Right Where We Belong

Tensing, Savanna pulled off the highway onto a side road and put the truck in Park. She was terrified that Dorothy might say something terrible to Alia, something that would come as too much of a shock to a child of six. Savanna hadn’t mentioned to her children that she and their father’s mother were still feuding, was trying to keep them from being caught in the middle.

“What’d you say?” Alia’s smile slid from her face. “You have Daddy on the line?”

“Let me talk to them,” Savanna whispered, but Alia wouldn’t relinquish the phone.

“Daddy wants to talk to me,” she said.

Apparently, Dorothy had Gordon on a three-way. Damn it! If not for Alia, this call would’ve transferred to voice mail like all the others.

Savanna curled her fingernails into her palms as she tried to decide whether to insist on taking the phone. Would it be better for her daughter to hear from Gordon—or not?

She supposed that would depend on what he had to say, whether he’d be angry and use Alia to pass whatever accusations he might launch along to Savanna, or try to comfort Alia after all she’d been through.

Alia deserved some reassurance.

Please let him give her that...

Savanna held her breath and waited.

“Hi, Daddy...Okay...I love you, too...Because we don’t live there anymore...Far, far away...Yeah, in a big truck! And someone stole our fridge!...No, this morning we had to eat the peanut butter sandwiches Mom brought for the drive, and they were all smashed...” She wrinkled her nose to show how unappealing they’d been. “Miss you, too...I don’t know...” She glanced up when she said that so Savanna knew Gordon’s question had something to do with her. “Do you want to talk to her?”

Branson, who was also watching Alia, had a dark expression on his face. As long as Gordon was being nice, Savanna hoped he’d ask to speak to his son—in case it might soothe Branson’s hurt to some degree.

“Just a minute...” Alia held the phone out to her brother. “Daddy wants to say hi.”

Savanna breathed a sigh of relief. But Branson didn’t move.

Alia tugged on his shirt. “Branson, it’s Daddy!”

Branson looked up at Savanna. “Did he really hurt those women?”

He knew the answer to that question; he just needed confirmation. It wasn’t easy to shake a child’s faith, not when that child had once believed his father to be totally reliable.

Savanna nodded. She couldn’t lie. The kids had a right to know the truth.

“Then I don’t want to talk to him,” he muttered, and turned to the window.

Alia didn’t seem to know how to react.

Steeling herself for what would likely be another emotional episode, Savanna took the phone. “Hello?”

“Branson won’t talk to me?” Gordon said. “You’ve turned him against me already?”

“I haven’t turned anyone against you. You did this.”

“My mother told me she went to the house to see the kids, and it’s empty.”

Savanna knew Dorothy hadn’t traveled to Nephi to “see the kids.” She’d come to “talk some sense” into Savanna, was still hoping to get Savanna to use the last of her money to pay for a fancy lawyer. “We’ve moved,” she admitted.

“Where?” he demanded.

“Stay right here,” she told the kids, and got out of the truck so she could talk without an audience. She had no doubt that this conversation would be unpleasant—all of her conversations with Gordon had been unpleasant since he’d been arrested—and she preferred their children not hear another argument. “I’d rather not say.”

“You won’t tell me where you’ve gone? When have I ever been any threat to you?”

“Until the police came knocking on our door, I never realized you were a threat to anyone. Since then I’ve decided that I never really knew you, or I knew only a small part of you, the part you were willing to show me. So you tell me, Gordon. Was it freak luck that I turned out to be your cover while those other women turned out to be your victims?”

“That’s crazy! Listen to yourself! You’re overreacting, babe. I’m still the same man you married. The same man you said you loved.” He lowered his voice. “The same man you slept with at night.”

He meant that to sound alluring; she could tell. But she couldn’t help wincing. She didn’t care to remember their more intimate moments. “What you did changes everything, Gordon.”

“I didn’t do it!”

Balling her free hand into a fist in an attempt to control her own simmering rage, she hissed, “Stop lying! They have proof!”

“Doesn’t matter what they have. I’m innocent!”

She wished she could believe him. Or maybe it was better if she didn’t. Wouldn’t it be worse to think her children’s father had been wrongly imprisoned, especially when she could do so little to help? “Please, stop. Things are difficult enough. There’s no point in fighting. It won’t change anything.”

He seemed to make an effort to speak calmly. “I’m not trying to upset you.”

“Just hearing from you upsets me!” She turned her back on the truck because both children had their noses pressed to the glass.

“So what am I supposed to do? Give up my family as well as my freedom when I haven’t done anything wrong?”

She squeezed her eyes closed. It was so hard to hear that over and over. His protestations tempted her to scream at him, to make him take responsibility and quit lying. She had let loose once, but doing so hadn’t made her feel any better. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t do it again, wouldn’t be reduced to that. “Please, let me forget you and move on. Let us go. After hurting those women, the least you can do is take the punishment you deserve without dragging us all down with you.”

“Easy for you to say,” he cried. “You’re not the one who’ll be rotting in prison for fifteen or more years!”

“You’re to blame for where you’re at, not us.”

“I can’t believe this,” he muttered to himself. “You don’t care if I ever see my kids again.”

Dorothy cut into the conversation, which came as a bit of a shock. She’d remained silent for so long Savanna had almost forgotten she was there. “Told you,” she said to her son. “What kind of wife abandons her husband at the first sign of trouble? She’s not the person we thought she was!”

Savanna had had enough of her mother-in-law. “This isn’t just trouble, Dorothy. It’s serial rape, one of the most heinous crimes there is.”

“Except he didn’t do it!” Dorothy responded.

“Mom, I got this,” Gordon broke in. “Let me talk to her, okay?”

A brief silence ensued during which Dorothy restrained her desire to take over the conversation. When Gordon spoke again, he did so with a renewed attempt at being cordial. “I haven’t hurt anyone, Savanna. Somehow, I need you to believe that.”

“How?” she said. “They found Theresa Spinnaker’s blood in our van!”

“Because I gave her a ride once!”

“What?” This was the first Savanna had ever heard of that. “When?”