Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
“That is a condition of your parole, yes.” He nods. “That doesn’t mean conditions aren’t lifted with time. You keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll see what I can do.”
His offer surprises me, though it shouldn’t. “I’d appreciate that.”
“I told you at the start, didn’t I?” Glen pats his chest. “Big fan.”
“Have I been here before?” The cemetery where Jay rests is on the outskirts of town, surrounded by farm fields in every direction. The driveway in is lengthy and lined by bushes. We’re the only people here today. The only living ones, anyway.
“Of course. Your grandparents are buried here. You were young, though.” My mother leads me past tombstones adorned by flowers—both real and fake—and small jars for candles to the end of the row, where a simple rectangle in dark granite sits. “Here we are.” She stoops to swap the spent flowers for a fresh bouquet.
Seeing Jay’s full name and dates of birth and death hits me in the stomach a lot harder than I expected, which is ironic given it’s just a piece of stone, not nearly as vivid as the mental image of Jay’s lifeless body lying on the pavement that I still carry.
“‘We remember the good,’” I read the engraved line out loud.
“I didn’t want to leave it blank. That didn’t feel right.” Her smile is sad as she regards her eldest child’s resting spot. “There was good in him. Even if I’m the only one who remembers it.”
“You’re not the only one.” The truth is, Jay wasn’t some one-dimensional cartoon villain. He was like any other guy—he liked music, beach days in summer down on Manitoulin Island, fishing on Lake Temagami with his kid brother. He helped his mother carry in groceries, and if he got caught at home when a bale of hay needed dropping out in the field, he’d help with that, even if he hated doing it.
Jay had redeeming qualities.
But he also loved chasing thrills, and he never considered the consequences.
And he destroyed so many lives. He might not have meant to, but the decisions were his, all the same. That is the ongoing battle that all who loved him have to face, and there is no solution that leaves any of us at peace. I have twenty years’ worth of reasons to hate him and yet buried among it all, I still remember the good.
My mom kneels, and with her spade in hand begins removing weeds that dared take root. “You know, I noticed that pencil-drawn sketch when I took all those posters down. I recognized Jay’s handwriting. Made me wonder how long it’d been there. ’Course, I had no idea what it meant, but a part of me worried. A bigger part of me didn’t want to know.” She examines the thistle she’s extracted and then digs deeper, yanking out the thick white root. “Just like I had a feeling there was more to that story with you and that man in prison. A part of me worried that it had something to do with Jay, and a part of me didn’t want to know. I didn’t mind wearing blinders. I needed them.”
Finished with her task, she rises, brushing her hands across her jeans. It’s a rare summer day when Annie Landry isn’t wearing soil. “You all think I didn’t know what my son was. That’s why you and Emery hid all this mess with Hank and the stolen jewelry from me, until you couldn’t anymore, right?”
“We didn’t know exactly what we were looking for, and I was worried what we might find,” I admit.
Her gray-blue eyes study me. “You mean bodies?”
There’s no way to sugarcoat that. “Yeah.”
Her brow pinches. “And if you had found them? What then?”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head because, honestly, I don’t know how I would have handled discovering that Jay was involved in someone else’s death. I suppose that could still be the case. “But thank God we didn’t find that. We righted a wrong and put two people behind bars who deserve to be there.” Cold River is a better place without Hank Murphy, regardless of whether it benefits me.
“So, your brother ended up helping you from the grave.” She pats the tombstone. “And now I think it’s time you let go of all of it, Logan. Move on from that tragedy, and from agonizing about what Jay may or may not have done all those years ago. It’s not your burden to carry. Not anymore.”
I inhale deeply, feeling her words. I hadn’t realized how much the years of wondering and worrying had weighed on me, how much the unknown had festered to the worst possible outcomes.
“You still have a whole life ahead of you to live, and it can be such a beautiful one, if you allow it.” Reaching up to cup my jaw, she smiles, then releases me and ambles over to tackle the weeds at my grandparents’ grave.