Sins & Needles(89)

Camden, on the other hand, was cagey and silent because he was expecting the worst. He was expecting Uncle Jim to be compromised, but I just couldn’t think that way. I wouldn’t. I had to trust someone in my life, and after mistrusting everyone and finally taking a chance on Camden, my uncle deserved the same opportunity.

We reached the sign marker stating it was ten miles to Hemet when I asked Camden a question I’d been thinking of for a while.

“What had happened to your wife?” I asked gently. I knew it was a loaded question, but he and I were balls deep in loaded questions these days, drowning in our answers.

He chewed on his silence for a few beats, looking romantically pensive in his reading glasses. I looked out the window at the headlights as they illuminated the twisting road, giving him space.

“I hit her,” he said. I shrank back in my seat, a bit shocked at his admission, at his bluntness. I’d been in a short but volatile relationship with a man in Nebraska. He hit me— only once, but I packed my bags and never looked back. Sure, I was trying to con him in the end but no con was ever worth abuse.

“Why?” I asked, my voice very small, not really understanding how the man next to me could be capable of that.

He breathed in deep and I shot a look at him. His brows were drawn, eyes held in some painful memory. “Because I was an angry fool. Our relationship was crumbling beneath my hands. She’d been out a lot. I was the one taking care of Ben more often than not. I never knew where she was or what she was doing, and it was never my business to know. One day I suspected she was cheating on me. I called her on it. She admitted it. Actually, she did more than admit it. She flaunted it. She told me she wanted a divorce, that she didn’t love me, that I wasn’t worth anything to her as a man. I was nothing more than a sperm donor. I think she was back on drugs again, if you ask me. It wasn’t the Sophia that I married.

I didn’t know how to handle it. She called me names. Spat in my face. Insulted me with everything she had. It wasn’t until later that I realized what she had been doing and I walked right into her trap. She punched me, called me a name I don’t even want to repeat, and I hit her back. It was just a slap, my fist wasn’t even closed. But it was enough to destroy me. It was enough for her get her divorce and custody of Ben. It was enough to put me in her family’s debt.”

“So you think she wanted you to hit her?”

He shrugged. “Does it matter? I hurt her, the one person I never wanted to hurt. She loved me at some point, I know that. I don’t know what she must have felt at that moment, to doubt that I ever felt that way, that everything had been a lie. It wasn’t a lie though, Ellie. I loved Sophia. She could never replace you, but I still loved her as much as I could. And I love Ben. I’d give everything to go back to that moment and make things right.”

I stared at him, feeling his pain.

“Would you really? Would you go back in time and change that, if you could?”

He thought it over and looked at me. “No. No, maybe not. Because then I wouldn’t have this. I wouldn’t have you. I have to live with my mistakes, but I don’t have to regret them. I regret my actions but I can’t regret the consequences. We all make our own paths in life. Everyone we meet, everything we do, it changes us. It makes us who we are. And, if we’re lucky, we’re given the chance to make things right again.”

I completely understood. I stuck my hand out the window and let it snake up and down with the wind. “It’s like an I.O.U. you didn’t know you’d written.”

He nodded. “That sounds about right. I have a feeling we’ve written a lot of those.”

“I think everyone does.”

We lapsed into a comfortable silence for the rest of the drive, understanding each other a bit better. Camden lived with his guilt, his guilt that had never let him be free. I wasn’t any different than he was. Each day I found myself relating more and more to the only other “freak” in town, the only one who really knew.

Once we passed through the small town center of Hemet, and after I whooped with delight at discovering the Hungry Heart music store still existed, we began our search for the Shady Acres. It was further out of town than we had both thought and as the town lights disappeared behind us, I had to admit I was feeling a little bit nervous.

It was terrible to doubt my uncle, but for a split second I thought maybe, somehow, this was a set-up. Maybe something wasn’t right. I don’t know if it was my own instincts or Camden’s cynical influence, but it set alarm bells off in my stomach.

It took a lot of courage to say to Camden, “I have a funny feeling about this.”