by Jayton Young
After he took Randy home, he was going to get that picture out from his nightstand drawer and look again. He hoped to find something different he hadn’t noticed before. He prayed that his hope wasn’t in vain. The way Mary Leigh said that about the hug…he prayed she didn’t mean what he thought she did.
Leigh opened the front door to reveal Russell carrying a sleeping Randy. She couldn’t help the smile that slipped onto her face as she saw her son in his father’s arms. Randy had been waiting forever to meet his dad, and she was happy that everything was going good for him.
“Would you like to carry him to his room and tuck him in?” she asked Russell quietly so as not to wake Randy up.
At his nod she led him up the stairs to Randy’s room. Walking in and over to the side, she watched as Russell took it all in as he walked to the bed. Leigh went to the dresser and pulled out Randy’s pajamas and went to dress her sleeping child. Russell just stood off to the side looking around at all of the pictures of himself, in the different stages of his life that decorated the walls and surfaces of the room along with the drawings of a house with a family. All of the drawings had a mother who had all the coloring of Leigh, a father that resembled himself, and a little red headed boy.
As they left the room and descended the stairs Russell asked if they could talk for a moment, so Leigh led them into the kitchen. Mark was just finishing up some hot cocoa and had already fixed himself and Leigh a mug. When he saw Russell, he fixed one more without a word and then left them alone to talk after kissing her cheek.
“What exactly is his job title?” Russell asked her, sounding merely curious rather than upset or condescending.
After a moment where Leigh looked at him while drinking her cocoa, trying to determine the motivation behind the question, she finally answered. “He is a full partner in our company.” she said quietly. “It’s called Simple Designs Web Planning. I do the website construction, Mark does the graphic designs.”
“He seems to be more than just a business partner.” Russell replied. “Y’all seem to be very close friends for him to do as much as he does around here for both you and Mary Leigh. When did you two meet?”
“Not long after I moved. We were both going through some hard times and became instant friends when we met. Mark is my best friend; the brother I never had.”
Leigh watched as Russell just stared at his mug for a few minutes. She figured he was working up to something, so she just waited patiently for him to gather his thoughts.
Finally he looked up, and to her, he seemed so sad, yet confused. “What happened…why…” he seemed to fight for the words he wanted to say, but he seemed to decide to go a different route. “My mom just told me today that you had gotten treatment for breast cancer. Were they able to get it all?”
She knew that he was going to ask about everything that had happened and was glad that he’d changed his mind. Leigh had worked hard to put the past behind her – and was having difficulty doing that for other reasons - but didn’t think she’d be able to talk about it. When she had told Mark and Charles what all had happened to her, she’d broken down and gone into a depression that only ended when Randy had developed croup and she had to spend every waking minute trying to help him breathe better, be able to eat, and to help him get sleep. It had taken thirty something hours of steamy bathrooms and boiling water to create a steamy environment and no sleep for her except for in increments of a few minutes at a time as Randy would sleep. By the time Randy was over the worst of it, she was fine again.
“Yes, they got it all.” she said in answer to his question. “I was diagnosed while I was pregnant with Randy, so I had to wait until he was born to get treatment, but obviously it was worth the wait.”
“You went into remission?”
“Yes.”
Russ didn’t notice the slight hesitation in her answer, but he did notice as she tilted her head and looked at him warily. He had to tighten his hold on his cocoa to keep from reaching over to just run his fingers over her cheek as he used to. God, she was so beautiful, he thought. So lost in looking at her, he didn’t quite catch what she said. He cleared his throat and asked her to repeat what she’d said.
“You were so angry when you got here this afternoon. What has changed that?”
He thought about it for a minute and then shook his head. “I don’t really know.” he answered slowly. “I had been trying to find ulterior motives for you coming back, and then for you just now letting me know about Randy, but I couldn’t come up with anything that made since. And then I manned up, at least to myself, and owned up to that fact that I am to blame in missing these years too. If I had opened just one letter that you’d sent, then I would have known. For the first time since it all happened, I’m not angry.”
Leigh nodded and smiled a sad smile. Russ knew that he was the reason, at least one of the reasons, behind that sadness. “Something I’ve learned is that life is too short to waste time on regrets. Everyone has done something in their past that they would change if they could. But the best way to live is to concentrate on making today the best day you can so when you look back tomorrow, there will be no regrets. You know the saying…something like: the past is gone, the future is not guaranteed, so live your life to the fullest today? I don’t know…I think it is something like that. The more I prayed the more that saying popped in my head, so I took it as my message from God as to how to live a good life. That’s all I can do and that’s the most valuable thing I can give Randy and Mama and Mark.”
“You really didn’t change, did you?” He gave her a genuine smile. Stuff like that – what she’d just said – was the reason he had fallen in love with her so long ago. His smile slipped as the original question he’d wanted to ask popped back into his mind. “What happened back then?” he whispered; afraid of the answer.
Leigh stood up and grabbed both empty mugs and walked to the sink to wash them. Russ could see the stiff tension in her body that wasn’t there the moment before.
