Birthright

by Judith Arnold

  She shielded her eyes and peered through a window. All she saw was the glow of that one lamp, which stood on the counter separating the front room from the kitchen. No sign of life in the house.

  But his car was in the shed. Had he gone off somewhere in someone else’s car?

  Sighing, she turned back to her own car. If she got into it, she wouldn’t know where to drive, where to look. She swallowed the worry crowding her throat. What if he’d hiked to the river and fallen in? Surely he could swim, but what if he’d banged his head? She knew the perils of hitting one of the rocks that jutted up from the riverbank.

  Aaron, she thought, her heart thumping. Aaron, where are you?

  She strode around his cabin. Dead twigs and mulch crunched under her sandals; underbrush tugged at her shins and knees. The stairs to his deck beckoned. She climbed them, not sure what she hoped to find at the top.

  So little light reached the deck it took her a minute to make out the motionless body on the hammock. A minute longer, and she discerned one long leg dangling over the side of the canvas, the bare foot reaching the floorboards. An object was propped on his stomach, held in place between his hands.

  “Aaron?”

  He slowly turned his head toward her, then pulled the object toward his mouth. As her vision adjusted, she saw that it was a bottle. She heard the scrape of metal against glass as he unscrewed the cap, and the gurgle of him drinking. She caught a whiff of alcohol, pungent, much stronger than the refined smell of Tyler’s martinis.

  What crowded her throat was no longer worry. It was bile.

  “Aaron, what are you doing?”

  His eyes seemed to take their time focusing on her. He pushed himself higher on the hammock so he was halfway between reclining and sitting. Then he took another swig from the bottle, meticulously screwed the cap back on and shoved himself higher. “It’s been one hell of a lousy day,” he said.

  Oh, God, please don’t let him be drunk, she prayed, although it was probably too late for prayers. Please, don’t let him be like Tyler.

  “You were supposed to come to my house for dinner,” she reminded him, cringing at the shrewish undertone in her voice.

  “I forgot.”

  Obviously. “What happened?”

  “I found out who my father is.” He toyed with the bottle cap, loosening it, tightening it. She closed her eyes and sent another prayer heavenward that he wouldn’t open the bottle all the way, that he wouldn’t drink any more. “It’s not Coach Drummer.”

  No, it wouldn’t be. He wouldn’t try to climb into a bottle of whiskey over Wally Drummer. “Who is it?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “I asked.”

  “I asked my mother for thirty-three years, and she refused to tell me.”

  “All right.” Anger mixed with nausea inside Lily. The combination made her feel light-headed, but she refused to sit. If she sat she might lose what little strength she had. She might cry or implore him to stop, to transform himself back to the strong, disciplined man she loved. “Don’t tell me.”

  “Then I’d be as bad as my mother, wouldn’t I?”

  “Don’t play games with me, Aaron. If you want to tell me, tell me. If you don’t, don’t. If you want to get drunk—”

  “I want to get drunk,” he said, raw pain lacing his tone. “Goddamn it, that’s what I want.”

  A shiver gripped her. She couldn’t believe she was in love with a man who wanted to get drunk. What could he have learned, who could his father be, that the truth turned him into this weak, defeated wretch?

  “She loved him,” he said, seeming to struggle with the words. “All these years, my mother loved him. He tossed her aside and got on with his life, and she carried a freaking torch for him. And she hated me because I spoiled their love affair. I made it impossible.”

  “Aaron, I know you’re hurting, but—”

  “You don’t know,” he cut her off, his bitterness scalding her. “You can’t begin to know.”

  He was right. She couldn’t begin to know the rejection he was suffering. But that didn’t make getting drunk an acceptable response. Nothing justified getting drunk.

  She ventured forward one step, two. If she moved quickly, she might be able to snatch the bottle from his hand. Once she had it, she’d be able to think about what to do, how to save him. Whether to save him. He was bigger, stronger, faster, but if she could just get the bottle away from him…

  He was opening it again, tipping it to his lips, swallowing. The sight repulsed her so much she had to close her eyes.

