I stand there for a few more minutes. She looks at peace. It doesn’t matter if anyone’s ever told her about yoga breathing before—in this moment, she’s totally content. I’ve seen a lot of girls in my time, but watching her out there in the pasture, I think she looks like no girl I have ever seen before.
Chapter 10: Jill
Brunch with Uncle Nate is grueling. Mom is thrilled to be out, though, and so for that, I am thankful, even though I know an excursion like this is going to leave her drained and exhausted for the next few days.
I always thought my uncle was a more severe version of my father, and since Dad died, it’s become even more so. The lines on his face have gotten deeper, his shoulders have gotten rounder—though whether that’s from stress or working out, I couldn’t tell you—even his voice seems louder. He yanks at the collar of his black polo shirt, as though it’s choking him, even though he’s only got one of the buttons fastened.
For the first half of the meal, we manage to stay on relatively neutral topics. School. Mom’s health. My summer job.
“How is it going with that young man?” Mom asks.
“Young man?” Uncle Nate says. He blots at the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “Is there a special man in your life?”
I laugh. “Uh, no.”
“A young man showed up at camp and he and Jilly weren’t seeing eye to eye on everything,” Mom says.
“Can’t get along with everyone,” Uncle Nate says sagely. “That is an unfortunate fact of life. Even your father, bless his soul, couldn’t get along with everyone.” He takes a sip of his water, ice clinking around the glass. “Hard to believe it’s almost been a year.”
Cue conspiracy talk in five, four, three, two, one—
“It’d be easier to accept and move on if someone was paying for the crime. If it was acknowledged in a court of law that—”
“Nathan. It was an accident.” Mom reaches one pale hand out and touches Uncle Nate’s thick wrist. “I was there.”
“But we can’t expect you to remember everything clearly, especially considering all that you’ve been through. You experienced severe trauma, Annabel. You’re still experiencing it. Life as you knew it has been completely upended. Your husband was killed. You’re in a wheelchair, for god’s sake! You don’t want the person responsible to pay for this?”
“It was an accident,” Mom says softly.
“No, no it wasn’t. I might not have the hard evidence to take to the cops, but this all goes back to the when Mike worked for CFG. He didn’t give me all the details, but he was onto something. Something with one of those food companies, the baby formula they manufactured. Labeling it as one thing but dumping all these harmful ingredients into it. He didn’t get the chance to give me the specifics, but he was planning to report it to the proper channels.” Uncle Nate sits back and looks at us, as if rehashing his theory for the nine millionth time might jar something loose from our memories.
“Dad didn’t talk to me about his job,” I say. Dad always had various white-collar jobs, but his real love was being outside, doing things with his hands. No, when Dad and I spent time together, we talked about nature, about astronomy, we talked about the weather and the types of clouds, we went bird-watching, clamming—we did all the things Dad couldn’t do when he was at work. “And I think we should also stop talking about it. I don’t think he’d want us sitting around speculating about it.”
“Dammit!” Uncle Nate slams his fist on the table. The silverware jumps; the glasses rattle. The people seated closest to us stop talking and look. “Why am I the only one who is not going to rest until this has been resolved? Until this family gets the justice it deserves?”
“Because you don’t know when to just leave something alone?” I ask, which is something Dad himself would say—though in a much fonder tone—about Uncle Nate from time to time.
“You people just want to try to go on with what’s left of your lives while whoever did this is out there probably doing more of the same twisted shit. I can’t just sit back and not take action. It’s not in my blood.” He looks at me. “Your father and I might have very different ways of going about things, but essentially, it’s the same thing: We will not let an injustice slip through the cracks. We will not allow those who have committed crimes, for Christ’s sake, to get off scot-free.”
“So what?” I say, annoyed that the conversation has once again turned into this. “Are you saying you’re some vigilante now? That you’re going to go out and seek justice for us in your own way since you’ve basically got nothing to go on?”
“What if I told you I was working on a way to get the person who I believe is responsible for this to come forward? To finally own up to it? Would it matter to you the WAY in which I went about it?”
“Actually, yes.”
Uncle Nate stares. “Is that so?”
“Well, it seems a little hypocritical of you to go off and do something illegal in order to prove that someone else is guilty of doing something illegal.”
“Even if it meant getting some measure of justice for your father?” He looks at Mom. “For your mother?”
“Is justice going to bring Dad back? Is justice going to magically fix Mom’s spinal cord?”
Uncle Nate waves a hand at me dismissively. “You know I love you, Jill. But you’re shaming this family right now. If it was you who had been killed or injured, your father wouldn’t rest until he found out who did it. I can guarantee you that.”
“The only guarantee I’d like from you is that you won’t bring this up anymore. Because I’m sick of hearing about it. Do I wish Dad hadn’t died? Of course. More than you probably know, Uncle Nate. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s dead, and you making me crazy with these ridiculous conspiracy theories of yours is not how I want to spend the rest of my life.”
We stare at each other. He’s a man used to winning these sorts of stare downs, but not this time. He finally looks away and picks up his water glass again, takes a sip.
“Please . . . can we just enjoy our time out?” Mom says. “I’d just like to enjoy the three of us being here together and not talk about that other stuff right now.”