“Let’s just leave the past in the past.” She said, still facing away from him. “As I said before, we can’t change it so I don’t want to dwell on it.” Leigh turned back and motioned toward the front of the house. “I really don’t mean to seem rude Russell, but I am tired.”
He nodded, noticing the circles under her eyes seemed darker than they had earlier in the afternoon, and got up to follow her to the front door. She did seem exhausted, but he hadn’t really noticed until she mentioned it. He could see it in the way she was carrying herself. “Can I come back tomorrow?” he asked as he stepped onto the front porch. “I want us to go sign him up for school and then maybe go to the ranch and let him ride Misty. He didn’t get to do that today.”
“That’s fine. As long as we don’t have plans, you can get Randy any time you’d like. I’ll never keep him from you.”
“I know. Thank you, Leigh. He is the best gift that you have ever given me, and I am so grateful to you.” Russ drove towards his home feeling lighter than he had in years, but at the same time, he felt as if he missed quite a few things in his conversation with Leigh.
Once he had driven up into his garage, he turned off his truck but didn’t get out. Thinking about their conversation, Russ wondered how she did it. How can someone just let the past go when it had shaped their life for the most part? She made it sound easy, but he had spent the past six years so heartbroken and angry, he hadn’t even been able to hear Leigh’s name without snapping someone up. He hadn’t dated or been with any woman since her; having lost all trust for females; At least in that area.
And Leigh. She had been run from town to avoid the embarrassment he’d caused her. In his anger, he’d cropped the incriminating picture of her with Bill to make it decent enough for others to see and photocopied it so everyone, who’d been invited to the wedding, got one. An action that he had regretted almost immediately. Even though she’d cheated on him, she didn’t deserve everyone turning on her, but they had. Everyone in Pine Grov
e spoke trash about her. At first, they had even shunned Mary Leigh, but he and his parents had put a stop to that.
How could she just act as if it hadn’t happened? Especially now that she was being turned away everywhere she went. What was he going to do if he found out that the situation had never been as it seemed?
*****
Leigh caught sight of her mother standing in the doorway to the basement just beyond the kitchen. “Can we talk for a moment before you head up?” her mother asked before she could take a step.
They settled down on the bottom stairs as they had done when Leigh lived at home before.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I was coming back upstairs from doing a load of laundry, and I caught part of your conversation with Russ.” her mother started. She seemed to struggle a bit with what she wanted to say, so Leigh waited and watched as her mom fidgeted; which was very unusual for her. “Your father and I told you, when you got old enough to go places on your own, that you would have to make your own decisions, but you’d have to live with the consequences if you made bad ones.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well honey, I have let you make your decisions, and God knows that you’ve been living with the consequences, but I have to beg you to tell Russ the truth.” she said, tears moistening her eyes. “I promised you that I would not tell anyone and that I would not interfere, and I will keep that promise, but I can’t stand to see my daughter suffer. And I have been watching you suffer for far too long. You still love him, and believe me or don’t, but I know he still loves you. Neither of you have been with anyone else in all this time. I believe God meant for you two to be together.”
Leigh shook her head before what her mom had said could take hold. “I think that if we were meant to be, then none of that stuff would have happened.”
“Baby, the Devil is a liar, and he’ll whisper in good, God-fearing people’s ears just to get them off the track that they’re supposed to be on.” She grabbed Leigh’s hand. “Russ made a mistake when he wouldn’t listen to you or talk to you about it. He made a mistake in all he did with that situation and everything since then, but you’ve made mistakes too in how you handled things. You’ll make up your own mind as I’ve always told you to. I just figured I’d get my two cents in before you did. If I’d done more back then…” She shook her head as she stood up to head on to bed. “I love you Leigh. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Leigh sat on the stairs thinking over both what her mother had said, and how her conversation went with Russell. She desperately wanted to do what was right, and needed to decide what that was. She didn’t want, or have time, to make any more mistakes. She went upstairs to write in her journal about everything that had happened that day. Recording it for her to look back on.
Chapter 4
Russ was in his room in the guest house at the ranch. He’d lived there since he turned eighteen. It enabled him to have a home of his own on the ranch, and his father and mother would keep their house.
He had decided to listen to his favorite music, pretty much all the hits from the first decade of this millennium. As he was going through the boxes of things in his closet, looking for the picture of Leigh and Bill, The Reason by Hoobastank came on. And like he did every time it came on, Russ sat down to listen and wallow to the song that was their song. In the box he had sat down with was the picture, but he was afraid of what would come out of it. Not having looked at it since the day the wedding had been scheduled for, Russ was scared that he’d been wrong all along.
Finally deciding to just do it, he took the picture out and just studied it. At first glance, it was just as he’d thought back then. They were having sex. But upon looking closer, he noticed the little things that had caused his mom to doubt what was happening.
