Lonely Souls

by Rosemary Fifield

  “Because of Sonny?”

  “Because it’s a barn. It’s full of cows and pitchforks and spiders and things to trip over or fall into. I’m blind, remember?” She immediately regretted the tone of her voice, but Miriam didn’t seem to take offense.

  “Sonny only wants to take care of you, Shelby.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Sonny.”

  “I think we should. This is really hard on him. And he’s a good boy. He would never hurt you.”

  “He’s a man.”

  “I know, but he’s not like that. I’ve never found books or magazines or … things around his room like I did with Billy and Blake. He has a … a different attitude.”

  Shelby turned to face her. “He saw me, Miriam!”

  “I know, but …”

  “Not just undressed. He saw it all!”

  Miriam’s hand closed over Shelby’s once more. “You poor thing! Do you see why you can’t go home yet? There’s so much to let out, and this is the place to do it. If you get to know Sonny, you’ll understand that it doesn’t matter. That all he felt was sadness!”

  “How do you know that? Men don’t reveal their true thoughts to their mothers! You thought it was safe to send Blake to my house!”

  “Shelby, I’m going to tell you a little story about Sonny. It’s not close to what happened to you, but I think it proves something. Last fall, Sonny came home late one night, and he didn’t want to wake us so he went to the bathroom and he didn’t shut the door or turn on the light. Well, when I get up to go in the middle of the night, I just go in without putting on the light or shutting the door. So, I got up like usual and I never expected anybody to be in there. I just hitched up my nightgown and went to sit down. only I was getting ready to sit on Sonny’s lap! Now you have to remember, I’m no small thing like you, so Sonny, he was getting an eyeful! Well, he tried to warn me, but it was too late, and I let out this holler like you wouldn’t believe. Nate come out of our bed like there were ants in the sheets! Well, I was so embarrassed, I wanted to die, and I know Nate thought it was funny. But you know, Sonny, he just apologized for scaring me, and I heard afterwards that he got mad when Nate told somebody about it, but he never snickered and he never made jokes. One day last month or so, I mentioned it for the first time as kind of a joke, and then he laughed along with me, but that was the first time and it wasn’t embarrassing any more. Do you see what I’m trying to say? Sonny’s not crude or mean. He’s just the opposite.”

  Shelby nodded, wishing it were that simple. If Dawson had walked in on her when she was undressing, it would have been different. It might even have been titillating. But he had seen Blake defiling her. How could he not think of that every time he looked at her?

  “Remember what I said about there being two kinds of pride?” Miriam was saying. “One kind will send you back to your own house to hide. The other will say nothing can rob you of your dignity because you’re too strong a woman for that. Don’t let what Blake did keep you from getting to know Sonny. Don’t let Blake keep on … hurting you. Force him out of your mind, Shelby. You’re the only one who can do it.”

  “Why would you want your son to become involved with a blind cripple who can’t have children?”

  Miriam’s hand tightened around Shelby’s. “This town is full of blind cripples, but you’re not one of them. I know that now. As for children, Sonny has never wanted them.”

  Shelby sat quietly for a long moment. Then, to her own surprise, she said, “Tell me what Sonny looks like. Cassie told me once, but I want to hear it from you.”

  “What he looks like? Well, let’s see. He’s tall like your Shane. Six-two, I believe. He’s got the skin like the Abenaki and dark hair, very straight, almost black. From a distance you’d call it black. Brown eyes, big and kind of wide-set. Straight nose, kind of flared at the bottom. Beautiful teeth. He’s never had a cavity. I think he’s very good-looking.”

  Shelby smiled at the pride in Miriam’s voice. “Sounds nice.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Miriam said, giving Shelby’s hand a final squeeze.

  Cassie stopped by to visit later in the morning. She and Shelby went into the living room to chat while Miriam took the opportunity to go grocery shopping.

  “You look so much better,” Cassie smiled. “Of course, the last two times I came, you were asleep.”

  “I feel much better. How are you doing?”

  “I’m tired. And sick of lugging this kid around. Thank God it’s only a few more weeks.”

  Shelby’s smile took on a melancholy edge, and Cassie immediately regretted her complaint. “My dad’s doing better,” she said hastily. “He should be moving out of the CCU soon, maybe this afternoon. They say it was a mild attack.”

  “Good. I’m glad.” Shelby seemed distracted, as if her mind had suddenly taken her somewhere else, and Cassie watched her with concern.

  “How are you doing?” Cassie asked.

  “Me? Fine. A little stiff and sore, but not bad.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Shelby frowned. “There’s nothing to say. It’s over. I’m fine.”

  “I’m not.” Cassie looked down at her hands. “I have to tell you something I feel terrible about. But I want you to hear it from me first.” Cassie took a deep breath in an effort to calm her pounding heart. “ This baby is Blake’s. I was raped by Blake, too.”

