EPILOGUE
YELLOW AND CRIMSON leaves swept around their ankles and crunched beneath their feet as they followed the large procession from the grave site. The cool late-September air bit at Sarah’s nose and she pulled her coat more tightly about her, the hazy afternoon sun already waning into evening. To her left, Elizabeth and Emma walked along beside her in respectful silence while Hal, Dean and Amy lagged a few steps behind. Next to her, Jack reached for her hand and squeezed her fingers tightly.
They were moving slowly, Jack because his arm was still encased in a cast and sling from the gunshot wound to his shoulder, and Sarah from the injury to her head. She had concealed her shorn head and zipper-like scar with a hat that Emma and Elizabeth assured her was stylish. They thought it would have been a modestly attended funeral, just what remained of Jack’s small family, but it appeared as if the entire population of Penny Gate had come out to lay John Tierney’s remains to rest next to his wife’s after thirty years of being apart. Sheriff Gilmore and his daughter came, as did Margaret Dooley and her mother.
In the church basement, the women of Penny Gate once again had a feast prepared. Unlike Julia’s funeral and dinner, this one had almost a celebratory feel. Amy had been released from jail and John Tierney’s name had been cleared and a thirty-year-old mystery had been solved.
Margaret Dooley was next to Sarah chatting companionably when Jack stood and went to the front of the room. Elizabeth and Emma looked at their mom questioningly, and Sarah shrugged her shoulders. Jack held up a hand and cleared his throat. Gradually, the chatter in the room ceased.
“Thank you for being here today,” Jack began, his voice soft, difficult to hear. “It means a lot to our family that you all are here to support us.” His voice gained strength as he went on. “We all know what brought us together today, though we most likely will never completely understand why these terrible things happened to my family. But they didn’t just happen to me, or to Hal or Dean, or Sarah. Or Amy. It happened to Penny Gate. To all of us. It changed the fabric of who we are, as a town, and a community and as people.
“There is so much that I’ve forgotten over the years about my life before my mother and father were taken away, but now, I’m slowly starting to remember, allowing myself to remember.”
Jack’s eyes found Sarah in the crowd. He was looking directly at her. Speaking directly to her. “My mother, Lydia Tierney, was a good mom. She was the kind of mom who made ice rinks in barns, made waffles for supper, and made Amy and me feel like we were the most important people in the world.”
Jack’s voice became thick with emotion, his eyes grew shiny, but still he held Sarah’s gaze. “My father was a farmer. He taught me to farm...” he began.
Once the last of the townspeople slowly left the funeral, Gilmore, dressed in a suit and tie rather than his sheriff’s uniform, approached. “Nice eulogy, Jack,” he commented. “Your mom and dad would be proud of you.”
“Thanks,” Jack said a bit warily, as if he couldn’t quite believe that the sheriff thought he was completely innocent in the deaths of his parents and aunt, even though all the evidence pointed to Celia alone. Celia’s death, while a relief, also left a wake of misery and so many unanswered questions. The sheriff’s department was still sifting through Celia’s computer and personal papers, trying to find any additional insights into her twisted mind.
“So you’re all settled in at Hal’s?” the sheriff asked Dean. After the bloodbath in the cellar, Dean and Amy had moved in with Hal.
“Amy was right,” Dean told them, “about our home being a house of horrors. I don’t want to ever set foot in there again. But I should have known,” Dean lamented. “She was my wife. How could I have not known?”
Jack embraced his cousin. “It’s not your fault. We were all fooled by Celia for a very long time.”
“She had all of us doubting one another,” Amy said quietly. “She had Dean thinking I was the one who killed Julia and had me believing it was Dean.” She turned to Sarah. “If you hadn’t pushed so hard to find out what happened, I would still be in jail and probably would be for the rest of my life.” She struggled to hold back her tears. “Thank you.”
“I wish you could stay longer,” Hal said longingly.
“We’ll be back,” Sarah promised. “And you can all come see us anytime you’d like. You would love Montana.”
Hal turned to Jack. “I guess you’ll want to change your name back to Tierney now that you know the truth about your dad.”
