Chase drives me around and tries to talk me down, but I’m too angry. It’s all so unbelievable, even for Rita. “All that time,” I say, to myself as much as to Chase, “she knew who Jeremy’s father was, and she didn’t tell him? I don’t care if Coach wanted Jeremy to know or not. Jeremy wanted to know! Didn’t that count for anything?”
“You really didn’t have any idea, did you?” Chase says. Mostly, he’s let me rant and has just been circling Grain while I blow off steam.
I glare at him. “Are you kidding? There’s no way I would have kept it secret if I’d known.”
“Maybe your mother was trying to do what she thought was best for Jeremy.”
“Rita?” I let out a one-note laugh that has no laughter in it. “She did what she thought was best for Rita. It’s what she always does.” I think about those pictures of Jeremy in Coach’s desk, Jer’s special color wheels pinned up on the wall in his office. “They might have had a relationship, Chase. A shot at a father-and-son relationship, if Rita had told Jeremy the truth.”
Chase sighs. “I don’t know. Father-son relationships are overrated, if you ask me.”
“You don’t mean that. I’ve missed my father my whole life, and I never got to know him in the first place.”
He reaches across the seat and puts his hand on the back of my neck. “Ready to go home?”
Rita is waiting for me when I walk in. “Don’t start, Hope,” she warns the minute I close the door.
I stare at her. Her hair is a mess. She’s in that same white slip. And she’s drinking, not bothering with a glass. She tilts her head back and gulps. I watch the whiskey travel down her throat, making waves in her neck.
“How could you do that to Jeremy?” My voice is quiet, but I’m screaming inside.
She shakes her head, coughs, then chokes out her answer. “I didn’t do nothing to that boy.”
“True enough,” I admit. “You didn’t tell him he had a great father, who really cared about him.”
“Jay Jay didn’t want the kid to know!” Rita screams.
“Since when do you care what anyone else wants?” The anger is bubbling up now. “You didn’t tell Jeremy because you were afraid Coach would stop giving you money. Was he paying to keep you quiet? That’s blackmail, Rita.”
“That’s not the way it was.” She sprawls on the couch, the bottle cradled between her knees. “He didn’t want his wife to find out.”
“So you took advantage of that. You made him pay you to keep your mouth shut.” I can see on her face that I’m right.
“You don’t understand,” she moans.
“And when Jay Jay stopped paying, why didn’t you tell Jer then? He would have been so happy, Rita. Now he won’t ever have that, the feeling that he has a father who loves him. You should have told him.”
“Jeremy was all right. He was already spending lots of time with Jay Jay. I thought I could change Jay Jay’s mind. I thought I could get him to start paying up again.” She shoves her hair out of her face and takes another drink.
“That’s what you were doing the day he was murdered? Trying to get more money out of him? What happened, Rita? What really happened that morning?”
“Get away from me.” She says this because I’ve slipped in front of her, eased onto the coffee table so we’re face to face.
“Tell me the truth. Did you lose your temper?” I’ve seen Rita lose her temper. I’ve felt her temper. “You did, didn’t you?” I can see it in my mind-Rita exploding in front of Coach, grabbing the bat, swinging it. “You killed him. And you’re letting Jeremy take the blame.” Pieces fall together when I say this. “Is that why you didn’t tell anybody, even Raymond, that you went to the stable that morning? That you talked to Coach? That you-?”
“Shut up! I didn’t-!”
But it’s making sense now. “Jeremy saw you. He saw you kill Coach. And he’s trying to protect you! He’s covering up for you! That’s why he wouldn’t see me. He knows I’d get the truth out of him.”
“You’re as crazy as he is.” Rita shoves me, but I won’t give an inch. “Why would I kill Jay Jay?”
“How should I know why you do anything? Maybe you couldn’t stand Jeremy having another parent, a good parent, in his life. Maybe you killed him for that.”
“Don’t be a fool.” She takes another swig, a big one this time.
“You couldn’t stand for Jeremy to have a real parent, someone who was kind to him. Was it like that with my father, Rita? Were you glad when my father got killed too?” Those dreamlike images of my father shoot through my brain, too fast for me to tell whether they’re real or imagined. “Two fathers, two sudden deaths. Quite a coincidence… Or was it? Was it, Rita?”
She shrugs. “You’re talking crazy.”
“Rita, did you kill my father too?”
Rita raises her arm and aims the back of her hand toward me. I brace myself for a slap, but I don’t budge. She lowers her arm. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I remember.”
“You were three years old. You don’t remember nothing.”
“He was wearing a baseball cap. A red cap. And it was sunny.”
That makes her look up at me. “How did you…?”
“Tell me what really happened.”
“He was run over by a truck. How many times do I have to tell you?”
This is what she’s told me every time I’ve asked. But it’s not good enough now. I’m standing up to her. I want answers, real answers. “Why? How did it happen? Why would he be in the street? Did he run out in front of the truck?” I pause because the image is there. My father. Me. And Rita. Rita, her arms outstretched. Then I say it, what I think I’ve wanted to ask her my whole life. “Did you push him?”
Again, I think she’s going to hit me, but I don’t care. I don’t flinch, or duck, or scoot back to break the impact. “Did you kill him? Did you push my father in front of that truck because you were tired of him? Because he wouldn’t pay you anymore? Rita! Did you kill him too?”
“You crazy little-!” Her teeth are clenched. Her eyes are watering. She stands up, weaving from side to side. Then she leans forward and gets in my face. I smell her stale breath, the liquor like vomit in her mouth. “If anybody killed your father, it was you.”
I start to yell back at her, but I stop. I remember something-an image in black and white. They’re never in black and white. It’s blurry too. I think it must be cloudy, but then the day clears, and it’s sunny. I can see a tall, thin man in a baseball cap. The red cap is the only color in the scene. I’m looking up at him, and he seems like the tallest person in the world-in my world, at least. I walk away, laughing. The ground is dry and lumpy, and it’s hard to walk without tripping. The picture is joined by other images, one after the other, fast, like animation, a jagged film. A shaggy puppy dances around my feet, then dashes ahead of me. I laugh and run after it. There’s a curb, and I spread my arms to step down from the grass to the pavement. Cars are parked there, but I follow the puppy and go between them. Someone’s yelling at me from behind. It’s a game, so I keep going, chasing Puppy. I hear footsteps behind me and more shouts from Daddy, who lets me call him Daddy and wants Jeremy to do the same. I hear thunder from the street and screeching that makes me stop so I can cover my ears. The next thing I know, I am lifted off the ground, as if an angel has flown by and picked me up. Only instead of carrying me, the angel tosses me like a football. I land hard, and it hurts. I cry and scream because I’m scared now. People run at me, past me, into the street. The truck driver stumbles out of his cab. I see his face, looking like he’s just seen that angel and doesn’t know what to make of it. “I tried to stop! I tried to stop!” He says this over and over. And Rita is screaming, and I want her to quit, but she won’t. She keeps screaming and screaming and never stops.
I gasp for air. I’m sitting in the living room, staring at the empty couch. I am light-headed, and I think I’m going to be sick again.
Rita is right. I caused my father’s death.
What’s wrong with us? Are we all killers? Murderers? Is Rita? Is Jeremy?
Am I?