Page 51 of When I'm Gone
“Damn you.” He yanked the knife from Luke’s hand, stabbed the fish in the neck, and raked the knife down from the gills and along the jaw. The gills gave one last flick and the fish went still, blood pouring out from the cut. His father turned with the knife clenched in his hand and pointed it at Luke.
“How hard was that?” he yelled, and the small group of tourists that had been on the charter his father worked on turned their heads toward his voice. He didn’t notice and moved in closer to Luke, knife still raised. “Slice the gills and cut down, fast, like this.” He pressed the blade against Luke’s jaw as if to illustrate. Luke gasped when the sharp edge nicked his cheek, a hot trail of blood racing down his neck. Tears of fear and pain filled his eyes involuntarily. When his father saw them, he shoved Luke’s shoulder, hard, knocking him to the ground. “Your damn mother turned you into a sissy. Go home; I can’t stand looking at you right now.”
“Walt!”A deep, familiar voice echoed through the marina’s pavilion. Alex Kerks, the owner of Kerks Charters, stood above Luke. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he half whispered, half yelled at Walt as he dipped down to kneel next to Luke. “Are you hurt?” He ran his eyes over Luke like searchlights.
“I’m fine,” Luke whispered, covering the cut on his cheek, hoping Alex wouldn’t ask about the blood. “I tripped on the bucket.” He pointed to a black waste bucket several feet away, not nearly close enough to be in his way. Luke couldn’t look at his father, so he pulled himself to standing and wiped his face with the inside of his collar. Alex’s dark eyes bore into Luke’s, and he could see the questions in them: Did Luke really need help but couldn’t say it? Why was he covering for his father? What should happen now?
“You run home and get a Band-Aid for that cut.” Alex patted him firmly on the shoulder, and Luke swallowed a lump in his throat, sure that the last place he should go was home because his father could find him at home, and after today, the cut on his face would be nothing compared to the hard whooping he would get. “I’ll help your dad finish the fish.”
Luke stared at the ground and mumbled, “Yes, sir.” Then he ran, up Route 31, past the Chamber of Commerce, past Andy’s dad’s real estate office and the toy shop, past the House of Flavors and the post office. As he turned left on Lowell Street, he could feel a warm trail of blood pulsing out of the cut on his face, down his neck, and pooling around his collarbone.
He didn’t slow down until the grass turned to sand and he could make out the concrete barricades that surrounded the Pentwater River. He slowed to a walk, ignoring the sand that filled his tennis shoes, making them feel like weights on his feet. A few families were sprawled out on the beach under umbrellas; one toddler in a swollen diaper poured buckets of sand over his father’s feet, burying them only for a second before his father wiggled his toes and undid the little boy’s work. Luke picked up his pace a little, trying to escape the happy giggles of the child as much as the expected wrath of his father.
There was an abandoned house about half a mile off the public beach that had a set of stairs nearly two hundred yards long. Luke liked to climb to the top and look out over the curve of the beach, watching the birds hunt for their dinner and the boats bounce in the waves. He’d watched the sun set countless times while sitting on those steps, hiding from his drunk father or crying mother, but always leaving before it got too dark for him to find his way home. But that night he didn’t leave. When the sunset and the world turned black and cold, Luke curled up on the knobby wooden step, turning into himself, wondering if he could ever go home.
He did finally go home, but not until Officer Granson woke him with his flashlight and announced, “Found the kid,” into his walkie-talkie. Apparently the whole town had been out looking for him after Alex fired his father and called the police to report the incident at the marina. The officer took him to the hospital twenty miles north in Ludington. Two stitches later, he was released into his mother’s arms. A social worker was assigned to his family and visited monthly for the next two years. His father never laid a hand on him again.
“Is this it?” Annie asked, breaking the silence while pointing to a gray one-story house on the left side of Winter Lane. Twenty-two years ago he’d walked out that door and swore he’d never ever walk back in, and he hadn’t. He barely let himself think about what happened inside those walls, much less revisit them in person. Back then it was a white ranch, with red shutters and a peeling roof. It was a symbol of all he’d lost when he was forced to move away that hot July day.