“No.” Jack shook his head, his eyes welling with tears. “I’m proud to be a Quinlan and I couldn’t have asked for a better man to step in to be a father to me and Amy.”
Hal reached up and laid a hand on his nephew’s cheek and reached for Amy’s hand. “Julia loved you like you were her own children, and I do, too.”
“I know,” Jack managed to say while Amy wept into her uncle’s shoulder.
* * *
Sarah thought she could never love a place more than she loved their small home in Larkspur. Once back home, she spent countless hours, bundled up warmly, sitting on their back patio overlooking the lake and surrounded by mountains. She would watch as Winkin, their dog, trotted down the wooden steps to the end of the burnished brown deck and paced back and forth, scanning the water in search of a flicker of movement—a water bug skating across the surface, a duck not yet ready to head south wading nearby and, if he was especially lucky, a largemouth bass.
For the past few weeks, as they healed, Sarah and Jack moved cautiously around each other. Both were deeply bruised physically and emotionally. Elizabeth and Emma were overly attentive, calling two or three times per day, and Sarah’s mother came over every single day. So many times, Sarah would catch Jack looking at her, and she could see the words ready to spill from his lips. What would he say? Would he be angry at her for not telling him about the emails right away? For digging through his mother’s crime-scene evidence? For not trusting him?
Or would he apologize for not being forthright about his history? Would he beg for her forgiveness for leading her blindly into a town filled with secrets, to a disturbed woman intent on eliminating her?
For a while Sarah never gave him the chance. Every time he seemed ready to speak about the events in Penny Gate, she would look away or change the subject or retreat to the patio or her bedroom. Sarah didn’t know if their marriage would be able to withstand all that had happened. Jack wasn’t a murderer, but he also wasn’t the man she thought she married. As a teen he had pushed his mother down and threatened his parents. He had lied to her in countless ways, and she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to trust him again.
Jack came to her on a late-October afternoon. She was sitting on an old stump at the edge of the lake, looking out onto the smooth water, trying not to think about the damp, dark cellar, of cobwebs and of a lone lightbulb swaying overhead.
He knelt down in front of her and laid his head on her lap. “I loved you the minute I met you,” he murmured. Sarah sat very still, her hands hanging loosely at her sides. “I wanted to tell you about what happened to my mom and dad. What I thought happened to them, but I was so afraid.” He lifted his face from her lap and looked up at her. “I wanted a chance at having a family. A real family. I was afraid that if I told you about how my mom died, about how I was a suspect, about my dad, I thought you would run the other way. I knew if I didn’t make a family with you, I never would, and I wanted that so, so badly. You and the girls have given me what Celia stole from me. Please forgive me, Sarah, please. I couldn’t stand it if I lost my family all over again.”
Tentatively, Sarah lifted one hand and lightly brushed his hair from his forehead with her fingers and nodded. “You haven’t lost us,” she whispered. “We’re right here.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE by Heath
er Gudenkauf
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AN IMMEASURABLE AMOUNT of gratitude goes to my editor, Erika Imranyi. Her eye for detail, never-ending patience, collaborative nature and humor have made her a joy to work with. Thanks also to Liz Stein for her insights.
Thank you to Marianne Merola and Henry Thayer for all the behind-the-scenes support and encouragement.
Special thanks goes to my early readers—Jane and Meredith Augspurger, Lenora Williams and Ann Schober. Your input and encouragement was priceless. Thanks also to Mark Dalsing, who patiently fielded my questions about law enforcement.
Much gratitude goes to my parents, Milton and Patricia Schmida, and my five siblings. I love you all.
Finally, thank you to Scott, Alex, Anna and Grace for your support and faith in me—love always.
“Beautifully written, compassionately told and relentlessly suspenseful.”
—Diane Chamberlain, New York Times bestselling author, on The Weight of Silence
Looking for more great reads from Heather Gudenkauf? If you liked Missing Pieces then you won’t want to miss these powerful and emotionally searing ripped-from-the-headlines stories, available now in ebook format:
The Weight of Silence
These Things Hidden
One Breath Away
Little Lies (novella)
Little Mercies
“Thrilling…[Little Mercies], with its driving pace, will appeal to fans of Lisa Scottoline and Jodi Picoult.”
