by Luanne Rice
“Chloe!” he said.
And Jane woke up, lying in Dylan Chadwick’s bed, to find him by her side, the chain still around her neck as he held her locket, open, in his hand, looking at the nearly sixteen-year-old picture inside.
CHAPTER 23
Dylan,” Jane said, pulling away, clutching the open locket in her hand.
“What are you doing with Chloe’s baby picture?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
Jane couldn’t speak. She was half asleep, hazy from making love. He had let her borrow a T-shirt, and it smelled like them, like their bodies. Oh, God, why had she let him talk her into waiting? He’d been propped up on his elbow, and now he sat upright, staring down at her. His eyes flashed green in the darkness; an owl screamed in the orchard, going in for a kill.
She pulled the sheet around her body, pushing herself up, and reached out for his hand. He leaned back and refused to take hers.
“I have the same picture,” he said. “Or one very similar.” He got off the bed, walked to his bureau. There, from the gallery of framed photos, he came over to the bed with a picture of Chloe—as a baby, just days old. With the bow in her hair: the little yellow bow the nurse had given her, setting her apart from all the other babies.
Jane let out a small exclamation of emotion, just to see. The picture was five by seven, much larger than the one she had in her locket. Chloe’s little fists were bunched up at her chin; she had apple cheeks and a thatch of dark hair. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, as if she was trying to hold on to her dream. And the yellow bow looked like a butterfly. The same bow, both pictures.
“Chloe,” Jane said.
“She’s in your locket, Jane,” Dylan said. “Her hair, the bow—it’s unmistakably her. What are you doing with her picture?”
“She’s my daughter,” Jane said.
The words were out. The window was open, and the breeze swirled in, tossing the white curtains. The breeze took Jane’s words, spun them around. They rang in her ears. They made Dylan take a step backward, made his face redden.
“She’s your daughter?”
“I had her when I was twenty,” Jane said. “When I was at Brown . . . she’s the reason I dropped out.”
Dylan didn’t say anything. He stood very still, in the middle of the room, staring at Jane. Was he seeing his niece’s blue eyes, dark hair? The dimples of her smile? The worry line between her eyebrows? Her fine cheekbones? Or was he seeing a person who had broken his trust? Jane shook, not knowing.
“I loved her,” Jane said. “I held her. In this picture,” she tapped the locket, “I was holding her. The nurse gave me that bow, and I made her take a picture of Chloe, and I promised her I’d never take the locket off. I never have.”
“But what—?” Dylan began to ask, trailing off as if the question was too huge to ask.
“My mother convinced me it was for the best,” Jane said. “That I was too young. That I had to complete my education. That it would be better for the baby to have a real family—a mother and a father.”
“My brother and Sharon . . .”
Jane nodded, hugging her knees. “My mother knows your mother. She knew about how your brother was trying to start a family . . . It seemed a perfect fit.”
“It was. It is,” Dylan said, his eyes harsh.
“I wanted to keep her,” Jane whispered. Her heart was crushed. She could feel the future closing in on her. She could see it in Dylan’s eyes: He hated her for what she had done. Probably not for giving up her daughter, but for coming back for her. For intruding when she wasn’t wanted.
“You did the right thing,” Dylan said. “Giving her a better life.”
Jane couldn’t speak. She happened not to believe that that was true. She thought of the bond between her and Chloe, and she grieved for the fifteen years they’d been deprived of each other.
“I’d better go,” Jane said. She had felt so happy, just a few minutes ago, so comfortable lying in Dylan’s arms, but right now she felt naked and exposed, and she pulled the sheet around her as she went to get dressed.
Dylan stood very still—a statue in the blue starlit darkness, bearded and scarred, unable to move or speak. He stared out the open window, not at Jane. He made no move to stop her. It was as if she had already left the room. Her heart was racing, in her throat, as she tried to come up with the words to make everything right, to take everything back. But she realized, pulling on her shirt, that she couldn’t: The past was the past, and this was the price she had to pay for what she had done.
“Tell me one thing,” Dylan said as she stood watching him, wanting to find a way to say good-bye.
“Yes, of course.”
“Her name,” he said. “You made that part of the adoption agreement—that she keep the name Chloe. Why was it so important?”
Jane closed her eyes, remembering her last moments with the infant. She had held Chloe to her breast, making her a promise. It was a secret, between mother and child, deep and so simple.
“I can’t tell you that,” she whispered.
He nodded, eyes hard. She watched him writing her off.
“I know you think I shouldn’t have come back into her life,” Jane began. “But—”
Dylan shook his head and let out a howl: “Is that what you think?”
“Yes,” she said.
“You’re wrong, Jane,” he said, the statue coming to roaring life. He tore around the room, discharging violent energy. She felt him wanting to smash his fist through the wall, and she drew in a sharp breath. “I know you had to do that. She would probably even want you to—she’s curious about her real mother. It’s the way you did it. It’s the way you fucking lied to me. You let me fall in love with you . . .”
“Dylan,” she said, taking a step toward him. He stopped her with a ferocious stare.
“You let me trust you, but you had this secret the whole time. Not a little secret, either. Something that could rip my family apart.”
