CHAPTER 53

A deep sadness filled Robin’s face as she opened the door and beckoned Corin to come in.

Corin leaned on his crutches, his left leg bouncing as his nerves continued to betray him. “Where is he?”

“In the movie room.” She covered her mouth and dropped her head. “I’m not sure if he’ll even acknowledge you’re here. He’s angry about you coming. He meant it when he said he never wanted to talk to you again.”

“Shasta doesn’t have to say anything. I’ll say what I need to and then leave.”

“You’re right.” Robin nodded and blinked. “Whatever happens, it’s going to be okay.”

Corin offered a weak smile. “Do you believe that?”

“Not really, but I’m trying to.”

“Me too.”

Robin took his hands and squeezed them.

Corin felt like he was floating, detached from his body as he hobbled toward his brother’s media room. A numbness covered his mind—causing the emotions he carried into the house with him a few minutes earlier to vanish. He wasn’t nervous any longer. He wasn’t anything and couldn’t decide if it was a blessing or a curse.

When he reached the movie room, Corin stood just inside the door and stared at the back of Shasta’s head, silhouetted against the image of three men—two Native Americans, one white man—racing together through the forest.

As the scene ended the movie froze, the image of Daniel Day-Lewis staring out at him from the six-by-four-foot screen.

“Have you ever seen The Last of the Mohicans?” his brother called out.

The question was a barbed hook.

Nineteen years ago Shasta and he had seen it in the theater together. Had embraced it; made it the representation of their brotherhood and how they would always fight for each other the way Chingachgook, Uncas, and Hawkeye fought for one another. To ask if he’d seen it was another serrated blade across Corin’s heart.

It didn’t matter. Shasta could cut as much as he wanted. Corin’s heart might bleed like a river, but never to death—and it would never stop his love for Shasta.

“I haven’t seen it since the last time we watched it together.”

The slow whir of Shasta’s electric wheelchair was the only sound in the room. When it stopped, Shasta stared at him without anger, without regret, without emotion.

“Thanks for letting me come.”

“Robin said it was imperative you saw me.”

“It is.”

“That you have something that has to be said in person.”

Corin nodded and took half a step forward, then stopped. “Yes.”

“I thought we’d agreed we wouldn’t be seeing each other again.”

“This is the last time I’ll ever bother you, Shasta.”

“Please don’t call me that.” Shasta jammed his chin into his wheelchair’s chin controller and it spun to the right, his profile silhouetted against the movie screen. “It’s Dom.”

“When did you start—?”

“Try to explain to me why that’s any of your business.”

Corin rubbed his face and fought to remember the words he’d rehearsed countless times over the past two days that would provide an adequate introduction for what he’d come to say, but they’d disappeared. “It’s not any of my business.”

“What do you need?”

“I’m trying to put it into words.” Corin pressed the knuckle of his forefinger into his upper teeth.

“When you figure it out, you let me know.” He spun back to face the screen and the movie started again.

“I know what I want to say.” Corin stepped forward till he stood four feet from the back of Shasta’s head. “I need to ask you something.”

“What’s that?” The movie kept playing.

Corin glanced to his right then his left as if looking for a place to put down a set of weights he wasn’t carrying. He pressed his lips together and blinked, trying to hold back the tears pressing to get out.

“Well?” Shasta said.

Corin slumped forward on his crutches and let the tears come. “I never asked you.”

“Asked me what?”

“I told you I was sorry about the accident. I told you I wished it had never happened. How I wished with everything in me I could take that day back. I told you how sorry I was that I pushed you into going off the jump, but . . .” Corin’s voice cracked. “I never asked for your forgiveness.” He held his hands open, palms up.

The whir of Shasta’s chair as he turned back to his left seemed like a thunderstorm in Corin’s head.

“I never asked your forgiveness for stealing your life away from you.” Sobs racked Corin’s chest and his head fell forward. “Forgive me for trying to fix it, for trying to earn back your friendship, and for never once in all these years asking you to forgive me for what I did to you.”

A slight move of Shasta’s chin silenced the movie and the chair made a small rotation to the right.

“Forgive me.”

The room was frozen in silence, Shasta’s rhythmic breathing the only sound.

Corin steepled his hands and pressed them into his forehead. Let my words go deep, tear off the ice around his heart, restore us. Shasta is—

The whir of Shasta’s chair made Corin whip his head up. He expected to know instantly from looking into his brother’s eyes what he was thinking.

But once again all he saw was the back of Shasta’s head.

“Good-bye, Corin.”

The speakers roared back to life and The Last of the Mohicans filled the screen.

AS CORIN CLOMPED down his brother’s front steps, Robin said, “I’m sorry.”

Corin turned. “It’s okay.” He kept walking. It was.

No, the ice cave his brother lived in was just as thick. Part of Corin said he’d accomplished nothing, but a larger part said he’d spoken truth, that he’d set himself free even if his brother didn’t want to join him, and that an invitation had been extended that couldn’t be ignored forever.

As he drove away it struck him that somehow the water was no longer as deep and its color no longer as black.

And he believed the water would grow brighter.