Bill had Leigh’s hands pinned above her head as he was kissing on her neck. What made that suspicious was that Russ could tell that Bill’s muscles were taught, as if he was having to assert pressure to keep her down. To add to that thought, Leigh’s hands were open, and her elbows were up as if she were struggling.
Tears formed in his eyes and he had to put the picture down for a moment to be able to regain his composure. Russ knew, without studying the picture further, that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. He deserved to suffer whatever else he figured he’d see upon closer inspection of the photo. Gathering himself again, he picked it back up.
Though he couldn’t see much of Bills face, he was kissing her neck; he could see a good portion of Leigh’s. Head back and eyes closed, what he’d before seen as a look of passion he could now see the tears sliding up her temple, and he knew she was in pain.
Russ couldn’t hold it back anymore. He cried for what he’d done to the love of his life. The bastard had raped her, and he just made it worse by letting everyone else see it. She’d lost her friends and her home after she’d suffered one of the worst things a woman could suffer, and he wouldn’t even listen to her when she’d wanted to tell him.
It was one in the morning, but that didn’t stop Russ from heading to the main house. He’d screwed up royally, and knew that Leigh wouldn’t want to talk about it, at least not to him. He was going to find Bill and find out what really happened. Bill had been Leigh’s friend; how could he do that to her? As he thought about it, he realized that Kerry had to have known too. They both were friends of Leigh’s, though Bill and Russ had not gotten along, why would they destroy Leigh’s life as they had. He had to admit that he’d destroyed his own life by not giving her the chance to explain, and not looking past the superficial aspect if the picture, so he was part to blame in it all.
He needed his parents. He needed some advice on if it was possible to make things right with Leigh, and if so, how?
*****
Leigh had a fitful night, trying to decide what to do. She had so many secrets, some of which Mark didn’t know, many of which her mother didn’t know, and all that Russell didn’t know. He mom had been right that she’d made many mistakes, but to rectify some of them, she’d have to revisit the past that she just wanted to leave behind her. Of course part of that past never stopped following her.
After tossing and turning for several hours, she decided to just get up and be productive. It was five in the morning, and Leigh knew both her mom and Mark usually got up around six, so she would surprise them with breakfast that morning. She first went to her computer and checked her emails to see if there were any clients needing help, or maybe any new clients seeking information. The third email in her inbox had her heart skipping a beat.
Sitting there, just staring at the subject ‘Playing games again?’, and the familiar sender, Leigh felt the need to run and hide. The feeling was one she had gotten every time he’d contacted her and tried to see her. She must have been sitting there longer than she’d thought, because she just about jumped out of her seat when Mark bent over her shoulder cursing when he saw the email.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was harassing you again?” he asked in a harsh voice she knew wasn’t aimed at her. “We need to tell the police and let them take care of it.”
“This is only the fourth one since we took out the restraining order several months ago.” Leigh turned around forcing Mark to stand up straight. He backed up into the guest chair that was in the office she’d set up. “I got one last month. I didn’t open it. I went straight to Detective Torres and let him see it. He printed it up and said they would pick him up on charges of breaking the no contact order, but he no longer lived at the address they have him listed at. He said that they would be looking for him, but hopefully it would stop once I moved here.”
“What was the subject of the last one?” Mark asked. She knew it was because of all of the lewd subject matter he’d sent her in the past; including pictures she never wanted to see again.
“The last one just read that he has missed me.”
“Well I think you need to forward that to Torres and inform the Sheriff’s Department here, just i
n case.”
“I’ll have to ask Mother if it’s still Sheriff Boyd or if someone else was elected.” she told him. “Sheriff Boyd would do everything he could to help me; anyone else wouldn’t believe me.”
“They have to help you regardless. You have the reports, the restraining order, and the no contact order on file in Sioux Falls, so they have plenty of evidence.”
“I don’t think the orders would transfer across state lines, and trust me that it will not be that easy. People here see me as a whore, I’ve already heard that and other names in the short time I’ve been back, so don’t think that just because something’s not right that it’s not what they’ll do. Look what they did when I tried to enroll Randy. And the principal that told me all of that used to be my best friend in school. She was going to be my Maid of Honor at my wedding, and she wouldn’t even enroll Randy into Kindergarten. I’m scared of how he’ll be treated now. I never would have guessed that people would treat a five year old that way, just because of what his mother supposedly did.”
“Yeah, that one shocked the shit out of me.”
“Watch your language, Mark.” Mary Leigh said as she stopped outside the open door of the office. Randy was half asleep in her arms. “I’m going to make some blueberry pancakes for Randy. Do y’all want breakfast?”
“That sounds good Mary Leigh, but I can cook.” Mark offered as he stood up to head to the kitchen.
“No, no Mark. You’ve been spoiling me already. I like to cook and I’m feeling hyper this morning, so I gotta do something. Besides, Munchkin here said he missed my blueberry pancakes, didn’t you hun?” Randy nodded his head but didn’t bother to speak. He looked like he could do with a few more hours of sleep.
“Are you saying that your Mimi’s pancakes are better than mine?” Mark asked as he tickled Randy’s side.