by Jayton Young
Leigh looked around the table and took notice of their reactions. Her mother was openly crying. Mark was rubbing his eyes trying to keep his tears at bay, just as Russell was. James had grabbed Maggie’s hand when she shed some of her own. Randy got off his chair and climbed into her lap, slipping his arms around her waist. She squeezed him in return as she kissed his head.
“I promised Randy I would tell him everything because he reminded me that it was bad to keep things from the ones we love. It took me a while, but I was finally able to tell Mother and Mark last night. They had known I was sick, but I just didn’t want to add onto what was already happening with Mother.”
“Me and Momma made a lisht.” Randy said while resting his head on her chest.
“Yes. We decided that we would do all of the things that I always wanted to do, but never did, and all of the things that Randy wants to share with me. We’re not going to waste another moment.”
Leigh was walking beside Russell, who was holding Randy who had fallen asleep. He was carrying her overnight bag also. He had told her he just wanted her to be able to relax.
She followed him into the house and to the room that was already decorated and set up for Randy. After helping him change him into his pajamas, she followed him to the guest room right across from Randy’s room.
After setting her bag on the bed, Russell turned to her. “Do you want to go into the kitchen for some hot chocolate?”
“That would be nice, thank you.”
She sat at the dinette table and watched as he tinkered around until the milk was warmed enough to add the chocolate. When he had the mugs filled for them, he joined her sitting across the table and just watching her for a moment.
“You explained everything pretty well over there, but I do still have some questions. If you don’t mind.” he started.
“I don’t mind. I wasn’t planning on ruining dinner by bringing that up, I just wanted to ask y’all if you wanted to come with us. I wasn’t thinking when I was speaking.”
“It was a shock to them is all. Just as it is to me and probably Mark and Mary Leigh too. No one wants to think about someone they love having to go through something like that.”
“I know, but I remembered my promise to Randy, and the longer I went without telling them, the guiltier I felt.”
He looked at her cautiously. “Please don’t take this as criticism, because I don’t mean it that way, but why are you telling our five year old son about all of this? Don’t you think it’s a bit much for him to deal with?”
“Yes, I think maybe it is, but what would he feel when he sees me get sicker and sicker, losing my hair as I did last time, and he has no idea what’s happening to his momma. This way he feels like he’s a big boy and he feels useful by helping me in many ways.”
“Yeah, he told me Mark told him how to be a bigger help to you. It does make him feel important.”
“Exactly.” she said. “He kept my secret because I asked him to allow me to be the one to tell everyone because it would make them sad. Russell…me and you, we’ve both been hurt. We both felt betrayed by the other. I don’t know how you feel, but I never stopped loving you. That’s why it hurt so much. I thought you had known me better than to believe I would ever willingly cheat on you. You were, are and always will be my only love.”
She watched as he let his emotions show; he allowed the tears to flow so she could see the truth of what he was going to say. “I’m so sorry that I listened to Kerry. I don’t know if she did it on purpose, or if she honestly believed it, but I didn’t look past the surface of what I saw. You’re right, I didn’t think about the fact that you would never have done that to me. I didn’t…I don’t know. I just should have known better. I just never wanted to think that you could be raped. It was too horrific to me, so I just went with the obvious; that you cheated.”
“Can I ask what changed your mind after all this time?”
“My mom convinced me to look harder, and what I saw made me sick with the fact that I made something so traumatic worse by doing everything I did.”
“I got through it. And Kerry didn’t know. When she found out, she found me and explained everything. She knew I was going to talk to him that day about breaking up with her, so when he called, she thought I had gotten through to him. She arrived and when she saw what was happening, she thought the same as you, that I had betrayed you both, so she took pictures to prove it to you and went straight to you. About a month later, she ran into him and they went out to talk. He drugged her, as he’d done me that day, but he just wanted her to tell him where I was. When she didn’t know, he beat her so severely that she was scarred for life. She stayed with me for a couple of months until she found her own place. We kept in touch, she was even there when Randy was born, but Bill murdered her a couple of months later. I feel like he was looking for me, found her, and when she wouldn’t tell him anything, he killed her.”
Shock was prominent on Russell’s face. “How do you know all of that?” he choked out.
“He left a note on her body that was addressed to me. The first of many I have received over the years.”
Russ kept feeling like he was getting punched in the gut every time Leigh revealed something else. All the shit she’d been through, and yet she was still able to have her unique outlook on life. She had apologized to him. Leigh actually felt bad for holding on to the hurt for all f those years, when that was the least of what he deserved. After the rage he’d been in over it, just to find out that she was the victim, he deserved a lot more than that.
He wasn’t quite ready to hear about the rape, so he focused on Kerry issue. Russ had really thought she had something to do with it. Kerry had been his friend, but even he knew she had a crush on him at one point. He’d honestly been happy when she had started dating Bill, even though he didn’t like him, because he didn’t have to worry about Kerry wishing them to be together anymore. When she’d brought the picture to him, he’d imagined that she thought he would run to her arms for solace, so he’d pulled further away.
