He shrugged.
"Jeff?"
Jeffrey kissed her fingers, trying to change the subject. "You can't imagine how I felt when I saw you in that chair. The things that went through my mind."
She waited for his answer.
"I don't know how I feel about that," he said. "I want to kick his ass for what he did to you," he said, feeling livid all over again. "That kind of thing…" He shook his head, trying not to let it get to him. "I swear to God, if I ever see him again, there's going to be a reckoning for that."
"He was desperate," she said, though Jeffrey did not understand how she could make excuses for him. "Which is worse," she asked, "what he did to me or the fact that he's gay?"
He did not know how to answer the question. "All I know is that he lied to me all these years."
"Would you have wanted to have anything to do with him otherwise?"
"We'll never have a chance to find out, will we?"
Sara let his words hang in the air.
"When I saw Robert's jacket in Swan's closet…" He sat back in the chair, letting go of her hand as he crossed his arms over his chest. Jeffrey kept his own jacket in the back of his closet at home, and though he never wore it, he could not bring himself to donate it to charity or throw it away. He was worse than the Monday-morning quarterbacks at the hardware store, holding on to that jacket like he could hold on to his youth.
He told Sara, "I don't know. I saw his jacket, and it popped into my head that maybe there was a connection between him and Swan. Just a split second, and then I thought, 'No way. No way Robert's a…' " Jeffrey gave a heavy sigh, thinking he'd never be able to use the word again. He probably should not have been using it in the first place. "I came here to the station looking for Hoss, but he was out."
Jeffrey did not tell her that the first thing he'd wanted to do after leaving Swan's was to find Sara, but he had taken the detour to the station to prove to himself that he did not need her. Had he not been so stubborn, Jeffrey could have stopped Robert before things escalated. He could have protected her.
Oblivious to this, she kept pressing, "Does it bother you that he's gay?"
"I can't separate it out, Sara, and that's the truth. I'm mad at him for what he did to you. I'm mad at him for not turning Jessie in, for letting all this shit stir up and not doing anything about it. I'm mad at him for jumping bail and leaving Possum to sweat it out."
"He said he'd send money."
"Yeah, well, I'm calling the state as soon as we get back to see how much I can pull out of retirement." He thought of Possum's bruised jaw, and the way the other man had waved off Jeffrey's apology for hitting him. Jeffrey would not make Possum take all of the financial burden for this. It just wasn't right.
"What else?" she asked. "What else are you mad at him about?"
He stood, needing to pace. "For not telling me." He glanced down the hallway as an inmate in the jail yelled an obscenity. "If you hadn't been in that house, the last thing we'd know is that he jumped bail for killing a man and was on the run. We wouldn't know about Jessie or his relationship, or whatever you want to call it, with Swan. All we'd know is that he was a fugitive." Jeffrey stopped pacing and turned to Sara. "He should have trusted me."
She had a circumspect look on her face, like she wanted to make sure she said the right thing. "My cousin Hare had a hard time at college," she began. "One minute, he was the most popular guy on campus, the next, he was getting death threats."
He had forgotten about her cousin in all this, and now Jeffrey wondered if she was taking up for Robert because she wanted to take up for Hare. "What happened?"
"People just figured it out," she said. "He had this friend, his dorm mate. They were inseparable. When people started to talk, Hare didn't try to hide anything. He was surprised that anyone cared."
"That's pretty naive."
"That's Hare," she told him. "I guess we both grew up in a fairly insulated world. Our parents never let us think that anything was wrong with being gay or straight or black or anything else under the sun. Hare was shocked when his so-called friends turned on him."
Jeffrey could imagine what happened, but still, he wanted to hear it. "What did they do?"
"This was at the end of his junior year at UGA, so there was summer in between for everyone to cool off." She paused, and he could tell she was still upset by the memory. Above anything else, Sara cherished her family, and for one of them to be hurt was just about the only thing in the world she did not seem able to tolerate.
She continued, "We all hoped it would die down during the break, but of course it didn't. His first day back, they tried to beat him up, but he was always a good fighter and he broke a few noses. I heard him tell you he quit football because he hurt his knee, but that wasn't it. He was told to leave."
Jeffrey sat down again. "I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing to Robert if I had found out back then."
"What about now?"
"Now…" He shook his head. "Hell, I just want him to be safe. I can't imagine living like that, people thinking I was something I wasn't."
"Sounds like how you lived the first part of your life."
He laughed, because he had never looked at it that way. "Yeah."
"What did Hoss say when you told him all this on the phone?"
"Nothing," he told her, then added, "He didn't sound surprised."
"Do you think he knew?"
"Maybe he suspected. There's no telling." He gave her a meaningful look. "Trust me, you don't see that kind of thing unless you're looking."
"What's going to happen now?"
"Jessie will be arrested." He hissed air out between his teeth. "That's gonna be fun. I'm sure Reggie Ray will get a big kick out of all this."
"You can't worry about that."
"If he walked through that door right now, I'd have him leaving on a stretcher."
"What about Julia Kendall?"
"What about her?"
"I need to tell you something," she began, taking his hand again. "I need to talk to you about what Lane Kendall said."
"She's a -"
"No," Sara interrupted. "Not that. I need to tell you why I reacted the way I did when she accused you of…of raping Julia."
"I didn't," he told her, feeling defensive. "I swear to you, Sara, that kid isn't mine."
"I know that," she responded, but her expression was so peculiar that he did not believe her.
He stood again. "I'm telling you I didn't do it. I didn't have anything to do with it."
"I know you didn't," she repeated.
"You don't look like you believe me."
"I'm sorry you feel that way," she said, and he could see her shutting him out.
He paced again, feeling cornered and guilty even though he knew he had done nothing. All he could think was that they had finally gotten to her. Sara had finally started doubting him the way everyone else did. There was no going back from here.
"Jeff," Sara said, angry. "Stop pacing."
He did, even though his body felt like a live current was going through it. "We can't get past this point," he told her. "Either you trust me or you don't, but I'm not going to -"
"Stop," she interrupted him.
"You think I'm capable of doing that?" he asked. "You think I'd actually…" He could not find the words to finish. "Jesus, Sara, if you think I'm capable of raping somebody, what the hell are you doing here with me?"
"I don't think you did it, Jeffrey. That's what I'm trying to tell you." She seemed exasperated, and her tone took on an even sharper edge. "Even if I thought you did it – which I don't – medically, there's no way that Eric Kendall is your child."