And lots of couch time, which Garreth refrained from mentioning. Shrinks, too, being only for psychos and wimps. “Right.”
“Oh, and you’re going to straighten Judith out about this adoption nonsense, right?”
That mention tightened Garreth’s gut but he said, “Right,” again.
To his relief, after a slap on the back, his father left him alone, heading into the house for lunch.
Garreth sat down at the foot of their big oak tree. The earth welcomed him, easing some daylight’s discomfort. Lying back against the trunk, he had looked up and seen the platform his father built for Shane and him when they were kids. His father still tended it religiously, keeping it safe for Brian, and for Shane’s kids when they visited.
Brian. Garreth sighed. As soon as he went over to visit, the question of adoption was bound to come up again. He closed his eyes wearily. What should he do about it?
Feet whispered down the back steps and across the lawn toward him, but he left his eyes closed. The scent of lavender overwhelming that of blood told him who it was.
The feet stopped a short distance away. “Dearg-dul. Undead,” his grandmother said quietly.
Fighting his eyes open, he saw her lower herself into a lawn chair.
“Why is it you’re walking?”
He sat up. “Grandma, I’m not dead! Look at me. I walk; I breathe; my heart beats. I reflect in mirrors. I can touch your cross, too.”
“But what do you eat? Do you still love the sun?”
Rather than answer that, he said, “I’m still and always your grandson. I won’t hurt you or any of the family.” Then after hesitating: “I don’t drink human blood.”
She regarded him uncertainly, then, with a quick touch on the cross around her neck, patted the side of the chair. “Come to me.”
She sat in the sun, but he moved to the ground beside her.
She reached out to touch stroke his hair. “Is it to avenge yourself on she who did this to you that you can’t sleep?”
He considered several answers before giving the one she seemed to want. “Yes.”
She sighed. “Poor unquiet spirit.”
While he winced at that, he welcomed the easing of her fear. “I need your help.”
“To find her?”
Garreth nodded. “And get away from here without upsetting Mom and Dad. I can’t stay without giving away that I’ve changed.”
She nodded. “So what will you be wanting me to do?”
At the fierce tone of her voice, he had to laugh. She looked so righteously angry, so ready to go into battle against the fiend who had done this to her grandson, that Garreth regretted needing so little from her: a photograph and abetting his escape. Coming onto his knees, he hugged her.
She hugged him back and then, to his dismay, began sobbing. He knew he was hearing her cry over his grave.
He held her until she quieted, wondering…could she be right? Was he nothing but a temporarily animated instrument of revenge?
It made a hell of a thought to take with him when he visited Brian that afternoon. Thinking it, he stood back a mental distance from himself and the boy. For the first time he saw the formality in his son’s attitude toward him, so different from Brian’s easy behavior with his stepfather. Logic told Garreth it was natural; Brian saw Dennis every day, whereas, for six years, since the boy was two, Garreth had been no more than a visitor. How much less would he be from now on?
“Judith,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about the adoption.”
She looked quickly at him. “I’m sorry I brought it up. I didn’t know then what happened to you.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. If you and Dennis want — ”
She shook her head, cutting him off. “It can wait. You’ve got enough already to deal with.”
He had regarded her with surprise, but nodded, and for once, a visit went amicably. So amicably he regretted having to dodge Judith’s dinner invitation.
“Mom’s probably planned something special at home.”
Yes…stuffed porkchops, one of his favorites growing up. Walking into the house, he smelled them with dismay. Evading lunch had worked by waiting until his father left, then claiming loss of appetite over confronting Judith about the adoption issue. His mother accepted that. He needed more to finesse his way out of dinner. Saying he had already eaten, taking Brian out for hamburgers, did not cut it.
“You’ve always had room for my porkchops,” his mother said.
His father fixed him with a hard stare that said: I don’t care if you’ve eaten a whole cow; you will eat what your mother’s cooked!
Grandma Doyle jumped to her feet.“The phone.”
His father frowned. “I don’t hear it.”
“It’s going to ring.” She hurried into the hall. They heard her pick up the phone and talk, then she peered back around the diningroom door. “It’s for you, Garreth. Someone named Chris Murdock.”
Grandma to the rescue! Now he needed to play his part.
Before driving home, he had spent hours considering escape plans. Any visit was always too short for his mother, so the trick was getting around his father, finding an excuse for leaving which Phil Mikaelian not only accepted but encouraged in the face of maternal objections. Eventually he approached the problem as he would cracking a suspect. Use what pushed the subject’s buttons.
He stood in the hall talking to the dial tone. “Hey, man, what’s up? … Sure I remember. … Yeah, of course I would. When — … When? … Just a minute.” He came back to the diningroom. “I’ve been invited to go hunting in Montana on the family ranch of this narcotics officer Harry and I know. What do you think, Dad? Do I say yes?”
Envy lit his father’s eyes. “Of course. When is it?”
“That’s the kicker.” Garreth grimaced. “His father’s flying into Sacramento tomorrow to pick up Chris and a cousin who lives there. If I want to go, I have to meet them at the airport.”
“Tomorrow!”his mother protested. “No! You just got here!”
He sent a look of appeal at his father and watched the wheels turn: guns, big game, testosterone party.
“This is pretty last minute, isn’t it?”
An expected question. Garreth nodded. “Another guy had to cancel and Harry told Chris it would be good for me to go.”
Like him, his father thought the world of Harry, and Garreth shamelessly played to that. For Harry, struggling back from near death, to worry about Garreth tipped the scale. As he knew it would.
Hunting had occupied the rest of the dinner conversation…reminisces about past hunting trips of his father’s and ones father and sons took together…advice on outfitting himself once he reached Montana, since there was no time to do so here. While his mother scowled at the two of them.
Garreth welcomed that. Tears of disappointment would made him feel truly rotten. The tears came the next morning, saying goodbye, but the feel of the photo in his jacket pocket helped him steel himself and focus on what he had to do.
10
Lien, Harry, San Francisco, and his family seemed a universe away from these Kansas plains. Just I Ching lingered with him. Persevere. Yes, he would, to the end of the earth and time…whatever it took to find Lane. That threat of failure if he set himself up as judge kept ringing in his head, however. Reminding him that even without a badge, he must act as lawfully as though he carried it.
The highway entered Bachman. After asking directions, Garreth found the high school. Climbing out of the car, warm wind struck him. It had some qualities of a sea breeze…pushiness, an aggressive wildness, a singing contempt for the land and what crawled there. It buffeted him, bringing the scents of fresh-watered grass and dusty earth, and pushed him up the steps into the building.
He located the office and the principal, a Mr. Charles Dreher, who listened to his story with interest. “Every since Roots was on TV, more and more people are hunting theirs. I’m happy to help.”