Page 13 of Clashing Moon

He shook his head, seemingly bewildered. Could I trust that he was telling me the truth? He was a lot of things. Infuriating. Arrogant. Superior. But he wasn’t a liar. As far as I knew, anyway. “If there were sneers, they weren’t from me. I was just trying to keep up with you.”

“Yeah, fine. Doesn’t matter now. It was a long time ago.” I picked up another puzzle piece as if I were super focused on it, hoping he didn’t see the hurt that still lingered from those days. Not only had I been awkward and chubby, I’d never had the right clothes. While everyone else came to school in the same basic attire, Levi jeans, and T-shirts, my dad had forced me to wear dresses or skirts. He had had this thing about women and jeans as if it had been the 1940s or something.

“It still bothers you,” Rafferty said simply.

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Now who’s lying?”

I sighed and rubbed my left temple, wishing we could get off this subject. But Rafferty was not ready to let it go.

“Did people really talk about you behind your back?” Rafferty asked. “Because I don’t remember that at all.”

He had a point. Rafferty had always been one of those kids who didn’t care what other people thought of him; therefore, he might not notice what was right in front of him. He’d always been so confident and secure, as well as focused on making something of himself. We’d had that in common. The confidence part? Not so much. While I’d put my attention on proving to my father and myself that I was more than just the fat girl,Rafferty had seemed to enjoy the competition. He was made for the world. Good-looking and smart, with a family that celebrated his accomplishments. On the other hand, my father had seemed to take sport in making me feel inadequate. To make himself feel bigger? Maybe. But there was more to it. I’d not examined it carefully in the years I’d been away. I’d simply assumed I was never coming back thus I could just move along as if I hadn’t suffered greatly from my father’s abuse.

The wordabusestill sounded like an exaggeration, even though I knew now that it wasn’t. Regardless, acting like a victim was the last thing I wanted. Being back here, though? I could not escape the memories or the truth. “Guys like you wouldn’t notice a thing like that,” I said finally.

“Guys like me?”

“Everyone loved you. You were great-looking. Smart. Charming. It would never occur to you that life wouldn’t just roll out the way you wanted.”

He set aside a piece of the puzzle and moved his hands to his lap, leaning forward slightly as people do when they’re cold. “You might think that’s true, but it wasn’t the whole story. My dad—my real dad—was a bad guy. He was running away with my mother’s best friend when he was murdered by said best friend.”

My stomach dropped. He was right. That had been horrific. In the years since I’d nearly forgotten about it. Naturally, it would have affected Rafferty and his brothers and, surely, did not fall under the category of easy. Rafferty had been young—seven if I remembered correctly. I think we’d been in second grade when his father was murdered by his girlfriend, who then took her own life. I hadn’t really understood any of it at the time, but it had been the talk of the town for years afterward. Nothing like that had ever happened in Bluefern, and it wasn’t soon forgotten. Thinking about it now, I remembered snippets of conversation between my father and his ranching buddies.They’d not thought well of Rafferty’s real father. Even before the scandal had ripped apart their family, my dad had been disdainful of the newcomer who had come to Bluefern and been “given” his wife’s family’s ranch, only to run it into the ground.Trash. Lazy. Con artist.Those were the words thrown out about Stella’s first husband.

Later, when I was old enough to understand that a murder/suicide had robbed two families of a parent, my dad told me the whole story. After Stella married Jasper Moon, my father railed against him, too. Jasper Moon had managed the bank and turned my dad down for a loan. That was never forgiven or forgotten. Any grudge my dad ever felt remained with him. To him, forgiveness was for sissies.

“I know what was in papers when your father was killed,” I said slowly, hoping it was all right to speak about. “I heard my father talking about it with his friends. I was smart, so I pieced it together in the way kids do. It was hard to understand, though. Since I became an adult, I’ve heard more about it from your brothers and their wives. To be honest, I’m surprised it doesn’t haunt all of you more. Do you think about him much?”

“I think about him, yeah. Not with fondness, I can tell you that. If things hadn’t gone down the way they did, I don’t know what would have happened to my mom or my brothers. I don’t remember that much about him, but I can remember the feelings he evoked whenever he was around.”

“Like what?”

“Fear mostly. He had a wicked temper.”

“Like my dad?”

“Yeah. Cruel like that, too. He loved to make my mother feel bad about herself. He was hard on Atticus and Caspian too. Especially Caspian. He had trouble in school, and he got raked over the coals for it.”

“You remember that?”

“Vaguely. But Caspian’s talked about it since then, too. We’ve all talked about those times, especially over the last few years. Pop seems to believe they didn’t encourage us enough to process it all, which is just like him. Taking the blame when it was our biological father who damaged us. It was Pop who loved all the trauma away.”

Rafferty looked at the wall over my shoulder, his eyes slightly glazed. “Before my father died, I remember my parents fighting a lot. He had a bad temper and was always exploding on us or Mama. The day he left, Mama sat us all down and said he was leaving and most likely not coming back.”

“Did you understand that he was running off with Mrs. Armstrong? Or that she’d killed him?”

“No, she didn’t tell us any of that until we were much older. The night he was killed, I was upstairs looking out my bedroom window. Maybe I was hoping he’d show up. I’m not sure. But I was at the window when I saw a figure stumbling toward the house. It was only when he got close enough I could see in the light of the porch that it was him. He was all crumpled over like he was in pain. Then he disappeared under the awning. I heard the doorbell ring, and Mama running to answer it. After that, the next thing I remember were the cops showing up. Red lights reflected in the snow. That image stayed with me.”

“Hard for a child to understand.”

“It was, yeah. The whole thing was. Mrs. Armstrong was my mother’s best friend. She and Annie were always at the house. And then she was gone, and my dad was gone—both of them dead. It was impossible for any of us to really comprehend except maybe Atticus. He was mature for his age and tried to shelter the rest of us. Which, looking back, was too much for his young shoulders. Mama told me she used to worry about Atticus taking on too much of the burden our dad left behind. But then Pop kept coming around, and pretty soon, it was obvious he andMama were in love. They got married, and everything in our world changed for the better. Pop loved all of us. I don’t know how, but he did. Just took us all on without complaint. I never once felt like he wished he hadn’t had to take us on just because he fell in love with Mama.”

Rafferty got up to get us each a glass of water. Upon his return, I asked him if he wanted something stronger? “You want a real drink? There should be some cans of orange soda in there.”

He returned his attention to the trunk. “You have a lot of things stuffed in here.” He hauled out the six-pack of soda, two trashy magazines, and a box with individual bags of various potato and corn chips.

“It’s my secret stash of everything my dad disapproves of,” I said.

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