On the Doorstep

by Dana Corbit

  Even with the discomfort, she wouldn’t trade these last few days, as they’d been three of her best. She loved spending time with Zach, sharing stories, discussing the case and playing board games while Mami always found excuses to stay outside on the balcony. Zach, though, had made a point not to leave Rita out, even bringing the fixings and making huge ice-cream sundaes for all of them.

  She’d sensed a couple of times that Zach was holding something back, especially about his parents, who he had admitted he hadn’t spoken to in a long time. But who was she to question his reluctance to talk about it? He’d respected her privacy until she was ready to share her troubles with him. She had every intention of showing that same kind of patience and being the same kind of friend he’d been to her.

  Would she ever get the chance to be that friend, though? Would she ever have the opportunity to spend time with him again now that Mami had returned to her real life and Pilar had no excuse but to return to hers? Her heart ached with the loss to come.

  “But there isn’t any reason you can’t get out of that empty place,” Zach was saying when his words finally filtered back into her thoughts.

  “Uh, sorry. What did you say?”

  “That you don’t have to stay in that apartment now. That you can get out, and you don’t have to wait until church on Sunday.”

  Pilar’s pulse raced. He was only making conversation, she reminded herself. He was only suggesting that she get out, not that she should go anywhere with him.

  “I guess I could. Maybe I’ll drop by and see Gabriel tomorrow.” She didn’t want him to feel guilty over leaving her alone this weekend. She could take his unknowing rejection the way she’d experienced it before, but she still didn’t want his pity.

  Zach cleared his throat, clearly as uncomfortable as she was. “I was talking about tonight.”

  “What do you mean?” Could her heart beat any faster, and could her throat feel any tighter?

  He cleared his throat again, but when he spoke, his words were crystal clear. “Since you feel well enough to go out now, I would like you to go out with me…on a date.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Zach turned his face into the wind whipped up by Richmond’s Kanawha Canal and wondered how a person could be that excited and that terrified at the same time. His stomach rolled, but it probably wasn’t from the boat’s steady journey along the canal that linked the Kanawha River with the James River, which in turn flowed into the Ohio.

  “Hey, are you okay? You look a little green.” Pilar’s eyebrows knit together in concern.

  “Just getting my sea legs.” Neither mentioned that he wasn’t even standing, but was seated at the table in the canvas-topped canal boat. He hoped the queasiness was only a little seasickness, but he had to wonder if he’d feel just as unstable on dry land. He was so out of his element, there hadn’t been a phrase invented yet to quantify it.

  Pilar sighed. “You were right. This is beautiful.” Taking a bite of her chicken, she wiped her mouth on her napkin and sighed again.

  She turned her profile to him, staring out at the well-maintained landscaping and lovingly restored historic buildings along the canal system. A few dark tresses that had escaped the plait down Pilar’s back fluttered against her cheek. Something was beautiful, all right, but it was the woman who sat right there in the boat. Peace settled over him as he sat with her, giving him the unfamiliar sense that all was right in the world.

  “It was a great idea coming here. How did you ever think of it?”

  A whole night of poring over Richmond travel brochures, but he didn’t want to admit that. Since he figured he had a ridiculous grin on his face, he was grateful she was still watching the water instead of him. He’d wanted to plan something special for her, and dinner out just hadn’t seemed special enough.

  A big gesture was necessary to top the food he’d plied her with in her recovery, and a private charter dinner boat from Richmond’s Turning Basin was nothing if not creative. Unfortunately, the charter costs depleted his salary, so he’d had to forego the caterers the charter service had suggested in favor of a picnic basket and his regular standby of fried chicken from the Starlight. It was cold now, but Pilar didn’t seem to mind. He couldn’t help grinning and being inordinately pleased that she’d liked his surprise.

  “You’re telling me your other first dates haven’t been on the water like this one?” Out of his peripheral vision, he watched her shake her head.

  “You told me this was supposed to be a historically narrated tour.”

  “That was optional on the private charters. But if you need a history lesson, I can tell you the Richmond riverfront is one and a quarter miles long, beginning at the Tredegar Iron Works site.”

  A grin on her face, Pilar waved her hand to stop him.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to know how George Washington appeared before the Virginia General Assembly in 1784 to support legislation for a canal system to bypass the falls?”

  Pilar quirked her head. “How do you know all that?”

  “It says it right here on the brochure.” He produced the page he’d printed from the Internet site to impress her.

  “I’ll be sure to store these facts for later.”

  “You do that. You never know when you’ll be called upon for Richmond Canal trivia.”

  Zach took a forkful of coleslaw, and Pilar quieted as well while they ate. The world around them was far from silent though, with sounds of birds flying overhead and tourists strolling along the River Walk melding with the swish of rushing waters to create a soothing hum.

  “You know, it’s funny,” Pilar said as she set her napkin aside. “This doesn’t feel like a first date.”

  She was right; the night felt nothing like a first date. He tried not to let that reality scare him. It felt as if they’d spent years, rather than hours, getting to know each other, and he sensed that even after a quarter century or more, he would still love just listening to her stories. What was he to do with that knowledge?

