“You don’t have to feel guilty about it anymore. None of it was your fault.”
She could have said she so close to believing that. Instead she told him a story. “I was listening to the radio a while ago, a news station. They reported some guy who broke into this twelve-year-old girl’s bedroom and raped her.” She closed her eyes. “I almost starting crying, Cameron. I mean, how could anyone do that to a kid? A child. A little girl.”
When she opened her lids, her lashes were wet, but no moisture dripped to her cheeks. “I didn’t see it then, but I see it now. I never let myself be a kid. I never let myself see I was the same as that twelve-year-old. Even though there was a year’s difference. I got rid of the baby because he told me to. Because I was a child and I didn’t know what else to do.”
Cameron fell feather-light across her body. Nothing more than a scent, a breeze, a taste of the peppermints he’d chewed when he couldn’t smoke, he was there for her.
“That wasn’t a dream I had the other night. It was the truth I never wanted to see. It was about my uncle and the nights he came to my room. It wasn’t about Wendy, but it’s why she and I were connected even without you.”
It was the connection with all the others, too, Bethany, Tiffany, Angela. Her past. Their past.
“So I will tell Witt when the moment’s right.” Once, that would have been a lie to get Cameron off her case. It had now become a promise, to herself more than him. “I’ll tell him everything I refused to tell you.”
“You refused even to remember it.”
Their sentences were punctuated by long silences. “That was the difference for us, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. But you know the truth now. That’s all I wanted. Today you’ve gone further. You’ve accepted it without blaming yourself. I’m proud of you. I believe you when you say you’ll tell him.”
A bird chirped in a nearby tree. A single drop of rain slid down her cheek.
“Why didn’t you kill BJ?”
How to put into words something she’d just come to realize? Words were all she would have to offer Witt when the time came. “I’m not like Bud. I’m not like my uncle. I always thought I was.” She chewed her bottom lip. “But even after I let them kill the baby, I was never like him. Bud or my uncle. I ... had emotion about it. Bud felt nothing. Killing had been a way for him to keep on being ... what he was.” Dew soaked through the seat of Sutter’s jeans. But somehow the wet cool feel of it didn’t seep inside Max. “So I didn’t kill Bud because I’m not a murderer. Not last night. And not when I was thirteen.”
He sighed with the wind. It was what he’d waited all these years to hear.
She looked down at her hand amid the green blades of grass. Her wedding ring sparkled with an inner light. In slow motion, she raised her hand. With shaking fingers, she removed the ring, tugging it over the joint when it stuck. “You’ve been waiting for me to ask you to go, haven’t you?”
“Yes, my love.”
She leaned forward and placed the ring at the base of his headstone. A vein beat at her temple. “It’s long past time for me to let go.” She closed her eyes. Tears leaked beneath her lids. “But I’m going to miss you so.”
“You’ll be okay, Max.”
Pressing the metal into the dirt, she watched it disappear into the soil. “I’m okay now.” Her nose began to run. She sniffed. “Thank you for staying long enough to make sure I was.”
“Love him. With everything in you. It’s not a betrayal to me.”
She thought of Witt, the dimple in his chin, the softness of his buzz cut, and the intensity in his blue eyes. “Leave it to me, Cameron. I can love. Even if I’m afraid.”
“You’ll never stop being afraid.”
“No. But if you never have to battle your own fears, there’s no struggle. And no victory.”
“Sounds like something wise I’d say.”
“Maybe you have and this is the first time I’ve listened.”
He was silent so long she thought he’d left. But his peppermint scent clung to her and with her eyes closed, she felt his density as if he were more than dust.
“I’m sorry I never told you about my past, Max. I blamed you for not opening up to me, but I never truly opened up for you. I should have told you how Cordelia’s disappearance affected my life. My mother. She just mentally went away, pretended Cordelia was never born. I think that’s why I always ragged on you to face your past. Because I was afraid you’d shut me out like Cordelia and my mother did, keeping secrets, pretending bad things hadn’t happened. Both of us were guilty of keeping secrets, but I never took responsibility for my part.”
It all made sense. Together, their pasts had taken away their chance for a future. How ... sad. So freaking sad.
“Do you want me to find Cordelia and give her a proper burial?”
“Her body couldn’t rest in a place she loved more. Let it be now, my love. But thank you.”