by Misha Crews
Now she did turn around. Her eyes stabbed him bitterly. “Your friend was dead, and his parents were suffering. The grief here was spread so thick that we could barely breathe. You couldn’t deal with it, so you left and told yourself that writing letters would be enough. It wasn’t.”
Adam was taken aback by her acrid hostility. He fumbled for words. “What the hell was I supposed to do? Go ‘Unauthorized Absence’ from the Navy? Betray my country?”
“You could have requested a transfer.”
“Oh, just like that?”
“It’s been done before!”
“Well, I’m home now, and I’m here to stay. And if it makes any difference, I love you. I always have.”
Tears quivered in her eyes, but did not fall. “Go to hell,” she said.
Footsteps sounded on the back porch step, and Kitty’s voice came ringing cheerfully through the screen. She was speaking to someone behind her. “I’m so glad you’re here, Frank. We’re about to cut the cake, so you made it just in time.”
Jenna turned back to the sink, while Adam rubbed his hands over his face, trying to erase any evidence of their argument.
Kitty opened the back door and came inside, her face all smiles. A tall man with a small, neat mustache came in behind her.
“Jenna,” Kitty said, a reproachful edge to her voice. “We’re waiting on the Kool-Aid.”
“I was just about to bring it out.” Jenna wiped the pitcher with a towel.
Kitty took it with care. “Oh, Adam, let me introduce you to Frank Malloy,” she said brightly. “Jenna’s fiancé.”
Adam’s stomach dropped into his shoes. The hand that he had automatically extended for a handshake faltered in mid-air. Fiancé? Was this some sort of joke?
He looked at Jenna, whose closed expression confirmed Kitty’s words. Adam set his jaw grimly, but good manners forced him to put his hand forward.
Frank Malloy took it in a solid grip and shook firmly. “Nice to meet you,” he said.
Frank had dark hair and eyes. He was handsome in a neat, clean-cut kind of way. He was dressed as informally as Adam, in chinos and a short-sleeved chambray shirt, but something about the man belied any use of the word “casual.” His trousers were crisply ironed, and his shoes bore the kind of shine that takes dedication to accomplish. He looked like the type of man who was most at home in a suit coat and tie.
Adam took it all in at a glance, trying not to betray his feelings. Inside, he was reeling.
Malloy continued, “Kitty’s been telling me about you. You’re just home from the Navy?” His voice was deep and precise.
Adam crossed his arms and steeled himself to be sociable. “That’s right,” he answered, as pleasantly as possible.
“Mind if I ask where you served?”
“I’m just back from Panama,” Adam answered absently, “but I’ve been all over. I was in the Construction Battalion.”
“Oh, the Seabees. Wonderful group of fellows,” Frank said earnestly. “You helped secure bases around the Panama Canal during the war, didn’t you?”
“Well, me and a couple thousand other guys, yes.”
“Oh, Adam, you’re too modest,” Kitty interjected. She turned to Frank and added proudly, “Adam was decorated more than once. He’s a bona fide war hero.”
“If I am that, I’m just one of many,” Adam said uncomfortably.
Kitty rolled her eyes in mock exasperation, and he smiled weakly. She might’ve thought he was just being humble, but it always made him feel awkward to hear his praises sung. And this situation was awkward enough as it was.
Frank fingered his mustache thoughtfully. “I was 4-F due to a punctured eardrum I sustained when I was a child. But I managed to serve my country in other ways.”
Adam’s heart sank. Was he really going to have to stand here and listen to Malloy tell his war stories? Adam had managed to be gracious up until this point, but he wasn’t sure how long he could keep up the pretense. He wanted to get out of this kitchen and away from the house. Nothing was as he’d thought it would be. It was as if he had fallen down the rabbit hole.
Jenna must have sensed to his feelings, for she cut in sharply before Frank could continue.
“Kitty,” Jenna said urgently, “isn’t it about time we cut the cake? The parents will be back to pick up their children in a little while, and Christopher still has presents to open.”