  He couldn’t help it, though. He craved information about her. What kind of books did she read? Other than her study Bible and concordance on the table, he wasn’t sure. What made her smile when she didn’t know anyone was watching? If his guess was right, he already knew the answer to that one. Him.

  He’d caught those furtive glances enough to guess, even if he hadn’t suspected from the first time he’d held her hand to pray. His own hand had tingled for five minutes, as though it had been asleep when he’d touched her satiny skin.

  Yes, he knew she had feelings for him, but he was far less sure he was strong enough to handle the responsibility that her care placed on him. She was so trusting and so sweetly naive in the way she believed people would do the right thing even when they had more tempting alternatives. He’d been on the police force long enough to know better. He tried not to envy her the easy way she trusted in others, though he wondered if it would have been easier for him if his scars weren’t so deep.

  Why out of every man in the world had Pilar chosen him when another man might have been able to fully care for her in a way he couldn’t? Or could he? He wasn’t sure, but he did know he was jealous of that hypothetical “other man” who might try.

  Zach glanced across the table again, catching her studying him. Her awed expression surprised him. He didn’t deserve her gratitude for coming by a few times when his intentions had been so selfish. Spending time with her had made him happier than he’d been in a long time, and he’d been helpless but to return again and again.

  Though Gabriel had grown on him and he’d gotten a kick out of visiting the little guy, he’d at first only gone because he’d wanted to see Pilar smile when he told her about it. Selfish again.

  Guilt riddled the peace he’d enjoyed while sitting close enough to catch the honeyed scent of her hair. Though she’d shared her secret and had opened her thoughts and feelings to him, he’d kept his own stories buried inside. He knew Pilar, but he hadn’t allowed
her to know him at all.

  “You didn’t tell me, did you get by to see Gabriel today?”

  Zach felt his Adam’s apple shift as he swallowed. She couldn’t possibly have known what he’d been thinking about. She’d asked after Gabriel each day when he’d come by, obviously missing the baby. But God knew what was on his mind, and Zach could feel Him suggesting that the time to share his story had arrived.

  “I dropped by at lunch. Naomi let me give him a bottle.”

  Pilar smiled. “Did you get it all over you?”

  He shook his head. It would have been so easy to keep talking about the baby, without ever revealing what lay heavily on his heart. But Zach couldn’t hold it inside any longer. The walls he’d built around his feelings were strained and worn, and he could think of nothing he wanted more than to finally let them fall.

  “There’s something I want to tell you about Gabriel’s case.” His throat burned with the admission, but it was finally out there between them where he couldn’t take it back. He didn’t even want to.

  Her eyes widened and her arms crossed as if to protect herself from the cold, though she already wore a jacket. “What is it? Did you find his mother?”

  He shook his head with regret. “No. Not yet. This is something else.”

  Instead of asking a question he could have used to delay telling her, she simply stared at him and waited.

  “Remember when you asked me if I take all cases this personally?”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, I don’t. I’m usually great at separating myself from them. Compartmentalizing.”

  She nodded. “Of course. It’s part of your job.”

  It was part of hers, too, but he doubted Pilar had ever compartmentalized anything about one of the babies or children she’d placed. She probably took every story home with her. It was just who she was.

  Again, he could have escaped telling her and could have talked about police work instead. This was too important though. He wanted her to know, needed to finally share with someone he knew would care.

  “I can’t separate myself this time. I should never have accepted this case. I’m taking it personally because that’s what it is—personal.”

  Pilar could only stare at him, her throat tight. What was he trying to say? That he knew Gabriel’s mother? That he could have answered the questions in the investigation all along?

  Theories whirled through her mind, each crazier than the last. Was he covering for someone to prevent a scandal? Had he been threatened if he revealed the truth? Or was it even more personal than that?

  He must have recognized the spinning wheels in her thoughts because the side of his mouth lifted. “No, the baby isn’t mine. I don’t even know the mother.”

  “Then what is it about this baby?”

  He shrugged and sat quietly for long enough that she figured he wouldn’t answer.

  “It isn’t about this baby.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Zach stared past her at the riverbank for several seconds before turning back to her. “There’s no way you could understand unless you knew Jasmine, my sister.”

  Realization settled over her and her throat constricted. “Did your sister have a baby?”

  “Just like…this time.” His voice sounded strained.

  “You mean she abandoned her baby?”

  “My niece died.” He swallowed a few times and turned his head away. “So did Jasmine.”

  Pilar drew in a sudden breath and stiffened. Anguish on behalf of Zach, his sister and the child that had been lost washed over her.

  “Oh, Zach, I’m so sorry.” Before she could stop herself, she clasped her hand over his forearm.

  Instead of pushing her away as she’d worried he would, he rested his other hand on top of hers.

  He cleared his throat and tried again. “She was just sixteen—two years younger than I was. At first Jasmine hid her pregnancy. Our parents were furious when they found out.”

  “Oh, how awful for all of you,” she said, squeezing his arm when what she wanted to do was draw him into the circle of her arms and let him fully experience the grief he’d probably buried for years.

