Page 36 of Tempting Eden

“How about we sit out on the sun porch.”

“Can I help clean up?”

She swatted her hand at me. “Oh, the dishes will be here when we get back. At least, in my experience, they always are. They can wait a bit.” She grabbed both our teas and led me toward the back of the house, her dark hair swinging down her back. She wore a maxi skirt and a tank top with a cardigan, perfect fall attire in the South.

We entered a room with a glass ceiling and many windows. Maria clearly had a green thumb—plants lined the walls of the room, and I spotted a little winter garden out in the yard. At the far back of her property was a carriage house with an apartment above it.

We sat on her sofa, sinking into the feathered cushions as the sunlight poured into the room, making it pleasantly warm. A painting hung opposite us, blocking the light from one of the windows. It seemed out of place, as if it were brand new. Art appreciation was never my thing, but I could tell this piece was special.

It was the sea, but not. Yellow light played along the top of the water as the sun rose in the background, but beneath the waves and the foamy surf was darkness, darker than such shallow water could ever be. It was as if the sun’s brightness wasn’t allowed to reach the depths.

I realized Maria was watching me study the painting. Her dark eyes were attentive, intelligent.

“This is beautiful. What a great room. And you seem to have a knack for gardening. My thumb is a shade of herbicide.”

She laughed at my lame joke, which made me like her more. “Thank you. I tend to let the plants get a little too wild sometimes, but then again, sometimes that’s what they need.” She surveyed the indoor garden. “To get out of hand a bit so I can trim them into a more pleasing form, one that helps them grow stronger.”

“Is that what you did with Jack?”

She tapped the side of her nose with her forefinger and nodded. “Smart cookie. But not exactly. Jack is like the trunk of the tree. I can work with branches, trim them, bend them, steer them, but the trunk isn’t quite as easily guided. No, Jack had to decide for himself which way he wanted to grow.”

“And which way was that?”

“Straight—and—narrow.” She punctuated each word with pride. “But not at first. When he first came to the detention center where I volunteered, he’d already spent six months in Elmore County. That’s where the worst of the worst state criminals go. He didn’t have an easy time of it, especially being so young.”

I’d heard about Elmore, about the state and federal investigations of alleged inmate fights set up by the wardens and guards. It was a brutal place.

“So, when he came to me, he had no trust left in him. It had been beaten out of him, you see?”

I nodded. Her words were making some of my worst fears come to life. Maybe Jack had been conning me this whole time. But could he con a woman like Maria Temple? One look into her sharp eyes affirmed that such a thing wasn’t possible.

“I ran a volunteer program where former educators like myself would work with the juvenile inmates to give them an education—so they could get out of the system for good. Jack, though, he didn’t want my help, told me he didn’t need it. He didn’t care about getting his GED or getting an education. He just wanted to get out of the facility. No plan, no future. He was so stubborn.” She laughed and shook her head. “So stubborn that I began to doubt I’d ever get him to open up. And he wasangry. So many emotions bubbled inside him and erupted on the surface like an over-active volcano. But I came to understand the emotions—all negative—came from a place of hurt, more than anything else. If that makes sense?”

“It does I think. He told me about what happened to Helen.” I’d hugged Adele extra hard when I’d gotten home the night before. Then I’d lain awake, wishing I could protect her from the world, hoping that what I was doing was enough to keep her safe. I never knew Helen, but her death haunted me.

“That wonderful little girl was his anchor, his world. After what happened to her and then what he did to reconcile it, well, he didn’t see his life as having value. He was a lost cause by the time I began seeing him.”

I laughed nervously. “I thought you were supposed to convince me he’s okay now.”

She folded her hands in her lap and shook her head slightly. “I don’t think he’ll ever get over what happened to Helen. On some level, that will always be a thorn in his paw.”

I forced myself to think about it from his point of view. To think about what I’d do if, God forbid, something so horrible ever happened to Adele. What would I do if I had the chance to kill the perpetrator of such a horrendous crime? The answer took no time to pop up in my mind.I’d pull the trigger.

“Though that hurt will always be there, it was ultimately what saved him. After I’d been trying for months to get him to open up to me, I was on the verge of giving up. And, mind you, giving up isn’t something I do lightly! Every child in that facility is a hard case.” She took a fierce gulp of tea. “It’s always a fight. Jack was the toughest fighter I’ve ever had. He cussed me, spat on me, threatened me. Anything and everything to get me to leave him alone.”

It was nearly impossible for me to square the person Maria described with the well put-together, stoic man I knew. “So, what happened? How did you get to him?”

“Helen.” She smiled when she said the name, the same as Jack did. “I went through the storage box of items they took from him when he first went into the system. Inside I found the key. A photo of Helen. One of those wallet sized school photo proofs they send home. Her smile was a jolt of joy. She truly was a beautiful soul. If only I could have taught her, she’d be done with college now and probably in law school or medical school. And Jack loved her more than life itself. God, did he love that child!”

She wiped at her eyes. The bridge of my nose stung with unspent tears for the little girl who was gone too soon.

“Anyway, I took that photo to Jack. He held it in his hands and shook as if he were freezing to death. He collapsed at my feet and cried for her. It was the most gut-wrenching thing I’ve ever witnessed. He wailed. You know how in the Bible they talk about wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes? I never knew what it really meant until I saw him. The depth of his sorrow was too much for him to bear.”

The stinging grew as tears welled in my eyes.

“He let me comfort him then. He clung to me. He’s been my son ever since. After that, every time I asked him to do something, to learn something, to read something, every time he told me he couldn’t, I pointed to the picture pinned above his bed. ‘Do it for her,’ I would tell him. And he did. He was no longer the rude, violent boy who first came to the facility. He grew straight and tall, strong and proud.”

Her gaze wandered to the hardy plants along the walls of the room. “He read on a third-grade level at best when we first started working. By the time he left lockup, he’d read all the classics, plenty of contemporary, and even written a few things himself. Most of all, he loved to paint, loved to put the images of his dreams onto canvas. You may have noticed some of them throughout my house.”

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