“I know. I’m sorry . . .” He was talking, telling her what he felt, and she thought—just for a second—that there was a chance. They still had time to make it right. She could explain, he could forgive. He could try to understand. She could tell him how she’d been carrying this burden all this time, her entire adult life: this awful, heavy, terrible burden of love.
“No,” he said, hand up.
“Oh, Dylan,” she said, wanting to explain what that much love, an entire lifetime of love for a baby girl, too secret to be revealed or offered, could do to a person. It had turned Jane into a hermit. A baker, just like a baker in a fairy tale or a fable, toiling over a mixing bowl, throwing in magical ingredients along with the flour and sugar: love, prayers, hugs, wishes . . . all for baby Chloe. And toddler Chloe. And little girl Chloe. And now, teenager Chloe . . .
“You were right before,” he said coldly. “You’d better go.”
“I never knew what I was missing,” she said, her voice tight. “Until now . . .”
“Well, at least you have that,” he said. “At least you’ve had a little time with your daughter.”
“I was talking about you, too,” she said, letting out a sob.
“Funny,” he said. “I thought the same thing.”
And then the owl screeched again, just outside the window, and rose with squirming prey in its talons; the great, winged shadow obliterated the stars, darkened the window. Jane shuddered. Dylan was silent, letting her know there was nothing more to say.
Walking out of the house of the man she loved, Jane tried to maintain her dignity and a little composure. She succeeded, except for the tears pouring down her cheeks. The screen door closed softly behind her. When she got to her car, she looked up at his bedroom window. He stood there watching her, framed in the sash, massive as a giant, as the person who’d just put an end to her dreams.
Only that was wrong: Dylan wasn’t the one.
Jane had done that to herself.
Chloe and Mona showed up for work the next day
. The sun was bright, but there was still morning dew all over the stand. Chloe wiped it down, unlocked the little cupboard, took out the flags, banners, and signs. Working in early silence—although Chloe was a morning person, Mona wasn’t—they set up for the day.
Feeling kind of queasy, Chloe wished she had a cold soda. Her system was unused to anything but vegetables, and she worried that maybe some clam juice might have gotten on her roll. Who was she to discern between big furry cows and slippery little mollusks? Mammals, bivalves, creatures were creatures, and maybe she was being punished for patronizing a clam shack.
Uncle Dylan delivered the pies on his tractor, but he had a really grumpy look on his face. Deeply scored lines on either side of his mouth, and furrows of worry in his forehead struck Chloe with the thought that he looked the way he used to, in the days after Isabel’s death but before Jane had come along. She mulled that over, wanting to ask him what was wrong, but feeling too crummy.
“Boy, what’s wrong with the Chadwick family today?” Mona asked. “You’re in a snit and you’re uncle’s in a huff.”
“I’m not in a snit,” Chloe said. “I just feel clam-sick.”
“What?”
“It’s payback for the little mud critters. They’re letting me know I shouldn’t have eaten that roll they were in.”
“They’re dead. They’re fried,” Mona said, twirling her hair. “They don’t have voices. And you didn’t even eat any—at most you ate a roll that brushed a clam.”
Chloe gave her a look.
“Well, at least I don’t waste a beautiful sunny morning worried about being haunted by the spirits of dead fried clams. So, what’s his problem?”
“Uncle Dylan’s? I don’t know,” Chloe said, watching his tractor disappear into the orchard. “I was wondering the same thing.”
“You think he’s getting any from Jane?”
“What is wrong with you, Mona?” Chloe laughed. “You’re being really disgusting today.”
“What’s disgusting about sex? Unless it’s with someone creepy named Zeke? Hey! I have a great idea! Let’s get shark tattoos. I’m going to wrap mine in a ribbon that says ‘virgin slut.’ ”
Chloe raised her head, bemused by the idea. “Yeah!” she said. “I can see my parents definitely being on board for that!”
“I’m serious. Just to counteract dolphin-boy’s body art. We’ll chomp him.”
Chloe laughed. She had always wanted a tattoo, although she had thought of using the image of a sheep or cow, to foster love of farm animals. On the other hand, the shark was a maligned fish, and it could probably use some support.
“Guaranteed to chase Zeke away,” Mona said, temptingly.
“I don’t think he’s coming back,” Chloe said, holding her stomach.
“Unless,” Mona said, raising a cautionary eyebrow, “what you have isn’t clam-poisoning at all, but morning sickness.”
“Mona!” Chloe exclaimed, making a cross with her two index fingers.
“Think about it . . .”
“No—I don’t want to.”
“Chloe . . .”
Chloe closed her eyes, counted the days. What if she had taken the test too soon? When was her period due, anyway? She figured it out: six days ago.
“No . . .” she said out loud.
Mona looked worried, as if she had just told a joke that turned out to be real and true. “Don’t tell me you’re late,” she said.
“Six days,” Chloe said, her eyes wide.
“I was only kidding, though—”
“But what if this is morning sickness?”
“It can’t be. You only did it once. You’re practically a virgin, still.”
“There’s no ‘practically’ about it.”
