times he has seen Kelli and me alone together, the long drives to her house in the afternoon, the intimacy that he imagines must have grown between us during that time, the sort of friendship that permits nothing to be hidden, and at last that climactic moment when she reveals to me the single most unspeakable secret of her life.
His eyes widen in astonishment, but no longer in disbelief. “She told you that, Ben? Kelli told you that her father was a nigger?”
I do not answer.
I can see all of it gathering together in Eddie’s mind, all doubt dissolving, a mist solidifying, becoming fact.
“Don’t tell Todd, though,” I warn him, thinking absolutely that he will, and that after that it will be over, that Todd will never mention what he’s been told, never confront Kelli with any part of it, but simply walk away from a love that has become impossible. “I mean it, Eddie,” I say. “Don’t tell Todd.” I say it gravely, sincerely, but already envisioning the moment when Eddie will draw Todd aside and whisper the fatal word in his stricken ear. I imagine all that will inevitably happen after that: Todd’s sudden remoteness, Kelli’s bafflement, the wrenching moment when he will cast her aside once and for all and return, as he had so many times in the past, to Mary Diehl. I imagine everything except the possibility that Eddie might actually heed my warning to keep all that I have told him from Todd Jeffries … but tell Lyle Gates instead.
CHAPTER 22
I HEAR A ROLL OF THUNDER, AND SUDDENLY I AM BACK IN MY car, my eyes staring emptily through the rain at the sloping stairs that lead to the front door of Miss Troy’s house. I feel bled by memory, left utterly dry and desolate, a charred remnant.
And so I remain in my car for a long time, my eyes fixed on the dark facade of Miss Troy’s house. Slowly, my strength returns to me. I hear my father’s voice say,
MISS TROY SMILED GRATEFULLY AS SHE OPENED THE DOOR. “Ah, Ben, it’s so nice of you to come,” she said.
She stepped back to let me in. “Terrible night,” she said as I swept by.
For a moment she looked embarrassed by the state of things inside the house, the dust and clutter. “The place is … well …” She stopped, then added, “As you can see.”
I walked to the center of the room, surprised by how spare it was, with bare walls, a rugless wooden floor, and nothing but a couple of wooden chairs and the old rocker to suggest that it was still lived in.
“Have a seat, Ben. Can I get you something? It’s awful outside. Maybe a cup of coffee to warm you?”
“No, thank you,” I answered.
Miss Troy nodded, then eased herself into the rocker. “Please, Ben, have a seat,” she said as she shifted about slightly, trying to bring herself into a more comfortable position. “Lord knows, you’ve worked hard all day.”
I took a seat in the other chair, dropped my hands into my lap and glanced out the rain-smeared window.
“I sure do appreciate you coming by,” Miss Troy said. She smiled delicately. “I know it makes it a mighty long day for you.”
I turned from the rain and looked at her directly. “Don’t worry about that, ma’am.”
Her ancient eyes narrowed slightly. “I’m sorry you never came by to visit me. But I understand how you must have felt.”
I remained silent.
“The way it was between you and Kelli,” Miss Troy said. “I know it would have been just too hard for you to come here.”
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s why I so appreciate you coming here tonight,” Miss Troy told me. “Because I know it can’t be easy for you.” She glanced toward her lap, then back up at me. “I guess you heard about Gates, about them shooting him some time back.”
“Yes, I heard about it,” I told her.
“I guess I should have been able to forgive him,” Miss Troy said. “But I couldn’t do that. Not after what he did to Kelli. I kept seeing what that other girl saw. What was her name?”
“Edith Sparks.”
“Kelli’s blood on his hands. And even when I heard he was dead, even then I couldn’t forgive him. Could you, Ben?”
I gave her the only answer that seemed possible. “I guess not, Miss Troy.”
She shook her head. “It’s just in me. This hatred for him. I guess I have a hard heart, you might say.”
My eyes fled toward the window once again, the comfort of its concealing darkness.
Miss Troy drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, then said, “Well, Kelli sure would be proud of you, Ben. Making a doctor and all, just like you always said you would.”
I continued to stare out into the night.
“She’d be surprised that you came back to Choctaw, though,” Miss Troy added. “She wouldn’t have expected that. She always thought you’d end up in a big city somewhere. Atlanta, maybe, or someplace up north. Why
I saw all that had flowed from a single rash and heartless act, all that I had spent thirty years trying to amend. “I thought I owed it something,” I said.
Miss Troy smiled gently. “That’s a nice way to think about it.”
“It’s about the only way I can think about it, I guess,” I told her.
She glanced toward the window. “Well, I sure did pick a bad night to ask you over here. But there’s no one else I could have asked.”
“I understand,” I told her.
“What with no family and all, no husband.” Miss Troy’s eyes drifted away, then returned to me. “Did Kelli ever tell you about him? Her father, I mean?”
“No, ma’am.”
“He wasn’t a bad man, you know. And he sure loved Kelli, at least while she let him.”
I nodded, but said nothing.
“But he got involved with another woman, you know. It happens all the time.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But Kelli just wouldn’t have anything to do with him after that,” Miss Troy went on. “He tried to come and see her, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Just five years old, but she had her own mind.” She shook her head. “He’d disappointed her so. That was one of Kelli’s problems. If people disappointed her, she just cut them off. Like she did her father, just cut him off.” Her eyes drifted over to the only photo of Kelli in the room, taken when she was a little girl. “But you know, Ben, there’s one thing I’m happy about.”
“What’s that, Miss Troy?”
“That before Lyle Gates got his hands on her, Kelli got a little taste of love,” she said.
I saw Kelli as she’d looked that last night with Todd, so passionate and yielding, drawing the ring her grandmother had given her onto his finger, her face lifted delicately toward his.
“Because I know she loved you, Ben,” Miss Troy added. “She told me that.”
“We were friends,” I said softly, and for the first time it struck me as enough, a state of selfless and abiding care which, when the mystery of love can grant no more, should be sufficient to sustain and satisfy us.
Miss Troy drew in a long, soft breath. “There’s something I want you to have, Ben.” She got to her feet, walked slowly over to the mantel and opened a small wooden box. “Something to remember Kelli by,” she said as she pressed it toward me. “Her grandmother’s ring.”
I stared at the ring, my mind hurling back to that long-ago night, to Kelli’s hand pressing it onto Todd Jeffries’s finger.
“Sheriff Stone found it on Breakheart Hill,” Miss Troy said as she sat down again. “And I’m sure Kelli would