—Booklist
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The Weight of Silence
by Heather Gudenkauf
Prologue
Antonia
Louis and I see you nearly at the same time. In the woods, through the bee trees whose heavy, sweet smell will forever remind me of this day, I see flashes of your pink summer nightgown that you wore to bed last night. My chest loosens and I am shaky with relief. I scarcely notice your scratched legs, muddy knees, or the chain in your hand. I reach out to gather you in my arms, to hold you so tight, to lay my cheek on your sweaty head. I will never wish for you to speak, never silently beg you to talk. You are here. But you step past me, not seeing me, you stop at Louis’s side, and I think, You don’t even see me, it’s Louis’s deputy sheriff’s uniform, good girl, that’s the smart thing to do. Louis lowers himself toward you, and I am fastened to the look on your face. I see your lips begin to arrange themselves and I know, I know. I see the word form, the syllables hardening and sliding from your mouth with no effort. Your voice, not unsure or hoarse from lack of use but clear and bold. One word, the first in three years. In an instant I have you in my arms and I am crying, tears dropping many emotions, mostly thankfulness and relief, but tears of sorrow mixed in. I see Petra’s father crumble. Your chosen word doesn’t make sense to me. But it doesn’t matter, I don’t care. You have finally spoken.
Calli
Calli stirred in her bed. The heat of a steamy, Iowa August morning lay thick in her room, hanging sodden and heavy about her. She had kicked off the white chenille bedspread and sheets hours earlier, her pink cotton nightgown now bunched up around her waist. No breeze was blowing through her open, screened window. The moon hung low and its milky light lay supine on her floor, a dim, inadequate lantern. She awoke, vaguely aware of movement downstairs below her. Her father preparing to go fishing. Calli heard his solid, certain steps, so different from her mother’s quick, light tread, and Ben’s hesitant stride. She sat up among the puddle of bedclothes and stuffed animals, her bladder uncomfortably full, and squeezed her legs together, trying to will the urge to use the bathroom to retreat. Her home had only one bathroom, a pink-tiled room nearly half-filled with the scratched-up white claw-foot bathtub. Calli did not want to creep down the creaky steps, past the kitchen where her father was sure to be drinking his bitter-smelling coffee and putting his tackle box in order. The pressure on her bladder increased and Calli shifted her weight, trying to think of other things. She spotted her stack of supplies for the coming second-grade school year: brightly colored pencils, still long and flat-tipped; slim, crisp-edged folders; smooth rubber-scented pink erasers; a sixty-four-count box of crayons (the supply list called for a twenty-four count box, but Mom knew that this just would not do); and four spiral-bound notebooks, each a different color.
School had always been a mixture of pleasure and pain for Calli. She loved the smell of school, the dusty smell of old books and chalk. She loved the crunch of fall leaves beneath her new shoes as she walked to the bus stop, and she loved her teachers, every single one. But Calli knew that adults would gather in school conference rooms to discuss her: principal, psychologists, speech and language clinicians, special education and regular education teachers, behavior disorder teachers, school counselors, social workers. Why won’t Calli speak? Calli knew there were many phrases used to try to describe her—mentally challenged, autistic, on the spectrum, oppositional defiant, a selective mute. She was, in fact, quite bright. She could read and understand books several grade levels above her own.
In kindergarten, Miss Monroe, her energetic, first-year teacher whose straight brown hair and booming bass voice belied her pretty sorority girl looks, thought that Calli was just shy. Calli’s name didn’t come up to the Solution-Focus Education Team until December of Calli’s kindergarten year. And that didn’t occur until the school nurse, Mrs. White, after handing Calli a clean pair of socks, underwear and sweatpants for the second time in one week, discovered an unsettling pattern in Calli’s visits to the health office.
“Didn’t you tell anyone you needed to use the restroom, Calli?” Mrs. White asked in her low, kind voice.
