The whole town showed for the burial of his wife and daughter, save the two ghouls who’d masqueraded as caring foster parents, and Lucinda’s father.
Jonah stood graveside, hands clasped before him, head down, solemn and aggrieved yet moved by the presence of the many who’d come. He forgave each of them their past gossip and suspicion. What good would it do to cling to his tired anger in the face of their showing of support? What point would it prove, or purpose would it serve, except to isolate him? The solace of forgiveness warmed his blood. Loosened his knotted soul.
As he turned from the graves, a hand rested on his shoulder.
Lucinda.
Snowflakes piled on the shoulders of her black wool coat as they had that day at the pit. He searched her eyes now for that frightened little girl but he could not find her.
The two stood there, saying not a word, the snow gently alighting on them.
The crowd disassembled, and folks departed with silent nods and glances, murmurs of condolence, not a few faces shaded with regret and guilt for their own failings toward him.
Jonah worked loose the knot of his tie at his throat.
“They found her,” Lucinda whispered. “The girl.”
Jonah looked off toward the Gore. He knew they’d found the girl. He’d watched LeFranc uncover her body in the snow.
“She’ll be okay,” Lucinda said. “Considering.”
“She’s—” Jonah said.
“Alive.”
A keen and desperate longing to see the girl welled in him; he wanted to know more about her, ask Lucinda how this was possible, that she was alive, that she even existed. But he did not dare show interest in her. He’d planned to confess today about the girl, confess his part that had led to her death.
“Dale and I have taken her in, for the time being,” Lucinda said.
Jonah could not speak.
“She told us about an old man who kept her,” Lucinda said. “It hasn’t been made public. Yet.”
Tell her now, a voice said. Come clean. Speak the truth.
“We’d like to find him,” Lucinda said.
Jonah unslung his tie from around his neck, the tie so tight he felt it would strangle him.
“We’d like to thank him,” Lucinda said.
For a moment the old ugliness of paranoia crept into Jonah’s heart, and he knew what Lucinda told him was a trap, to draw him out. A lie to make him feel safe. He wondered what Lucinda really knew and suspected. He’d nearly gotten the girl killed. And they wanted to thank him?
“She’d never have survived that first night if she’d not been found and taken in,” Lucinda said. “We deduced that his age and the poor weather impeded him from getting her to town straightaway. There’s no indication he was anything but good to her.”
Jonah wrapped the tie around one of his forearms.
“If you ever want to stop by my place, say hello to her,” Lucinda said.
“Why would I—”
Lucinda took his hand. “She looks so much like Sally. Her eyes. And has her spirit, now that she’s coming out of the trauma. I think seeing her, it might do you some good.”
Jonah looked back at the two headstones.
“I’ll leave you be,” Lucinda said.
She squeezed his hand then headed down the hill to leave him with his family.