That did the trick. Kitty looked at the clock with an exclamation of surprise, then hustled everyone out the door to the backyard.
Adam managed to catch Jenna’s eye with a look of thanks before the crowd of children swallowed them up.
CHAPTER SIX
HOURS LATER, JENNA LEANED AGAINST THE railing of the back porch, surveying the yard with exhausted satisfaction. The children had all gone home, Christopher’s presents had been put away, and she had just finished picking up the last bits of paper from the grass and putting the garbage in the trash bin on the side of the house. The day was finally done.
Fritz snored loudly on the porch. Jenna turned to look at him, sound asleep on his favorite rug. One of his giant paws twitched lightly. He’d had a grand old time that day, running around with the children, chasing balls, and snapping at balloons.
So it seemed that the party had been a great success for everyone. But then again, Jenna never doubted that it would be. Kitty had arranged it, after all, and everything that Kitty did, she did well.
The cowboy theme had been Jenna’s idea. Whenever Christopher visited his grandparents, he came home bubbling with excitement about the cowboys he’d seen on TV. Buffalo Bill and Roy Rogers were his favorites, of course. He even liked Annie Oakley now, although it had taken him a while to get used to the idea of a “girl cowboy.” So Jenna could take credit for the original concept, but her contribution had ended there.
Kitty had bought Christopher’s outfit, with the little six-shooter and the adorable hat that was too big for him and always falling down over his eyes. She’d baked a cake and decorated it with her own two hands — a cowboy of icing, twirling a lasso over his head, with a cactus in the background and fancy lettering that spelled out, “Happy Birthday, Partner!” And underneath that: “Christopher, Age 5.” They had taken almost a whole roll of photos before they’d cut it.
The balloons all had cowboys or horseshoes on them. The party favors were miniature cowboy hats filled with toys and candy, and the piñata had been shaped like a cowboy boot. Kitty had thought of everything, and she never seemed to run out of energy in the execution of her plans.
Earlier that day, when Jenna tried to get her to sit down and take a break, Kitty had just smiled and said, “They’re only young once, you know. We need to enjoy it while we can.”
Kitty’s smile had been made up of equal parts happiness and pain. It was a look that Jenna had seen many times in the long months since Bud had died and the short years since Christopher had been born.
She rubbed her thumb along the worn wood of the porch rail. That side of things was something that Adam couldn’t seem to understand. Jenna knew that she’d been hard on him that day, that her claims of abandonment must have seemed irrational and unfair, but she didn’t care. She was exhausted and sick to death of second-guessing her actions. Adam had been away for the past five years, off sailing the seven seas, building bridges in South America and whatever else he had been occupied with. Jenna had been here, with Bill and Kitty. She had seen the slow disintegration of their lives following Bud’s death, the gradual setting in of horrific reality. Bud was gone forever. He wasn’t bowling; he wasn’t on a business trip. He was gone.
When Jenna had discovered that she was pregnant, she had taken the only clear path open to her. She had told Bill and Kitty that they would be grandparents, and she had been glad to do it.
Tell the truth, and shame the Devil? No, sorry, not in this case. Tell a lie, and make everyone happy. And there had been no shame involved. At least, not until today.
Jenna shuddered, reme
mbering the shock she had felt seeing Adam standing on her front lawn. Why had he come back? And how dare he tell her that he loved her? Over the years, she had almost been successful in forgetting him, in convincing herself that the night they had shared together hadn’t been anything more than a brief encounter, something to cherish but to keep firmly locked away in the cupboard of her mind. Whenever a wayward memory of Adam snuck into her consciousness, she would automatically push it away and think instead of her son and of the family she was so carefully trying to construct and preserve. They were all that mattered now.
