Chapter 11

Daphne gulped. The good lunch she’d just eaten turned to a rock in her stomach. In the movies, this was the lead-in for the speaker to say he or she had a life-threatening disease, and the other would pledge their unending love and support. Then, somehow, by the end of the movie, after a lot of hard work and sacrifice, together they would overcome the battle. The closing of the movie promised they would live happily ever after, and life went on.

But this wasn’t a movie. This was real life. Maybe this was something that couldn’t be fixed. But even if it couldn’t, whatever he said, she hoped it was something they could battle together. “Go ahead.”

“I’ve never told you about how I became a forest ranger.” He paused, letting the silence hang.

“I thought people became rangers because they loved nature and the great outdoors.”

He turned away, not making eye contact, which she didn’t think was a good sign.

“While I do like getting away into the wilderness, that wasn’t what started me being a ranger.”

“Then how did you decide to be a forest ranger?” She couldn’t see it being the kind of job a person fell into. She also couldn’t see why the reason he became a forest ranger was so important right now.

“I got into it through community service.”

“Community service?” A million pictures swam through her head. Community service was usually done as a means to reduce a sentence or to avoid jail time after being found guilty of a crime. “I don’t understand.”

He finally looked at her, the eye contact so intense it almost burned. She wanted to look away, but couldn’t. “Just before I became legal age, I was arrested for assault and battery. The assault and battery charges were dropped, but I did get charged with a misdemeanor for property damage. Instead of going to juvvie, I did community service, which ended up being planting trees. While I was doing the tree planting thing, I grew up and became an adult. That led to the ranger in charge taking me aside and prompting me to become a forest ranger.”

All she could do was stare at him. “Assault and battery? Property damage?” She shuffled backward, as far as the chair would allow. The picture of Cory beating a man to a pulp while smashing things around him swam through her head almost like a movie in slow motion. Considering his size and strength, he could probably kill someone with his bare hands. But he didn’t say murder or manslaughter. It was just assault and battery. Just.

“Who did you assault?” She gulped. “How bad was he hurt?” She gulped again. “And why?”

He continued to speak with his head still lowered, staring intently at his hands. “I broke a few bones, but he made a full recovery. It could have been worse. In the thick of it, I had him up off the ground, ready to give him a good one to the face. In the right place, a hit like that would have broken his neck. But something stopped me, almost like God telling me that was enough, to stop. Instead of that last punch I threw him into the wall and walked away.” He raised his head, but didn’t look at her. He turned toward the horizon, his eyes unfocused. “I walked around the block a few times to clear my head. That was when I asked God to come into my life, the actual moment I became a Christian. When I got home the police and an ambulance were there, and I was arrested.”

Daphne couldn’t speak. All she could do was watch Cory as he stared blankly into the skyline.

“You asked who he was and why I did it. In front of me, my mother called him her boyfriend, but he wasn’t. Hank was her drug dealer. I’d just found out we’d been evicted for not paying the rent. She’d spent the rent money, which I’d earned at my part-time job, specifically for the rent, on drugs. How it started was that I had just got home, and as I walked inside I heard Hank telling my mother that if she smuggled some cocaine into the country he’d give her the fix she needed and enough money to pay the rent.”

Daphne’s mind swam as she tried to process the details. “Is that when you hit him?”

“No. I was pretty mad, but I did try to reason with him. At first Hank told me to butt out, but I wouldn’t. I told him to leave my mother alone and to get out of our place and never come back. At that point the situation deteriorated pretty fast. I never saw it coming. He swung out and hit me, and everything went downhill. When he woke up in the hospital the next day he said he wasn’t going to press charges, and I was released. He should have pressed charges, but I’m sure you can understand why a drug dealer with a record wouldn’t want to be in the court system, even as a plaintiff instead of a defendant.”

She couldn’t imagine Cory in such a fight, but it obviously had happened. “I guess your mother called the police while the fight was going on because she couldn’t stop it?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Actually, she didn’t. After all, I was fighting with a known drug dealer. Her drug dealer. The last thing she wanted was the police coming in at that moment. When the fight was over and I left, I found out later that she’d flushed the drugs he’d had on him down the toilet, and then called the ambulance. I’m guessing the police came later when the medics discovered who the victim was. You know, when you read in the paper about an incident when someone is ‘known to the police’? Well, he was really known to the police, so the ambulance guys called the police. But with no drugs found in the house, the only one who got arrested that day was me.”

