Who I Am with You

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Who I Am with You Page 6

by Robin Lee Hatcher


  He groaned as he shoved aside the sheet and sat on the side of the bed. He needed to stop going over it again and again and again. It didn’t matter that there were pieces that didn’t make sense, even to him. He needed to lie low and wait out the storm. Then he could have a life again. But what would that life look like? With his integrity in question, who would want to hire him to manage their confidential data? He might as well face it. He was finished both in politics and in any sort of internet security work. So what was next for him? It seemed to him he would be starting from scratch. If true, he’d best discover something he could be passionate about.

  “Give it time,” his stepdad had told him.

  Time. His life had been circling the bowl, and the advice he got was to wait it out. Be patient. Give it time.

  “Stop it,” he muttered. Then he stood and headed for the shower, hoping hot water would wash away the persistent thoughts.

  Half an hour later, hair still damp and feet bare, he went downstairs. He opened the door to the utility room and let Kris into the kitchen. She went straight to her food and water bowls and sat down, watching him with expectation in her eyes. Her tail slapped against the floor as he opened the pantry door to remove the bag of kibble. Amazing how quickly they’d established this routine.

  When he’d found the stray, he hadn’t expected to be glad to have her for a companion. He hadn’t owned a pet since leaving for college and hadn’t thought he missed having one around. Just proved a person didn’t always know what he was missing until he found it.

  Kris gave a clipped bark.

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s coming.”

  He scooped a cup of kibble into her bowl. The dog buried her nose in the food and crunching sounds filled the kitchen. He suspected she feared more food wouldn’t be forthcoming.

  “That’s okay, Kris. We’ll have you fattened up in no time.”

  While the dog finished scarfing down her kibble, Ridley scrambled himself a couple of eggs. He ate them standing up, hip leaned against the counter, his gaze moving around the room, checking his work. His mom had her yellow kitchen. She’d be pleased.

  As he stood there, he became aware of the ticking of the clock on the wall. Then the refrigerator began to hum. The two soft sounds made him aware of the overall silence now that he and the dog were finished eating. He’d come to the mountains for solitude, and now that he had it, he didn’t much care for it. Maybe he should have gone to Arizona to see his mom rather than coming to Hope Springs. Maybe isolation wasn’t the answer. He hadn’t seen a newspaper or watched the news on TV or surfed the internet in days. What was happening now? Did anyone care that he’d left Boise? Had the attention turned elsewhere?

  He didn’t expect his notoriety to last, of course. His name would soon fade from the memory of most people. It was the lingering thread on the internet that concerned him. All that had been said, all the accusations, proven and unproven, would be there, in any internet search by a possible employer, forever. And there wasn’t anything he could personally do to get the facts of the case listed first. That’s what stung the most.

  He turned toward the sink, nipping the temptation to go buy a paper. He needed to follow the advice to give it time. Give it all time. Like somebody had once said, never explain. Your friends didn’t need it and your enemies wouldn’t believe you anyway.

  He looked at the dog. “I could look up who said that if I had an internet connection or something beyond 1X service on my phone. Good thing I don’t. Slippery slope, as Mom would say.”

  Kris cocked her head to one side, as if trying to figure him out.

  Ridley chuckled, but it was a sound without humor.

  “Come on, girl. Let’s get some work done.”

  Jessica stepped back from the easel and eyed the canvas. Satisfaction warmed her chest, and the feeling surprised her. It had been absent from her work for such a long, long time. As if noticing the difference, the baby moved inside her. She covered the spot with her hands.

  “Hello, there, pumpkin,” she whispered, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “What do you think? Do you like it?”

  Some days she was so afraid of the future, of raising this baby alone. Some days she wondered if she would look at her child and only remember the sadness that had been present at the time of its conception. But on other days, she let joy of this new life blossom. Today was one of those days.

  She stroked her rounded belly, wondering if the baby was a boy or a girl. She’d told her doctor she didn’t want to know the gender of her child. Perhaps that had been the shock talking—shock over the deaths of husband and daughter, shock over discovering she was pregnant—but she’d stuck with the decision through all of the weeks since her ultrasound. Joe had called her stubborn. In fact, those had been almost his last words—angry words—to her the morning he died.

  The joy she’d felt moments before evaporated. Tears pooled as she sank onto her work stool.

  Other fights flickered through her memory—furious words tossed across rooms, slamming doors, buckets of shed tears, screeching tires as Joe drove away. To others, they’d appeared a happy couple. How well they’d lived that public lie.

  She reached for a tissue and dried her eyes.

  What if she’d become pregnant weeks or months earlier? What if Joe had known she carried his child? Would it have changed anything? A sound—half sob, half laugh—escaped her throat as another question formed: Would she have wanted to become pregnant if she’d known Joe was cheating on her? That he meant to leave her?

  “O God,” she whispered.

  The words felt like a prayer, and that prayer drew her gaze across the room to the bookshelf. Sunlight spilled onto her great-grandfather’s Bible. She rose and went to it, brushing her fingertips across the worn cover before picking it up and carrying it out to the living room. As she settled onto the sofa, she would have sworn she heard her grandma whisper, “At last.”

