The Great Alone

“I … found out I was pregnant,” she said.

“Matthew Walker,” he said, glancing down at the file. “People said you two kids were in love.”

“Uh-huh,” Leni said.

“Sad as hell about what happened to him. To both of you. But you got better, and he…” Chief Ward let it hang there; Leni felt her shame hang on the hook of the unspoken. “I hear your dad hated the Walkers.”

“More than hated them.”

“And when your father found out you were pregnant?”

“He went crazy. Started beating me with his fists, with his belt…” The memories she’d spent years submerging broke free.

“He was a mean son of a bitch, from what I hear.”

“Sometimes.” Leni looked away. Out of the corner of her eye she saw MJ reading his book, his mouth moving as he worked to sound out the words. She hoped these spoken words didn’t find purchase in some dark corner of his subconscious, able to rise one day.

Chief Ward pushed some papers toward her. Leni saw Allbright, Coraline in the corner. “I have sworn statements from Marge Birdsall, Natalie Watkins, Tica Rhodes, Thelma Schill, and Tom Walker. All of them testified to seeing bruises on your mother over the years. There were a lot of tears when I took these statements, I can tell you that, a lot of folks wishing they’d done things different. Thelma said she wished she’d shot your dad herself.”

“Mama never let anyone help her,” Leni said. “I still don’t know why.”

“Did she ever tell anyone he beat her?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You have to tell the truth if you want real help,” Chief Ward said.

Leni stared at him.

“Come on, Leni. You and I both know what happened that night. Your mom didn’t do this alone. You were a kid. It wasn’t your fault. You did what your mom asked of you, and who wouldn’t? There’s no one on the planet who wouldn’t understand. He was beating her, for God’s sake. The law will understand.”

He was right. She had been a kid. A scared, pregnant eighteen-year-old.

“Let me help you,” he said. “You can get rid of this terrible burden.”

She knew what her mother and grandparents wanted her to do now: to keep lying, to say Leni hadn’t witnessed the murder or the drive to Glass Lake or her father sinking into the icy water.

To say: not me.

She could blame it all on Mama and stick to that story.

And forever be a woman with this dark, terrible secret. A liar.

Mama had wanted Leni to come home, but home was not just a cabin in a deep woods that overlooked a placid cove. Home was a state of mind, the peace that came from being who you were and living an honest life. There was no going halfway home. She couldn’t build a new life on the creaky foundation of a lie. Not again. Not for home.

“The truth will set you free, Leni. Isn’t that what you want? Why you’re here? Tell me what really happened that night.”

“He hit me when he found out about the baby, hard enough to fracture my cheek and break my nose. I … I don’t remember all of it, just him hitting me. Then I heard Mama say, Not my Leni, and a gunshot. I … saw blood seep across his shirt. She shot him twice in the back. To stop him from killing me.”

“And you helped her get rid of his body.”

Leni hesitated. The compassion in his eyes made her say quietly, “And I helped her get rid of the body.”

Chief Ward sat there a moment, looking down at the records in front of him. He appeared ready to say something, then changed his mind. He opened his desk drawer (it made a scratchy, creaking sound) and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. “Can you write it all down?”

“I’ve told you everything.”

“I need it on paper. Then we’ll be done. Don’t lose steam now, Leni. You’re so close to the end. You want all of this behind you, right?”