by Janet Dailey
She picked up a bag of manure, so symbolic for what she said next. “He knew he treated you like crap, but he did love you, dear, make no mistake.”
On his property, I dumped the last of his ashes amid the apple trees.
When they were all gone, I tossed the urn outside in the trash.
Had I forgiven him? I don’t know. What he did to me, to my mother, was a lot to get over. But was that important? I was moving forward. I was not going to allow him to control my emotions or my life any longer. He was not going to be allowed in my head anymore. My anger had dimmed way down.
I walked into my house and saw Pearl’s magical apple tree and my mother’s red-and-white flowered quilt and smiled.
Chapter Thirteen
I baked apple pies almost all day.
Bob and Margaret followed me around the kitchen until I took them outside for a walk so Bob could chase his lifelong enemies, the squirrels, with Margaret as his right-hand woman, tongue wagging. Marvin and Spot the Cat meowed at me and I meowed back. I took Leroy and Spunky Joy for a ride on the property.
I dropped off a pie at Pearl’s, and a few more at the homes of the other neighbors I’d met at the barn dance, all of whom invited me in for a slice and a chat. I think I had four slices of apple pie that day.
That night I walked up to Jace’s house. His lights were on; he was home.
He was home to me.
I figured I would not feel like home to him when I was done.
“I’m sorry for leaving, Jace.”
He turned away, running a hand through his black hair in front of his stone fireplace, the glow of the fire making shadows on the wall. He was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans and looked like he’d lost weight since I’d been gone. He was drawn and tense.
“I know you’re not happy . . .”
“Not happy?” He whipped around. “Is that how you would describe this, Allie? Not happy? You left. You took off. You dropped a note on my table. Hell, does this remind you of what happened between us years ago? I think we’re doing great, I’m hoping we can do something normal like have dinner and watch the sun go down when I get home from work, and then I find out you’re gone. You are gone.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” I wrung my hands together. I deserved his anger.
He strode over to me and stopped three feet away, his face stormy, jaw tight.
“I didn’t . . . I didn’t want . . .” I said.
“You didn’t want what? You didn’t want to have a conversation about why you had to leave? The potential conflict? What does that say about you and what does it say about us? That you’re too afraid to speak up? That you can’t trust me with something you need to do? That you think I’d try to change your mind? That isn’t the case, Allie, and you know it.”
“You’re right. It isn’t.” I felt sick, anxious. “I had to go by myself.”
“Then fine. Go, but don’t shut me out and take off. Damn it, Allie.”
“Jace, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left without telling you—that was awful. I need to tell you a few things. Things that happened years ago, things that happened recently, and then . . . and then you can decide if you even want to be with me again.”
“I want to be with you, Allie. I have made that perfectly clear this whole time.” He threw up his arms. “That has never changed.”
“Can we sit down? Please? My legs are about to give out and I’m going to fall into an inglorious heap on the floor.”
He held out an arm, frustrated, hurt, baffled, and I sank to the sofa. He sat down beside me and I reached for his hand. Even then I needed his comfort. He automatically held mine, our fingers entwined.
“First, Jace, I’m sorry. I am sorry to the depths of my soul.”
“For what?”
I told him everything. I told him about living in a trailer, the abuse from my dad, fleeing to Bigfork with my petrified mother, her death, and back to my dad and the abject loneliness, fear, and poverty. I told him why, as a young, poor girl, I redesigned my used clothes with satin, lace, and beading; how I later hid that young, poor girl behind designer outfits and high heels. I told him why I liked apples.
“My dad had always told me I was trailer trash. He also said I was stupid, useless, worthless, a slut, had a face like an apple core, had strange gold eyes, not good enough for any man . . .”
Jace swore, got up, and started pacing in front of the fire.
“I didn’t think I was good enough for you, Jace. I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t in Yellowstone. But inside I felt dirty. I felt unworthy. I was ashamed.”
“Is that why you broke up with me?”
“Part of it.”
“There wasn’t a Zack, was there?”
“Of course not. There was never anyone but you. There has never been anyone but you.”
He strode back over to me, kneeled, and cupped my face so I couldn’t turn away. “Then why? Why did you break up with me?”
“I broke up with you . . .” My eyes filled with tears and I put my hands over his and bent my head. Jace wiped my tears away with his thumbs.
“Why?”
“I broke up with you because I was pregnant.”
The words went off like little bombs. “You were what?”
“Pregnant.”
“But we always used birth control—”
“Not that one time, by the lake, at night . . . remember? We had gone swimming.”
“Oh my God.” Remembrance dawned and he sank onto the couch next to me, his head in his hands. I put my arm around his broad shoulders.
“What . . .” His voice was strangled. “What happened to the baby?”
I let out a small cry.
“Oh no, Allie, you didn’t—” he whispered, eyes anguished.
“No no, I couldn’t do that, Jace. Never. I didn’t abort it, but I caused the baby’s death.” I started crying, interspersed with choked, anguished gasps. “It was my fault. All my fault. Sometimes I think I can’t live with this—it’s haunted me forever, followed me around. I am so sorry, Jace. So sorry.”