Jenna watched the sun begin to dip in the sky, and she shivered as an early-evening breeze sprang up from out of nowhere. She felt melancholy creep over her, like the shadows growing long across the green grass. She had been looking forward to having time alone with Christopher that evening, but he had begged to spend the night with his grandparents, and she’d relented, as she always did. He stayed with Bill and Kitty several nights a week. It pained Jenna to be away from him, as if each separation opened a little hollow inside her. But she never had the heart to refuse him when he asked to go.
The screen door squealed open, and Frank came out onto the porch. “What are you up to out here?” he asked jovially. “Are you going to Hoover the grass?”
Jenna smiled tiredly. “Just admiring my handiwork,” she said. “What do you think?”
Frank surveyed the backyard. “Looks as if an army of youngsters trampled it, and one very patient, hardworking woman cleaned up after them.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s definitely meant to be.” His gaze turned towards her, and he studied her with the same judicious eye he’d given the yard. He smiled kindly and held out a hand. “You look tired, sweetheart. Come on inside while I do the dishes. I’ve made you some tea.”
She took his hand and returned his smile. Frank was a wonder. Most men she knew would have laughed out loud at a suggestion that they help with the household chores. But Frank never seemed to mind rolling up his sleeves and pitching in.
Inside, Jenna settled into a chair at the table and dutifully sipped her tea. She would have preferred coffee or even a cocktail, but one did not question a gift. And that, she supposed, was what Frank himself was. She didn’t love him as much as he deserved, she knew that — and probably he did, too, although they never spoke of it — but they were well-matched, well-suited to each other. He would be a good husband and a good father to Christopher. She would be the best wife that she knew how to be. And that was all that mattered right now.
She watched him with the dishes. He soaped each one precisely, rinsing it thoroughly and setting it in the drying rack. He was a mathematician by trade, and it showed in everything he did. In a little while, he would sit down next to her, and they would chat about the party. He might offer to take her out to dinner, and she would most likely accept. Then he would expect to stay the night, and she would most likely let him.
Or she most likely would have let him, if she had not seen Adam today.
“So I gather it was quite a surprise, Adam’s showing up,” Frank said over his shoulder.
Jenna’s eyes flicked upward. She had forgotten how good he could be at reading her thoughts. She set her tea down on the table and tried to respond casually. “Yes it was. We hadn’t seen him in a very long time.”
There was a pause. “Kitty seems very fond of him,” Frank said.
That made Jenna smile. Frank could be so jealous sometimes. He was usually the apple of Kitty’s eye, second only to her grandson — and Bill, of course. Since Frank had come into their lives three years ago, Kitty had seemed almost as smitten with him as she thought Jenna should be. Jenna understood that. If she remarried to a good man like Frank, it would be easier to pretend that their family was whole again. Kitty would have a daughter-in-law, a son-in-law, and a grandson. It wasn’t enough, but it was something.
At times like these, Jenna’s betrayal seemed almost too deep to measure.
She realized that Frank was waiting for a response. What could she say to make him feel better?
“Well, he and Bud were like brothers. They met when they were six. Adam’s mother had died the year before, and his father…” Jenna paused, not wanting to betray a confidence. “His father wasn’t really up to raising a child all on his own. Kitty practically adopted him.” She smiled. Kitty was good at adopting strays. “Adam became part of the family. There were three boys — Adam, Bud, and Denny. They were always together.”
“Denny was the younger brother?”
“Yes.” Jenna swallowed as an image of Denny flashed before her eyes. Laughing. He was always laughing. “He died on a fishing trip to Mexico.”
“He drowned, I think you once said.”
Jenna heard the strain in Frank’s voice. She leaned forward. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“You didn’t.” He shut the water off and turned, drying his hands on a towel. She could see deep lines etched from his nose to his mouth, and the darkness of tragedy in his eyes. “I brought it up myself.”
Jenna didn’t know what to say. Death was one of the things that she and Frank had in common. Thirteen years ago, his wife had drowned herself. She had gone for a walk along the river one afternoon and hadn’t come home. Frank had found the note on the bureau; her body had washed up on shore several days later.
