it to his mom, who put it into the duffel.
“You don’t have to take everything with you tomorrow,” she said. “I can bring over anything you need.”
Ryan gingerly sat back down on the bed, holding his side.
Teri looked at him anxiously. “Do you need a pain pill?”
Ryan shook his head. “I’m okay. Just nervous about tomorrow, I guess.”
Teri sat next to him and smoothed his hair, then touched his swollen eye and gently traced the edge of a big bruise. As Ryan was about to brush her hand away she suddenly stood up. “There’s something I want you to have,” she said. “You’re not as old as you’re supposed to be, but I think it’s time.”
Intrigued, Ryan followed her through his bedroom door and down the hall to the little door that opened into the attic. They ducked in the doorway and stood up in a spacious area with a plywood floor below them and bare rafters above. Teri groped for the chain and a single hanging bulb lit the room, throwing harsh shadows across the storage space. Ryan followed her between containers of Christmas decorations, cartons of his baby clothes, and boxes of photographs, many of them so old no one even knew who they were anymore. A couple of old lamps with missing shades sat on a bent chaise lounge, and the ceramic chicken he’d painted red when he was in kindergarten sat, headless, next to the chaise on the little table that used to be in his room when he was small.
Ignoring it all, his mother crouched next to an old green trunk with a combination lock on its hasp.
A trunk Ryan couldn’t remember seeing before.
His curiosity increasing, he knelt next to his mother and watched as she worked the combination, removed the lock and opened the lid.
On the top lay a sheet of tissue paper, which she pulled away to reveal his father’s class-A dress uniform.
Ryan’s breath caught. The last time he’d seen his father dressed in that uniform was when he received a Silver Star for Gallantry in Action, during his first tour in Iraq. It was the same uniform he wore in the photo Ryan kept on his desk. Could this be the gift?
But even before he could voice the question, his mother had lifted out the tray holding the uniform, set it aside, then removed everything below it. Finally she pried open a false bottom that was so perfectly fitted that Ryan hadn’t even seen it, and took a small rosewood box from the compartment the panel had hidden. “This was with your father’s things when they came back from Iraq,” she told him. She turned the box so it faced Ryan and opened its hinged lid.
Inside was his father’s crucifix, the one he’d worn around his neck almost as long as Ryan could remember. He picked it up gently, almost reverently. It was heavy — heavier than he’d expected. And it wasn’t flat like most crucifixes. This one was thick, the body of Christ in full relief, the cross itself covered with intricately detailed carvings, each delicate etching darkened with time and tarnish.
“He was going to give it to you when you were grown,” Teri said as Ryan gazed at the object in his hands. “But I think maybe you need to have it right now. He said it always helped him do the right thing.”
The silver felt warm and familiar to Ryan’s fingers. Despite the etching, the metal was smooth, as if it were very old, and had been worn by generations of fathers and sons. And he could almost hear his father’s voice again, repeating the words he’d heard inside his head a few minutes ago. The same words his mother had just spoken.
Accepting the cross — putting the chain around his neck and feeling its weight against his heart — would mean something.
It would mean he had become a man, a grown-up.
A man his father would be proud of.
He remembered the last few days, when he’d acted like a sulking child when all his mother had wanted him to do was go out to dinner with a man she liked.
Instead, he had thought about weasling out of it. In the end, he’d thought better of it, but it had taken him too long.
And what about when those two guys had jumped him in the hall at school, and he hadn’t even tried to fight back.
What kind of man would have just taken the beating he had?
Suddenly the crucifix felt like it was burning his flesh. This was something that had to be earned, not simply received.
He handed it back to his mother. “Not yet,” he said.
She looked at him in surprise. “You’re sure?”
Ryan nodded. “I think maybe Dad was right — maybe I’m not old enough yet.”
She took the crucifix from him, kissed it so gently it almost made Ryan cry, and put it back into the box. “It’s yours,” she said, “and it’s right here, whenever you want it. The combination to the lock is your father’s birthday.”
He nodded, not trusting his voice to speak. He would come back for it, but not until he had earned it.
And just now, he felt a tiny bit closer to realizing that goal.
CHAPTER 13
GORDY ADAMSON GLOWERED at the arthritic old priest sitting across from him. “Get this, Father, and get it good, okay?” he snarled, not even a hint of respect in his voice. “These are very simple questions, and there should be very simple answers. So tell me. Why was Kip off campus? How could he just walk away without you people knowing about it?”
“Mr. Adamson—” Father Laughlin began.
“I’ll tell you why!” Adamson cut in, leaning forward and placing both hands on the priest’s desk.
“Honey…” Anne Adamson tried to restrain her husband with a hand on his arm, but he jerked it away from her, barely pausing in his tirade.
“Because once you have your fancy tuition money to fill your church coffers, you’re no better than any other school,” Gordy declared, his voice starting to rise. “Any public school — any damn one of them — keeps better tabs on their students than this high-priced, ritzy-titzy place.” Now he paused for a second or two, his expression transforming from belligerence to contempt. “How the hell old are you, anyway? What makes you think you know what works with today’s kids?”
Father Laughlin’s lips compressed to a tight line, and he looked down at his hands.
Adamson, sensing the priest’s weakness like a predator sniffing out the weakest prey, bored deeper. “I bring my son here for safekeeping and a good education. So what happened?” Father Laughlin visibly flinched, which only made Gordy Adamson lean even closer. “What
Father Laughlin shook his head and spread his hands in defeat.
“That’s right,” Gordy sneered. “That is exactly right! You have no idea. Well, I’m here to tell you that something happened to my boy here under this roof, and I am going to find out what it was. He was fine when he got here and two and a half years later, he’s not only dead, but apparently he killed someone else, too! Which means something happened.” He sat back in the chair, his eyes fixing on the priest. “Some goddamned thing happened.”
Father Laughlin took a deep breath, collected his thoughts, and finally spoke. “You brought Kip to us because he was a troubled boy,” he said quietly. “He’d been expelled from public school—”
“He wasn’t
“Honey,” Anne Adamson tried again. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Let’s go home.” As she stood up, Father Laughlin rose, too.
“Brother Francis packed Kip’s things—” he said, gesturing toward Kip’s footlocker, which was on the floor
