He stared at the trees in front of him, his eyes on the sliver of Windisle Manor that could be seen from where he sat.
He heard a vehicle approach and his heart jumped, settling into a quickened beat as a car door slammed and footsteps approached. But then he heard murmuring on the other side of the wall and a slip of paper landed on the grass to his right.
After a moment, the footsteps retreated and Jonah’s heart slowed, the disappointment he hated himself for feeling twisted through him like thick, noxious smoke that filled his lungs and made it hurt to breathe.
Why was he out here again anyway? To torture himself? To rub it in?
She’d never be back.
He reached for the wish, opening the folded piece of paper with one hand, and turning his head slightly so he could see the small, precise writing with his good eye. My little boy needs surgery and I can’t pay for it. Please help me find a way.
Fuck.
He hated when the wishes involved kids. It made him feel more depressed than he already was, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. So he just had to try not to think about the fact that there was some unknown woman out there with a sick kid she couldn’t help. God, if Justin were here, he would have—
Another vehicle pulled up, the car door closing with a soft click. Jonah drew air into his lungs and let it out slowly, evenly. He tilted his head and waited for a wish to fall through one of the cracks and instead heard the sound of the car pulling away. He tensed.
“Hi, Jonah,” she said, and he heard her slide down the wall as she took her usual seat, the one that had sat empty for the past two Sundays. He knew because he’d come anyway, forcing himself to sit alone and bear the loneliness that was so much worse than it’d been before her. Before Clara.
I won’t say a word. I won’t, he promised himself. He’d let her think he wasn’t there. He’d told her not to come back, so why would he let her know of his presence? That he was waiting like a pitiful fool for something he himself had put an end to?
And why in the hell was she there anyway? Had she not listened? Had she not looked him up after all?
“I know you’re there. I . . . I was hoping you would be.”
Okay, so she could probably hear him breathing, the same way he could hear her. She could probably see the small slips of blocked light where he leaned against the wall. Hell, maybe she could feel him the way he felt her. Some type of inexplicable magnetism that pulled at him, which made him want to dissolve through the wall and touch her warmth. No!
No. This was why he’d told her to leave. These thoughts that ran untethered through his brain whenever she was near, the way he could smell her soft scent even underneath that god-awful liniment she sometimes had on.
Clara sighed. “Fine. If you won’t talk to me, I’ll talk to you.” She paused and he pressed his ear against the cold stone as if she might be whispering under her breath and if he leaned closer, he could make out the soft, secretive sound.
“I read about what happened, Jonah. I read about Amanda Kershaw. I read about Murray Ridgley and all his victims. I read everything I could.”
She paused again, and Jonah’s heart tightened painfully with the absolute knowledge that she knew. She knew why he’d called himself a monster. She knew. “I saw your photo, Jonah.”
His heart skittered, shame arcing through him. “I don’t look like that anymore.” He clenched his eyes shut. He hadn’t intended on the outburst, but he’d heard the gentle, approving way she’d said the word photo, as if she were picturing him right that moment. And that was unthinkable.
She couldn’t believe he still looked the way he used to. She couldn’t think he was still the man he’d been when women’s eyes widened as he entered a room. Oh, they might still widen now, come to think of it, but it wouldn’t be for the same reason as before.
When he’d told her he was a monster, he meant in every way. He would not have her coming there because she’d liked what she saw online and decided it was worth dismissing his evil deeds.
He ran a hand through his thick hair, frowning. That wasn’t the Clara he knew. She wasn’t shallow like that, but . . . why the hell else was she there?
“No,” she murmured thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose you look the same. The scarring must be”—terrible, hideous, ugly—“considerable,” she finished. “The pain you must have endured . . . I can’t imagine.”
For a moment, Jonah didn’t know how to respond. He’d heard hurt in her voice . . . sadness. Compassion. It both unsettled him and brought forth a sudden sweeping emotion he couldn’t identify, or perhaps was afraid to. “It’s the very least of my ugliness. Didn’t you read the stories?” he demanded.
“Yes, but I want to hear about it from you.”
“Why?” he rasped. What else did she need to know? Every damning and sordid detail was available online. He’d looked it up once when he’d just been released from the hospital. He’d read the comments below the articles, and they’d made him retch into the bedpan that Myrtle had left next to his bed.
He’d gone back to those comments day after day, forcing himself to read each and every one, every vile word of hate and judgment, knowing he deserved them.
He’d told Myrtle it was the pain medication that was making him sick and though she’d glanced worriedly at the laptop beside him, she hadn’t said a word.
“Because everyone deserves to tell their own story in their own voice, and I know I stayed away for a little while and I’m sorry about that, Jonah. I needed time to process, but I hope you trust me enough to share your version with me. I’d like to listen.”
Jonah was silent as her words wrapped around him. Did she imagine his version would be different somehow than what she’d already read? Was it?
For the first time since that horrific day, he wondered if it was, even in some small but possibly important way he’d never considered.
No one had ever asked him to tell his version, and he wondered if he could separate it from the story everyone else had told. And yet, none of the facts were different, so what did it really matter? Hopelessness descended over him like a damp, heavy cloud. “It won’t change anything, Clara. It won’t undo what happened.”
“No, of course not. You can’t change the past. You can only change the future. But I’m not asking you to do that either. I’m simply asking you to help me see that terrible day from your perspective, not from those who only looked for the villain to cast all blame upon.”
Jonah sighed, the old familiar weariness coming over him. He leaned his head back against the wall. What the hell? Clara wanted to hear the story from his own lips. Fine, he’d tell it. For the first time, and the last time, he’d tell it. Because it was her asking and no other reason.
“I was a lawyer, you know that.” He told her about finishing college early, about the accelerated law school he’d attended, about taking and passing the bar exam. He told her about being hired on at Applegate, Knowles, and Fennimore, and his lofty career aspirations.
“Were you always so driven? Even as a boy?”
He paused, considering that. “Yes. I’d always planned to follow in my father’s footsteps. He was a lawyer, as was my brother, Justin.” Justin’s name ended in a rough whisper and Jonah cleared his throat. “I was the one who emulated my father, and Justin was the one who denounced everything he stood for.”
“What did your father stand for?”
“In my mind at the time? Power. Success. To Justin he was greed and narcissism.”
“You said at the time. What about now? Do you think of your father differently?”
Jonah paused again, thinking about Clara’s question for the first time. “I haven’t thought about my father very much since . . . I’ve come to live here.”
He was quiet again for a moment and so was she as if she knew he needed to gather his thoughts and was allowing him the time to do that. “But, now . . .”
Jonah closed his eyes, picturing his father as he’d been. Dismissive, and then quick to snap, sarcastic, cutting. The things he’d said when he was displeased with Jonah had wounded him. Yes, he could admit that now. And so Jonah had striven to be like him, to make him proud, to stop the pain of his disapproval, with no thought to anything else. God, he’d been a coward.