“I was only kidding when I said ‘virgin sluts’ before,” Mona said. “I was trying to be funny. I’m trying to shed my inner dork.”
“Don’t worry,” Chloe said fondly, but with a ton of panic building. “You’re the least slutty person I know. I’m the second least.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I have to take another test,” Chloe said. “But I have the same problems as before—I don’t want anyone in town to see me buying it.”
“You could always call Jane,” Mona suggested. “And have her buy it for you. Or even get her to take you . . .”
Chloe nodded. Her stomach turned. That was what she would do.
“I’ll do that; I’ll call Jane, and I’ll take the test again . . .”
Dylan rode his tractor through the field. His hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, as if he didn’t quite trust himself not to slide off, under the tires. His mind was spinning, and his heart was nowhere to be found. He’d caught the look in Chloe’s eyes: What’s wrong with him?
A good question. A really good question.
He wouldn’t be feeling so let down, that was for sure, if he hadn’t let himself get up so high. He knew all that crap about armor—that’s what addiction was all about. Anyone who smoked or drank too much, anyone who ate too many cookies, anyone who sat glued to the TV was piling on the armor to avoid feeling pain.
Any pop psychologist could tell you. Just to prove the point, Dylan lit up. The first time in over twenty-four hours. He had armor, all right. It was a giant shell, heavy as hell, impermeable. He was a tank, he could barrel through life. As a marshal, he had carried a gun. Several of them, as a matter of fact.
He could go to the range, hit the bull’s-eye. Once a drugged-out spurned husband had tried to run through Dylan with a machete, to get at his ex-wife, the witness Dylan was protecting, and Dylan shot him dead. Not to stop him, not to wound him, but cold dead—right in the body mass. It took armor to kill a man that way, and, paradoxically, the act of killing caused the existing armor to thicken.
Having a beautiful wife not love you enabled and quickened the growth of armor. Having her cheat on you with a rich polo player didn’t exactly encourage you to open your heart, let your vulnerable side show through. Telling you she wanted to leave you—or, more accurately, wanted you to move out of the apartment you’d shared together, to which you’d brought your baby daughter home from the hospital—was like Miracle-Gro for armor.
And having her die in your arms, with that same then-eleven-year-old baby daughter, could easily have been the sealant, the concrete, the iron seal on all that armor you’d already grown.
And then, along came Jane . . .
Dylan thought about it now. He drove through the rows of apple trees, spreading fertilizer. He had tested the soil to determine the need for lime, potassium, and magnesium. Since most of his stock was under renovation pruning, he was holding off on the nitrogen. Keeping track of chemicals seemed almost impossible, so he parked in the shade of a half-dead tree and shut off the tractor.
He limped over to lean his back up against the trunk. It felt good and solid to have his spine meet the bark. He had learned, years ago, that he could count on trees. They responded in predictable ways to the right kind of care. You wouldn’t catch an apple tree causing a person to thicken their armor.
Jane.
Dylan tried to breathe.
Voices carried in the orchard. He heard Chloe and Mona talking to someone who had stopped by to buy a pie. The words were unintelligible, but the tones of their voices soothed him.
Chloe didn’t know. Neither did Eli or Sharon. Dylan was the sole holder of the big secret. Jane was Chloe’s mother. The woman he had just decided it was okay to love was Chloe’s natural mother. She had kissed him, embraced him, opened his heart. No armor there. Nothing between them. He had told her more about Isabel, his feelings for what had happened, than he had anyone on earth.
His job had sent him to a shrink. All expenses paid by the United States. In fact, a leave of absence and his presence required on the couch, one day a week. Okay, the shrink didn’t have a couch. She had a nice cozy office with two chairs facing each other and a view out her window of the church across the street.<
br />
Dylan had sat in that chair for six weeks straight. He had stared at the church, trying to think of things to say. At one session, he felt such rage at God, he asked the doctor to pull the blinds. She thought he had the sun in his eyes.
When they were finished—when he had satisfied the Service’s requirement that he get psychological help—the doctor had smiled at him sadly. She was pretty and wise. He liked her, and he had believed that if he could talk to anyone, it would be her. She had said:
“Do you know, you’ve only said her name twice?”
“What?” he had asked.
“In all the times you’ve come here, in all of our six sessions, you have only said Isabel’s name twice.”
“Isabel,” he said.
“Three times. Why did you just do that?”
“Because I like the sound of it,” he said, squinting at the light reflecting off the rose window across the street. But he knew that was a lie. He’d said her name again just to prove he could.
With Jane, he hadn’t had to prove anything.
He had wanted to tell her everything, and more. And he had wanted to hear her whole story, whatever it was, right back. He would have listened, he told himself. He wouldn’t have judged her; he would have helped her find a way—to do what?
That’s where he had to stop himself. Because nothing about this story could have a happy ending. If Jane got close to Chloe, Eli and Sharon would be hurt. If Dylan protected his brother’s family, Jane would be left out. He stared at a bee, buzzing from one meadow flower to another. The sound was loud in his ears.
She shouldn’t have lied to him, shouldn’t have kept her real purpose such a secret. She had ingratiated herself to him and Chloe; had any of her feelings or motives been true?