  Jessica almost feared lifting the cover. Would the binding fall apart when she did? But after a lengthy wait, she took hold of the leather edge and opened it. The delicate Bible pages were slightly curled, the first page torn at the bottom. She turned it carefully, then paused to stare at the title page.

  To our beloved son,

  Andrew Michael Henning,

  on the occasion of his graduation

  from the university.

  Follow god and you will never lose your way.

  Papa and Mama

  Kuna, Idaho

  May 1929

  Jessica’s heart fluttered as she read the words. She’d never known her great-grandfather, and yet she felt the strangest connection to Andrew Henning as she ran a fingertip over the inscription. The writing seemed slightly unsteady. Had the words been written by Andrew’s father or mother? His father, she decided. It seemed more of a masculine hand.

  She imagined a man, wearing a work shirt and overalls and sporting a neatly trimmed beard, seated at a desk, lamplight spilling onto the open book as he wrote in it. Perhaps he held a fountain pen between his calloused fingers. Perhaps his wife stood behind him, one hand on the back of the chair as she looked over his shoulder, smiling.

  First generation Idahoans, her great-great-grandparents had been farmers. Simple people, according to her grandma. What had they sacrificed in order to send their son to college? It must have been significant. And when Andrew graduated from the university, this had been their gift to him—a Bible and the advice to follow God. What’s more, he’d treasured it enough to keep it through the years and then want to pass it along, first to his daughter and now to his great-granddaughter.

  Jessica slid a finger deeper into the pages and opened the Bible to Psalms. There she found passages underlined, both in pencil and in ink. A few notes had been written in the narrow margin. For some reason, the tiny, faded script made her smile. Andrew Henning hadn’t just kept the Bible. He’d used it.

  “I wish I’d known you,” she whispered.

  The sound of a s
mall engine penetrated her musings. A break in the normal silence. She slid the old Bible off her lap and walked to the back door. A few moments later she saw Ridley on a riding lawnmower, cutting the wild grasses in the field behind his house. Kris bounded around him, running ahead, circling back behind, barking happily. The sight made her laugh aloud.

  Suddenly, almost as if the dog had heard Jessica’s mirth, Kris tore away and raced across the land that separated the two properties. Jessica moved to one of the chairs on the patio to await the dog’s arrival. Before that happened, the mower went silent. Jessica lifted her gaze in time to see Ridley hop off the seat and stare in her direction. She waved at him. What else could she do? In answer, he strode in her direction.

  Kris arrived, tail wagging, tongue lolling. But despite her obvious pleasure, she didn’t jump on Jessica. Instead, like the day on the road, the dog sat and waited for a command.

  “Hello, girl.” Jessica ruffled the dog’s ears, but her eyes returned to Ridley. Remembering what she’d heard and read the previous evening, she couldn’t help wondering how much of it was true. Empathy welled in her chest, even without knowing if he was guilty of what had been accused. She knew something about wanting to hide from the world, and she was thankful her own painful secrets were still that—secrets.

  Stopping a few feet behind the dog, Ridley said, “I can’t seem to keep Kris away from you.”

  “It’s all right. I like her, too, now that she isn’t throwing herself on me.”

  His expression turned serious. “She’d better not ever do that to you again.” His gaze flicked to Jessica’s abdomen and back again. “You could get hurt.”

  “I’m tougher than I look.”

  One of his eyebrows rose slightly. His mouth hinted at a grin. “You know what? I believe you.”

  She smiled, realizing she believed it too. She was tougher than she looked. “Thanks.”

  “Come on, Kris.” He took hold of the dog’s collar. “I’ve got to finish the mowing.”

  Jessica nodded her farewell. Then, without giving herself time to consider what she was about to do, she said, “Ridley, I’m fixing fried chicken for dinner. I’m in the mood for comfort food. The kind I usually avoid. Would you like to join me?”

  That same eyebrow cocked.

  “I’ll have too many leftovers if you don’t. Six o’clock?”

  “Okay. I’ll be there. What can I bring?”

  “Just yourself.” Her smile returned. “And Kris, of course. She’s welcome too.”

  PORTLAND, OREGON

  Thanksgiving Day, 1930

  Andrew stood at the window in the attic bedroom, staring out at the rainy day. The gray skies befit his mood. Today was Thanksgiving. He would go to church with his cousin Mark and Mark’s family, then share the Thanksgiving meal at their table. But all he wanted was to be back home with Helen.

  He’d found a job in Portland at the end of August. He was employed in a bank again, but this time as a teller. He didn’t need his college degree for the work he did, but it was better than gathering eggs in a chicken coop. Or would be if his wife had been willing to join him there. She wasn’t. Not yet was what she wrote in her letters.

  “Not yet,” he whispered, his gaze lowering to the stationery on the table he used as a writing desk.

  Maybe it had been a mistake to leave her so soon after the loss of their baby boy. Ralph, they had named him, after a favorite uncle of Helen’s. It was the name chiseled into the small tombstone in the Kuna cemetery.

