Who I Am with You

by Robin Lee Hatcher

  That was the last time she’d seen Joe—or Angela—alive.

  “And I’m still pretending that we were happy at the end,” she whispered, tears blurring her eyes. “All these months later, I’m still pretending. I still care what others think, even when I’m hiding away here by myself.”

  Honesty required her to admit she did have a bit of a stubborn streak, that she’d clung to Joe and their marriage, in the end more out of desperation than love. And because of Angela.

  In her mind, she once again saw her daughter, sitting in the back seat of Joe’s car, so excited about a day of Christmas shopping with her dad. She’d worn a bright red knit cap with a fluffy ball sewn to the top and her new red winter coat.

  “I’m gonna get you a surprise, Mama. I’m gonna get you a surprise for Christmas.”

  Why had she allowed Angela to go with Joe that morning? Why hadn’t she realized how angry he still was? If she’d faced the truth then—

  A groan tore at her throat, and she bent over at the waist. Her tears splattered the floor. “God, why? Why my precious girl?”

  There was no answer from above. She’d asked the question so many times over the months, and there’d never been an answer. Only pain.

  Talk about it.

  She straightened slowly, her breath catching. For a moment, she almost wondered if God was answering her at last. But why would He? She’d shut Him out as surely as she’d shut out the rest of the world. Still, she pushed away from the door and walked to the phone, pulled there by a need that couldn’t be ignored. She pressed the speed-dial button and waited for someone to answer.

  “Hello?”

  Tears threatened again. “Mom, it’s me. I need to talk. Could we meet tomorrow?”

  “What is it, dear? Is it the baby?”

  “No. The baby’s fine. I just need to talk. But not over the phone.”

  “Of course. Come for lunch. We’ll have the house to ourselves.”

  “Okay. See you then.” She drew a quick breath. “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you, too, sweetheart. Drive carefully.”

  “I will. ‘Bye.”

  PORTLAND, OREGON

  Christmas Day, 1930

  The attic bedroom got plenty cold at night, despite rising heat from the woodstove in the room below. It was cold enough to cause Helen to draw close to Andrew beneath the sheet and blankets. It was the first time since her arrival that she’d touched him voluntarily, but he wasn’t sure it counted since she’d done it in her sleep. Still, he took her hand in his and pressed both against the shirt of his pajamas.

  There had to be a way for him to close the gap that had been widening between them ever since he’d lost his job at the bank in Boise a year ago. But how? He didn’t even know the real cause. It had to be more than his unemployment that had dragged on for months. It had to be more than having to move in with her parents. He thought it was even more than losing the baby. But what? What had caused the change between them?

  Maybe if he had some wise counsel . . . But he couldn’t talk about his marriage with Mark. His cousin wasn’t much older than Andrew himself, although Mark had been married longer. Still, he didn’t seem the right person to confide in. If Andrew were at home, he could talk to his father. Or he could talk to his longtime pastor. But he wasn’t at home, and there was no one like his father or pastor here in Portland. No one he trusted, at any rate.

  Helen murmured something. A few moments later, she pulled her hand from his and moved a few inches away. Cool air seemed to flow between them under the blankets.

  “Good morning,” he said softly as he rolled onto his left side.

  “Morning.”

  “Merry Christmas.” The room was dark, but he pretended he could see her smiling at him.

  “You too.”

  No, maybe he couldn’t imagine her smiling. “I don’t think anyone else in the house is awake yet. It’s too quiet.”

  “It’s cold too.”

  “Come over here. I’ll keep you warm.”

  The wait seemed to last forever, but finally she slid close to him again. His left arm was under her head, and he held her close with his right. “I’m glad you’re here, Helen. It’s been lonely without you.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Maybe it’s time I looked for a place of my own so you can join me. My boss at the bank seems to like me. I think I’ll get to stay on.”

  “No.” The word came swiftly, passionately.

  It felt like a knife in his chest.

