ trailer, she tried to get comfortable on her pallet. But Logan’s words last night reeled through her mind, keeping her awake. Disappointment in him ached through her, but her disappointment in herself hurt worst of all.

She realized as she lay awake on the floor of the trailer she had been so eager to leave years ago, with her sweet, innocent little boy lying on the bed where she used to sleep, that it didn’t matter who she had been. Ruth’s affirming words had helped. In the end, it came down to whether she could look herself in the mirror each morning and know that she’d done the best she could.

She was strong, and she had survived before. She’d get over this, just like the town would. It wouldn’t be easy, and it would take time for her to heal. But she had too much going for her to let someone like Logan Brisco rob her of her spirit or the joy in her life.

After a sleepless night, dawn invaded the room, lighting the old trailer with gray tones, and Carny asked herself the final question that kept eating at her.

Why couldn’t she hate him?

That was the ultimate punch line of his con. That no matter what he did to her, she couldn’t hate him. He was the first person since Abe who had made her fall in love. And that part wouldn’t be easy to get over.

Jason stirred and turned over. “Mom? Can we ride the roller coaster today?”

Smiling, she told herself she could get by as long as she had Jason. “Sure, honey.”

“Can we stay here a long time?”

“Maybe a couple more days,” she said. “Until they tear down.”

“Really? We don’t have to rush back home?”

“No,” she whispered. “I’m in no hurry to get back home.”