“What happened?”
I tried to pull myself together, but it didn’t work well. “In the fall, after you left for medical school, I found out my dad had had a heart attack. I knew what it would do to me, being back in his trailer after five years, but I thought maybe he had changed, that he would be kinder. He was all I had left. My mother was dead, and I felt guilty and ashamed for not seeing him. I don’t know how to explain it, but I wanted . . .” I tripped over my words again. “I wanted my dad to love me. He never had, and I wanted it.”
He groaned. “Oh, Allie.”
“It was hopeless, I should have known that. I dropped out of school, went home, and stayed in his trailer. I tried to get him healthy again. When I arrived he was in terrible shape, on oxygen, medications. He told me that I was a bad daughter, that I’d abandoned him. From the moment I walked into my dad’s trailer I felt like trash again. It was like he took over my mind and I turned into that same kid, lost and lonely, devastated, missing her mom, not knowing what to do. I was young, Jace, only twenty-one . . .”
It was dark and dismal and dirty in my dad’s trailer. He was dark and dismal and dirty. He was unemployed. I took care of him. I had always battled low self-esteem, and my dad crushed what I’d managed to build up while I was away. He was demanding and critical, lying there in bed, hardly able to breathe. He’d added about eighty pounds.
“Why did you abandon me? You’re exactly like your cheating mother. You lied to those people from children’s protection services so you could get yourself emancipated when you were sixteen. Your mother lied to the police about what I did to her when the neighbors called them . . . You’re both ungrateful, and look at me now. You caused this heart attack with how much I’ve worried about you . . . Got your mother’s big nose and skinny hips, don’t you? Hopefully you don’t have her brains, apple-seed brains . . .”
It was ludicrous. It was relentless.
I felt trapped by him again, like a tortured rat, my mind a mental morass of sludge and guilt. He was critically ill and I was afraid if I left he would die and I would be responsible for his death. In fact, he told me that many times. “If you leave, I’ll die, so get your butt in here and help me.”
I was young, missing Jace, and exhausted from the first day on. Soon I could hardly think, my dad’s mind manipulations working so well on me, his medical needs enormous. I went into self-protection mode, duck and dodge, survive. I even started hiding in the apple orchard again, eating apples when I was hungry.
I had morning sickness. I passed it off as the flu at first. My cycle had never been regular, but soon I knew, and so did he. He wasn’t that stupid.
“You whore.” The scars on his face seemed more pronounced to me. “You’re exactly like your mother. She got pregnant before we were married; that’s why I had to marry her. What poor sucker are you doing that to? Where is he?”
It went on and on.
“I’ve got a pregnant, unmarried daughter on my hands. I’m so humiliated.”
Three nights later, under constant pressure, I told him I was in love with Jace, that he treated me well and was going to be a doctor.
“A doctor is never going to marry someone like you, trailer park princess,” he scoffed, beer heavy on his breath. “You were his summer fun. He’ll find a doctor to marry. You’re a fool. You’re candy to him—that’s it.”
He threw a beer bottle at me. Then an ashtray. Next a plate came flying at my head like a saucer. I dodged all three, then managed to grab my bag and purse and fight my way out of the trailer. He slung out a thick arm and I hit the side of the trailer and then pushed him away. He kept swearing, calling me all sorts of names.
I shoved my way past his bulky body, tripped off the steps and started running. It was black and moonless, slippery and wet. I sprinted down the road, my dad actually tottering after me, gut over his pants, hollering at me. I thought he would probably die trying to catch me, but I was running for my life. I could hardly see with the tears in my eyes, my breath coming in gasps. All I knew was that I was out of the trailer.
I was out, and so was the baby.
In my blind panic, I did not watch where I was going. I tripped and went flying over a hill, rolled straight down, and landed on my stomach on a rock.
The blood flowed out like a river.
Jace cried; I cried with him.
“I sat in that hospital bed and I cried for the baby. I thought the tears would never stop. That baby has never left my heart, ever. I kept thinking about you, Jace, and how our baby, our baby, was gone, because of my recklessness, my stupidity. I never should have gone back to that trailer.”
“This didn’t happen because of you; it happened because of your father.” Jace swore; he was so furious with my dad he was shaking. “You should have told me you were pregnant. I would have come for you.”
“I felt awful for not telling you, Jace, but you were in med school and I was afraid that you would leave med school because you would feel obligated to take care of the baby, and I . . . I knew you wanted to be a doctor more than anything. It was your dream.” My hands fluttered. “I also worried that you would marry me, but it would be out of obligation. My self-esteem was so low then, it could not have gotten lower if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, and my dad’s words were ping-ponging back and forth in my head: I was nothing, you were a doctor, you would never want me.”
“I have always wanted you, Allie, always. I have never wavered. Were you even going to tell me about the baby? Was I going to have a kid in this world and I wouldn’t have even known about it?”
