Sanctuary

happening again.”
    “You’re handy with a camera, Nathan.” Brian’s eyes were hot blue slits.
    It stung, coming from a man who had been friend in both the past and the present. “You don’t have any reason to trust me, but you have plenty of reason to listen.”
    “Let me try to explain it, Nathan.” Jo picked up her wine to cool her throat.
    She left nothing out, picking her way from detail to detail, question to question, and leading into the steps she and Nathan had agreed upon taking to find the answers.
    “So his dead father’s responsible for killing our mother,” Brian cut in bitterly. “Now his dead brother’s responsible for the rest. Convenient.”
    “We don’t know who’s responsible for the rest. But if it is Nathan’s brother, it doesn’t make Nathan culpable.” Jo stepped up to Brian. “There’s a parable about apples falling from the tree someone told me recently. And how some are strong enough to roll clear and stay whole, and others aren’t.”
    “Don’t throw my own words back at me,” he said furiously. “His father killed our mother, destroyed our lives. Now another woman’s dead, maybe two. And you expect us to pat him on the back and say all’s forgiven? Well, the hell with that. The hell with all of you.”
    He strode out, leaving the air vibrating in his wake.
    “I’ll go after him.” Lexy paused in front of Nathan, studied him out of red-rimmed eyes. “He’s the oldest, and maybe he loved her best, the way boys do their mamas. But he’s wrong, Nathan. There’s nothing to forgive you for. You’re a victim, just like the rest of us.”
    When she slipped out, Kate said in surprised admiration, “You never expect her to be the sensible one.” Then she sighed. “We need some time here, Nathan. Some wounds need private tending.”
    “I’m going with you,” Jo began, but Nathan shook his head.
    “No, you stay with your family. We all need time.” He turned to face Sam. “If you have more to say to me—”
    “I’ll find you right enough.”
    With a nod, Nathan left them alone.
    “Daddy—”
    “I don’t have anything to say to you now, Jo Ellen. You’re a grown woman, but you’re living under my roof for the time being. I’m asking you to go to your room for now and let me be.”
    “All right. I know what you’re feeling, and just how it hurts. You need time to deal with it.” She kept her eyes level with his. “But after you’ve had that time, if you still hold to this stand, you’ll make me ashamed. Ashamed that you would blame the son for the father’s deed.”
    Saying nothing, he strode past her.
    “Go ahead to your room, Jo.” Kate laid a hand on Jo’s knotted shoulder. “Let me see what I can do.”
    “Do you blame him, Kate? Do you?”
    “I can’t get my mind clear on what I think or feel. I know the boy’s suffering, Jo, but so is Sam. My first loyalty is to him. Go on now, don’t pester me for answers until I can sort things through.”
    Kate found Sam on the front porch, standing at the rail, staring out into the night. Clouds had rolled in, covering moon and stars. She left the porch light off and stepped quietly up beside him.
    “I have to grieve again.” He ran his hands back and forth over the railing. “It isn’t right that I should have to grieve for her again.”
    “No, it’s not.”
    “Do I take comfort that she never meant to leave me and the children? That she didn’t run off and forget us? And how do I take back all the hard thoughts of her I had over the years, all the nights I cursed her for being selfish and careless and heartless?”
    “You can’t be faulted for the hard thoughts, Sam. You believed what was set in front of you. Believing a lie doesn’t make you wrong. It’s the lie that’s wrong.”
    He tightened up. “If you came out here to defend that boy to me, you can turn right around and go back inside.”
    “That’s not why I came out, but the fact is that you’re no more at fault for believing what you did about Belle than Nathan was for believing in his father. Now you’ve both found out you were wrong in that belief, but he’s the one who has to accept that his father was the selfish and heartless one.”
    “I said you could go on back inside.”
    “All right, then, you stubborn, stiff-necked mule. You just stand out here alone and wallow in your misery and think your black thoughts.” She spun around, shocked when his hand shot out and took hers.
    “Don’t leave.”