“He always had to have someone to pound on, but when Mom was still around, he picked on her instead. She told Mandy to hide with me upstairs whenever our dad got pissed, which was almost every night. I was little, and Mandy kept me away from it, so I’m not sure what all happened back then. I just remember being in that closet and how scared I was. Mandy would tell me it was okay, but I could hear Mom screaming and feel Mandy shaking, and I knew it wasn’t. Finally I guess Mom got fed up. One night, she just left, and none of us ever heard from her again.”
“And that’s when your father started in on Mandy.”
“Yeah.” Luke bent his head, his expression grim and pensive. “That’s why she freaks about alcohol. He only went after her when he was drunk, and she thinks his rages were triggered by the booze. Sometimes I wonder if he wasn’t just mean.”
Luke fell silent for a moment. “I can remember sitting in front of the TV—that was when I could still see, so I was pretty young—watching cartoons while our dad guzzled booze before dinner. Pretty soon he’d be yelling, and Mandy would jab her thumb toward the stairs. That was my signal to run for the closet. It was the only safe place. For some reason he never thought to look for me there.”
“Why didn’t Mandy hide up there with you?” Zach couldn’t resist asking.
“Because he would have come upstairs to find her, and when he did, she was afraid he’d start beating on me, too.”
The pictures taking shape in Zach’s mind were almost enough to make him swear off drinking. Who’d been more judgmental the evening of the barbecue, Mandy or him? Maybe, as Luke had put it, she was over-the-top about alcohol, but who could blame her? Anyone who had grown up in that kind of environment might detest the stuff and be very, very doubtful that others could use it judiciously.
There were two more streets to cross before they reached the park. Luke fell silent. Zach’s mind was processing so much information that he went on autopilot, adjusting to the slow pace of boy and horse. He tried to focus on the scenery—well-tended yards splotched with snow, trees that were starting to develop tiny buds, the blue of the sky, and the yellow of blanched grass that had gained a foothold between cracks in the concrete. He found himself wishing Luke could see it all, and then he wondered what it must be like for the kid. The thought of being blind made Zach a little panicky.
Once at the park, Zach told Rosebud to find a chair. The mini led Luke to a park bench. Earning silent kudos from Zach, Luke clicked and gave the horse a treat before he sat down on the chipped green bench slats. Relaxing his shoulders against the curved backrest, Luke loosely curled one hand over Rosebud’s halter handle, his head lolling backward, his mouth open to draw in deep gulps of fresh air.
“I love the smells here. What are they?”
Typical of most sighted people, Zach took so many things for granted. He had no clue what Luke smelled. He sat down, closed his eyes, and breathed in deeply, too.
“Pine trees, food,” he said. “I also smell the stink of pond algae and duck poop.”
Luke laughed. “Ah, yep, algae and duck poop. I don’t get outside very much, especially not to a park. What’re the food smells?”
Zach glanced across the rolling lawn to a concession stand that faced a busier street. “Cotton candy, hot dogs, chili, and onions,” he guessed. “You hungry?”
“I’m always hungry. Mandy says I’ve got hollow legs.” Zach pushed erect. “Me, too. Sit tight and I’ll go buy us some lunch. You like Coney Island hot dogs?”
“I don’t think I’ve had one. We don’t eat out much. Can’t afford it.”
“A Coney is a hot dog on a bun with chili. If you go for the works, you get grated cheese, minced onions, relish, mayo, and mustard.”
“I didn’t bring any money.”
“Got you covered. What’s your poison?”
Luke wanted the works. Zach returned to the bench a few minutes later with a paper sack tucked under one arm, soft drinks in both hands, and two paper trays balanced on top, each brimming with hot dogs covered with chili and all the trimmings. Rosebud stood at Luke’s side while he devoured the meal with surprising neatness.
“This is so good!” He grinned, not looking at Zach, but warming him with his smile anyway. “Do I have chili on my face?”
Zach chuckled. “A little, but so do I. That’s the fun part, wearing half of it. We’ll wipe up later. For now, chow down, bucko. Enjoy your first Coney Island experience.”