“I can’t believe your mother would let the police take you away.”

“She couldn’t have stopped them, but she didn’t even try. It was obviously me who did it. They hauled me away, but since I was a juvenile and he said that he wasn’t going to press charges the police took me home after a night in detention.”

“Your mother must have been glad to have you back.”

He shook his head. “Not really. Remember she’d flushed the drugs he’d brought down the toilet, and with her dealer in the hospital, my mother was pretty mad. Also, we’d just been evicted. When the police dropped me off the landlord was there, because of the damage. Also there’d been a lot of buzz in the neighborhood about what happened. While they were arguing I ran inside to change, then I went to my part-time job. Word that I’d been arrested for beating up one of the local dealers had gotten around really fast. I didn’t even make it to my station. I got fired because they didn’t want a person like me working there, even though all I was doing was slinging burgers.”

“Can they do that?”

“They can do whatever they want. If I wanted the job back I would have had to take them to court, and I wasn’t in a position to do that. When I got home, after fighting with the landlord, my mother kicked me out, and my landlord charged me with property damage. Those charges did stick because I was so close to being legal age when it happened. By the time it hit the courts, I was legal age, so they couldn’t send me to a juvenile detention center. Fortunately, property damage is only a misdemeanor—hence the community service. That was why planting trees up at the camp worked really well. It was hard work but I had three squares and a roof over my head.”

All Daphne could do was stare at him. “What did you do in the meantime? You said your mother had kicked you out.”

“She did. Until the court case came up I had to sleep on the couch of whoever would take me in that day and pretty much beg for them to feed me, because no one would hire me after I got fired.”

She couldn’t imagine begging people to house and feed him. It also meant he had been living out of a suitcase, and even though he didn’t say it, she wondered if he spent any time living on the streets with the vagrants.

“What did you do when the tree planting was finished?”

He sighed. “The ranger in charge felt bad for me because I didn’t have a job and I didn’t have a place to live. When the tree planting gig was over he set me up with a part-time job with the parks board and a friend of his took me in for cheap room and board while I finished high school however I could. I managed to get my GED. He later co-signed so I could get a loan for college to be a forest ranger. When I graduated he gave me a good reference and pulled some strings and I got the job. The rest is history.”

“Your boss cosigned your college loan?”

“Yup. And he’s still my boss, so I can’t default on the loan.”

While it was good that he had a stable relationship with his supervisor, she couldn’t rid her mind of the reality that Cory had beaten someone so badly that it required hospitalization. Even if it was a drug dealer, the man was still a person.

“Does your mother still see that man…Hank?”

“Yes. He’s still her drug dealer. The only good thing is that when she spent a few days with nothing in her system she saw what it was doing to her. She’s not a hard-core addict, but she’s definitely hooked. She gives it up for a while, but she always goes back. She lives in a run-down boarding house and spends all her spare money on drugs. At least she’s able to maintain a job and she’s got a car now.”

Daphne remembered Cory getting a gas card for his mother for Mother’s Day. It now made so much sense. In a very sad kind of way.

He turned to face her. “When she’s talking to me, I try to get her to go into rehab and to come to church with me, but she refuses. She says God can’t help her, but I know He can. She knows she needs help, but she won’t take it. I’ve found a place that can help her that my pastor recommended, but she won’t go.”

Daphne tried to picture it, but she had no experience with that kind of life. All she knew was what she read. But she did know that most of what children learned when they were young was by example. If his mother was a habitual drug user from his childhood days, his daily exposure to it would teach him that drug use was normal, because that’s what he saw every day.

“Have you ever used drugs?” She held her breath, waiting for his answer.

“Not really. Probably less than what the average kid would try. I was always focused on sports, always on the school teams. They had policies about not using drugs, and I was one of the few who listened.”

She probably should have been picturing him being the star of the basketball team, but like a bystander who couldn’t pull themself away from a train wreck, the mental picture of Cory pummeling another man played over and over in her head.