“Why didn’t Kerry come to anyone here? Why didn’t she tell anyone what had happened?”
“Sheriff Boyd knew what happened.” she said. “He knew everything that Bill had done, and they were actively looking for him. There would be sightings of him in town, but by the time a deputy would get there, there was no sign of him. Kerry was scared, so she asked me if she could move to Sioux Falls with me. After explaining everything that happened and that she didn’t know anything about what Bill had planned for me, I told her I was alright with it. We did become better friends there toward the end.”
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to hear everything, but I need to know. What happened that day?”
“I can’t really give details anyway because he drugged me up with Oxycontin…” Russ watched as Leigh seemed to space out a bit; as if she were seeing something besides the kitchen they were sitting in. “Kerry had been upset when we met up to do the spa day with the bridal party. She was hesitant to tell me because she didn’t want to ruin my day, but she finally told me that Bill broke it off with her because he was in love with someone else.”
“I told Lacy that I had to miss out, but for them to go on. As soon as I got in my car, Bill called and sounded upset. He said he needed someone to talk to, so I let him know I was on my way. I figured he was going to talk about Kerry, but after I got there, and he fixed us sandwiches and drinks, he started telling me that I couldn’t marry you.” She came back to herself and looked over at him. “He said that he’d always been the better man, but no one ever saw it. He ranted for a while about how you had ‘pulled the wool’ over everyone’s eyes. By that point, I was feeling spaced out and knew something was wrong. I was so relaxed into my chair, I couldn’t move very well. When he looked at me and saw that, he said that I deserved better than you. That he would treat me like the angel I was.”
Russ watched as tears started falling, and it broke his heart. Without thinking h
e reached over, where she had both hands hugging the mug of hot chocolate, and grabbed one of her hands to hold in his own. She squeezed it as if her life depended on it, but he didn’t think she even realized she was doing it.
“I don’t really remember much after that; just flashes because it all just seemed surreal. I used to have nightmares about it, but I don’t have them as often anymore. When I woke up, I was sore and hurting. I was naked, and so was he right next to me, but he was asleep, so I got out. I tried to call you, but you wouldn’t answer, so I called Mother and she met me at Dr. Kennedy’s office. Sheriff Boyd was called and things happened from there.”
“Who all knew?”
“Just Mom, the Sheriff, Doc, and Pastor Daniel. To make things easier for me, Sheriff Boyd was only going to tell the deputies that Bill was wanted and to be brought in, not the reason why. The next day, Mother told me what you had planned, so I took off. I just couldn’t deal with it all. As you know, I tried to call you until you changed your number.”
“I’m so sorry to have put you through so much, and I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you like I should have.” The more they talked the more he hated what he’d done. He was so stupid to have ever let her go. She had been the best thing that ever happened to him. Now to add to that, she had given him a son. A child he’d always wanted, but gave up hope for after everything that had happened.
“Why don’t we both just leave the past where it is?” Leigh squeezed the hand he was still holding and smiled a little, though it didn’t quite reach her tired eyes. “I stayed away for too long. I listened to someone I thought I could trust, but I should have done what was right anyway. But there is no changing it, so let’s not beat ourselves up over it? You still turned into the great man I knew you’d be. The only subject that ever set you off was me, and that’s fixed now, and I like where my life has led me. Bad things have happened, are still happening, but we can’t let that stop us from living the best we can and raising our son to do the same. I’ve learned to live life to the fullest. Take every day as it comes. Today has brought you back to being in my life; to being my friend again, so I am happy. I have my mother, I have Randy, I have Mark, and now I have you, James, and Maggie back. It’s been a good day.”
Russ liked the sound of all of that, but he wished that he could have her back fully, as his best friend, his confidant, and his lover. She was and always would be the love of his life; even when he’d spent years trying to hate her, he never could. He knew, though, that he’d ruined that. There were still questions he had, too. Questions he knew she probably wouldn’t want to answer considering she kept telling him to let the past go, but from the few small things he’d picked up he knew that Bill was still terrorizing Leigh. Russ wanted to beat him and kill him if he could, but he knew that wasn’t the answer, so he would call a private detective the next day and see what could be dug up. He would find Bill and make sure he paid for everything he’d done. It made him sick that Bill had murdered Kerry, what would stop him from doing something like that or worse to Leigh?
“Why don’t we catch up?” she asked breaking him from his thoughts. “The ranch has grown, and I saw that you have added another barn. Tell me what you’ve done with it.”
Leigh finally took her hand back from Russ and they talked for another hour or so before they headed to bed. Leigh had to leave in the morning so she could go home and pack up for the trip to Charlotte. Russ asked again if he and Randy could go with them, but she said that the house she’d bout wasn’t completely set up yet, Mark was going to get that done for her, so she would rather he wait for the next time.
One thing Russ knew was that he was going to talk to the school board about splitting Randy’s time between public school and home school. If Leigh was going to be going through treatments and surgeries, he wouldn’t consider any other outcome, then he and Randy would spend as much time with her as they could. She would have her whole family supporting her this time around. And that included him and his parents. He would never abandon Leigh again.