  He heard her draw a breath before she continued, her voice gentle now, almost pleading. “It’s too soon for me to leave Idaho, Andrew. We need to save money. As long as Mark and Nancy will have you, you should stay with them. I’m all right with Mother and Dad.”

  A little over a year ago, Helen hadn’t been able to bear being parted from Andrew for more than a day. Now she didn’t seem to care if they were separated for months, even years.

  Her fingers played with the button on his pajamas. “I know you hate being in Portland without me, but you need to understand. The doctor wants me to continue to rest. He . . . he feels that my constitution was compromised when I . . . when I lost the baby.”

  “Why haven’t you told me this before?” He pressed his chin against the top of her head, his eyes staring into the darkness.

  “I . . . didn’t want to worry you.”

  He didn’t believe her. The realization stunned him. He’d known and accepted that there was a distance between them, but he hadn’t expected her to lie.

  The creak of a door cut into the growing silence.

  “Sounds like the house is stirring,” he said, glad for an excuse to pull his arm from beneath his wife’s head. He sat on the side of the bed and reached for his robe, putting it on while sliding his feet into his slippers. “I’ll go build up the fire. Give it a little while, and the room will warm up.”

  He hurried down the narrow staircase and into the kitchen. There, he fed the stove with wood. Before he was done, Nancy entered the room, already dressed for the day.

  “Merry Christmas, Andrew.” She took hold of his shoulders, rose on tiptoes, and kissed his cheek. “Is Helen awake?”

  “Yes. She’ll be down soon. I promised her some warmth before she had to get up and dress.”

  “It has been especially cold. The humidity gets into my bones when the temperature dips.” She hugged herself and shivered, then turned toward the refrigerator.

  Andrew watched as she made preparations for breakfast. It reminded him of the first months of his marriage to Helen. He’d loved watching her as she moved around the kitchen. Just seeing her crack an egg over a hot skillet had brought him pleasure. “What makes a woman fall out of love with her husband?”

  Nancy stopped what she was doing and turned to look at him, her eyes wide. “What did you say?”

  It wasn’t until then that he realized he’d asked the question aloud.

  “Andrew?”

  “Nothing. Sorry. I was talking to myself. Nothing important.”

  The look in her eyes told him she’d heard every word.

  “I’d better get dressed. I imagine the boys will be up soon and eager to get to the presents under the tree.”

  “Yes.”

  Maybe Nancy hadn’t needed him to say anything. Maybe Helen’s feelings had been obvious from the moment the two women met. But Andrew hadn’t realized the fullness of the problem until he’d given voice to the question.

  Helen’s fallen out of love with me.

  And now the question was, how could he win her love back again?

  Chapter 9

  Ignorance, Ridley discovered, wasn’t bliss. Since hiding out in Hope Springs, he’d learned he missed checking his favorite blogs and news sites whenever he wanted. He missed not having his finger on the pulse of the world or at least of his local community. It was harder than he’d imagined to go cold turkey from social media. No emails. No texts. No television. It made for a lot of silence and soli
tude. That’s what he’d wanted, but maybe it wasn’t what he’d needed.

  He’d enjoyed his evening with Jessica Mason much more than expected. While the food had been good, it was the company that had satisfied him most. Sure, there had been awkward moments. Neither of them seemed to want to share too much about their lives. But there’d been good moments too. Jessica was a nice person, and she hadn’t treated him like a creature about to be dissected beneath a magnifying glass.

  It was midmorning and Ridley was working on fence repairs when he saw her back her SUV out of the garage and drive away. He waved but doubted she was looking his way. If she’d seen him, if she’d stopped, he would have gone over and thanked her again for the previous night. Maybe he could have made up for upsetting her by mentioning her husband. But she hadn’t looked, hadn’t seen him.

  He went back to work on the fence and had been at it for at least half an hour when he heard a car on the road. He looked up, expecting to see Jessica returning from town. But it wasn’t her vehicle. It was a blue truck. One he knew well.

