“You’re right, Amanda. I’m sorry. You know, when I didn’t see you-know-who’s name in the paper for Arlington funerals I just began to wonder.”
“Remember how crazy it was last time? They buried him, but he was really alive at Fort Bragg. I think they just wanted to get it over with. Yeah, we went to the ceremony for that guy, but it was right after that we sorted out everything about my dad.”
It bothered her to call Lance Eversoll “that guy,” but she transformed that feeling into a pained countenance.
“Come here.” Nina clutched her again, her bony arms bruising Amanda’s back.
She felt her grandmother begin to shake. “What is it, Nina?” Perhaps her plan was back intact. “Let’s sit down.”
They sat close to one another on the sofa. The television was turned to mute and the network news had begun, but the fire still replayed in a small inset next to the anchor’s head as she spoke. Amanda wondered if Mary Ann had time to make the papers this morning.
“Grandma, talk to me, please?”
Nina looked at her absently. “Grandma.” It was a statement, not a question. “That sounds nice. You always called me Nina because you couldn’t say ‘Grandma’ as a little child.”
Amanda knew this was a lie. Nina had named herself that and began reciting it with Amanda when she was three.
“I know, but, you know, Grandma just sometimes feels good to say. It’s kind of like saying ‘I love you.’”
Again, she saw Nina’s features soften another notch.
“Well, I guess that’s okay. Sure makes me feel good.”
“You don’t feel good much, do you Grandma? I mean, you always seem on edge like you can’t trust anyone and you need to defend yourself.”
Nina paused a moment and then spoke. “I suppose, Amanda. I’ve lived a hard life, you know. Came from nothing. Anytime I let anyone get close to me it seems they wound up hurting me. So I just quit letting it happen.”
“But you know, Grandma, you won’t even let me close to you. I mean, we’re sitting here next to each other, close and all, but not emotionally close.”
“I can’t remember the last time I let someone get emotionally close to me, or me them.”
“If you don’t allow yourself to be fully happy, what kind of life is that, Grandma?” Again with the name, like a hypnotist.
“So many people out there, they want things. They take from you all the time.”
“Come on, Grandma, it’s not that bad. Just let it go. You’ve got so much held up inside you. For all these years you’ve just bottled it up. Remember that time we were at Six Flags, and we did the wet and wild ride? That was so much fun. That was the real Grandma that I grew up loving. Where did that person go?”
Nina sniffed. Perhaps it was possible to derive water from a rock, Amanda thought. She reached up and rubbed her grandmother’s shoulder with her right hand. “It’s going to be okay, Grandma. Just let yourself feel something. You’ve got to start trusting someone. Can you trust me?”
The aging woman began to show her years as if a computer imaging program had redrawn her. Amanda could see the demons that she carried waking and creating havoc. The tortured look on Nina’s face told Amanda that somewhere in the basement of her soul a stagnant conscience must have emitted an electrical pulse. If only briefly, Amanda saw the look of absolute guilt cross her grandmother’s face.
“Can you trust me, Grandma? It’s important to me that you do.”
Her grandmother lifted her hand slowly, tentatively, and reached toward Amanda, placing the leathery paw on her arm and then sliding it down and clasping her hand.
“I can try, Amanda. I guess it’s time to start trying. We’ve been through a lot together, and I think if I were to pick one person in this world that I could trust it would be you.”
“We make a great team, you and me, Grandma.”
Amanda held her grandmother’s hand and pulled her close so that they could hug. She noticed a picture of Mary Ann Singlaub appear on the television screen next to a Web site excerpt. The anchor was obviously referring to what Mary Ann had written. She knew it was time.
“Grandma, I’m really tired. I didn’t sleep all night. Can I just go upstairs and take a nap?”
“Well, I’m up and I imagine your mother’s going to need some help.” She sighed heavily, blowing out a fraction of the stress she had been carrying for decades.
“Well, can you tuck me in like you used to do?” Amanda paused for effect and then pleaded. “Please, Grandma?”
Nina smiled at the thought. “You really are my little girl, you know. When you were born I stood right there and said, ‘God gave me exactly what I wanted.’”
“I know.” Amanda smiled tightly.
Amanda grabbed Nina’s hand and walked with her through the hallway and toward the foyer where she would turn and take the staircase up to her room. As she passed the front door, she paused and said, “What’s this?”
“What?” Nina seemed lost in another time, perhaps a place she always wanted to be, ensconced in the love of a child.
Amanda opened the door, still holding her grandmother’s hand with her opposite hand. Standing on the porch were two police officers from Spartanburg. They wore pressed gray shirts with creasing along the pockets.
“Hi officers, this is my grandmother. I believe she’s the one you’re looking for in relation to the prostitution of Brianna Simpson.”
The rage came back into her grandmother’s face instantly. The scared little girl suddenly became the fierce, hardscrabble Southerner. Snatching her hand from Amanda’s, leaving a long fingernail scratch down her wrist, Nina reached for her granddaughter’s throat.
“You little bitch!”
Blocking her thrust with a strong hand, Amanda grabbed her grandmother’s wrist. “No, Grandma, I just wanted you to feel for one minute what it was like to trust somebody and have them screw you over. Take how you feel right now and multiply it by seventeen years. That’s what you and your daughter did to me.”
Amanda stared at her for a moment, wanting to snap the tender wrist in her hand. “How’s it feel, Gabrielle?”
The look on her grandmother’s face shifted from utter contempt to a blank stare. Without much fanfare the police officers had Gabrielle Hastings handcuffed and seated in the back of the police cruiser.
Amanda Garrett walked up the stairs and began surveying everything that she wanted to take with her.
After all, it wasn’t her house anymore.
CHAPTER 82
Matt could feel his face tighten with the pains of scarring and healing. He had a major cut across his forehead that had required stitches and two on his left cheek, his exposed side, where the doctor had gone in and removed the metal. One piece of shrapnel had penetrated his cheek and actually chipped one of his rear molars.
Considering everything, the doctor told him he was going to be just fine. Everyone who came to see him called him A-Rod, the nickname of Alex Rodriguex, star infielder for the New York Yankees.
“Okay, A-Rod, you’re free to leave and do whatever you are going to do. I don’t guess it’s any use telling you not to jump out of airplanes, fight bad guys, or try to save the world, right?”
“Right,” Matt grimaced, sitting up. The wounds on his legs were minor, like the scrape from a bad slide into second base.
He walked with some pain through the hospital corridor into the waiting SUV. The sun was bright and high in the sky to the west. Late afternoon. The fabled 100 days of wind had seemed to start as the hawking gales blew out of the mountains and swept across the plains, making air travel even more treacherous than normal.