“You never want to talk about it,” Uncle Nate says huffily. He takes a deep breath. “But fine. Tell me more about this young man, Jill. He’s a love interest of yours?”
“Definitely not,” I say. I take a sip of orange juice even though I’m not thirsty. “We actually don’t get along. I’m hoping he’ll be leaving soon, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.” As if I could be so lucky.
After we get Mom back home and settled, Uncle Nate acts like he’s going to leave, but instead asks me to walk with him out to his car.
He pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and extracts a check from it, which he hands to me. “If you need more, let me know,” he says.
I grit my teeth and fold the check without looking at the sum, which I know contains a lot of zeros. “Thank you,” I manage to say.
He rubs his hand across the lower part of his face and then folds his arms across his chest. “Jill,” he says.
I look at him. “I know you think I can’t let things go,” he continues, “and maybe you’re right, but I know this wasn’t an accident. I just know it. As much as I know how much your father loved you and your mother, and how proud of you he was.”
I stuff the check into the pocket of my jeans and take a step toward him. He is only a few inches taller than I am. “You are free to do what you want,” I tell him. “But neither Mom nor I need to hear any more about your conspiracy theories, or whatever illegal activities you’ve decided to do to try to get justice. Do you understand me? And this has nothing to do with how much I love my father or how very much I wish that none of this shit happened to begin with.”
He uncrosses his arms and for a second I think he’s going to hit me, because people just don’t talk like that to Uncle Nate, but instead he just holds his hands up as though admitting defeat.
“I guess it’s just something I don’t understand. Maybe it’s because you’re women. Maybe women process things differently.”
“It has nothing to do with that.”
“Well, what is it, then? You don’t want me to talk about this stuff in front of your mother because it upsets her—okay, I won’t. But I’d appreciate it if you would enlighten me as to why you are so content to just sit back and do nothing. YOUR FATHER IS DEAD.”
“I FUCKING KNOW THAT!” I scream back. The neighbors across the street had been sitting on their front porch, but they quickly get up and move inside.
“Well, if you know that then I don’t understand why you don’t want to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! It was no accident, Jill, mark my words. What kind of sign are you waiting for? What the hell needs to happen to make you realize that there is something more going on here?”
I pull the check from my pocket and rip it up into tiny pieces and throw them in his face where they flutter down like confetti. “We don’t need your money. We don’t need you coming around here trying to tell us that we don’t care when in fact we do. Just because we don’t happen to deal with things the same way you do doesn’t mean it doesn’t bother us. Don’t you get that? Or have you just got it all figured out? Go off and do whatever it is that you think is going to prove something that’s un-provable. Go ahead. We don’t need to hear about it.”
“Some day you will,” he snaps. “I hope to god that someday, somehow, something will make you realize that this wasn’t just an accident.”
He gets in his car and peels away, leaving me standing there in a cloud of exhaust.
Bill and Lorrie have taken the kids on a hike, so Karen and I stay back and work in the kitchen to get things ready for the cookout we’ll have later. This cookout is a more toned down version of the Beach Party BBQ. There won’t be any camping out on the beach and everyone will probably be back and in bed by ten, but we still have an enormous amount of food to prepare. Karen is making a giant bowl of fruit salad and I’m patting out circles of ground beef into burgers.
“I just feel so fortunate for this opportunity,” Karen says as she slices strawberries. “Especially since Griff got here.”
I squeeze the handful of ground beef that I’ve got and feel it ooze through my fingers. Better than a stress ball. “I didn’t realize him showing up would drastically alter the quality of your time here.”
“Well, it’s just that I get to work with someone who’s clearly so gifted in . . . many areas, really.”
I stifle a laugh. “And you too,” Karen adds quickly. “I mean, you’re so great with the horses. And he’s so great at so many things. Did you see him swimming today?”
“No, I missed out on that exquisite pleasure.”
She stops chopping fruit and leans toward me. “I think he’s the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. Allison is so lucky!”
The screen door peels open and Griffin walks into the kitchen, alone.
“Where’s Allison?” I say.
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I heard you ladies might need some assistance in here getting the stuff for the cookout ready.”
He walks over to where we’re standing and grabs a handful of raspberries from one of the containers.
“You’re not going to wash that first?” Karen asks. “You don’t know what pesticides it’s got on it.”
He pops the raspberry into his mouth. “Sweetheart,” he says. “I smoke cigarettes. Do you think a chemical or two on a piece of fruit is going to bother me? You should be congratulating me for making healthy eating choices.”
She blushes. “Congratulations.”
I roll my eyes. “You shouldn’t smoke. It’s disgusting.”
He leans against the refrigerator and tosses a few more raspberries into his mouth. I look down at the burgers, but I can see him watching me.
“Why Jill,” he says. “I didn’t realize you cared. I’m touched.” He smiles.
“I don’t care about you,” I say. “I care about the fact that you’re smoking around the horses, and setting a bad example for the kids here.”
“I’ve actually cut way back,” he says. “It must have something to do with being out here in all this fresh air. My lungs just don’t know what to do with themselves.”
