Page 52 of Atonement

“Come this way and I’ll show you what we found.”

The police took photographs of everything, as well as fingerprints from each of us, but Mom didn’t look the least bit worried. Joshua, on the other hand, couldn’t stop fidgeting.

“Tell me again why Mr. Schaf decided to send you away?” One of the detectives, I guessed one who hadn’t been let in on our little farce, was grilling him for the third time in half an hour. He kept saying he didn’t need anything else, then would circle back to him and ask the same questions all over again.

“I told you,” Joshua growled. “Mr. Schaf said he wanted a night to himself. How was I supposed to know he’d invited over his murderer? They probably had some business deal he didn’t want me to know about. Maybe it was related to everything that’s going on with the company.”

The officer made a few more notes on his notepad and walked away without another word. Outside, a dog started barking wildly, audible even over the howling wind. The officers sprinted from the house, all but Detective Brantley, who watched from the window as they ran across the lawn.

“Mind telling me what they’re going to find out there?” He spoke lazily, as if he didn’t really care what our answer was.

“My hope would be my father’s body.” Meyer frowned. “I wouldn’t expect there to be any others laying around the property.” But he looked at me as he spoke, and I knew we shared the same thought—what had happened to his actual mother when she died in childbirth? Had her remains been too well hidden for anyone to find, or would the police come back with two bodies instead of one? And how would the discovery of her body complicate our little farce we had going on here?

“Well, what is that body going to look like?” Brantley turned halfway, staring at Meyer over his shoulder.

Meyer shrugged. “I wouldn’t know what to expect.”

“Yet you seem to think he’s already dead.”

“That’s brain matter on the floor, Brantley. I don’t think he’s coming back from that.”

The detective turned back toward the window as an officer came barreling back across the lawn, and I took the chance to glare at Joshua. Why was he giving us the third degree if he knew what was going on? Joshua just raised one shoulder and shook his head minutely.

Brantley went to the door to speak to the officer, but it was pretty obvious what had happened as the EMTs unloaded a gurney from the back of their ambulance and started to roll it in the direction of the barking dog. I side stepped until I was next to my Dad, sliding one arm around his waist as he nestled me beneath his shoulder.

“I don’t have Stockholm Syndrome,” I muttered.

He sighed, then turned to wrap me in a bear hug. I sighed and relaxed into him, realizing I never said hello when I saw him at breakfast, or told him how much I missed him.

“You’re a smart woman, Mads. But you’ve been through a lot in the past few weeks. I don’t want you to tie your future to someone who isn’t right for you, just because you shared some trauma. He’s not a refugee for you to save. He put you through hell, when he could have ended it at any moment.”

Over my dad’s shoulder, I saw Meyer watching us out of the corner of his eye. Mom stood next to him, absently running her hand across his back. Joshua sat in a chair in the corner, his face propped on one fist with his eyes closed.

“I know he’s not, Dad.” We stepped away from each other, breaking the hug, but I let him hold me against his chest as we turned and stared out the window together toward the trees at the far end of the lawn. Police officers began to emerge from the brush. “We only got through this because we were in it together. And I know how insane it looks to someone from the outside. He saved me, Daddy, in so many ways.”

He didn’t say anything for several minutes as the yellow gurney made its reappearance, this time with a sheet-wrapped bundle strapped on top of it. Brantley stood watching with his hands on his hips, coat billowing around him in the wind. As the group of officers and EMTs drew closer, we could see the sheet was soaked through, the form of a body clearly visible through it. One of the officers pointed toward the house, at all of us standing in the window watching, and Brantley turned to come back inside. Dad looked down at me, turning away from the window as he did.

“I trust you, baby. I let you run off to New York even knowing how dangerous it was, and look what happened. We almost lost you forever.”

“But you didn’t.” I grabbed his hands, still so much larger than mine. Rough from his years of working long shifts on a factory floor in order to support a child who didn’t even share his DNA. “I’m still here. And for all the shitty stuff that happened, I’m not only alive, I met someone amazing because of it.”

I wouldn’t have noticed the tremble in his lower lip if I hadn’t become so accustomed to watching Meyer’s reactions over the past month. It was so fleeting, so out of place on his face, and he looked away from me as it happened.

“Losing you would have killed us, Mads.”

“I know, Daddy.” I squeezed his fingers, pulling his gaze back to me. “You won’t. Meyer and I will be around. Both of us. And he’ll show you what a good man he is. Far, far better than his father.”

He exhaled loudly through his nose as the front door slammed, then pulled me against his side again. “Your mother says I should give him a chance.”

“I agree with her.” I smiled at him. He finally grinned back, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I know you do. I’m willing to watch and wait only because I don’t want to push you away. But the minute I sense something off, I’m stepping in.”

I nodded as the Detective stepped back into the room and opened his mouth to speak. “I wouldn’t expect anything else from you.”

*

The police stayed for a couple more hours, asking questions and bagging several items for evidence from Conrad’s office, but the bribe to Detective Brantley somehow also got us out of going down to the station to answer any questions. The on-site investigators said it looked like Conrad had been killed by a gunshot wound to the head, and, God willing, that would remain the official conclusion. The moment the last police car pulled out of sight, Joshua turned on his heel and left the room.

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