He pulled out a chair and sat down wearily. He saw the concern in Jenna’s eyes and patted her hand reassuringly. “There’s a lot of tragedy in the world,” he said. “And the Appletons have certainly had their fair share of it.”
Jenna nodded slowly. “Denny and my father both died in ‘48. Bud and I got married less than a year later. All we could think about was having a baby, starting a family.”
“It’s understandable. You wanted to make up for what you had lost. And not just for the two of you — for Bill and Kitty, as well.”
“We were married for two years, and no children. Then Bud died, and Christopher was born.”
“And everything changed.”
“It did,” Jenna said softly. “Christopher brought us all back from…wherever we were headed. He gave us a reason to keep going.”
“You’ve known the family a long time.”
Jenna gave a sad smile. “Kitty collected little hobo children like myself and Adam,” she said. “Didn’t I ever tell you about this?”
Frank shook his head.
“I was twelve when Lucien and I first moved to Virginia. We’d been all over the world by then. He had taken a post in Washington. We probably should have lived in Arlington, but my father could be very particular about his living arrangements. He decided that he didn’t want to live anywhere near the city, so we took a house in Burke, and I started school. Bud and Adam were already friends. Denny was a few years younger, but the three of them were inseparable. Somehow they made room for me — a mere girl, if you can believe that! — and I became part of the family. When we had to move away again a year later, it was terrible.”
“That was when you went to Cuba?”
“Yes, Lucien was assigned to the embassy there. I liked Cuba, and the other places that we lived, but they never felt like home the way Virginia did. So when I was seventeen, we moved back.”
Frank picked up her teacup and sipped companionably. “It must have been a happy reunion.”
“It was. Bud and I fell in love, and we were practically engaged by the time he went off to boot camp the following year.”
“And what about Adam?”
“He enlisted in ‘43, and he was gone when Lucien and I returned to the States. I didn’t see him until he came home for his father’s funeral in ‘44.” Jenna moved restlessly. She didn’t want Frank’s perceptive mind to turn toward herself and Adam. Some things, he didn’t need to know.
Her thoughts fluttered uncomfortably to the photograph of Bud with another woman. She still had it, that photo, that hideous proof that she’d never really understood the m
an that she had married. It served as a constant reminder of her own inadequacy as a woman. Once, in a moment of weakness, Jenna had almost told Frank about the picture. And every day since then, she’d been glad that she stopped herself in time.
She changed the subject to safer ground. “I honestly don’t know how Kitty has survived all her heartbreaks. She’s an incredibly strong woman.”
Frank covered Jenna’s hands with his. “She’s not the only one.”
The compliment made Jenna uncomfortable. She wasn’t in the same league with Kitty, and she knew it. “I don’t think of myself as strong, so much as — ”
“Bloodless?” Frank asked, smiling.
Jenna looked up, surprised. “Yes.” It was exactly the word she had been going to use.
He chuckled. “But that’s where your strength comes from, my dear. Don’t you realize that? You’re not like other people, and you know it. There’s something uncivilized about you. Almost inhuman, if you want the truth.”
Jenna withdrew her hands from his and crossed her arms. “I’m not sure I do,” she said stiffly.
“Oh, darling.” He laughed. “Don’t be upset. It’s one of the things I love about you.”
“What? My lack of civilized feeling?”
“Civilized feeling is overrated. You’re more of a savage at heart, I think.”
She stared at him. “I hope you’re kidding.”
“Not in the slightest. You have to be a touch inhuman to survive in this world. Don’t you know that?”
Jenna had no idea how to respond. The aloofness of her own nature had always troubled her. She was not unfriendly, but she did not make friends easily. She was not unkind, but she found it difficult to sympathize with people. This austerity she had always attributed to being an army brat. Her logical mind told her that there was no sense getting involved with people when in less than a year, she would be moving away. It was a childhood habit had carried forward into adult life, that was all.