Today, the house looked completely innocuous. The previous owners had the house re-sided in gray. By now it had probably been re-sided several times. The roof was new as well, white shutters framed the front windows, and a small addition jutted out to the right side of the house, where the ash tree used to be. That tree used to drop massive amounts of leaves on the house each fall, so Luke could see why they’d nixed it. The biggest difference was the green lawn and the large white and greenFORSALEsign in the front yard, withGARNERREALTYwritten in bold white letters.
To the right of Luke’s childhood home, where Natalie’s house used to sit, there was now a giant McMansion. Tearing down the old cottage-style homes and replacing them with modern palaces was a popular practice when the area’s tourist traffic increased in the early 2000s.
Annie glanced between the two houses, resting her eyes on Luke’s old home.
“This is a pretty little house. I wonder if people live here year-round or if this is a summer place.”
“I don’t know about now.” Luke shook his head, putting the car in park across the street from his house. “This was a family neighborhood when I lived here.”
“Why did you pick it?” Annie had made the call to Garner Realty to set up the appointment, but only after Luke sent her the listing for the house on Winter Lane. He was surprised to find it mixed in with all the vacation homes and empty land. It was the perfect location for this conversation to happen.
“I knew the people who used to live here.” Luke couldn’t stop staring at the house, noting all the changes. Maybe he was like that house, so changed that all those bad things from years ago didn’t matter anymore. Though he was fairly certain he was more like Natalie’s old house, a teardown that needed to be built again. “I don’t know; I thought it might be nice to be somewhere a little familiar.”
Annie ran a hand through her hair and slipped back on the black flats she’d taken off a few minutes into their trip. She was dressed up in a black pantsuit with a dark-blue silk blouse that matched the water in Lake Michigan. Twisting, she grabbed her purse from the backseat, slipped it over her shoulder, and pulled out a tube of lip gloss.
“So, do you think that’s his car?” she asked, brushing the tip of the applicator across her bottom lip, squinting at the silver Mercedes parked in the driveway.
“I think so.” Andy’s grunge days were clearly over. “Our appointment was for ten minutes ago. I’m sure he’s wondering where we are.”
Annie mashed her lips together, tossed the lip gloss back in her bag, and stared at the side of Luke’s face. “You never answered me earlier. Are you ready for this?”
Ready? No. He was not ready for any of this. But the more he’d considered Annie’s crazy plan, the more he knew it had to happen.
“Yup.” With a flick of his wrist Luke turned off the car and pulled the keys out of the ignition. He turned to face Annie. Her eyebrows were bunched up, cheeks flushed with nervous excitement. Luke let himself give one last smile before giving the go. “Thank you. I would never have done this without you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Meet me inside in five minutes, okay?”
“Okay.” He nodded. This was the plan. She’d go inside and get Andy comfortable, and then Luke would come in a few minutes later to take him off guard. “Good luck.”
She readjusted her purse strap and rubbed her glossy lips together one more time. “Good luck,” she said in return before jumping out the door and rushing across the street. He watched her knock on the door, the realtor lockbox hanging from the knob. A shadowy figure opened the door, and once Annie slipped inside, Luke let out a breath. No turning back now.
CHAPTER 20
Luke watched the glowing green numbers on his dashboard clock tick by. He attempted to distract himself with his phone, flicking through the videos and messages Will had sent during the past two weeks. Only two weeks, and Luke already missed the kids so badly he was tempted daily to catch the next plane to Florida so he could kiss them good night. Eventually he always remembered that visiting the kids meant visiting Terry too. After their exchange at the airport, he definitely wasn’t ready for that.
The numbers finally clicked over to ten fifteen. He swung open the car door without even checking to see if any cars were coming up from behind him. The front path was still made of cement; a crack or two had been patched with darker cement than the original. He hopped over the cracks in between the slabs of cement, remembering the game he used to play as a kid. It was an unexpected happy memory from this house, a welcome change.
When he finally reached the glossy navy-blue door, Luke raised his hand to knock. Then he noticed the knocker. It was golden but covered with dark-bronze splotches where the gilding had peeled off. He knew that knocker. He knew that door. Nobody had taken the time to change either fixture. This was his house, and he’d be damned if he was going to knock. Turning the knob slowly, he pushed his body through the smallest crack he could fit in and shut the door behind him noiselessly.
