CHAPTER
Twenty-two

John was shaking.

He noticed it as he peeled off his clothing and yanked on his swim trunks. He was shaking. Add it to the list of things that were very, very wrong with him.

He reached his dock, walked to its end, and dove into the lake. His arms sliced the water as he swam, hard, toward nowhere.

His life was the result of an act of violence. A man his mother hadn’t known, a stranger, had physically overpowered and violated her.

And he was the outcome.

A lot of babies were put up for adoption by young, unmarried mothers because they were unwanted. Sherry had been young and unmarried when she’d had him, so he’d assumed he’d been unwanted. But this?

He’d been far more than an accidental mistake. The sex hadn’t been consensual, which made his conception a horrible injustice.

He couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t aborted him. Agony gripped him when he thought of what it must have been like for her to have her rapist’s child growing inside of her.

Half of what made up his physical body—his bones and blood and organs and skin—had come from a serial rapist and murderer.

Brian Raymond had raped Sherry and killed Nora’s mother.

And that man made up half of who he was.

As if he could outswim the facts, he pushed himself harder. His burning muscles and rasping breath made him feel no better, yet he continued because he didn’t know what else to do, had nowhere else to go. All his life, water had calmed him. After leaving Sherry and Nora he’d made his way straight to the lake, because he’d known that if anything could help, it was water. But there was no help to be found today. Not even here.

His sight was deteriorating because of a condition he’d inherited from his father. His father had left a mark of both symbolic and literal darkness on John. His blindness wasn’t something he could escape. It was coming for him, and every day that he lived with impaired vision was a day that he’d be reminded who had saddled him with it.

There had been times when he’d been conflicted about whether or not to continue his search for his birth mother. But every time he’d chosen to move forward. Even today at the restaurant, Sherry had cautioned him. She’d asked him again and again if he was sure he wanted to know. He could have turned back. He hadn’t, and now he couldn’t unknow what he knew.

He had the answers he’d valued so highly, and they sickened him.

All his life, his mom and dad had been carefully building his identity like a statue made of stones. One stone here. One stone there. The things Sherry had told him today had jerked away the largest of the foundational stones and brought the whole structure crashing down.

Who am I?

He was the son of an evil man.

He stopped swimming and treaded water. Gasping for air, he looked back toward shore. He’d crossed a long distance, but this new perspective changed nothing about the landscape filling his head.

He couldn’t see his house very well because his central vision had gone blurry. But he could make out its long, modern lines against the green of the hill. He lived in a very expensive house that his famous heroism had bought. People paid him ridiculous amounts of money to speak to their groups. Strangers lined up for the opportunity to shake his hand and take pictures with him and have him sign their books and DVDs of Uncommon Courage. When he’d met the President of the United States, he was the one who’d been thanked and admired.

What a joke.

An instinct to flee coursed through him so strongly he could taste it. He angled his body to the side, searching for somewhere to hide. He found nothing. Again he twisted. Again. Again. But his body was suspended in water. There was nothing to stand on. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run.

He swam in the direction of his dock, the memory of Nora’s expression seared into his brain. He could see it in detail. Her brown eyes. Red hair. Milky skin. It had been like a slap to see her face, the face that had looked at him with such softness, staring at him with hatred. To watch her jerk back when he’d reached out.

On the day that his father had ripped her mother from her, Nora’s life had changed in a way that could never be repaired or made right. Mothers were not replaceable. He got it.

He couldn’t fault Nora. He understood what she’d felt after Sherry had told them that Brian Raymond was his father, because it was exactly the same thing he’d felt.

Still . . . it wrecked him to know that he loved her but that she’d been horrified by him. These last weeks it had seemed to him that everything in his life had brought him to this time and place for her. She was the hope and beauty and color in his days. She was priceless to him.

If the thing that had come between them had been something he could fight, he’d do whatever was needed to defeat it so they could be together. He’d travel anywhere. He’d empty his bank accounts. He’d sacrifice his body. He’d give up his future. But the valley that had opened between himself and Nora today wasn’t something that he could fight. He was as powerless to change the things that had happened in the past as she was.

Up until today, it had been an ongoing struggle to think of asking her to love a man who was blind, who would not father children. Those things had already been too much to ask. This was a whole new level of impossible.

He hadn’t told her that he loved her yet because he’d wanted to wait a reasonable amount of time. He’d been set on doing everything right with her.

He didn’t know if it made it better or worse . . . the fact that he hadn’t told her he loved her. It would probably make things better for her. But worse for him, because now it was too late to tell her.

