InSight

father pulled a knife on me. Sliced me across the arm. There’s a scar about four inches long. I’m surprised you haven’t felt it.” He took her hand and ran it across the indentation.
    “I have. I meant to ask you about it a hundred times, but it never seemed to be the right time.”
    “He kicked me out of the house. Next day I joined the Marines. I called to talk to Joey, but after a few months the bastard said Joey took off. That’s how he put it. When I came home on leave, I couldn’t find my brother. The old man insisted he left, exactly like my mother had.”
    “And you didn’t believe him?”
    “Not at first. But my next door neighbor saw Joey throw his smashed guitar in the trash, get in his car, and leave. My neighbor never saw him again. Joey must have felt everyone let him down, including me. My father must have broken his guitar. That was the only thing Joey cared about. He saved every cent for months to buy it. I guess he had enough.”
    “So what did you do?”
    “I faced my father about it. He said he broke Joey’s guitar, and that Joey was just like his mother. Then he came after me, but I wasn’t a kid anymore. He’d suffered a heart attack a year or two before and physically wasn’t the man I grew up with. Still mean as a snake, though. I pushed him away. Not hard, but enough to let him know that his days of pushing me around were over. Then he ― ” Luke quit in mid - sentence.
    “Then he what, Luke?” He didn’t answer. She moved closer to get his attention. “What happened, Luke?”
    “He said he put my mother in an asylum, and he would have done the same to Joey if he hadn’t taken off. He said I belonged in one, too. That his wife spawned two mental deficients like her.”
    Abby knew people who had taken that easy road when family members became too difficult. She’d also known others who took the responsibility of monitoring the right medications of their loved ones, and they went on to live productive lives. “How could he do such a thing?”
    “That’s what I asked him, but he wouldn’t answer. Then I asked him where my mother was. He said that she was too weak to live in this ugly world, and she was better off where she was.”
    Distressed, Abby drew a hand across her mouth. She started to speak, but Luke continued his story.
    “I stood there, trying to assimilate his words. At first, I couldn’t believe anyone would do that. I thought there must be some other explanation. I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him to me. I said I wanted to know where he’d put her. He cackled and said he’d never tell.”
    Abby heard the pain in his voice, and she ached for him. But he needed to get this out to free himself. “What happened next?”
    “I shook him and pleaded for him to tell me where she was, but he kept laughing. When he grabbed his left arm, he stopped laughing. He was having a heart attack. He told me to get his pills. I ran for them, but when I saw the pain on his face, I stood and watched. I thought of my mother and Joey; I thought of every vile thing he’d ever done. I clutched his survival in my hand ― this little bottle of pills ― and I couldn’t let them go, mesmerized by the son of a bitch struggling for air. He cursed me with his last breath, begging for his medication, but I had a white-knuckle grip on them. When I thought he was beyond help, I called for an ambulance. He was dead when they arrived. The autopsy showed a massive coronary.
    “I felt nothing. I buried him and put the house up for sale. Before I rejoined my unit, I searched the house for any information about my mother and brother. I found the records of my mother in a state hospital. I followed up. She had died some years before. I can’t tell you how hard I cried. She didn’t deserve that end. But I couldn’t find Joey. I’ve run searches since. Nothing. It’s like he disappeared off the face of the planet.”
    “Breaking this case in Charleston put your name on the front page. Maybe Joey will see it and get in touch.”
    “I can only hope.” He pulled Abby close. “At first, I felt nothing about my father’s death. The guilt came later, in the middle of the night or in the daytime or whenever I let myself relive that afternoon or think about how I let Joey down by leaving him.”
    Abby didn’t know what to say. How could she judge Luke when she felt relief after learning of Stewart’s death eight years before? And when she found out he was alive, wished him