Rosebud nosed Luke’s plastic knife off the bench. When it fell to the grass, the mini retrieved it and nudged Luke to give it back to him.
“Hey, Rosebud, good girl,” Luke said, reaching for the pellet pouch.
“No treats,” Zach said. “She just conned you.”
“Conned me?” Luke asked, bewildered.
Zach grinned. “She pushed the knife off the bench so she could pick it up for you and get rewarded. We’re eating. She must feel left out.”
“Shame on you, Rosebud,” Luke said fondly. “You tried to trick me.” He resumed eating. Pocketing a bite in his cheek, he said, “I hear kids.”
“Little guys. They’re behind us, playing on a merry-go-round, a slide, and a teeter-totter. The moms are sitting on benches at the other side of the playground. There’s a busy street over that way. Positioned there, they can intercept an escapee before he runs out into traffic.”
“I can remember playing on a teeter-totter,” Luke said softly. “Mandy used to take me to a park. Not this one. We lived in another house then. She weighed more than me, so she’d push up with her feet to balance us out.” His expression grew wistful. “She’d push me on a swing, too. It was fun.”
“New smell,” Zach said with a grin. “Rosebud just farted.”
Luke laughed. “Nasty, Rosebud. We’re eating here, you know.” He took a pull from his soft-drink straw. “This is great, Mr. Harrigan.”
“Zach. And I’m glad you’re having a good time. Truth is, it’s been way too long since I’ve done this. It’s a nice break from routine for me, too.”
“It’s been forever for me,” Luke confessed. “Mandy is so busy, we don’t get out often. She tries to take me places, but sitting on a park bench doesn’t happen much.”
“Why don’t you get good with a cane so you can go for walks by yourself?”
“It’s Mandy’s job to take me. Why should I go alone?”
Zach was beginning to get a bird’s-eye view of Luke and Mandy’s life, and it wasn’t pretty. Luke refused to be self-sufficient because, in some twisted way, he wanted to punish his sister for blinding him. Why didn’t he understand that, in the process, he was also punishing himself?
Wiping his mouth with a napkin, Zach asked, “How long will your dad be in prison?”
“I’m not sure. For a really long time, I hope. He still hates Mandy’s guts, and if he’s turned loose and gets tanked up, he’d be just crazy enough to come after her again.”
The mere thought turned Zach’s stomach. “So she lived alone when it happened?”
“Yeah. Because she’d been in foster care, she didn’t have many friends, at least not any she knew well enough to have as a roommate.”
“Being in foster care makes it difficult to have friends?”
“Well, for us it was difficult. I—um—acted up a lot, and people never wanted to keep us for long. The case-workers try to keep you in the same school when they move you around, but that’s not always possible. Mandy was bounced back and forth between three high schools. And before that, our dad didn’t let her do much after school or on weekends. She’s never had very many friends. I haven’t, either.”
“I see,” Zach said to let Luke know he was listening.
“Anyway, Mandy got an apartment, like I told you, and for the next three years, she worked as a waitress at two different jobs, trying to save money to buy us a house. By the time she was old enough to petition the court for custody again, she’d gotten the place we live in now. An owner-carrying-the-contract deal. They let
her make a smaller down payment and gave her lower interest rates than she could get at a bank.”
Zach was impressed. A badly abused, seventeen-year-old girl had not only found the courage to report her father to the authorities, but then, at eighteen, had volunteered to assume responsibility for her brother. The lady had steel in her spine. He struggled to wrap his mind around the Pajeck family dynamics. A mother who had abandoned her children to a vicious, abusive drunk. A little boy who’d hidden in an upstairs closet nearly every night. A young woman, a very beautiful young woman, who now led the life of a saint, caring for a brother she’d blinded. It was like some frigging soap opera.
Zach had endured pain. He’d lost his mother to childbirth complications at a very early age, and it hadn’t been easy for his dad to raise five little kids alone. But never had Zach been subjected to the twisted kind of crap Luke was revealing.
Luke finished his lunch. Zach took his tray and cup, then handed him a napkin. As the kid wiped his pitted face, he said, “It was a canning accident.”