  He continued as if he hadn’t heard her, his eyes dry despite the tragedy he told. “There was this huge fight, and Jasmine ran away from home. I didn’t do anything…to stop her.”

  Zach tilted his head back in that strange, tight way men have of fighting tears. The boat captain and single crew member pretended not to notice the tough, masculine man whose composure had disintegrated.

  Her heart broke for the wounded teenager he must have been and for the scarred man he’d become. She held his hand between both of hers, giving what comfort she could.

  “You know it wasn’t your fault, don’t you? You were just a kid yourself.”

  But he didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t realize he was a victim just as much as the rest of his family. That the circumstances were beyond his control. Or if he did accept it rationally, he didn’t believe it in his heart, where it counted.

  He didn’t look at her, but kept talking. Maybe now that he’d started, he had to say it all.

  “The baby was premature,” he continued. “Jasmine tried to do the right thing. She left her baby on the hospital steps, but March was still cold that year, and Angela died of exposure.”

  “Angela?”

  “My parents named her so there would be a name on the birth certificate. It means ‘angel.’” He finally met her gaze, his eyes again dry. “They’re buried right next to each other.”

  Surely, Zach didn’t believe his niece and his sister, if she was a believer, were in those plots of dirt where their bodies had been placed. Pilar knew him well enough now to be certain of that. But his thoughts seemed somewhere other than eternity at that moment, and she didn’t know how to help him.

  “How did Jasmine die?”

  “The police found her on a park bench, suffering from blood loss and exposure. They rushed her to the hospital, but it was already too late.”

  “I’m so sorry. What a horrible tragedy for your family. I can’t imagine the loss your parents must feel.”

  “Their loss?” His voice boomed, so Zach repeated those words again more quietly. “Their loss. They caused that loss. Two people had to die because they couldn’t be embarrassed in front of their church friends.”

  “That’s probably a mistake they’ve regretted every day of their lives.”

  He shook his head. “Some things you just can’t take back, and there aren’t any do-overs.”

  She wanted to tell him he was wrong because no sin was too big for God to forgive. But Zach was right that some things could never be undone. Gabriel’s mother, for instance, could spend the next eighteen years trying to make up for her mistake, but she could never erase the fact that she’d left her son on a porch out in the cold.

  It was the same way for Zach’s parents. Though God had forgiven them for their part in the tragedy, they’d never be able to take back the hateful things they’d said to their daughter.

  “That’s an awful thing to have to live with,” she said when Zach seemed to expect a response.

  “They deserve a lot of sleepless nights.”

  They’d probably had more than their share of those, but Pilar didn’t see any point in telling Zach that. They’d probably never forgiven themselves, and even if they’d somehow made peace with their mistakes, their son would never let them forget. He blamed his parents almost as much as he blamed himself. Their pride had cost them not one, but both of their children. She couldn’t even imagine that kind of loss.

  “Where are your parents now?”

  “Still in Philadelphia. But that’s not far enough as far as I’m concerned.”

  Zach turned his head away then, his jaw flexed from gritted teeth, the vein in his temple visible. She watched him, her heart aching for his pain and for the anger that hurt him just as much.

  How could she have been so selfish? Sh
e’d been so focused on her own fears about not having a child and how those fears coincided with Gabriel’s arrival that she hadn’t even recognized that others involved might have had scars of their own. Even Gabriel’s mother probably had a sad story to tell. Zach’s story shamed her most of all. Her personal pain felt small compared to all he’d lost.

  “Isn’t it exhausting?” she asked him when she could no longer keep her thoughts to herself.

  “What do you mean?” He did look tired when he turned back to her. Opening to her had cost him. That much was clear. She wondered if the price tag had been too high. Would he pull away from her just when he’d finally allowed her a peek inside his troubled heart?

  “Keeping all that anger inside has to be tiring.”

  His posture tightened, and Pilar braced herself for that anger to be projected toward her in words that would hurt. But after several long seconds, Zach curled his shoulders forward again. He looked so defeated that she felt helpless with the need to make it better for him.

  “As I said, some things can’t be taken back,” he said finally.

  “But forgiveness can be given as a free gift the way God gives it. Maybe you’ll never be able to forget what your parents did, but you can forgive them.”

  He glanced at her from underneath his eyelashes, his expression softening. “I’ve tried that. It didn’t go well.”

  “Maybe that’s something you should turn over to God.”

  His lips pulled up, and he met her gaze. “That’s pretty good advice. Maybe you should try it. You know, that whole ‘physician heal thyself’ thing.”

  Guilt threatening to seep into her thoughts, Pilar opened her mouth to disagree with him. Their problems were different. Zach, though, only shook his head to stop her.

  “You know as well as I do that the only way the situation is ever going to be okay is if you let God handle it.” He paused, and his voice was gentle when he spoke again. “Babies or no babies, He’ll make it okay.”

  Her eyes burned, but she couldn’t let herself cry again, not when Zach was right. “I know it’s what I need to do, but I think I’ve been selfish with my worries just as I was selfish with my secret.”