The last secret_ a novel - Mary McGarry Morris [56]
“Trying to intimidate me is one thing. But I won't have you stalking my—”
“One-on-one it's called.” He grins.
“Look, Eddie, whatever you think happened to you because of—”
“Whatever I think!” His laugh is a bitter bray. “It's not what I think. It's what happened, goddamnit! That's what this is about. Not what I fucking think happened.”
“All right then.” She speaks slowly, acutely aware of his wringing hands. “Because of what happened. That's why you're here. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for whatever you've gone through. But that was twenty-six years ago. I don't know what you want from me. You said it was to protect me, well, I appreciate that, in one way, but … you were trying to rob him. I mean, that's … that's what really happened.”
“What really happened was you split the fucker's skull in two. And then you took off running. And who ends up in shackles? Poor Eddie. The poor sick bastard tryna help him.”
“No.” Horrified, she can only shake her head. “No. That's not true.”
“It's not? Jesus Christ, then one of us is awfully damn messed up,” he says, tapping his temple. “And it sure as hell ain't me.”
For days afterward, she forces herself to remember that night. Some details she has forgotten. The truck driver's name. Tom, all she remembers. He seemed so much older, as did most adults then, especially men, all of that murky universe of inconsequential, middle-age people. The company name on his truck: red lettering? On the cab door or on the side of the trailer? Did he ever say what freight he was carrying, where he'd been, where he was going? Probably. She remembers him talking a lot. A nice man. Soft-spoken in spite of his gruff manner. But what did he actually tell her? Did she listen or even care beyond diesel fumes and the sobering horror of the bloody scene she was fleeing? She was so sick to her stomach he had to keep pulling off the highway to let her out. Strange, the things she does remember, prickly weeds at her ankles as she dry-heaved in the gravel, then climbing back up into the big rig's rumble, like his voice, a regretful, damning drone. They drove a long time before he suggested she call home.
“No. I can't.” She couldn't face the shame of even talking to her mother much less having to stand in her stern presence. Once again, she had failed her mother, soiled her father's memory. All she wanted was to die.
“Sooner or later you're gonna have to,” he said.
“Why? Why can't I stay with you?” she asked, holding her sides.
“Hey! I got kids your age.”
“A ride, that's all I meant.”
He finally talked her into letting him call her mother. He did most of the talking. It was some comfort, hearing him assure her mother she was fine … a little frazzled maybe, but none the worse for wear.
“Things kids do … Yeah, I know … Been through it with my own.” Did he say that? Or is she filling in the blanks, sanitizing the story, because the truth is so foul? Maybe he wasn't kind and paternal. Maybe he came on to her up there in the dimly lit cab, rubbing his hand on her thigh, making her even more sick to her stomach. How long was she with him? Through that night, anyway. She remembers waking up with a start when he pulled off the highway, blinded for a moment by the sun's glare, then seeing all the other trucks in the parking lot. Noisy and bright inside the bustling diner, every stool filled, a shock after the quiet of the night's cloistered cab. The smell of coffee and bacon. Cigarettes. They didn't sit at the counter. In a booth: that, she remembers. She wouldn't look at him. He seemed uneasy watching her eat. Or maybe with his scrutiny she was uneasy, ashamed. Scrambled eggs and coffee. Limp toast. Why that detail, why thin toast on a greasy white plate and not the name of the town or if there'd been a pipe in her hand, but her lip was cut, which had to have been the blood caked under her nails, willing it to be the only blood, hers, as she stared into the filmy restroom mirror with a wad of wet paper towels pressed against her swollen mouth, while the knob rattled and turned, until finally, he banged on