Page 36 of Colorado Christmas Carol
Dean seemed to draw into himself, as if he could feel welts across his body. In fact, he could. It brought back horrible memories of his insane stepmother, who was the soul of kindness around his own father but cruel when nobody was looking.
“Children can be reasoned with,” Dean agreed after a minute. “Hitting children only provokes resentment and injustice. And those often translate into crimes.” He glanced at Duke with a wan smile. “I imagine you’ve run across a number of victims of child abuse who became murderers.”
“All too many,” Duke said, and his voice softened as he looked at Dean. “The world can be a cruel place to a child.”
“Not this one,” Mellie sang out, laughing. “Daddy never hits me.” She glowered at him. “But he takes away my video games.”
“Just punishment,” Duke said with a grin. “Effective, too!”
Everyone laughed.
Dean finished his coffee. “If you aren’t happy in your job, you really should find one that does make you happy,” he told Duke. “Life is . . . very short.”
Duke’s eyes narrowed. “Short, indeed. And good advice, also.”
Dean flushed with pleasure. These people made him feel of worth. He liked them. It made what he’d done harder. It made living with it almost impossible. He’d done something insane in response to two insane acts. He hadn’t meant to. It had been impossible to draw back, to stop himself. It had been an act of passion.
He’d thought about Essa and Mellie since he’d left the hotel. He’d missed both of them. He could hardly believe it when they walked into this hotel. He’d been looking for a way to get back to them. And here they were.
But now he was in a quandary. He didn’t know what to do. Wasn’t it dangerous for them to be near him? If he’d done something totally insane once, couldn’t he do it twice? Could he stop himself?
He didn’t want to hurt either of them. He hated himself. He didn’t understand the stranger who’d taken over his body. How was he going to go on living? He looked at the child and shivered inside.
CHAPTER6
Dean sat with the others when they went back in for the last few segments of the workshop. All around him were reminders that Christmas was coming. Stockings hung on garlands of fir and holly interspersed. A Christmas tree, highly decorated, in the corner of the room. Happy things. Reminders of wonderful holidays.
But not for him. His holidays had been filled with fear and apprehension. His poor father, after she’d fooled him into believing she was the perfect woman, became terrified of her. She tortured him.
He’d thought that surely one day his father would stand up to her, divorce her, leave her. He’d begged him to, especially when he went to college. He came home on holidays, and those were agonizing. She laughed as she tormented the older man, called him names, belittled him. She did the same to her stepson, dared him to do anything about it. All through college she’d made him feel worthless, despite his high scores on tests and his successes. She couldn’t even grasp the basics of what he did, so she belittled that, too. But most of the attacks were personal. He was ugly, she said, he’d never find a woman who wanted him. He’d be alone forever. He was too stupid, too lacking, too disgusting. Over and over and over again, almost his whole life, he’d had to listen to such things.
Outside the house there was an unmarked grave. He knew. She hadn’t realized that he knew who and why it was there. But when he found the second one, just a few months ago, he’d poured out all his fury and hurt and vengeance on her. She’d laughed. He was just like his father, she’d taunted. He wouldn’t do anything except cower in the corner and complain. She was still laughing when he saw the baseball bat that his father had kept, a souvenir of his childhood. He was barely aware of picking it up . . .
The lecturer had raised his voice. Dean caught his breath. He’d been lost in the horror of the past. He was almost sweating with the fear. He felt the most intense sense of guilt.
He couldn’t escape the guilt. It was running down his sweating face like tears. Tears. He couldn’t bear to remember. So many tears. He wanted to tell someone. He wanted it more than anything. But it would require a kind of courage he didn’t have. She had seen to that. She, with her screams and taunts and dares and humiliation over so many bleak years.
He thought of her, saw her face, and was sickened by what she’d done to him. Things so horrible that he could never share them with a single soul. His poor father had suffered as well, every single day until . . .
But he couldn’t think about that. Not yet. Essa and Mellie made him feel differently. They gave him hope. They made him feel that he wasn’t worthless. If he could just have them close for a little while longer, just a few days. Then, he decided, he’d do what he had to do. Surely he could work up the nerve by then.
They gathered in the lobby to say goodbye.
“I thought I might detour by the hotel in Benton on my way back to Denver,” Dean said to the others. “Maybe we could go to the dig one more time,” he added with a smile at the females.
“Oh, yes!” Mellie exclaimed.
“That would be very nice!” Essa seconded.
Duke just smiled, as if in agreement.
“Then it’s a date,” Dean said, pleased. “So, I’ll see you in a day or two perhaps?”
“In a day or two,” Essa agreed.
Mellie nodded.
They both smiled.
