ONE YEAR LATER
Clara. Wake up. We’re here.”
I blinked in the morning light, and Dad gently placed his hand on my shoulder. I rubbed my hands over my denims, took a deep breath, and looked around. Izzy was still slumped in her seat, asleep. We’d planned this road trip for months, ever since our move to Salem, Ohio. But I knew I’d return long before that, ever since I tried to explain to Dad the whole of why I left in the first place, with no success. I gave myself a year, a year to get to know my FFA. Maybe in that time he could love me as he had. Maybe enough to accept the entire truth.
But those words left unsaid — the load I promised both Kira and Izzy I would on this day lay down — grew heavier by the minute.
“I thought this would be easier.” I bit my lip and swept back tears.
Dad forced a smile. “I’m sorry Guinevere didn’t want to come to our memorial,” he said softly.
Guinevere. News of Elias’s passing should have buried our relationship as well, but how profound her forgiveness had been toward me. “She couldn’t.” I swallowed hard. “Two Bush has taken too much from her.”
I stepped out of the Camry and walked down to the dock and stopped.
“Go on. Show me where, then make your peace. It feels good, you know.” Izzy nudged me with her guitar case. We stepped into Atticus’s boat and he headed out without a word.
A half hour later, we stood on Two Bush Island, blanketed by a heavy calm. I walked quietly toward the lighthouse, and stopped on the patch of dirt that fronted the door. Izzy stared for a minute. “Yeah, okay.”
She opened her case and removed her six-string, then played a song both beautiful and sad. I took hold of Dad’s hand, walked slowly to the far cliff, and we plunked down together. We sat for hours, my dad and I, staring out at Penobscot Bay and beyond, beyond toward what had been home, to Marbury Street and a life that now seemed so far away. I pressed hard into his shoulder, soaking up the feeling from a different life, a new life, wondering why I’d run from it so long.
The guitar music stopped, and I glanced over my shoulder. Izzy raised both palms and eyebrows, and then pointed dramatically at Dad. I swallowed and rejoined the Bay.
And Dad sang.
Softly, like he used to sing. And in the spaces between his words, mine left unspoken grew hot. I could hold my secret no more.
“I could have told them, Dad!” I blurted, and buried my head in my arms. “I saw it all happen with Little T. From the window? I saw it all. They carried you away and I said nothing. I could’ve. They needed to know it was me who did it. Me. Clara. I dropped him. That might have changed everything. I mean, you might not have been jailed and Mum might not have lost hope and I . . .”
Dad reached over and touched the tiny 3 on my hand. “Such a nice remembrance. Oh, my Clara, I saw you. Your scared little face. I always knew, and I never blamed you. Your mum never did either. Truth is, I blamed myself.”
My breath caught, and a weight floated upward, and I inhaled free and clear, knowing that something foul had died. I was Clara, small and simple, and a path home stretched before me.
A path named Peace.
Elias had shown me the way, and once more I glanced up, this time at brilliant blue.
Down below, Dad would journey beside me. Above, both Elias and Little T would always be with me.
Though we weren’t on a mountain, I risked one short prayer. “Take care of them better than I did.”
And a gentle salt breeze kissed my lips.