  Shaking off the memory, he lifted Helen’s letter and read it again. He almost had it memorized. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t hear tenderness in her words. They were cool and distant, as if he were a mere acquaintance and not her husband.

  I hope you are well, she’d written before signing her name. No words of love. And that wasn’t like her. At least not like the woman he’d married. Helen had always been demonstrative and vocal in her affection. But these past months . . .

  He placed the letter back onto the table as he turned from the window. He’d better hurry or he wouldn’t be ready in time.

  Two hours later, Andrew sat beside Mark Henning in the center pew of the church as the Thanksgiving service drew to a close. On Mark’s other side were his wife, Nancy, and their two young boys, Jefferson and Abraham.

  Remind me of all I have to be thankful for, Andrew silently begged God. I know it is much.

  He had employment when so many others were unemployed. He had food to eat when so many others remained hungry. He had a roof over his head when so many others were homeless. He had a loving family when so many others were all alone.

  A family who loves me.

  Instead of bringing him comfort, the words had the opposite effect. He felt alone. He needed to see Helen. He needed to hold her in his arms. He needed to feel the sweet warmth of her lips against his. He needed to lie in bed and hear the soft rhythm of her breathing as she slept.

  I need to be at home.

  It shamed him, how tempted he was to throw away the job that had taken him many months to find. Wasn’t it enough that he earned money and helped to support his wife, even if they had to be apart so he could do it? He’d felt like a failure when he was jobless. Why wasn’t he satisfied now that he was employed again?

  If it wasn’t for her silence . . .

  The service over, the Henning family, including Andrew, walked toward their home five blocks to the east. A few automobiles chugged by them, but mostly the streets were devoid of traffic. Halfway home, Mark patted Andrew’s shoulder. “Maybe you should call home. Might lift your spirits to talk to Helen rather than wait for a letter.”

  “Sorry.” He forced an apologetic smile. “Didn’t mean to look so down in the mouth.”

  “Hey. It’s understandable. I’d feel mighty blue if I was away from Nancy for months at a time.”

  “Long distance isn’t cheap. Last I checked, a few minutes would cost about twenty dollars. I can’t afford that.” Especially if Helen doesn’t want to talk to me, he added silently.

  “Well, then, what about a trip home for Christmas? Round trip on the train is about sixteen dollars.”

  “No time. I’ll only have Christmas Day off.”

  “Then have Helen come here. She’ll be more than welcome.”

  His gaze flicked ahead on the sidewalk to Nancy. How would she feel about having another person invade her household? Things were crowded as it was. Andrew tried to stay out of the way, but still—

  “Nancy and I talked about it this morning,” Mark said, apparently anticipating Andrew’s concern. “In fact, it was her idea to ask Helen to come to see you.”

  Andrew rubbed the back of his neck. “I suppose I could manage it. It would mean a longer visit. A lot better than just a couple of minutes on the phone.”

  “Sure you could manage it. And we could kick in a little money, too, if you need it.”

  “It would be good to see her.” A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, and for the first time that day, he felt a lightness in his spirit. “I’ll write to her today.”

  “Good.” Mark patted his shoulder a second time. “Glad that’s settled.”

  “Yeah. Glad that’s settled.”

  He let the smile spread. A few weeks and he would see Helen. Just a few weeks.

  Chapter 7

  “What was I thinking?”

  It wasn’t only that Jessica rarely allowed herself to eat fried foods. It was that she hadn’t cooked a full dinner in over six months. There was no pleasure in preparing meals for one. She had to force herself to get all of the daily nutrients required by her pregnancy. But now she had extended the invitation to Ridley Chesterfield, and a decent meal was required.

  “What was I thinking?”

  She made a quick run into town to buy the ingredients for her planned menu. In addition to the fried chicken—prepared the way her grandma had made it—she would have deviled eggs, corn bread, and fresh green beans sautéed with mushro
oms. There was decaf iced tea in the refrigerator. If Ridley didn’t care for that beverage, he could have water to drink. For dessert, she would make a root-beer cake.

  In the grocery store, she moved quickly up and down the aisles, tossing items into her cart, then checking them off the list. She was down to the last few purchases when she turned around an endcap and almost bumped carts with Billie Fisher.

  “Jessica.”

  “Hi, Billie.” Billie Fisher was a longtime friend, one of the few whose phone calls had persisted over the past months despite Jessica’s resistance. Billie had also been Angela’s first-grade teacher at the time of the accident.

  Billie’s smile was both sad and filled with understanding. “How are you?”

  “I’m good.”

  “I never see you anymore.”

  Jessica chose to nod and say nothing.

  “How much longer until the baby comes?”

  “The end of August. Maybe early September. I was nearly three weeks late with Angela.” Saying that, remembering it, was bittersweet, and she felt her heart catch. The flight instinct kicked in, and she wished for escape.

  “Could we meet for lunch sometime?” Billie asked. “I’m off for summer break.”

  She resisted the urge to run away, reminding herself that she was determined to get out more, to start living. “Sure. I’d like that.” Her answer probably surprised Billie, as she’d issued other invitations that Jessica had always declined.

 

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