No response, just Calli’s usual wide-eyed, flat expression gazing back at her.
“Go on into the restroom and change your clothes, Calli,” the nurse instructed. “Make sure to wash yourself the best that you can.” Flipping through her meticulous log documenting the date and time of each child’s visit to the health office, the ailment noted in her small, tight script—sore throats, bellyaches, scratches, bee stings. Calli’s name was notated nine times since August 29, the first day of school. Next to each entry the initials UA—for Urinary Accident. Mrs. White turned to Miss Monroe, who had escorted Calli to the office.
“Michelle, this is Calli’s ninth bathroom accident this school year.” Mrs. White paused, allowing Miss Monroe to respond. Silence. “Does she go when the other kids do?”
“I don’t know,” Miss Monroe replied, her voice tumbling under the bathroom door to where Calli was stepping out of her soiled clothing. “I’m not sure. She gets plenty of chances to go...and she can always ask.”
“Well, I’m going to call her mom and recommend that she take Calli to the doctor, see if all this isn’t just a bladder infection or something else,” Mrs. White responded in her cool, efficient manner that few questioned. “Meanwhile, let her use the restroom whenever she wants, send her in anyway, even if she doesn’t need to.”
“Okay, but she can always ask.” Miss Monroe turned and retreated.
Calli silently stepped from the office restroom garbed in a dry pair of pink sweatpants that pooled around her feet and sagged at her rear. In one hand she held a plastic grocery sack that contained her soaked Strawberry Shortcake underwear, jeans, socks and pink-and-white tennis shoes. The index finger of her other hand absently twirled her chestnut-colored hair.
Mrs. White bent down to Calli’s eye level. “Do you have gym shoes to put on, Calli?”
Calli looked down at her toes, now clad in ding
y, office-issued athletic socks so worn she could see the peachy flesh of her big toe and the Vamp Red nail polish her mother had dabbed on each pearly toenail the night before.
“Calli,” Mrs. White repeated, “do you have gym shoes to put on?”
Calli regarded Mrs. White, pursed her thin lips together and nodded her head.
“Okay, Calli,” Mrs. White’s voice took on a tender tone. “Go put on your shoes and put the bag in your book bag. I’m going to call your mother. Now, you’re not in trouble. I see you’ve had several accidents this year. I just want your mom to be aware, okay?”
Mrs. White carefully searched Calli’s winter-kissed face. Calli’s attention was then drawn to the vision eye chart and its ever-shrinking letters on the wall of the institutional-white health office.
After the Solution-Focus Team of educators met and tested Calli and reviewed the data, there appeared to be nothing physically wrong with her. Options were discussed and debated, and after several weeks it was decided to teach her the American Sign Language sign for bathroom and other key words, have her meet weekly with the school counselor, and patiently wait for Calli to speak. They continued to wait.
Calli climbed out of bed, carefully picked up each of her new school supplies and laid out the items on her small pine desk as she planned to in her new desk in her classroom on the first day of second grade. Big things on the bottom, small things on top, pencils and pens stowed neatly away in her new green pencil case.
The need to urinate became an ache, and she considered relieving herself in her white plastic trash can beside her desk, but knew she would not be able to clean it without her mother or Ben noticing. If her mother found a pool of pee in her wastebasket, Calli knew she would fret endlessly as to what was going on inside her head. Never-ending yes-no questions would follow. Was someone in the bathroom and you couldn’t wait? Were you playing a game with Petra? Are you mad at me, Calli? She also considered climbing out her second-story window down the trellis, now tangled with white moonflowers as big as her hand. She discounted this idea, as well. She wasn’t sure how to remove the screen, and if her mother caught her midclimb she would be of a mind to nail Calli’s window shut and Calli loved having her window open at night. On rainy evenings Calli would press her nose to the screen, feel the bounce of raindrops against her cheeks, and smell the dusty sunburned grass as it swallowed the newly fallen rain. Calli did not want her mother to worry more than she did not want to have her father’s attention drawn to her as she made her way down the stairs to use the bathroom.