Page 135 of The River We Remember

Charlie thought a moment, imagined the woman in that shed, her husband on the floor, destroyed at her feet. Then she thought about Jimmy Quinn’s body eventually turning up in the Alabaster as fish food, and she was about to ask how Marta had managed that when J.P. stepped onto the porch and saw his mother crying. There was such compassion in his young face, such an absence of brutality. And that’s when the final piece fell into place, and Charlie saw what had been in front of her the whole time.

“Are you okay, Mom?” He knelt and laid his hand gently on her knee.

“Fine, Patrick. I’m fine.” She patted his hand and wiped at her tears. “Just tired,” she said.

J.P. looked at Charlie, and, although he didn’t speak, she knew he was asking her to end the conversation because, whatever the topic, it was clearly distressing his mother. But Charlie wasn’t finished yet. There was one final part of this story that she needed to hear, an important part.

“We’ll just be a minute more, J.P.,” she told him. “Promise.”

He stood. Charlie knew he would never be tall like Jimmy Quinn, but she suspected that he would always be strong in his heart like his father. His real father.

He went back into the house, and Charlie said to Marta, “Does he know that he’s Noah’s son?”

Marta stared. Charlie thought she saw both surprise and relief there. “How…?”

But the how of it didn’t really matter to her. That Charlie knew was enough.

“James was my husband,” she said. “What was between us was never love. Noah”—and here she smiled sadly—“he was beautiful and kind.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Patrick doesn’t know.”

“But Noah does.”

She nodded. “He came back on leave after the war, to see his father’s grave and to see to legal matters related to his land. He visited. The moment he saw Patrick, he knew.”

“Your husband never suspected?”

“I’m not big myself. None of my family in Germany was big. I told James that there was a good deal of southern European in our blood, and it was not unusual for our people to be of dark complexion. But the truth is his world was always so much about him that I believe he never once considered there might be another explanation. And thank God for that.”

“I understand why Noah would want to work for your husband—”

“To be with his son,” Marta said with a nod. “Finally to be with his son.”

“But why did Kyoko agree to work here?”

“Noah asked her. When he understood how it was for me here, and the children, he asked if she would help.”

“Did she know Patrick was Noah’s son?”

“Yes. It made no difference. She is a woman with a wonderful heart. We became friends.”

Which made perfect sense. Two women who’d lost their homes and families and who’d become strangers in this strange land, outsiders, alien.

“So after you’d shot your husband, you called Noah and asked for his help.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. He came and brought Kyoko with him.”

“What happened?”

“He carried Colleen to her bedroom. She was still knocked out. Then we talked. I told them to call the sheriff, but Noah said no. He said it didn’t matter what James had done, the people here would put me in jail anyway.”

Charlie thought he was not necessarily wrong.

“Why didn’t Noah tell the truth when he was arrested?”

“After the sheriff found that tarp with James’s blood on it, we talked again. Noah said that if he was arrested, he would not fight it. I argued with him, but he said I didn’t have much time left to be with the children. You see, the doctors have told me maybe two more years. He said it wouldn’t be right if I spent that time in jail.”

“He was willing to go prison for the rest of his life to protect you? And Kyoko agreed?”

“It was not going to be like that. Before he was arrested, Noah took photographs of everything in James’s old shack, the whole mess there. I have that roll of film. And I wrote a confession, too. When I die, those pictures and my confession will free Noah if he’s been convicted. Two years, Noah said. If it came to that, he would spend two years in jail for my sake, so that I could live out my days with my children. Kyoko agreed, though I knew it was very hard for her. I have been in Black Earth County for almost twenty years. No one has been as kind to me as Noah and Kyoko.”