  He removed the tool belt from around his waist and walked toward the front of the house, arriving about the same time as the truck came to a halt. Dust swirled into a cloud, coming from the rear wheels forward. Ridley closed his eyes while it rolled past him. When he opened them, his friend was out of the truck.

  “Chad.”

  “Ridley.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  “Your mom.”

  “I should have known.”

  Chad Evers walked toward him. “I got worried when you never answered your phone. I went by your house a couple of times, but no answer there either.”

  “I needed to get out of Dodge for a while.” He motioned with his head toward the house. “Come in and I’ll get you something to drink.”

  “Thanks.”

  Chad and Ridley had been good friends since their senior year in high school. Ridley trusted him like a brother. It was Chad who’d introduced Ridley to Tammy Treehorn. Not that he could have foreseen what would happen all those months down the road.

  A short while later, cold cans of soda in hand, the two men sat down in the living room.

  Chad was the one who broke the silence. “I’m really sorry about the press.”

  Ridley shrugged.

  “I know the stuff they said and implied isn’t true.”

  Anger churned in his stomach. He almost asked what had been written about him lately, but he managed to swallow the question. It wouldn’t help to know. It wouldn’t change anything.

  As if reading his mind, Chad added, “It’s dying down already, if that’s any help.”

  “A little.”

  “I tried to talk to Tammy. No luck.”

  “Yeah, her handlers set up quite a hedge around her the minute the information leaked.”

  “You shouldn’t have quit. You should’ve stuck around.”

  “Maybe, but at the time quitting seemed the right thing to do.”

  Chad shook his head. “There are two stories. There’s the news about Tammy herself, and there’s the news of how the information got out. Right now it’s playing like you wanted to take her down.”

  “I’m sure Rachelle Ford knows the truth.” He felt the anger rising inside of him again. “She could clear things up, at least as far as I’m concerned. But I suppose she’s too busy protecting herself.”

  “Then let the press know that. Let them go after her.”

  Ridley straightened, his friend’s suggestion affecting him in a strange way. Would he want anyone else to be subjected to the press or, even worse, the internet trolls the way he’d been? Even if Rachelle knew more than she was letting on, did he want her to have to deal with lies and innuendos? “No,” he answered after a lengthy silence. “No, it isn’t worth that.”

  “Don’t you want the truth to come out?”

  “Sure. But not if it inadvertently harms somebody who’s innocent. And I don’t know for sure who is and who isn’t innocent. Better to leave it alone.”

  “But—”

  “Look, Chad, I appreciate you trying to encourage me this way. I really do. But for now, I want to lay low. I think I need to pray more about the right thing to do. When I think about what’s being said about me and all that’s happened, I get angry. And making decisions when I’m angry isn’t wise. At least that’s been my experience.”

  “Yeah. I suppose you’re right about that. So what are you going to do next? Hide up here for the rest of your life?”

  Ridley grunted. “No. This is temporary while I get my head together. I’m going to have to figure out what I want to do next. It definitely won’t have to do with politics. I learned pretty fast that I don’t have the stomach for it.” He drew in a deep breath. “Besides, it wasn’t just my work life that was out of whack. Things weren’t so good in my personal life either.”

  “Speaking of which, Selena called me.”

  “Selena called you?”

  “Yeah. She wanted to know where you are.”

  “I don’t get it. She’s the one who broke things off. She called me, too, but all she said was she wanted a sweater she left at my house.”

  “You ask me, she’s upset because you didn’t beg her to come back. She wanted you to crawl.”

  Ridley knew his friend had never cared for Selena and so might be slightly prejudiced against her. But in this instance, he suspected Chad might be right about his former girlfriend’s motivation. He’d witnessed her vengeful streak before, although it hadn’t been directed at him. He’d excused away her negative personality traits as they popped up because he’d wanted things to work out. “You didn’t tell her where I am, did you?”