  “Life is ugly sometimes,” he said harshly, obviously aware of her disgust. “I warned you I wasn’t easy. This part—this part is hard.”

  “You’re self-destructive,” she muttered, resorting to the terminology he’d taught her.

  “Oh, I’m trying, Lily. I’m trying to destroy myself.” He tilted the bottle away to gauge its contents.

  “This might not be enough.”

  No way could she grab the bottle. It might go flying, breaking and hurting them. Or Aaron might hurt her. She knew from experience with Tyler what happened when a woman came between a man and his attempt at self-destruction.

  “Please stop,” she said. “Put the bottle down, Aaron.”

  He shot her a stony look, then raised the bottle and drank some more. Maybe he was self-destructing, but he was also aiming at her, telling her without words that her concern for him didn’t matter, her love didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but his own private despair.

  “If you don’t stop, I’ll leave.”

  “Then you’d better leave,” he said, the words so clear and pointed she could hardly believe he’d consumed more than half the bottle. If he truly wanted to get drunk, he had a long way to go, a lot of drinking left to do.

  She wasn’t going to stick around and watch him achieve his goal. She’d spent ten years with a man who’d attempted to solve his problems—or run from them—by drinking himself into oblivion. She’d tried to salvage him and he’d hated her for it. She’d tried to help him and he’d blamed her. She’d tried to love him, and her love had shriveled and died.

  She would not go through that again. Not even for Aaron.

  She spun around and crossed to the stairs. She was afraid of what she’d say if she spoke, so she pressed her lips together. She was afraid she would start to cry, so she kept her eyes open, letting the air keep them dry. She was afraid that if she slowed down, she would lose her resolve, run back to him, urge him to stop drinking, give their love a chance, let her fix everything enough that he wouldn’t want to do this to himself. So she didn’t slow down.

  His voice reached her when she was halfway down the stairs. “Abraham Steele,” he said—quietly, but she heard him.

  She faltered and clutched the railing to keep from stumbling. Abraham Steele?

  Oh, God. Abraham Steele.

  The name came at her like a punch, nearly doubling her over. Abraham, the stately, silver-haired gentleman, an image of propriety, of rectitude, of all the solid values of Riverbend. The man who had introduced her to art. Who had golfed with her father. Who had supported the town and its people in so many ways.

  That Abraham Steele was Aaron’s father shocked her, but it wasn’t enough to justify Aaron’s behavior. He might be drinking over Abraham, but the true target of his rage was his mother, the mother who’d loved a long-ago lover more than her own son.

  Lily’s heart broke for Aaron. But she couldn’t stay. She couldn’t let herself love a man who fled from love and looked to the bottle for solace. She’d done that once, and she couldn’t do it again.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  LILY WASN’T SURE how the word got out—maybe Nick Harrison had mentioned it, or his secretary, or somebody else—but by Sunday everyone in church was buzzing about Abraham Steele and Aaron Mazerik. Milling around outside the entrance to the Riverbend Community Church, people whispered, murmured, shook their heads and clicked their tongues. Riverbend, a
s always, was the Land of No Privacy. What astonished most people was that this secret had been kept as long as it had.

  Aaron wasn’t at the church, of course. Lily had no idea where he was. For that matter, she was having trouble figuring out where she was. At church, yes, but drifting. Floating. Disconnected from the world around her.

  Oh, Aaron. Why couldn’t you have been strong enough to get through this without drinking? Why, of all the ways you could have dealt with this, did you have to choose the bottle?

  Her father stood with her while her mother chatted with Mary Drummer and Gloria Hoff, ostensibly about garden-club business but most likely about Aaron. “So, the secret’s finally out,” Lily’s father said. “I’m glad I wasn’t the one to tell. Abraham had made me promise. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that. How is Aaron bearing up?”

  “Not well,” Lily said, then cleared her throat in an effort to dislodge the lump of tears in it. What an understatement. Aaron wasn’t bearing up at all. He was going down.