Zach crumpled the paper bag in his hands. “Pardon?”
“My blindness. I was six. Mandy was canning. I was standing beside her watching, and a jar exploded. It was hot in the kitchen from the pressure cooker, and our dad got pissed if we ran the air conditioner, so she opened a window. It was cool outside, September, I think. She was putting up the last of the garden produce. Our dad had this thing about saving money, so we always had a summer vegetable garden. When Mama left, it became Mandy’s job to plant a garden and preserve the food for winter.”
“And she was how old?”
“Thirteen when Mom walked. Fifteen when she blinded me.”
Zach clenched his teeth to give himself a moment before he spoke. “Okay, so back to the accident. A jar exploded in your face?”
“Yes. I was in the hospital for a long time, and it was all because she did something stupid. When she opened the windows, it created a draft. Any idiot knows that those jars come out of a pressure cooker blasting hot. When she lifted one out and the air struck it, the thing went off like a bomb.” Luke swallowed hard. “That was the last thing I saw, exploding glass. The shards hit me in the face, ruined my eyes, end of story.”
Zach could remember a jar exploding once while Dee Dee was canning. “You know, Luke, it isn’t uncommon for hot jars to shatter. My stepmom has had it happen to her. How can you blame Mandy for something that probably wasn’t even her fault?”
Luke’s head came up. His mouth thinned into an ugly curve. “It was her fault, all right. She should have known better than to open the windows.”
“But did she know better? That’s the question. How old was she when this happened? Fifteen? She was barely more than a child herself.” Zach kept his voice low. “It was wrong of your father to place that much responsibility on her shoulders. Pressure cookers can be dangerous. The gauges need to be sent in every year to be checked. If your dad was a cheapskate, I’ll bet he never paid to do that.”
Luke’s brows snapped together in a troubled scowl. “Probably not. He could squeeze a nickel until the buffalo hollered.”
“When gauges aren’t functioning right, the cooker can explode. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“And jars—they just blow up sometimes. If Mandy had known, she’d have made you stand back as she lifted them out. Had she ever had one explode before?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then essentially, she was a kid given an adult’s job, and she didn’t know what the fuck she was doing.” Zach caught the inside of his cheek between his teeth. He hadn’t meant to use that word, but it was just so damned frustrating. He had his issues with Mandy. Well, make that before talking with Luke, he’d had issues with her. Now he had a far better understanding of why she’d gone off on him like she had.
“Here’s the thing, and please understand I’m just a stranger, looking in. But I don’t think it’s fair to hold a young girl accountable for making a mistake when she was forced to do a job she shouldn’t have been doing. Your father was the one responsible.”
“He wasn’t even home! Look, my dad was a jerk, no question, but he was also a really smart man. He was the mayor of Crystal Falls. He knew a lot of really important people. You don’t get there unless you have a lot going for you.”
“Like what, a gift for gab?” Zach walked over to put the remaining lunch garbage into a trash receptacle. “Your dad was an asshole. Sorry, but that’s my take. He abused his daughter. He expected her to carry a load of responsibility that a woman twice her age might have found daunting. You want to blame Mandy for your blindness and make her pay for it? Hey, man, that’s your deal. But if you do, it doesn’t speak well of you. You’re nineteen, and you can’t find the bathroom by yourself. Yet you berate her for not being a bulletproof home-maker at fifteen? Give me a break.”
Luke groped for Rosebud, who’d clearly become a comfort to him, slipping his fingers into her forelock. “If you’re trying to make me feel like shit, you’re succeeding.”
“Good. I think it’s about time you started to grow up.” Zach realized how harsh he sounded and paced in a circle, taking deep breaths. “I’m sorry. I’ve got no business saying any of this to you. But one of my worst faults—and I’ve got a lot of them—is calling it like I see it. Your father was an asshole, and now you’re following in his footsteps by punishing your sister for something that wasn’t her fault. Sorry, partner, but that’s my take. You need to shape up and cut her a little slack.”
Luke’s eyes went bright with tears again. His mouth trembled. “You really think it wasn’t Mandy’s fault?”
