Who I Am with You

by Robin Lee Hatcher

  “I knew, deep down, that he wasn’t happy. But I thought . . . I hoped . . .” The words faded away, and she shook her head. This confession was more difficult than she’d expected. Perhaps pretending had been the better way. But the truth, like the proverbial cat, was out of the bag now. There was no going back. “I pretended I didn’t know he was being unfaithful because I didn’t want others to know the truth. As long as he didn’t tell me, I could go on pretending we would be all right. That our marriage could be saved.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “But then he did tell me.”

  “Jessica.” Her mother reached out and touched the back of her hand.

  “We fought that morning.” She didn’t have to explain what morning she meant. “He was so angry at first. We said awful things to each other. Then, by the time he drove away, he just seemed cold and . . . and frustrated.” She drew a slow, deep breath and released it. “He’d told me he would stay through Christmas, for Angela’s sake, but then he was going to move out.” A sharp laugh—devoid of humor—tore from her throat. “I got pregnant the night before he told me he was leaving me. Isn’t that ironic or . . . or something?” Now the tears came, streaking her cheeks. “I was such a fool. I was so stupid.”

  “Oh, Jessica.” Her mom rose from the chair and came to embrace her, rubbing the top of her head with her cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

  She hated that Joe—even in his absence—could still make her cry sometimes. She hated it bitterly. Pulling back from her mom, she reached for a napkin on the table and dried her eyes. “I’m okay,” she whispered. A lie if ever she’d spoken one.

  “Why didn’t you tell us when you two first started having trouble?” Her mom settled back onto her chair. “Perhaps your father and I could have helped in some way.”

  “Joe said it’s because I’m stubborn. Too stubborn to admit when something is over.” Jessica stared down at her hands that were folded in her lap. She’d removed her wedding ring several months ago, and now she rubbed the place it had once been.

  “Maybe you weren’t being stubborn. Maybe you were just hopeful.”

  She loved her mom so much in that moment.

  “Jessica, have you been blaming yourself all these months for the accident?”

  She lowered her eyes to her half-eaten sandwich. “A little.” Or maybe a lot.

  “You mustn’t. No matter what you quarreled about, no matter how angry he was, the accident was not your fault. The police were very clear about that. It was the road conditions that caused it. It was the black ice.”

  “But if he’d been paying better attention, if he hadn’t been driving too fast—”

  “Jessica, listen to me.” Her mom took hold of Jessica’s right hand. “You cannot live with what-ifs. Trying to do so will drive you crazy. It isn’t what God wants for you.”

  Pain pressed against her chest. “If God cares, why did He take Angela? She was innocent. She didn’t deserve to die.”

  “And Joe did?”

  Jessica sucked in a breath as she looked up. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Her mom said nothing.

  Maybe I did mean it that way. Maybe I did mean Joe deserved to die.

  “Sweetheart, there is a great deal I don’t understand in this life. But this much I know: there isn’t a single one of us who leaves this earthly life one moment sooner or one moment later than God allotted. I don’t know why Angela was only given six years. But look at the joy she gave us in those years. Look at what a blessing she was to others. She touched so many lives in that brief time.” She stopped to brush away tears of her own. “We will always miss her, and I don’t pretend that it will ever be easy not having her with us. But we can take comfort in knowing we’ll see her again one day. She isn’t lost to us forever.”

  “Oh, Mom. I want to take comfort in that. I do. But I’m not comforted. It hurts. It just hurts.”

  Her mother rose and came to her again, pressing Jessica’s head to her stomach and holding her tight. “I know, darling. I know.”

  NAMPA, IDAHO

  Saturday, February 28, 1931

  “Andrew.” His mother released him from her tight embrace. “You look so thin.” She touched the side of his face with the flat of her hand. “It’s good to have you home, my son.”

  “I’m glad to be home, Mama.” He shook his father’s hand, then looked down the length of the station platform. “Helen’s not here?”

  “No. She’s waiting for you at her parents’ house.”

  “How is Mr. Greyson, Papa?”

  “Not good. He’s not expected to recover.”

  “Helen must be devastated. Mother Greyson as well.”

  “They are. Both of them. But they’ll be glad you’re here to help see them through.” His father took a valise from Andrew. “The automobile is over this way.”

  Andrew took up his other two suitcases. They held everything he’d taken with him last August. After all, there was no job for him to go back to in Portland. He’d had to resign his position with the bank before coming home. Someone had to see to the affairs of his father-in-law while he was incapacitated, and that task had fallen to Andrew.

  But it wasn’t Frank Greyson who concerned him at the moment. Instead, he wondered what sort of welcome he would receive from Helen. When she’d left Portland the day after Christmas, her kiss had been brief and cool. She’d written him only three letters in the two months since her departure, and none of them had done anything to help the worry he felt in his heart. It was as if she’d written to an old school acquaintance rather than to her husband. As if they’d never been married. As if they’d never created a child together.

  In his own, more frequent, letters home, he hadn’t known what to write to her except to continue to express his love in as many ways as he could think of. After all, what else could he do from over four hundred miles away? But now he was home again. Now he could work on mending whatever had come between them.