Chapter 8
Leah woke up in a hospital room and had no idea why. She looked around, as she came out of sleep not seeing anyone else there, and panicked for a moment. She knew that something was going on, knew that she was aware of the why’s, but could not recall the information she needed. She again looked at the bedside table thinking there was something she needed, but found nothing but her cell phone. Picking it up, she looked at her recent calls list and saw that Russell was the last person she had called the night before, but didn’t want to speak with him until she remembered more about her situation.
Going down her contact list, she was about to call Mark when a nurse walked into her room. She couldn’t have possibly been any older than her, but when she spoke, she had the comforting worry in her tone that sounded more like a mother talking to her child than a nurse, all of whom, in her experience, were more the technically polite type than the mother type that sounded as if she were helping a family member. “How are you holding up? Did you sleep well? Anything I can do for you?”
“I’m feeling alright outside of a headache.” Leigh figured she would answer as simply as she could until she remembered more, or got a better handle on what she was doing there, but the way the nurse looked at her made her think that she knew what Leigh wasn’t saying. She confirmed that thought with her next words.
“What do you remember about yesterday?”
Leigh closed her eyes and tried to concentrate and pull up anything she could about the day before. She started getting flashes of seeing Randy in an unfamiliar house. He’d been trying to soothe her from a panic she had been in. She remembered Russell being there. Then Leigh saw Mark driving her SUV, and her mother talking to her from the back. After that, flashes of needles and machinery floated in and out of her head. “I’m having testing done?”
The nurse gave a very wide, happy smile. “That is very good Ms. Hampton.” She said. “You checked in late yesterday morning to get some updated tests done. Do you remember what the tests are for?”
Though she was having trouble with her fogged up mind, Leigh wasn’t stupid. The only thing that had ever caused her problems was cancer, and she said as much. “My mind seems to be a bit out of it, but I remember my Oncologist telling me that my cancer was back. I moved back home so my mother and I could be there for each other because hers is also back.”
“It’s very good that you remember that,” the nurse said as she was checking Leigh’s vitals. “My name is Amy, by the way. I helped you get settled in yesterday.”
“Do you know where my family is?”
“Your mother, and the gentleman that was with you, said they would be back this morning before the doctor came in. They should be here soon.” Amy went to Leigh’s bedside table and took a notebook out. “You asked me to give you this this morning. This is your daily summary that you use to remind yourself of important facts. I’ll be back in in a bit with your breakfast.”
After Amy swept out of the door, Leigh looked over the composition notebook in her hand, and noticed that it was titled ‘Important things to remember’. She turned to the first page and started reading.
June 21
Mark has noticed my short attention span and difficulty in remembering conversations we’ve had, so he suggested that I start keeping a journal. I did do that, but after a trip to Dr. Klein, and resultant diagnosis, I decided to make it a notebook that will be a reminder of important things I don’t need to forget.
The first thing that has happened, that I know I can’t allow myself to forget, is that my latest tests have shown a relapse in my breast cancer. To make it worse, Dr. Klein did CAT scans and a MRI to try to find the reason for my memory lapses and has found a tumor on my brain. He said that it is situated between my scull and my brain, putting pressure on my brain and causing fluid to build around it. It is the size of a pencil-top eraser right now, so he wants to refer me to a neurosurgeon to talk about options. He’ll be looking into a doc
tor close to Pine Grove so I can move back to help with mother. MarK says he’ll move with me to help us both out.
I’ve decided not to tell anyone of my own relapse. I think it will be too much for them to deal with. If we can do something with the tumor, then I’ll worry about the lump on my remaining breast.
Leigh realized that that must be why was there in the hospital, and could remember the office appointment where Dr. Klein had broken it to her. Now that she’d read it, she remembered that she’d gone alone. She didn’t even tell Mark that she was going because she didn’t want to stress him any further than he already was. He had been worried about her and…..Bill. Bill had started back his harassment and he’d gloated about, and emailed her pictures showing, he’d been following her and watching most everything she did. On top of that, they had just found out about her mother’s relapse. Her cancer had come back also, so they were trying to talk and, between the three of them, decide what to do next. They had also discussed how much they needed to let on to Randy, but Leigh had over-ridden their opinions of keeping him in the dark, and decided to be honest with him from the get-go. It had always bothered Leigh that her parents had kept her in the dark about her mother for long, and then again when her father was ill. She wasn’t going to do that to her son. She read the next entry.
June 23
I received a call from Bill today. Just as Detective Torres suggested I had the ‘record call’ option turned on, on my phone and emailed the conversation to him. Bill is still deluded to the fact that we are soul mates and is getting tired of me ‘avoiding him’ as he calls it. He said that if I don’t come willingly soon, that he will take me, and I would never see Randy again. I am back to being scared and watching over my shoulder everywhere I go. I thought my days living like that were long past, but since he killed Kerry, he has progressively gotten worst. No matter what, always be aware of your surroundings.