When he reached the dock, he barely managed to haul his exhausted body onto its surface. He lay on his back, knees bent, feet on the rough wood, chest heaving.

He stayed on the dock so long that the sun began to arch toward the horizon. When cold finally drove him indoors, he purposely avoided looking at his cell phone. He’d silenced it before leaving The Grapevine.

He went to the shower in his master bathroom and stood beneath the spray for a long time, hoping it might warm him. It was no use. The cold was in his bones.

At his desk in his home office, he ran computer searches for information on Brian Raymond. His stomach churned and a headache beat against his skull. The things Brian Raymond had done disgusted him, but he continued until he’d read everything he could find on the man.

By then it was late.

He didn’t turn a single light either on or off. He simply picked up his phone, went to his room, and fell onto his bed. He bent his elbow over his forehead, debating whether he could afford not to look at his phone until tomorrow. He didn’t want to let the world in. Thing was, he had no house phone, so his family used his cell number when they wanted to reach him. His mom would worry if she couldn’t get ahold of him after a few hours of trying.

He checked his phone and, sure enough, saw that his mom had left him a voicemail. She wanted to know what he’d like for lunch when he came over next Saturday. He sent her a text requesting lasagna.

He’d received a few work-related texts, voicemails, and emails, a text from Corbin, and a text from Nora that she must have sent thirty minutes after he’d left the restaurant. More recently, she’d sent a second text. John? was all it said.

Nora.

Pain and fury toward God fisted viciously around John’s heart. Why had God allowed a man like Brian Raymond to conceive a child? And in that way? Why? It wasn’t right. Sherry had been an innocent twenty-two-year-old. Why hadn’t God protected her from Brian—or at the very least from pregnancy? John couldn’t find any justice or fairness or grace in what had happened to Sherry.

And why, when he himself had had a 50 percent chance of inheriting a gene mutation from Brian, had God allowed him to inherit it? John had trusted God. He’d tried to glorify Him through his life, his company, his book, his speaking.

Sherry had received a rapist’s baby.

And he’d received a diagnosis of blindness and a heritage that separated him from Nora.

What good, exactly, had Sherry’s faith and his faith done them? Where had their all-powerful God been when they’d needed Him?

Before he mailed the letter to Sherry, Nora had prayed that his search for his birth mother would ultimately be for his good and Sherry’s good. God had turned His back on her prayer.

Scowling fiercely, miserable inside, John wrote, deleted, started again, and deleted a response to Nora. Finally he sent, I’m fine, not true, I just need time to deal with this. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’d appreciate it if you could give me four or five days. I’m doing my best to get my head around the things Sherry told us today, but it’s a lot.

After he hit send, scrolling dots appeared, letting him know that Nora was reading what he’d written. A few minutes later her response came through. Just know that I care about you and that I’m thinking about you and praying for you.

The words turned like a pocketknife in his midsection. Her kindness—or maybe pity?—made him feel all the blacker. With a growl, he tossed the phone a few feet away from him on the bed.

The memory of how Nora had looked at him after Sherry had told them that Brian was his father rose again and again in his thoughts. He couldn’t stand to see it anymore. He wanted to shove everyone and everything away and be left alone.

In a failed bid to comfort herself, Nora had taken a bath, donned pajamas, put in the DVD of Northamptonshire season one, eaten a bowl of ice cream, and pulled a throw blanket over herself. None of it had successfully comforted her.

She was trapped in a mire of shock, fear, and suffocating regret.

The text she’d just received from John had reassured her that he was alive, which was good. But it had also informed her that he didn’t want to see her, which was very bad.

She was no expert on healthy dating relationships, but she suspected that boyfriends and girlfriends were supposed to share their pain with each other, not shut each other out.

Could she really blame John for wanting time, though? Could she? Considering what he’d learned today, his request made sense.

In the hours since lunch . . . Honestly, it didn’t really deserve the title of “lunch” since no food had been eaten. When their dishes had arrived, Nora and Sherry had immediately requested to-go containers because neither of them had been able to think about eating. When the waiter had brought them the containers, he’d informed them that the bill and tip had already been taken care of. John had paid both on his way out.

In the hours since their non-lunch, Nora had thought through the similarities between her mother and Sherry. Both women had lived in the same region of Washington, the region that Brian Raymond once prowled. Both women had been pretty twenty-somethings at the time they were assaulted, just like Brian Raymond’s other victims. Both women had gone walking alone.