  “I’ll ride in back,” his mother said when they reached the Ford sedan. “You’ll want time with your papa.”

  It was true. Andrew would like time to talk to his father. But the ride to the Greyson farm was the wrong opportunity. He needed someplace quiet where he could explain the situation and then glean the older man’s sound advice.

  They drove through the farmland, everything gray and wintry looking, trees bare except for the occasional flocks of small birds perched in their branches. In a few months the fields would turn green with new crops, and the trees would be in full leaf. For now, the world looked as barren as his marriage.

  Above the noise of the car engine, his father said, “I’m sorry you had to give up your job. I know it was hard to find.”

  “It couldn’t be helped.”

  “Helen and Madge will be thankful to have you home.”

  He didn’t completely believe that. Mother Greyson perhaps felt that way. But Helen? “Did you see much of them while I was in Portland?”

  “Not much.”

  Andrew glanced over at his father.

  “Madge says Helen’s friends have kept her occupied so she wouldn’t spend too much time missing you.”

  He looked out the window. Seems to have worked. His mood darkened, and he began to dread the moment when he would see his wife again.

  “Gregory,” his mother said from the back seat. “Look. The Maxwells are leaving.”

  Andrew’s gaze shot to the farm a short distance up the road. A Ford truck, piled high with earthly possessions, was making its way slowly from the farmhouse to the road.

  “It’s true, then,” his father said. “They’ve lost the place. I was hoping it was only a rumor.”

  “Should we stop and speak to them?” There were tears in his mother’s question.

  His father slowed the car, but he didn’t bring it to a halt. “Better not. If they’d wanted to say goodbye, they would have. I imagine Timothy’s pride is wounded. Mine would be.”

  “But we don’t even know where they’re
going.”

  His father touched the brim of his hat as they passed the driveway. With sunlight reflecting off the windshield, Andrew couldn’t tell if anyone inside the truck could see them or knew their loss was being acknowledged and mourned with them.

  “Papa?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you good? Financially, I mean. You’re not in any danger of losing the farm, are you?”

  His father glanced at him. “We’re fine, son. We’ve always been careful with our money, your mama and me. We can weather most anything that comes our way.”

  “You’d be in even better shape if you hadn’t spent all that money on college for me.”

  “Education is never a waste, my boy. It isn’t just about employment, after all. And don’t worry. Your time will come. The right opportunity will appear when you least expect it. For now, your smarts are needed to help the Greysons.”

  His smarts? The word choice made him want to laugh. He didn’t seem to be smart enough to help himself, let alone his inlaws. But he could work a farm. He knew animals and a fair amount about growing alfalfa hay. He knew how to repair a fence and keep a barn roof mended.

  Now if he could just discover a way to mend his marriage.

  Chapter 10

  All week long, while Ridley repaired the fence or worked on the shed or mowed the grass or played with the dog, he found his gaze going to his neighbor’s house again and again. He never saw Jessica herself. Hadn’t seen her since she’d driven away on Tuesday. He wondered if she was all right, but he couldn’t think of a reason to go knock on her door.

  On Friday afternoon, with Kris unhappily shut in the house, Ridley was chopping away at an old tree stump when the UPS truck pulled into Jessica’s half-circle driveway and stopped. He saw the driver, a woman, seem to struggle to remove a large box from the back of the truck, so he leaned the ax against the shed and headed in her direction. He arrived in time to help her get it settled onto the hand truck.

  “Thanks,” she said, the word coming out on a gush of air.

  “I didn’t do much. You did the heavy part.”

  “Thanks anyway. You must be Ridley, Jessica’s new neighbor. I’m Carol.” She grinned widely. “The UPS driver.”

  “Nice to meet you, Carol the UPS driver.”

  “Ha!”

  “Need help getting that up to the house?”

  “No, I’ve got it that far. But I’ll bet Jessica will need help with it after that.” Carol jerked her head toward the front door. “Follow me and we’ll ask her.”

  What choice did he have? He followed. Not that he minded.

  Carol rang the doorbell, and together they waited. It took about a minute before the door swung open. Jessica wore a paint-splattered smock, and her shoulder-length hair was captured in a twisted ponytail. Another splash of paint smudged her cheek.

  She looked, he thought, adorable.

  “What on earth?” she said, eyes on the box.

  “Not sure,” Carol answered, “but it’s addressed to you.” She pointed to the label on the side of the box.

  “I didn’t order anything.” Now Jessica’s gaze shifted to Ridley.

  He shrugged, fighting a smile. “I didn’t order anything either. I’m just here to lift and carry.”

  “I see.” She looked at Carol again. “Then I guess you’d better leave it for me.”

  Carol took the hand truck up to the door, turned, and backed it over the step and into the house. Once there, she slid the hand truck away from the box that was nearly as high as her shoulders. She gave the box a pat. “Let me know what’s in it. I’m dying of curiosity. You know how I am. I’d wait, but I’m running a bit late on deliveries.” She flashed another broad smile in Ridley’s direction. “Thanks for the help.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Both he and Jessica watched Carol push the hand truck down the walk, whistling as she went. Soon she was inside the vehicle and driving away.

