“Yes. All right, yes.” Runyon let go of him. There were angry red marks on the wrist; Joshua massaged them gingerly, avoiding eye contact. “I... I’m sorry.”
Runyon gestured that away. “Don’t say what you don’t mean.”
“I won’t mention her again. But I won’t listen to anything ugly from you about my mother, either.”
“No name-calling or mudslinging, that was never my intention. But sometimes the truth is ugly.”
“Here we go again. The last honest man.”
“I meant what I said. I won’t lie to you.
“You’re not going to change my mind about anything. I know what happened between you and my mother.”
“You know what she told you. Her version. I’m a monster, she was a helpless victim.”
“Well?”
“There’re some things I’ll bet she left out.”
“Such as?”
“That I was in touch with a lawyer before I met Colleen, to start divorce proceedings and to try to get custody of you. Didn’t know that, did you?”
“... That’s crap.”
“I’ll give you the lawyer’s name. He’s still practicing in Seattle.”
“Some friend of yours who’d say anything...”
“Her post-partum depression, the episode in the bathtub — she ever talk about that?”
Uncertainty seeped in to mix with Joshua’s disbelief. “What’re you talking about? What episode?”
“Severe post-partum depression that led to heavy drinking and neglect of your care. I came home early one afternoon and found her in the tub, passed out drunk, holding you in her arms. You were asleep but your head was barely above water. If she’d slipped down any farther, you’d’ve drowned.”
“Liar! That’s a fucking lie!”
“I’ll say it again — I don’t lie.”
“She wasn’t like that, she—”
“I’ll give you the name of the doctor who treated her. Or maybe you think a doctor would falsify his records as a favor to somebody he hasn’t seen in twenty years?”
“I don’t... it wasn’t until she found about you and... she didn’t start drinking until after you abandoned us...”
“She started drinking at sixteen,” Runyon said, “and she never stopped. She drank before we were married, before and after you were born. Her father and mother were both alcoholics — her father died of it, same as she did. I can document that, too, if you want me to. She needed booze to unwind, to be happy, to make love, to get through the day. You lived with her nearly two decades, you’re not blind or stupid. You know I’m telling the truth.”
The cords in Joshua’s neck showed as sharply as ax blades. “I don’t know it. You’re trying to trash her memory the way you trashed her life!”
“You couldn’t be more wrong. I loved your mother in the beginning—”
“Bullshit!”
“— but I couldn’t live with her any more.”
“Couldn’t live with me anymore.”
“I told you, I tried to get custody—”
“If that’s so... God knows what my life would be like now if you’d succeeded. What I’d be like.”
“Not so bitter, maybe. Not so filled with hate.”
“The only person I hate is you.”
“That’s what I mean,” Runyon said. “Look, I know she loved you and you loved her. I know she raised you alone, did the best job she could. I just want you to see her as she really was.”
“Sick, selfish, spiteful?”
“And self-destructive. Flawed human being, not a blameless saint—”
“That’s enough!” Joshua shoved his chair back, stood up so fast it clattered against the empty table behind him. “I won’t listen to any more of this!”
Runyon watched him stomp away blindly, almost colliding with one of the waiters. The entrance door cracked like a pistol shot behind him. Some of the customers were staring at Runyon, dislike on the faces of those close enough to have overheard. One of them said loudly to another, “Poor bugger. An asshole for a father, just like mine.”
Runyon ignored him. He sat the way he had before his son’s arrival, stiff-backed, hands palms-up on the table. He was still sitting that way when the waiter brought his sandwich and tea, set the plate and cup down harder than necessary. Runyon ignored him, too.
It had gone badly, but then he’d expected it would. Colleen would’ve known how to handle a situation like this; she’d been tactful, seemed always to have the right words at her command. But he was a blunt man, and his way was to plow ahead doing and saying what he believed had to be done and said. Joshua needed to hear the truth, no matter how much it hurt him or added fuel to his hatred. For his own good, even if it ended any chance of a reconciliation between them. He’d never really believed that would happen anyway. Hard enough fighting through twenty years’ worth of Andrea’s lies, half-truths, and self-serving omissions to try to forge a simple understanding.
He had no appetite, but he ate his sandwich and drank his tea. Colleen had never liked it when he or anyone else wasted food.
It was snowing in the Sierras. Just a light dusting on the way up Highway 80 to Donner summit, and the highway was clear; but there had been heavier falls recently — the snowplowed drifts along the verges proved that — and the Chains Required signs were liable to come out before he got all the way across. He had a set of chains in the Ford; you needed chains often enough during Washington state winters. But it was a hassle putting them on and taking them off, and driving with chains made him edgy at the best of times. Long, uninterrupted drives allowed him to relax, to shut down to basic awareness.
He made it across the summit at slowdown speed but without having to stop. There wasn’t much snow at the lower elevations, and none at all in Reno or Carson City or points south on Highway 395. It started coming down again at nightfall, near Topaz Lake on the Nevada/California border, and stayed with him across into Mono County and most of the way to Sonora Junction. Heavy enough to cover the road and retard speed, but this was high desert country, flanked by the massive Sierras on the west and smaller mountain ranges on the east; through here it was flat enough to make chains unnecessary. Still, the snowfall required sharp attention, tightened his shoulder and back muscles, put a tired grit into his eyes.
Nearly 8:30 when he reached Aspen Creek. He could tell little about it in the darkness, other than it was small and its main drag had been plowed recently; the low drifts along the roadway were smooth and even, gleaming pure white in the Ford’s headlights. Saturday night, but there wasn’t much going on in the town: a handful of bars and restaurants open, everything else shut down. Didn’t even seem to be much in the way of Christmas lights or decorations.
He found a motel on the southern outskirts, checked in, asked about a place to eat. The woman on the desk recommended a nearby family restaurant that was open till midnight; best food in the county, she said. Runyon doubted it. And the doubt proved out right.
In his room he checked the county phone directory. Bridgeport was twenty miles away. The county courthouse and main library were both open on Mondays, the courthouse at nine A.M. Lee Vining, if he needed to go there, was thirty miles beyond Bridgeport.
He went to bed, tried to sleep, couldn’t. Colleen, Joshua, Colleen. He put on the flickery TV, lay there staring at it, waiting for his body to lose its road hum and his mind to finally shut down.
19
Jake Runyon
The address for Robert Lightfoot was a mobile home park built along an aspen-lined stream a few blocks from downtown Bridgeport. Older complex of weathered trailers separated by small, well-kept yards carpeted now with thin layers of snow. Its network of black asphalt streets and courtyards had been swept recently, though there were patches of ice here and there that made driving tricky. The temperature, at a few minutes before ten A.M., was only a couple of degrees above freezing.