Her words, her voice sent me over the edge. I came so hard I thought I might be having an aneurysm.
“Jesus,” she muttered. “Be careful.”
“Everything okay?”
She smiled hazily as she stood up, off me. “As long as my cervix didn’t break, yeah.”
I went to the bathroom and got us a towel to wipe both of us down.
“You forgive me yet?” she asked, as we pulled our pajamas back on. The question lingered in the air as she brought us both warmers of the hot cocoa that was on the stove.
“Thanks.” I nodded my head in the direction of her dad’s journals. “I’m getting there. How about we go through those?”
She took a sip of her hot cocoa. “I’d like that.”
My phone buzzed on the coffee table, and I went to check it.
The message was from Jared, to a thread with Bob and I:
Jared: Dude. Where the fuck have you been? We’re worried Natalie might have left
Shane: You’re still seriously on that? Dude, that was high school shit. We were never serious about the pact. REALITY CALLED AND THEY WANT TO MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND PEOPLE WHO KIDNAP PEOPLE GO TO PRISON
Bob: Oh, we were very serious. She’s loaded, dude. And you know we’ll be able to elude the law.
Shane: You two are out of your goddamn minds. We’re not doing that. It wasn’t her fault.
Jared: Wow. Sounds like someone’s gone pretty soft.
“Who is it, babe?” Natalie asked.
One day of sleeping together and we were on ‘babe’ terms.
But it didn’t feel weird. Sometimes, you just knew someone was going to be special in your life. I didn’t know if Natalie and I would be together forever, a month, or even the rest of the day.
But I knew I’d never forget how she made me feel.
“Just my mom,” I lied. “She’ll be coming back in a couple days, I think. Snow is supposed to stop tonight and then hopefully they’ll be able to clear the roads.”
“Oh. Well…tell her…I say hi? No, don’t say that.”
I let my mouth spread into a smile. Lying with Natalie, however trivial, didn’t feel good. However, there was nothing she would do but worry if she knew what I was really texting.
“Get your dad’s journal and let’s start reading. Let’s start with one from around the time of the accident.”
I returned to my texts:
Bob: Definitely has gone soft.
Shane: Hey douchebag, I’m not soft, I just think, you know, we haven’t considered the implications of this idea. How it’s fucking kidnapping, and it’s wrong. Not to mention the fucking cops will catch us. So stop talking about this dumb idea
Jared: Dude we know my cousins will look the other way. They fucking run this town.
Shane: Dudes. No. Not doing it. And you both should get a grip on reality.
Bob: Ha! Reality is the furthest thing we want tonight. We’re heading to Cashmierski’s place tonight.
My heart sank.
Cashmierski’s was not good. It was a meth house on the outskirts of town, and was where all sorts of shady, hopeless characters congregated.
The type of drugged out, hopeless people hung out there who might actually think that a half-baked kidnapping plot was a good idea. I knew because I’d been there many times.
They might be on a bender all night.
My chest ached, and I ran my thumb and forefinger on my head.
“Everything okay?” Natalie rubbed my arm as she sat back down next to me.
“It will be fine.” I tossed my phone back on the coffee table and kissed her deeply. She moaned into my mouth. “I was just thinking. Snow stops tomorrow. We’ll drive out of here. And you can fly back to Florida.
“Really? You still don’t think it’s safe?”
“The snow is stopping tonight. Roads will hopefully be plowed by late morning tomorrow. Then, we’ll take off.”
“You really think I’m still in danger?”
“It’s just a precaution.”
“But I’m with you.”
Those words made my heart flutter.
I’d flipped and flopped and tried to play nice with Jared and Bob. But they were still acting crazy, and if they tried to pull something stupid, I would have to take them down and stop at nothing.
“Yes, you are.” I kissed her. “Now let’s read that journal.”
24
Bruce Toft
September 21
I haven’t slept more than a few hours in weeks.
Maybe it’s the drinking I’ve been doing. I don’t know. I feel as though I’ve lost control since the accident that happened on your watch.
I’m no cold-blooded murderer. But judging from the looks on the faces of the townspeople when I went to the funeral for the seventeen, you would have thought I was.
The red in their eyes worries me.
The guilt eats away at me every single day. It’s there when I wake up, when I go to bed. I should have listened to my supervisors instead of cutting corners. Fuck, I should burn this journal right now. I would never admit this in court. They would take me for all I’ve got.
And in the end, she’s my only hope. Natalie…
I should have sold this godforsaken mine and moved to Florida. Even if I wasn’t together with her mom, I could have watched her grow up.
Now, I can’t go. I squelched the news about the accident, luckily. Money goes a long way. Edna found out. I told her we could never mention the accident to Natalie. She can’t know that her dad is a monster…
I remember being younger, and asking myself, if I were on my deathbed, would I regret anything?
I grew up dirt poor on the outskirts of Black Mountain. I never thought I’d amount to anything. Until I discovered iron wasn’t all that was buried here—there was coal too, quite a find for this geographical area. I had black gold in my eyes. I always thought I’d regret not making enough money.
Turns out, too much of anything is a bad thing, like the saying goes.
Those seventeen employees will never get their lives back.
But I can’t let this get out past the local news here.
I don’t want Natalie to get too close to the truth: her dad was not a good man. In fact, far from it.
That’s the real regret I’ll have when I’m ready to go.
Not knowing when enough money was enough.
And when I should have just focused on loving her.
-BT
25
Shane
Natalie cried. I got teary-eyed, too.
“Fuck. He tried to hide everything from me, so much. I can’t believe how shady he was with me. There was a shift in how he talked to me and it started after this accident.”
“People always try to hide the worst parts of themselves. You’re his daughter. He wanted to preserve his image for you. I think that was all he had left at this point.”
Reading through the journals was stressful, but cathartic.
I guess I’d always wanted some picture-perfect answer about the accident. After poring over his journals for a few hours, I realized there really was no terrific answer. Some of the supervisors seemed to think the mine shaft was in great condition. Others had their doubts. But there was no proof that fortifying the shaft would have done anything, either.