  “Everyone was talking about it at the golf course yesterday,” her father informed her. “No one wants to believe it. Abraham Steele was such a pillar in this community.”

  “He was a human being,” Lily said. “He made a mistake.”

  “He made a son out of wedlock. Quite a mistake.”

  His real mistake had been in refusing to acknowledge that son. What would Aaron’s life have been like if Abraham had taken responsibility for him? Aaron would have grown up as Jacob’s half brother. He might have seen himself as more a part of the town. He might have become a River Rat.

  Instead, he’d grown up feeling rejected, not just by the town but by both his parents—the father he never knew and the mother he lived with. He’d become a renegade, someone who broke the law. What was truly amazing was that he’d matured into such a fine man.

  A man who dealt with shocking news by getting himself stinking drunk, she reminded herself with a shudder.

  “Look at your mother,” her father said, angling his head at Eleanor Bennett, standing several yards away. “Doesn’t she look fabulous? The hairstyle really suits her.”

  “Nice of you to notice,” Lily said, managing a grin.

  “Oh, I’m noticing. I’m noticing.” He looped his arm around Lily and gave her a squeeze. “Thank you.”

  A fresh lump of tears took up residence in her throat. She was thrilled that her parents were once again connecting, communicating, nourishing their relationship, and she was gratified that she had helped them mend the damage before it became irreparable.

  She wished someone would come along and mend the damage between her and Aaron. But it couldn’t be mended. Whenever she missed him—and that had been pretty much constantly since Friday night—all she had to do was close her eyes and picture him in his hammock, reeking of booze and hostility. She reaffirmed her vow. She couldn’t go through that again. Not even for him. Not even for love.

  The church bell began to chime and the doors swung open. Lily’s mother left her friends with a farewell wave and rejoined Lily and her father as they climbed the front steps, entered the church and took seats about halfway down the aisle. All around her Lily heard the continuing hum of voices.

  “Can you believe it? Evie Mazerik’s kid. The one who got into all that trouble as a teenager…”

  “The poor sisters. I can just imagine what Ruth and Rachel must be feeling right now…”

  “Think of the irony. Jacob disappeared, and Abraham never recognized Aaron. He fathered two sons and wound up with none…”

  “I can’t picture Abraham with Evie Mazerik, of all people. I mean, she’s just…you know. Evie Mazerik.”

  Lily was almost grateful when the organist stopped playing and Lynn Kendall stepped up to the pulpit. She was tired of hearing people gossip about Aaron and his mother, tired of being reminded over and over about the scandalous circumstances of his conception. She hated them all—Abraham Steele for choosing appearances over integrity, Evie for not giving her son the love he needed, and Aaron for deadening himself with drink.

  A hymn was sung, a reading done, and the congregation sat forward as Lynn began her sermon. Did they think she would talk about Abraham’s sins and secrets? If everyone else in Riverbend knew the hottest gossip, surely Reverend Kendall knew it, too.

  “Forgiveness,” she said, then paused.

  A long pause. Lily heard pews creaking as people shifted in their seats. She heard the scuffing of shoes against the floor, a cough, a rattle of paper.

  Finally she resumed. “Forgiving is one of the hardest acts we’re called upon to do, one of the greatest challenges we’re ever faced with, because forgiveness requires the ability to open our hearts fully. And opening our hearts that fully scares us. A heart open to forgiveness is also a heart vulnerable to pain and fear. If we forgive a person for what he has done, what if he does it again? Here’s my heart, wide open. He can wound me another time.”

  Lily leaned back in the pew as a wave of sorrow washed over her. She recalled the ocean in Massachusetts, its surf curling in and rolling over her, the undertow wrapping around her ankles and tugging hard. Riverbend had its river, but that wasn’t the same. The river flowed smoothly. It might carry a person away, but it couldn’t suck her under.

  Lily had been sucked under once. It had taken all her strength—and Aaron’s help—to swim back to the surface, to fight her way back to air and sunshine and life. And last night, seeing him drinking to get drunk, she’d felt the waves crashing over her again, pulling her under.