I could tell the thought infuriated him. “I was going to tell you after I gave birth to the baby. I thought I’d have the baby, graduate from college, get a job, then tell you, so you wouldn’t feel like you had to take care of me; I wouldn’t be a burden. I grew up poor, Jace, and being a burden to someone else made me feel ill. My dad had always told me I was a burden, that my mother was a burden, and I could tell he hated me for it. I didn’t want you to hate me.”
“I would never hate you. Do you honestly think you and our baby would be a burden to me?”
“At that time, in that chaos, yes. I had no money, no degree yet, no job.”
We were quiet, my hand in his. He wiped his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Allie,” he said gruffly. “I should have delayed medical school to be with you, waited until you graduated, worked where you were going to school, but instead I left you.”
“You had to leave. It was a prestigious university, an incredible opportunity.”
“I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for you. I am so sorry.”
“How could you have been? I broke up with you. You wrote and called—”
“I should have come to see you.”
“After I broke up with you, you told me you were coming, Jace, so we could talk. I told you not to, that there was a Zack in my life. I hope you can forgive me, I really do. I have been sorry every single day since it happened—”
“Allie, please, honey, I do forgive you; there’s nothing to forgive.” He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. “You were pregnant, you were scared, you were young, I was gone, your dad had a heart attack, and you were trapped in that trailer, being abused. Let go of that guilt. You have to. Your dad was a hateful, dangerous, violent man and you ran from him when he started throwing things at your head.” He clenched his fists. “If he were here I would beat him down to nothing.”
“I would enjoy watching that.”
His expression changed to confusion. “But after you lost the baby, why didn’t you call and tell me? I had a right to know. It was my baby, too.”
“You did have a right. I knew that losing the baby would hurt you and I thought . . .” I put my hand on his face. “I thought I was protecting you from knowing about that loss.”
“But I called you again a couple of months later. I thought you needed space. I was hoping you would break up with Zack, but you never called back. Why? I don’t understand, Allie. This whole thing is not making sense. You didn’t tell me about the baby because you didn’t want me to drop out of school, you didn’t want to be a burden, but then you didn’t try to contact me again, either, after the baby died.”
“I wanted to be with you, Jace.” An anguished cry left my throat. “There’s one more thing. One more terrible thing. When I was in the hospital the doctors told my dad, and he told me, that because of the damage I sustained in the fall against the rock . . .” Oh no, oh no. I put a hand to my trembling lips. “They told me I wouldn’t be able to have kids.”
His face paled.
“I think he was happy telling me that.” My voice pitched high, my dad’s total lack of love and kindness stunning. “He was drunk and he said that no man would want me now, especially not a doctor like you, and I might as well come back home to the trailer with him. Though I never set foot in his trailer again, I thought he was right. I knew you wanted kids, you wanted a family, and I couldn’t have any. Depriving you of kids wasn’t fair. I knew you would always miss that part of your life, and you would be such a good dad. Since I hadn’t told you about the baby, there was no reason to tell you I couldn’t have kids, because I knew I wouldn’t be your wife anyhow.”
He wiped his eyes again and sighed deeply, then picked me up and put me on his lap and leaned back against the couch. “First, Allie, I’m sorry you can’t have kids. I truly am, but you made a decision that affected both our lives. You made it by yourself, without me.”
“I did, and I am so sorry.” The tears rolled off my chin. “I thought it was the best one, at the time. I was so screwed up.”
“We lost years together. Years. You decided to act alone. I had no say. I had no say in our life.” His eyes swam in tears. “Allie, when you broke up with me, everything went black in my life. That’s why I worked so hard in medical school, to keep that bla
ckness away. I missed you every single day. Everyone else complained about the long hours at medical school. I was glad of them; they kept me from falling apart.”
“I felt that same blackness. It clung to me. I went back to school, graduated, and drowned myself in relentless work so I couldn’t think, so I could block out missing you and the baby, and what we could have had.”
“Allie, I love you. I want you. If we can’t have kids together, that’s the way it is. I want us to be together—”
“But, Jace, you will live your whole life without kids if you’re with me.”
“I’ll live it that way, then. Or we’ll adopt. From here in America; foster kids; kids from abroad. Families come together in different ways, babe, and you and I are a family, and whoever else we put in our family is part of our family, too.”
“But Jace—”
“Allie, we were meant to be together. I knew it when I fell in love with you up at Yellowstone. I know it now. I have had this place in my heart, forever, that has wanted to be with you, that has missed you, that’s been lonely for you. Honey, I love you with all that I am. You and I should be together, always. I want to marry you. I would marry you tomorrow if you would agree. Please, Allie.”
“Really, Jace? Even without kids?”
“Yes, of course. Say yes, Allie. Say yes to us. I want you to be my wife more than I want anything, more than I will ever want anything.”
I felt like the Grinch whose heart grew three sizes. “Yes, Jace. Yes to us.” I kissed him, my arms around his neck, his arms holding me tight. “I love you, Jace Rios. I always have, I always will.”
We made love on the couch.
Then in the hot tub.
We had tacos for dinner.
It was a most excellent night.
Chapter Fourteen