Travis (Pelion Lake) by Mia Sheridan

My heart picked up speed, thumping rapidly. I still had something else to say. “Our dad and his brother came to such an ugly end, on a highway, smeared with blood. You were there. You know.” I closed my eyes momentarily. Winced. My hands were shaking. The whole room had grown silent, only the sound of my whooshing blood echoing in my head. I met Archer’s eyes again. “I used to drive out there to the spot where it happened quite a bit . . . just sit on the side of the road . . . picturing a scenario where I could have intervened, stopped it somehow. I drove there today and it suddenly occurred to me that if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, really forgive me, then in some way, we will have stopped it. We will have broken the cycle. I want that for us, Archer. I want that for your sons, and for the ones, God willing, I might have someday.”

My heart continued to pound, fingers trembling as I waited. He glanced at his wife, another unspoken something moving between them and then he turned, walking toward me. When he’d stepped onto the stage, he raised his hands. None of us can go back, he said. But we’re here now. And as far as new beginnings go, it’s a pretty great place to start from. I’m all in if you are. He walked up to me, placing his hand on my shoulder, and then removing it to speak. Brothers till the end, he signed.

I let out a small choked laugh that was filled with the enormous relief I felt. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m all in.” I wrapped my arms around my brother, grasping him tightly, seeing Bree wipe a tear from her cheek, watching us from where she stood. I signaled her to join us and she walked toward the stage. The town might not forgive me, or ever trust me again. But I had my family back. They’d given me another chance, and I was going to grasp it with both hands. And now I knew, with absolute certainty, that my dad had loved me. He hadn’t thrown me away. He had never thought of me as second best or someone he hadn’t wanted. I had been loved.

But even if I hadn’t been, I was now and God, I was grateful.

Bree made it to where we stood, wrapping her arms around us both.

“Is there a reason you’re wearing”—her brow knitted as she stared at my hand on Archer’s shoulder—“a donkey thimble?”

“Oh, er, it brings back a moment,” I said, as we all stepped apart. “And I wanted that memory here tonight.” To give me strength. To remind me why I was doing this.

“That’s a nice show of family affection,” I heard someone say. “But I don’t know if he should still be chief. Have you read page forty-seven? What kind of role model is he?”

I had no argument for that.

Bree leaned toward the microphone, the murmurs beginning again, a few people still engrossed in my packet of shame, others asking questions about repercussions. Family was one thing, I heard someone say, but public service required higher standards. “We all have lists of things we’re ashamed of,” Bree said, glancing around. “Perhaps not with so many, er, addendums.” She gave an uncomfortable laugh. “But each of us could make one of our own. What would be on yours?” She pointed into the audience randomly. “Or yours?” She moved her finger to the left.

Apparently, assuming the question was non-rhetorical, Elmer Lunn stood up, put his hands in his pockets, hung his head, and confessed, “Sometimes when I’m bored, I go to the library and switch all the book jackets. Gives a little thrill.”

A loud, sharp inhale of breath followed. “You evil bastard!” Marie Kenney, the town librarian said, standing up and glaring hatefully at him.

The whole crowd swiveled as Clyde Chappelle stood. “I pretended to be a spirit named Alucard.”

His sister, June, came slowly to her feet, her eyes wide with disbelief. “The one we spoke to through the Ouija Board for years as kids? The one who demanded to know all of our secrets and threatened to pull us out of bed by our toes if we refused? That Alucard?”

“Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “That’s him. Er, me, I mean. I’m him.”

“I’ve been in therapy my whole adult life over Alucard, you sick devil!” She lunged for him, but was restrained by her best friend, Honey Smythe.

“I ran over my in-law’s dog and replaced it with a new one,” Bill Donnelly confessed.

“Chewie?” Marie Flanders gasped. “Chewie’s not . . . Chewie?”

Norm rose, head bowed, Maggie’s eyes widening with what looked like panic. “I buy my secret-recipe potato salad by the tub at the Costco off the interstate.” There was a collective gasp as Norm sank back down in his chair. “It’s the best,” he muttered defensively.

“Well now you’ll have to retire. In shame,” I heard Maggie hiss accusingly.

Cricket stood up. “I killed Betty’s husband and I’m not sorry about it.” My head, along with Archer’s and Bree’s swiveled in unison. There was another collective gasp as the entire crowd turned her way. She reached down, took Betty’s hand, and looked around. “He beat her. He knocked her in the head so many times, it’s a wonder she held on to any words at all. And so I killed him. It was only an accident that I killed his cat, Bob Smitherman. He walked in front of the shovel I was swinging. But I do feel sorry about that. I bought him the biggest headstone I could afford, but it doesn’t feel like enough.”

Betty stood up, her hand still gripped in Burt’s who sat beside her. “I should have been the one to go to prison for letting the abuse go on as long as I did. It’s my fault you were . . .” Her brow dipped. Her fingers drummed on her skull as she struggled.