She was a researcher, trained to take the smallest clues and grasp the secrets they might point to, yet she’d never once imagined that Brian Raymond could be John’s father. Never. She’d known that John’s father’s name was left off of his birth certificate and adoption information sheet. Perhaps, if she’d viewed that detail as darkly ominous, then maybe . . .

But no. That clue had been entirely too obscure. She was sorry she hadn’t seen Sherry’s revelation coming—felt guilty that she hadn’t—because if she had, she could have protected John somewhat from today’s blindside.

She herself was having a brutal time accepting the fact that Brian Raymond, the person she’d always known as her mother’s murderer, was also John’s biological father—and she wasn’t the one who’d discovered she was related to Brian. She could only imagine the difficulty John must be having and would continue to have with these new facts.

Robin, Nora’s mother. Sherry, John’s mother. Both women victims of the same man.

When she and John had been in The Grapevine’s parking lot together, she’d hoped the meeting wouldn’t hit John with another hard right to the chin. But in the end, John had been hit again. And now? He must be reeling.

His request for time was most likely for the best. At the moment, her emotions were a heaving muddle. It would be better, much better, to wait and see him again once they both had themselves back together and could view things in their proper perspective.

Only . . . since their first kiss, they’d spent time together every single day, except for when he’d been in Chicago. Even then, they’d been in touch often through phone calls and text messages.

Thus the fact that he wanted time apart stung unbearably. He didn’t want to see her. And she feared he didn’t want to see her, in part, because of how she’d reacted in those first moments after Sherry’s revelation.

Her eyes filled with tears, blurring a scene of Adolphus talking with Lucy.

Time apart would be good! Yes, she’d miss him. She’d miss him like a person missed air when underwater. But she could fix this. She was smart and perfectly capable of figuring out how to get her relationship with John back on track. She’d figure out what needed to be done and said, and she’d do and say those things. Everything would be fine. She’d solve this. There was no reason to feel terrified down to the marrow of her bones that she’d lost everything they’d shared.

But she was terrified.

Down to the marrow of her bones.

John didn’t leave his property for four days.

For every hour of those four days, the thought of Nora was like a burning coal in his stomach.

Not once in that time did he return to the lake. He slept like he’d been drugged and had a hard time forcing himself out of bed. He watched whole seasons of television shows on Netflix. He researched the bios of serial rapists online and read articles that dissected their psyches. He showered, but he couldn’t be bothered to shave. He avoided exercise. He ate cereal or frozen food or more cereal. He let go of as many of his responsibilities at work as he could. What were they going to do about it, fire him? He owned the company. Over the years, he’d assembled a strong team of employees at Lawson Training. They could easily get by without him for a while, a fact that should have come as a relief but only made him feel worse.

More than once, he stood in front of his bathroom mirror peering at the face his birth parents had given him and feeling depression crawl over his mind and body.

He was no longer a SEAL. No longer the man who’d gone on that mission to Yemen. Back then, he’d known who he was. He’d liked that version of himself far more than he liked himself now. He’d aged. He was going blind. He was on this earth because of rape.

When he finally backed his Plymouth out of his garage on Monday afternoon, he did so in order to attend the meeting he’d set up with Brian Raymond’s mother.

Sherry had been difficult to find. But Brian Raymond’s mother, Irene, had been easy. She’d been interviewed recently for an article about Brian’s crime spree. The reporter had listed her as Irene Dewberry, age eighty-one, of Shelton. He’d located her through a simple telephone search. When he’d called and explained his identity, she immediately invited him to visit.

Weeds sprouted from sidewalk cracks on Irene’s street. The bright yellow paint covering the buildings of her aging retirement community was working so hard to be happy that it had the opposite effect.

John spoke with the receptionist, then waited in the Activities Room, a space full of fake wood tables and the smell of Lysol. When he spotted a woman approaching, he stood.

Her white hair was cut no-nonsense short around a plain face free of makeup. She had on a cheap-looking floral cotton shirt, gray pants, and shoes that reminded him of something a nurse might wear. Bags of flesh swung from the bottom of her upper arms.

“I’m Irene.” She offered a hand and gave his a firm shake.

“John.”

She nodded, and they sat.

Her shrewd, dark eyes were set into skin webbed with wrinkles. She looked to him like a woman who’d lived through more than her share of trials and come through them toughened but unbroken. Her body might have softened with age, but he sensed that her will was as hard as a steel pipe. “Discovering that Brian was your father must have come as a shock to you,” she said.