  “No. I’m not stupid.” Chad released a short laugh.

  Ridley nodded grimly. He had begun to wonder if he was a poor judge of character when it came to women. He didn’t like to think it, but Selena Wright was evidence to prove the case against him.

  From the age of sixteen, Jessica had been a sensible driver. She drove defensively, the way her father had taught her. But after the accident that killed her husband and child, fear had hovered nearby whenever she was behind the wheel. On short trips from home to town and back, she kept that fear at bay, but away from her cozy community it seemed to sit in the back seat, whispering how dangerous it was, reminding her how quickly she could lose control of her vehicle. She told herself that one day she would get over it. For the present, she had to grit her teeth and ignore the feeling.

  Shortly before eleven forty-five on Tuesday morning, Jessica arrived at her parents’ home. Tension knotted the muscles across her shoulders and upper back, and after turning off the engine, she sat for a while and did some deep breathing, trying to relax. She didn’t have time to succeed. Her mom appeared on the front stoop, waving a dish towel in Jessica’s direction.

  She pasted on a smile before opening the door. “Hi, Mom.” She headed up the walk.

  “Oh, honey. It’s so good to see you.” Her mom made it sound as if it had been ages since they’d seen each other. In fact, it had been less than two weeks. “How was the drive?”

  “Not bad. Traffic was light.”

  “That’s good.” She kissed Jessica’s cheek. “Come on in. I’m putting the last touches on our lunch.” She took her by the crook of the arm and drew her inside. “This is a treat to see you in the middle of the week.”

  “Yeah.” While she followed her mom to the kitchen, Jessica breathed in the memories that hid in every nook and cranny of this house.

  “I’m making BLTs and tomato soup,” her mom said.

  “Two of my favorites.”

  “I know.”

  Jessica plucked a small bit of bacon off a plate and popped it into her mouth.

  Her mom laughed as she laid lettuce leaves on top of strips of bacon, sliced tomatoes, and bread, then covered both sandwiches with second slices of bread. “Go ahead and sit at the table, honey, and I’ll dish up the soup.”

  “Oka
y.”

  The breakfast nook held a small, round oak table for four and an old, scarred buffet that had once belonged to Jessica’s grandmother. More memories welled as she sat in the same chair she’d sat in since before she could remember. Her older sister, Deidra, had sat directly across from her. Mom had used the chair closest to the kitchen, Dad the one by the window.

  A lump formed in her throat, and she had to breathe deeply to keep tears from forming. She’d been so blessed in her childhood. So many happy memories. She’d wanted Angela to experience the same kind of family, the same kind of love. That couldn’t happen now. And the baby she had yet to meet? There would be plenty of love, of course, but it still wouldn’t be the same.

  “Deidra called yesterday.” Her mom set the sandwich plates on the table. “Trish is starring in a community theater’s production of Peter Pan.”

  “Wow.” Jessica swallowed, sniffed, and once more forced a smile. “That’s great. When’s the production?”

  “In about six weeks. I told your dad I thought we should fly down for it, but he’s not sure he can take the time off work. You know how it is for him in the summer.” She returned with the bowls of soup, setting one before Jessica. “I wish you could go with me.”

  “It would be fun, but you know I can’t. I’ll be eight months pregnant by then. I don’t want to fly when I’m that far along. Besides, I need to work hard now because once the baby comes, it’s going to be difficult to squeeze in much time in my studio.”

  “I know.” Her mom sighed, then held out a hand for Jessica to take. “Let’s thank God for the food before the soup gets cold.”

  After the blessing, they ate in silence for a short while. But Jessica could feel her mom’s questioning gaze and knew she wondered what had prompted this visit.

  Unable to wait any longer, she set down her sandwich. “Mom. I need to tell you something. About Joe. About Joe and me.”

  Her mother’s expression was tender and patient.

  “Before he . . . before he and . . . and Angela died, he told me he was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce.”

  “No!” Disbelief erased the patience. “But—”