Regardless of the reason, Cory had lost his temper and caused serious injury. This was more than just a fistfight; he had sent a man to the hospital—with his bare hands. “You’d mentioned property damage. What kind of property damage?” Even though she had a feeling she wouldn’t like the answer, like the train-wreck syndrome, she had to know.

“When I threw him into the wall he didn’t just dent the wall, he made a hole. My mother didn’t have any money to fix it, and it was more than the damage deposit. The landlord took us to court over it, both of us. Even though I was a juvenile, they still charged me. That’s why I had to perform the community service. I did that instead of having to pay for the repairs. That’s why my mother had a hard time finding another place.”

Daphne couldn’t imagine the force it would take to throw a person so hard it made a hole in the wall. All she could do was stare at him. In her mind’s eye scenes from the Incredible Hulk played out—a being so strong he could do anything, except control his temper when he became angry.

“I know how bad that sounds, and it is bad. But it really was self-defense. I would never use my size and strength against anyone. I want to defend the defenseless, not hurt them.”

Daphne stared at him; begging her with his eyes like a beaten puppy dog. But he wasn’t helpless—far from it. People were helpless against him.

Regardless of the fact that he said he’d only been defending himself, the results had been catastrophic. Ever since she’d known him, even though they’d had disagreements, she’d never seen him in a situation that tried his patience or his temper. If that was how he defended himself, the easygoing Cory she knew, or at least thought she knew, was a different person when things didn’t go his way.

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because I don’t want you to find out later from someone else.” He cleared his throat and his voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “Because I want you to understand…” He paused, making direct eye contact. “Because I’ve fallen in love with you.”

* * *

A silence thicker than the dead of a moonless night hung in the air between them. Cory could even hear himself breathing. Ever since he’d met Daphne at the mall that first time they’d had dinner together, he’d known the history hanging over his head was something he had to tell her. The more they’d gotten to know each other, the more pressing it became—he’d wanted the day he told her he loved her to be full of romance and hope for the future.

Instead he felt the possibilities of his future with Daphne crumbling into bits and being blown away by the winds.

He wasn’t a fighter. He’d only been in one fight in his life, and he’d just told her about it.

Most women he’d met would have excused it as an error of teenage angst. At the time his life had fallen apart, but with God’s help he’d been able to rise above it and do good—for animals, people and nature. But Daphne wasn’t most women. She needed a man who could protect her and never lift a finger to hurt her or threaten her, or anyone else, in any way. He was that man, except for that one day. Because of the magnitude of that one day, he’d had to tell her about it. To hide the truth would have been a lie, and he couldn’t do that.

“It’s in the past, but it is my past.”

At his words, she froze and looked at him like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

“Does my brother know this?”

“No. It’s not something I walk around telling people. I was a juvenile, so my records are sealed. But it did make the news at the time, so what happened is public record. In the end, what’s on record is a misdemeanor, no time served, only community service.”

“You beat someone so badly he was taken away in an ambulance. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“It’s not something I’m proud of. I was waiting for the right moment, and it didn’t happen.”

His heart sank, waiting for her to say something, anything, but nothing came.

He couldn’t blame her for being afraid of him.

He steeled his strength—saying it out loud was harder than anything he’d done in life. “This changes things, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. It does. I’m sorry. I need time to think.”

He felt himself go cold from head to toe. “I understand.”

“I need to go.”

He didn’t try to stop her. He just watched as she dashed into the living room, grabbed her purse and ran out the door.

Not knowing why, he stayed on the balcony and waited, watching the pathway leading to the building’s main door. After a few minutes Daphne appeared. She ran out the main entrance and straight for her car. It took off so fast he wondered if the tires had squealed.

Over the past few months he’d done his best to help her regain her confidence and not be afraid of every dark corner. She’d built up her strength and stamina, and most of all, courage and street smarts. Now she no longer needed her brother at her side every time she went someplace other than work.

At the same time, she no longer needed him, either. She’d earned herself the promotion at work, and she was well on the way to get on with her life.

Without him.

He didn’t know what he was going to do without her. He’d known for a long time that he wasn’t what she saw as her Mr. Right—he was not a skinny accountant. Even though he wasn’t what she thought she wanted, he had to prove he was what she needed.

If only he could figure out how.