Zach tucked his thumbs under his belt and bent his head. Gifted with words he wasn’t. No one would ever elect him as mayor. But at least he was honest, even when the truth hurt. “Some people are cruel in a lot of different ways. Your dad obviously enjoyed inflicting physical pain. But he didn’t stop there, did he?”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. He also got off on causing injury with words. He turned you against Mandy, the one person who truly loved you. That’s the worst kind of pain there is, not just for you, but for her as well. I’ve seen her with you. There’s not much she wouldn’t do for you. When accidents happen that hurt a loved one, we tend to blame ourselves, even if it wasn’t our fault. Can you step away from your own feelings to imagine what hers must be like? Can you imagine living with that guilt every single day of your life?”
Shiny rivulets streamed down Luke’s cheeks. “This is why I wanted to come here today, to talk to you about all this. Mandy and me—well, we got into a huge fight after we left your ranch that first day, and after it was over, we sort of—I don’t know—understood each other better. Because of that, I’ve been thinking. ...” He gulped. “Well, I’ve just been thinking, is all. Mandy loves me. I know she does. And I keep taking jabs at her, trying to hurt her for what she did.”
“And?” Zach asked.
“And nothing! I know I shouldn’t do it, but ... but I can’t stop. Sometimes I get to thinking maybe I’m just like my dad, mean to the core. And that ... that’s the worst.”
Zach plopped back down on the bench. A family counselor, he sure as hell wasn’t. “Ah, Luke. You aren’t mean to the core. You’re a decent person. I’ve seen that in you.”
“You have?” The kid sounded surprised.
“Little glimpses.” Zach realized Luke couldn’t see him grinning and gave the kid’s knee a jostle to impart that he was teasing. “You’re a mess. You know it?”
“I’ve been to counseling.”
“And how did that go?”
“It was pretty much worthless.” Luke wiped his face again. “I’m sorry. I’m crying like a baby. All of this shit has been eating at me for a long time.”
“You think I never cry? Think again. I’m the biggest blubberer there is sometimes.”
“You are?”
Zach considered the question. The man he most a
dmired in the world, his father, had never been ashamed to shed tears. “A man who can’t cry without feeling embarrassed isn’t a real man.”
Luke sniffed. “I guess I’m not a real man, then. I’m embarrassed.”
“You’re going to be a fine man someday. You’ve just got a little growing up to do. And please know I don’t mean that as a slam. I was a jerk at nineteen. I’m surprised my father didn’t give up on me. But he never did. He just gave me some time to grow up and get it all figured out. Eventually I did, and you will, too.”
“I hope so. I’ve done such bad things to my sister. Since our fight, I’ve been better, but still, hardly a day goes by that I don’t take jabs at her for blinding me. I pretend I can’t do anything, just to make her pay. And—” He broke off and dragged in air through his nose, making a wet sound. “And I don’t know how to stop. There’s this awful feeling inside of me. Mandy’s sent me to shrinks for years, but I’d never talk to them about it. I knew if I did that I’d have to try to fix it. Only it was too big for me to fix. You know? So I played the counselors like it was all a game. They tried to dig deep into me, but I never even let them scrape the surface. I was scared to.”
Zach was in way over his head and knew it. “Luke, I’d like to be your friend. But I’m not qualified to help you with this.”
“I think maybe you are.”
Zach tensed. “I’m just a goat roper with degrees in agriculture and animal husbandry.”
“Yeah, but I like you, and you’re honest.”
Zach didn’t figure likability and honesty were all Luke needed. “If you’ve got bad feelings, you should talk with a professional.”
“I’m scared,” Luke whispered. “My mom—she just left. You know? I was only four, and somehow that got all mixed up in my head, making me afraid Mandy would leave, too. All those times when my dad was beating on her? I was so afraid. This’ll sound really bad, but I wasn’t as afraid for her as I was for myself. I’d huddle in the closet, crying because I knew she couldn’t take it forever. What if I woke up the next morning and she was gone, just like my mom? I’d be the only one left for him to pound on. You know? And I couldn’t even see to try to get away from him.”