“It did.”

“Discovering that Brian fathered you has come as a shock to me.”

“I’m sure it has.”

“It never occurred to me to think that Brian might have a child.” She set her lips in a straight line. Her attention raked over his face.

He said nothing. He had no interest in hurting Irene by admitting that his gut wrenched every time he thought about having her awful son as his biological father.

“Have you had time to educate yourself about Brian and his crimes?” she asked.

“I educated myself as much as I could. The articles I read didn’t say much about his childhood.”

“And you’d like to know about it?”

“I would.”

She rested one forearm on the table’s surface. Her thumb circled the pad of her second finger. “I was married to Brian’s father, Darrel, for about a year. He was a terrible man, and I can’t say I was much better back then. After Brian was born, I struggled with alcoholism on and off for ten years or so.” Her gaze didn’t flinch. “I was young and stupid.”

He waited while she seemed to collect her thoughts.

“I married Charlie Dewberry when I was thirty. Together, we had three children. We were married forty-eight years before he passed away, God rest his soul.” She waited with pointed silence.

“God rest his soul,” John said.

“Marrying a decent person makes a lot of difference,” Irene stated. “Charlie was decent. Our family life wasn’t perfect, but at least our kids came up in a house that was safe and stable.” She scratched the side of her jaw. “The same can’t be said of Brian.”

John had no plans to pity Brian. He’d come today strictly for information. Maybe he was punishing himself, but if there was a reason why Brian had become what he’d become, John needed to know it.

“Brian was a quiet boy. Good-looking. Introverted. Intense. I can’t remember him ever being carefree. He was always suspicious. Up until he was ten, back during my heavy drinking years before I met Charlie, I left Brian with Darrel a lot . . . which is one of the greatest regrets of my life. When Brian was little, he’d cry when I made him go to Darrel’s. But when he got to be about five or so, he stopped crying altogether. I’d take him to his father’s house, and he’d walk in without a word. He was at Darrel’s the night Darrel killed himself.”

Brian’s history and Sherry’s history were tangled together with his own history. Ugly or not, this story was a part of his story.

“As a teenager Brian was secretive,” Irene continued. “He withdrew from me and Charlie and the younger kids. I knew that something was off with him, but whenever I tried to talk to him about it, he shut me out. I remember telling Charlie not to worry about it, that Brian was just a moody teenager. You see, it was easier on me to believe that than to deal with the truth. I had a full-time job and little kids to take care of, so I let Brian be because at least he wasn’t an additional drain on my time or energy. He kept to himself. He handled his schoolwork and minded our rules.” She coughed dryly.

“Can I get you something?” John asked.

“I wouldn’t say no to a Diet Coke.”

John went to the soda dispenser situated along one wall and filled a glass with ice and Diet Coke. He handed it to Irene, then returned to his chair.

“I drink Diet Coke faster than cars drink gas, and I’m as healthy as a horse. Don’t believe it when people tell you Diet Coke isn’t good for you.”

“Okay.” John found that he didn’t hate the gruff woman before him. In fact, he felt almost unwillingly connected to her by the link they both had to Brian. Neither of them had wanted Brian to be vicious. But that hadn’t been for them to decide. The evil Brian had done wasn’t debatable or changeable. Brian had been vicious, and now neither of them could escape that fact or their tie to him.

When her glass was half empty, Irene set it aside and squinted at it. “The worst time of my life was after Brian’s arrest, when we found out what he’d done. Many of our friends and family members turned on Charlie and me—me especially. I just about drowned in guilt and blame. I hated what he’d done to those women, but I attended his trial and visited him in jail and sent him the things they allowed me to send him, because after everything was said and done, he was still my son. When he committed suicide in prison, I grieved for him with a mother’s love. . . . I’ve never forgotten what he was like when he was an innocent little boy.” She tapped her temple and looked to John. “I never will forget.”

Uncomfortable quiet settled between them.

“At some point along the way, the police allowed me to look at one of the notebooks they’d found in Brian’s apartment,” she said. “It was a kind of diary. He’d written in it and drawn in it a lot, too. In that notebook he said that he’d been sexually abused many times by Darrel’s brother.” Her eyes blazed. “I didn’t know that. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have made Brian go to Darrel’s. I would have gotten sober and protected Brian the way I should have. Of course I would have. If I’d known.”

When John didn’t reply, she asked, “Do you have questions for me?”