  She couldn’t go through it again. She just couldn’t.

  From the pulpit Lynn related a story about a woman who couldn’t forgive. A cranky loner, the woman remembered every slight, every offense, every injury she’d ever suffered. She was determined never to be hurt again, and she protected herself by not forgiving those who had hurt her before. And instead, she wound up hurting herself, wounded by her own loneliness. “The person most hurt by a lack of forgiveness,” Lynn Kendall said, “is the person who is unable to forgive.”

  Lily ruminated. What had she said to her father about Abraham Steele? He was a human being. He made a mistake.

  Aaron was a human being, too. Friday night he’d been suffering, and he’d tried to anesthetize himself. And instead of helping him, instead of forgiving, Lily had stormed away, determined to protect herself from the kind of hurt she’d endured once before. She’d gone home, shut herself in her house, gone at another canvas with wild aggression and painted something unrecognizable, ugly, dark slashes and splatters, a reflection of some wretched nightmare. Her own nightmare. A woman locked tight, imprisoned by her inability to forgive.

  She’d been alone since that night. Protected from hurt, and hurt by her own lack of forgiveness.

  “I have to go,” she whispered to her parents, rising and edging past her mother’s knees. The rest of the people in the pew stirred and murmured as she eased past them. No doubt the next hot topic of gossip in town would be her abrupt departure from church in the middle of Reverend Kendall’s sermon.

  She hurried up the side aisle and out the door into the bright sun. Not stopping to think, she climbed behind the wheel of her car and pulled out into the road.

  Riverbend was empty. Sunday mornings found most people in church and the rest either at the golf course or in bed, sleeping late. The sidewalks were vacant, the stores closed, the streets clear of traffic. The sun glazed the clock tower of the courthouse on the square. It threw trees and bricks and blades of grass into sharp relief.

  Lily had never felt more alone. Even in her disastrous marriage, she hadn’t felt this alone. Right now, in the stillness of downtown Riverbend, she might have been a visitor to a ghost town, an explorer on a strange planet, a wanderer in the wilderness—utterly alone, because she’d been afraid that loving someone like Aaron could hurt her.

  Love always brought with it the risk of being hurt. But only someone afraid to take that risk, someone determined to keep herself
safe, would run from a love that could also bring great joy, a chance to heal.

  He was a human being. He made a mistake.

  Aaron could forgive his father, if he wanted. And she could forgive Aaron—if she was willing to take the risk.

  She drove down River Road to his cabin. His car wasn’t in the shed, but she walked to the front door, anyway. In the sunny morning, he would not need to leave a lamp on as he had last night, and when she cupped her hand over her eyes and peeked through the window, she didn’t see him. She knocked. No response.

  As she had last night, she picked her way around the house to his deck. She had to hold her skirt up to avoid snagging the hem on the underbrush; she had to watch her footing in her low-heeled leather pumps as she made her way to the deck stairs. Even though his car was gone, even though she knew he was undoubtedly gone, as well, she almost expected to find Aaron passed out in his hammock, a pile of bottles lying empty next to him. She wasn’t sure exactly what she’d do if he was in that condition. She would try not to berate him. Forgiveness, she reminded herself.

  He wasn’t on the deck. The hammock was empty. No bottles.

  Where could he have gone?

  Anywhere, she realized with a sigh that felt suspiciously like a sob. Distraught about his father and his mother, angry with her, he might have pocketed his inheritance and left town. Why not? The people who should have loved him had all turned their backs on him. Especially her.

  No. He wouldn’t leave town, not with his basketball program flourishing. He might feel abandoned by her, but he would never abandon his kids.

  Perhaps he’d gone to the one person who had never walked away from him: Wally Drummer. Except that Wally and his wife had been at church. Aaron hadn’t been with them.

  Stumped, she climbed down the deck stairs, lifted her hem and made her way back to her car. She would go home, change out of her church clothes and then figure out how to find him. If he was truly gone…