  Shelby’s eyes widened and the color drained from her face. “What?”

  “I was raped by Blake. And I never told anyone. And, Shelby, that’s why he was able to hurt you. And I’m so sorry and …”

  “Stop!” Shelby said angrily. “You were raped by Blake, and you never told anyone?”

  Cassie’s eyes welled with tears. “Shelby, I am so sorry!”

  “Cassie, how could you go through that and not tell anyone?” Shelby leaned toward her, a frown on her face. “How could you do that? How could you deal with it? How could you just go on without telling anyone what happened?”

  “It wasn’t like what happened to you,” Cassie began to cry. “It wasn’t that violent.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course it was violent! Being touched against your will is violence! It’s horrible! Being desecrated like that is a woman’s worst nightmare! Cassie, how could you not talk to someone about it?”

  Cassie was taken aback by Shelby’s immediate concern for her when she had expected anger about Blake being free to do it again. “I did, eventually. I told my friend Marcia. But I couldn’t tell anyone else! And I didn’t think I’d have to, but then I got pregnant.”

  “So nobody else knows?”

  “Some people know now. I told them.” Cassie brushed her arm across her eyes to dry them. “Shane and Grant know. And Sonny.”

  “Sonny knows his brother raped you? What did he say when you told him?”

  “I didn’t tell him. Shane did.”

  Shelby looked startled. “Shane?”

  “He was upset about you, I guess, and he told him. But I’m glad he did, because I couldn’t do it. He’s upset, of course, and now he knows the kid’s his brother’s.”

  “Does he want to marry you?”

  Cassie watched Shelby’s concerned face, uncertain what to say. “I told him right off I wouldn’t marry him,” she lied, “so he wouldn’t feel he had to offer. He doesn’t love me, and I don’t love him. Not anymore.”

  Shelby leaned closer to her. “How did it happen, Cassie? Why were you alone with him?”

  “I had gone to his trailer to talk about Sonny because I was so frustrated. We had a few beers and then he attacked me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I tried to get away. But he was too strong. He pinned me to the floor and there was nothing I could do, although I tried. He was pretty well scratched for a week or two. I don’t know what he told Donna about the scratches.”

  “And then he just let you go?”

  “Yeah. Like it was what I
had come for and now it was done.”

  “I did everything wrong, Cassie,” Shelby said, her expression darkening. “I knew what I should do, and I did everything wrong. I begged, I cried, I tried to reason with him. I groveled, and he loved every minute of it.”

  “You were in much more danger than I was, Shelby. He could hurt you more easily. No one would expect you to fight back.”

  “I wish I had died,” Shelby said quietly.

  Cassie’s heart ached as she watched Shelby’s face. “But it’s over, and you didn’t die. That’s the important thing.”

  “No, it’s not!” Shelby cried. “Even you don’t get it!” Her eyes drilled into Cassie’s as though she could see. “I wish I had died! I still want to die!”

  Cassie stared at her.

  “I have nothing to live for, Cassie! I hate waking up in the morning! For one tiny moment, I wake up and things feel normal and I have a life, and then it all comes rushing back and all I can feel is this terrible sense of doom! And fear! Always fear! I never used to be like this! Even after the accident—even after I knew I was going to be blind for the rest of my life and have to live with the memory of what I did—I didn’t feel this kind of fear! Not debilitating fear! Not like this!”

  “That will go away, Shelby. You just need to give it time. I know what you’re talking about with the morning thing. With waking up and feeling normal but only for a minute and then remembering and being filled with dread at the idea of having to face another day. But it gets better. You’ll see.” Cassie watched her friend’s face. “Can I ask you something?”

  “What?”

  “You must have felt this way—the nothing to live for—after losing your husband and your baby. How did you get over that?”

  “Drugs.”

  Cassie stared at her. “What?”

  “Drugs. I got hooked on pain killers. They took me through a lot of types of pain. For a long time.” Shelby’s eyes were fixed now, and her face became expressionless, as though she had gone somewhere else.

  “I’m sorry,” Cassie said, worried now. “I didn’t mean to bring up something even worse.”

  “I deserve all this, you know,” Shelby said quietly. “If I hadn’t been so determined to get away from my mother-in-law—if I had just stayed one more day, like she wanted—we would never have been on that highway at that moment. I shouldn’t even have been driving, but I was too stubborn to stay one more day.”

  “Shelby …”

  “No, it’s okay. Believe me, it’s not like I don’t think about this all the time. Still. It’s just part of the deal. My deal. I’m where I am today because of where I was that day—and who I was. This is all my own fault.”

  “None of it’s your fault!” Cassie said angrily. “Women always think it’s their fault! I filled myself with guilt for weeks just for being stupid enough to go talk to Blake! For giving him the impression that I was looking for something from him! But I didn’t ask for it! I didn’t flirt with him or say anything that should have made him think I wanted it! And a damn stupid car accident certainly wasn’t your fault!”