“Just one. I have an eye condition called Malattia Leventinese. Do any of your family members have it?”

She regarded him seriously. “I’m sorry to hear that you have Malattia Leventinese.”

He gave a nod.

“I didn’t inherit it,” she told him. “But my father had it. So did his grandmother. And one of my brothers. And four of my nieces and nephews.”

Her words were the answer to one of the primary questions that had sent him searching for his birth mother in the first place. He only wished the answers he’d collected hadn’t come at such a high price. “In that case, there’s a lot more I’d like to know. I’m hoping to put together a medical history for myself.”

“Ask away, John. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

She’d done it. Nora had managed to give John five days of privacy. They’d been five rotten days, but she’d survived them (barely) and was now about to send him a text message. She couldn’t bear to wait any longer.

She anxiously paced her back porch, phone in one hand, the thumb of her other hand clamped between her teeth.

Ever since she’d filled her sisters in on her ill-fated non-lunch with John and Sherry, Willow and Britt had been working to prevent her from overdosing on tea and heartache. One or both of them had kept her company each evening after work. Britt had made steady deliveries of chocolate, and Willow had gifted her with expensive bubble bath and a new pair of shoes. They kept telling her that all would be well and that John would come around, that a separation of five days wouldn’t break a relationship as solid as her relationship with John.

But only Nora had seen what he’d looked like when he’d discovered the identity of his father. Only she knew how uncharacteristic it was for him to stalk out of a restaurant, then send a text hours later asking for distance. Only she knew the struggle he’d gone through simply to come to a place where, because of his diagnosis, he’d allowed himself to let her in at all.

And only she knew how much she loved John.

His absence had focused a spotlight on the depth and breadth and tenacity of her feelings for him. It had clarified for her exactly what she felt for him.

Love. Love was what she felt.

The factual nature of that was exhilarating and terrifying.

She’d filled the past five days with a great deal of research salted with prayer. Since sleep had served her divorce papers without her consent, she’d read late into the night each evening. She’d finished four books written by relationship experts on the topic of overcoming conflict. She even reread Uncommon Courage to hunt for insights into John she may have missed the first time.

Dutifully, she’d prayed each morning. She’d asked God to forgive her for wanting John so badly when she knew very well she ought to be finding completeness in God alone.

She’d also asked God to forgive her for reacting to Sherry’s revelation the way that she had because—yes—for a moment there she’d been horrified by the identity of John’s father and by John himself. Worse, John had been able to tell.

Her reaction had been thoughtless and selfish. God offered her grace at every turn, yet as soon as she’d had the chance to offer John grace, she’d failed.

Nora stopped pacing, screwed her eyes shut, and sent the simple text message she’d composed to John. How are you? I miss you, and I’d really like to see you.

She waited one hour. Then two. Six.

She collected a matched set of twenty-four heartbroken hours. And still, he did not respond.

Facebook message from Duncan to Nora:

Duncan: I haven’t heard from you lately, Librarian Extraordinaire. How are things between yourself and the Navy SEAL? Still continuing along a blissful course?

Nora: I’m afraid we’ve hit a bit of a rough patch.

Duncan: That’s a shame. Sorry to hear it.

Nora: Never fear! I have the situation in hand. I’ll fix it.

Duncan: Why don’t you come see me and take your mind off of him? London is glorious this time of year. I’ll squire you around to all the touristy spots. We can drink tea and see shows. With any luck, you may even be able to join me on the set.

Nora: That’s a very kind offer. Thank you! For now, though, I’m completely focused on getting myself and John back onto our “blissful course,” as you so aptly put it.

Duncan: And if things don’t work out . . . ?

Nora: I’m not yet willing to contemplate that possibility.

Letter from Irene to her deceased husband, Charlie:

Sweetheart,

You always managed to see optimism in me. But even when I was a girl, I think a part of me was already old and pessimistic. Well, this old, pessimistic woman got to see a miracle yesterday.

A son. Of Brian’s. A miracle son. And he’s good. When I told Patti Jo his name, she went to her bookshelf and pulled out a book that must have cost thirty-five dollars. Charlie, the book’s about him. Brian’s boy, John. He’s a veteran.

I now understand why God kept me alive, even though I didn’t much want to go on living after you died. It was so I could meet this boy who’s now a man. Through all these years, despite my sins and Brian’s sins, God was at work. God had mercy on me, and yesterday, He let me see how He’s been working.

I only wish that you’d been with me to see him, too.

I love you, Charlie. Always.

—Irene