The Dead Husband by Carter Wilson (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

He absorbs this, processes this in whatever way his soul is capable of doing such a thing.

And then he says, “Love is weak.”

“No, it’s not. You loved Mom. You must have loved her.”

“And look what that got me.”

I shake my head. “So you just go through the rest of your life like that? Emotionless?”

He unfolds his arms and walks into the room, then settles in his favorite chair. “I guess I’m more like your sister than you.” He looks over to the liquor bottles, considering but not moving. “You asked me last night about family.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“You asked how I could sit there and just let…let everything happen, when all I’ve ever talked about is protecting us.” He slouches down in his stuffed chair, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen my father slouch in his life. Logan Yates is a man who always sits up straight, an iron spine, always ready for action. Now he looks tired and beaten, finally appearing as old as he is. Maybe older. “I thought about that a lot last night. All through the night, through everything I had to do, I thought about family. And sometime this morning, around sunrise, I realized something.” He looks over at me. “Maybe she would’ve hurt you, but I think what happened…the outcome…is what she wanted. I think it’s what we all wanted. I never had the strength to do it, and you did. When I was standing there watching you two last night, all I wanted to do was keep you both safe. But then I saw there was this chance to finally solve the Yates family problem. The problem of Cora.”

“I could have died,” I say.

“Yes. You could have.”

I rise, and as I stand over him, he doesn’t seem so big anymore. He’s more pitiful than evil.

“You can’t protect me,” I say. “You never could. Safety is an illusion.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“There’s no getting out of this. I don’t even know what you did last night…where you…where she is. But Peter and Willow must be missing her. They must have called.”

“Peter called,” my father says. “I told him she left here angry, but I assumed she drove back home.” He looks up at me, fatigue wearing heavy on his face. “And you’re right, there may be no getting out of this one.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

There’re things I want to ask him. I want to ask what he did with Cora, if she’s buried in the same place as Caleb. I want to know why Cora became who she became and if he had anything to do with it.

But my need to understand is overpowered by my burning desire to remove Max and me from this family forever. I don’t want to run from the law. I want to run from my name.

“I’m done with this family,” I say. “Forever.”

The squint, the perpetual squint, for once softens and his eyes widen, like a baby taking in the world for the first time. His pupils are dark, nearly charcoal. But there is an ounce of emotion in my father’s face. Maybe it’s a mirage induced by all the stress heaped on my system, but I think I see emotion.

Sadness.

A soft, poignant, painful sadness, one unable to hide behind his usual mask of resolve. The look of a man who’s fought for everything all his life, only to find death still ultimately comes. And comes hard.

“Is that really what you want, Rosie?”

I don’t hesitate with my answer. “So bad I can taste it.”

“Do you dream of disappearing?”

A strange question, but easy to answer. “Like I dream of selling a million books.”

“You can’t have both,” he says. “You can’t be a famous author and be off the grid.”

“I’m not selling a million books anytime soon.”

He stands, using obvious effort. Takes a step, leans into me. I don’t pull away. He kisses my forehead. Once. Then pulls back.

I think, just maybe, that’s the only kiss he’s ever given me.

“If that’s the case,” he says, “then I want you to run. Take your boy and run.”

“What?”

“I haven’t led the cleanest life, Rose. Obviously you know some substantial reasons why, others you don’t. But I always had a plan for us. A way to get out.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You, me, Cora. A parachute cord set up for each of us.”

“What the hell is a parachute cord?”

“A phone number,” he says. “Actually, three phone numbers. One for each of us. Three different agents, each unrelated to the other.”

“Agents for what?”

He shrugs. “A new life.”

Sixty-One

My father walks over to the bookshelves, pulls out a volume that sits at eye level. A hardcover of Gone with the Wind. He opens it and removes three slips of paper, looks at them, puts two slips back, then shelves the book.

“I’ve had these numbers for twenty-two years and pay annual retainers to keep them active. There was always something…comforting about knowing I could up and disappear without a trace if I wanted. A complete sense of freedom.” He turns, walks over, stands eye to eye with me. “Funny thing is, whenever I think there might be a need to use these numbers, I don’t want to go anywhere. I always want to stay and fight whatever threat I’m facing.”

He hands me the slip of paper. There’s a phone number typed on it. Long number, international. Above the number is a single word, written in my father’s hand.

Rosie.

“If you stay and everything comes out,” I say, “you’ll go to prison.”

He smiles, such a rare and unsettling thing. “No, no. I won’t be going to prison. Even if I get arrested, I can afford a lawyer who will get me out on bail. I’ll put a gun in my mouth long before I do any jail time. Maybe in my favorite chair.”

My father isn’t prone to hyperbole. I believe everything he’s telling me, and I can’t find the empathy to argue against his plan.

“And who knows?”