  “Let me get a box cutter,” Jessica said into the sudden silence. “I confess I’m curious too.”

  While she was gone, Ridley laid the box down flat on the floor and slid it to a more open space in the room.

  “How did Carol rope you into this?” Jessica called from her studio.

  “She didn’t rope me in.”

  “I’ll bet.” She walked back into the living room.

  He held out his hand for the box cutter. “Let me.”

  She hesitated a moment, then gave it to him.

  He worked quickly, soon discovering that there was a white box inside the brown shipping box. “Still a mystery.” He glanced up at Jessica.

  It wasn’t a mystery for long. He tipped the shipping box and let the other box slowly slide out onto the floor.

  “A crib,” Jessica whispered. “My mom must have ordered it for me. She told me she wanted to help with the nursery.”

  “Where is it? The nursery. I imagine it’s best to assemble the crib in the room it’ll stay in.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to—”

  “I want to, Jessica.” He tilted his head to indicate her condition. “Besides, you shouldn’t do it, even if you’re able.”

  Her expression told of the argument she was having within herself. He’d guess she rarely, if ever, asked for help from anybody. Had she been that way before the death of her family or was that something new? Just one more thing he’d like to know about her.

  At last, as if defeated, Jessica pointed. “First room on the left at the top of the stairs.”

  It didn’t take Ridley long to get the box up the stairs and into the appointed room. It was empty of furniture, the off-white walls bare and, if he wasn’t mistaken, recently painted. He set the box in the middle of the room and ripped open one end. By the time Jessica appeared in the doorway, a tool chest in one hand, he had all of the parts out of the box.

  “This shouldn’t be too hard to put together.” He picked up the written instructions and perused them. He’d never assembled a baby’s crib before, but if he could take a computer apart or build a bookcase or repair a shed, he could manage this.

  Especially for her.

  The thought caused him a moment of alarm. It had been only three days since he’d decided he was a poor judge of character when it came to women. Just because he found Jessica sweet and funny, just because he felt sorry for her with all that had happened, didn’t mean he wanted to let himself care too much. Not with his life turned upside down.

  “I got rid of Angela’s bed and her old crib too.” Jessica set the toolbox beside him. “I got rid of all her clothes and toys after the funeral. I didn’t think there was any reason to keep any of it. I was trying to purge the pain by cleaning things out. And then I discovered I was pregnant.”

  Ridley sat back on his heels and looked at her. “That’s rough.”

  “Yeah.” She smiled sadly.

  The other night he’d upset her by mentioning her husband in passing. So what could he say now? He didn’t want to repeat that mistake. He decided to go back to work on the crib.

  “The walls in here used to be pink. It was Angela’s favorite color . . . along with red. She loved red too.” She drew in a breath and released it on a sigh. “I don’t know the baby’s sex, so I went with eggshell for the walls.”

  Ridley didn’t know much about pregnancy, but he was pretty sure it was easy these days for a woman to know if she was having a boy or a girl, at least by the time she was as far along as Jessica. He wondered why she didn’t know. Again, that seemed dangerous ground. He chose not to ask.

  Jessica leaned her shoulder against the doorjamb and watched as Ridley opened the toolbox. He selected the tools he would need and set them on the carpet. Then he dumped the screws and washers and whatever else was in the small plastic bags onto the floor and began to sort them into appropriate piles.

  I should go, she thought. But despite herself, she remained. Why, she couldn’t say for certain. It wasn’t because she needed him to put the crib together. Even
six and a half months pregnant, she could have managed the task. At a slower pace, no doubt, but she could have assembled it without a problem. Perhaps she stayed because there was something pleasing about watching him work. It was more than the flex of his muscles or the way he held his mouth when he concentrated. Although that part was nice too.

  Maybe I just miss having a man around the house. Any man.

  She frowned, wondering if that was true. No, she answered herself. It wasn’t true. She wasn’t that kind of woman. She would rather be alone than have just any man.

  Only Ridley wasn’t just any man.

  How can I be sure of that? I thought Joe was special, and look how that turned out. And what does it matter anyway? Ridley’s here for the summer and then he’s gone.

  She pushed away from the jamb. “I’d better get back to my work. If you need anything, holler.”

  He glanced at her. “I’ll do that.”

  It surprised her, how reluctant she was to leave the baby’s room, but she made herself do it. She went down the stairs and into her studio. But instead of returning to her painting, she went to the bookcase and picked up her great-grandfather’s Bible. She remembered the day of her grandmother’s funeral and her mom’s words of encouragement. Her mom had always been her chief cheerleader in life. Even that crib Ridley was assembling upstairs was her mom’s attempt to lift her spirits, perhaps even to inspire her to look toward the future with hope. Her mom and Grandma Frani had been alike in that regard. Had her great-grandfather Andrew been the same?

  She moved to her work area and settled onto her chair, letting the book fall open on the desk before her. Psalm 139. The first two verses were underlined.

  O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.

  Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

  While she preferred to study a more contemporary version, there was something beautiful about the language of King James. It summoned an image of Andrew Henning, sitting at a small table, lamplight spilling a pool of yellow light onto the pages of this Bible.