River’s End

wrong, Livvy?”
    “A lot of things. I’m figuring them out but—”
    “Is this about Noah’s book?”
    “Part of it. About that, about him. He’s your son.” She said it with a sigh and stepped back to stand on her own. “And as much as I didn’t want to, as much as I told myself I wouldn’t, I trust him to do it right. It’s going to be painful for me to talk to him, but I can do it. I will do it, in my own time. In my own way.”
    “You can trust him. I don’t understand his work, but I understand Noah.”
    Puzzled, she shook her head. “You don’t understand his work? How can you not understand his work? It’s brilliant.”
    It was Frank’s turn for confusion. He sat on the arm of the sofa, staring at her. “I have to say, I’m surprised to hear you say that. How could you feel that, as a survivor of a murder victim?”
    “And the daughter of a murderer,” she finished. “That’s exactly why. I read his first book as soon as it came out. How could I resist it with his name on the cover?” And she’d hidden it in her room like a sin. “I didn’t expect to like it.” Hadn’t wanted to, she thought. Had wanted to read it and condemn him. “I still don’t know if I can say I liked it, but I understood what he was doing. He takes the most wicked of crimes, the most horrid, the most unforgivable. And he keeps them that way.”
    She waved a hand in annoyance at her own fumbling attempt to explain. “When you hear about a murder on the news, or read about it in the paper, you say, oh, how awful, then you move on. He humanizes it, makes it real—so vividly real that you can’t say, ‘Oh, how awful,’ then slide down the pillows and go to sleep. Everyone who was involved—he strips them down to their most desperate and agonized emotions.”
    That, she realized, was what she feared about him the most. That he would strip her Jo the soul.
    “He makes them matter,” she continued. “So that what was done matters.”
    She smiled a little, but her eyes were horribly sad. “So that what his father did, every day, year in and year out, matters. You’re his standard for everything that’s right and strong.”
    Just, she thought, as her father was her standard for everything evil and weak.
    “Livvy.” Words clogged in Frank’s throat. “You make me ashamed that I never looked close enough.”
    “You just see Noah. I’m nervous about talking to him.” She pressed her hand to her stomach. “I don’t want him to know that. I want us to try to do this on equal ground. Well, not quite equal,” she corrected, and her smile steadied. “I’m going back home tomorrow, so he’ll have to deal with me on my turf. I wondered, one of the things I wanted to ask, was if you and Mrs. Brady would like to come up sometime this summer, have a couple of free weeks at the iodge on the MacBrides. We’ve made a number of improvements, and I’d love you to see my Center and . . . Oh God. I’m sorry. God.”
    She pressed both hands to her mouth, stunned that the words had tripped out, stumbling over one another in her rush to conceal the truth.
    “Livvy—”
    “No, I’m all right. Just give me a minute.” She walked to the front window, stared out through the pretty sheer curtains. “I know he gets out in a few weeks. I thought, somehow I thought, if you were there, just for the first couple of days after ... it would be all right. I haven’t let myself really think about it, but the time’s coming. Just a few weeks.”
    She turned back, started to speak, to apologize again. But something in his face, the grim line of his mouth, the shadow in his eyes stopped her. “What is it?”
    “It’s about him getting out, Liv. I was contacted this morning. I have some connections, and whenever there’s something new about Tanner, I get a call. Due to his health, the hardship, overcrowded system, time served, his record in prison . . .”
    Frank lifted a hand, let it fall.
    “They’re letting him out sooner, aren’t they? When?”
    Her eyes were huge, locked on his. He thought of the child who’d stared at him from her hiding place. This time, he could do nothing to soften the blow.
    “Two weeks ago,” he told her.
    The phone shattered Noah’s concentration into a thousand irretrievable shards. He swore at it, viciously, ignoring the second ring as he stared at the last line he’d written and tried to find the rhythm again.
    On the third ring he snatched up the portable he’d brought in