  Shelby turned her face toward Cassie’s. “Does Miriam know this baby is Blake’s?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “It will kill her to know Blake raped you, too.”

  “I know,” Cassie said. “But it is her grandchild.”

  “She won’t miss it if she doesn’t know.”

  “But what if she finds out later somehow and is upset because she never knew?” Cassie closed her eyes, remembering the conversation with Grant about Corey’s daughter and the pain she had caused him in bringing up the possibility that the little girl was his after all. “I don’t know what to do. I’m thinking about putting it up for adoption now.”

  Shelby shook her head. “When you came for the job interview, the most important thing was that you wanted to keep it.”

  Cassie let out a short, humorless laugh. “I thought maybe Sonny and I would be getting married then, that he’d come around somehow. I don’t know why I thought that.”

  Shelby sat quietly, lost in her own world again.

  “What about you and Sonny?” Cassie said quietly. “You could take care of a baby, don’t you think? Miriam would help you. And that would keep it in the family.”

  Shelby’s face turned angry once more. “There is nothing between me and Sonny.”

  “He loves you. I know he does.”

  “I don’t love him. I don’t love any man. I don’t want any man.”

  “Are you going to kick Shane out of your life, too? Just asking.”

  “He’s already out of my life. He’s moved into the barn. He has his own life. We just happen to occupy the same property, that’s all.”

  Cassie watched her closely. “How are you going to do that, with strangers living there all the time, coming and going? Some of them will be men. Or are they all going to be gay?“

  Shelby reached out to find the walker she had left beside her chair. “I don’t want to be rude, Cassie, but I am starting to get really tired.” She pushed against the arms of the chair, grimacing as she stood and leaned on the walker. “Thank you for coming and for our talk. I know that wasn’t easy for you.”

  “None of this is easy for either one of us,” Cassie said, pushing herself to her feet as well. “Miriam’s not back yet, but I know Sonny is somewhere nearby. Are you going to be alright with that if I leave?”

  Shelby nodded. Dawson had been giving her a wide berth at her request.

  “I’ll come by tomorrow, if that works for you.”

  Shelby nodded again. “I’ll look forward to it. But if your dad is coming home, don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.”

  Cassie watched her work her way through the living room toward the bedroom door. Nothing in her subdued shuffle was even reminiscent of the determined woman Shelby had been before the attack. Cassie knew it would be a long time before she was fine.

  Dawson stood at the web-shrouded window of the barn and watched Cassie and his mother pass one another in the driveway. He wished he could have talked to Cassie about Shelby’s frame of mind, but he knew that wouldn’t be fair to her. There was only one other woman to whom he could talk besides his mother. He helped Miriam bring in her groceries, then went into the ell and put on his snowmobile gear.

  Teddy’s rig was in the yard when he arrived; Dawson pulled his snowmobile up behind it. He and Teddy were acquaintances at most, but he liked Teddy’s quiet ways and was comfortable with him. Teddy had been friends with Dawson’s brother Bill; the two of them had enlisted together to go to Vietnam. The fact that Dawson had sex with Teddy’s wife was no reflection on the man himself. Marcia had been a friend to Dawson before she married Teddy, and he justified his relationship with her based on that fact.

  Marcia met him at the door with an exaggerated wide-eyed look that said, “Are you blind or crazy or both?” and he smiled at her lack of faith in him.

  “Hi. How are you? Am I disturbing anything?” He glanced past her to the table where Teddy sat eating a plate of beans and hot dogs.

  “No, not at all. Come on in. Teddy, it’s Sonny Penfield come to visit.”

  Teddy nodded to Dawson and pushed out a chair with his foot. “Come on in. Have a cup of Vermont’s finest. I got some of this year’s maple fresh from Grant and Larry’s place.”

  “Thanks. Sounds good. How’s it going?”

  “Can’t complain. Glad to be home. Still on horseback, I see.”

  Dawson sat down and nodded. “Yup. ‘Til August. Biggest mistake I ever made.” He took the mug of hot coffee from Marcia and poured in some syrup from a pint on the table. The sticker said “McIan and Dumaine.”

  “So, what brings you here?” Marcia smiled sweetly.

  “I need somebody to talk to. About Cassie.” He glanced at Teddy, then looked back at Marcia. “I know who the baby’s father is. And I know it was rape. I wish someone had told me.”

  “She didn’t want you to
know. Not my call.”

  “Okay. But now he’s raped Shelby.”

  “I know. Cassie told me. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I don’t know what to do about the baby. I offered to marry Cassie, but she refused.”

  “You ‘offered?’ Well, gee whiz, and she refused? What is wrong with that girl?” Marcia glared at him.

  “That’s not exactly how it went.” He could feel the heat of blood rising in his cheeks.