“Mrs. Remington, I’m confused about something. You mentioned you have a son?” She glanced away, embarrassed to have been so bold. “I don’t understand. BJ never said anything about having a younger brother.”
“She never knew she had one.”
She set the plate of muffins on the table along with two dessert plates, then walked back to the counter. Claudia waited, assuming the older woman would expound.
When she was all settled, with coffee and the fixings and muffins on the table, Mrs. Remington sat in a chair across from her. Her blue-eyed gaze fixed on Claudia, a resigned expression.
She drew in a breath and expelled. “Oh, honey. Life doesn’t turn out the way we expect it to, does it?” Her face softened with compassion, and for no good reason, Claudia’s eyes filled with tears. Goodness, she had come to comfort a lonely, grieving mother, and instead here she was on the verge of a meltdown.
Mrs. Remington poured cream into her cup and took a sip. Then she smiled. “You want to know about Donnie, my son.”
“I’m a little curious.”
She nodded. “Mr. Remington and I separated after BJ’s murder. There just didn’t seem like there was anything left for me to work with anymore.”
“You met someone else?” She did the calculations even as she said the words. The boy would only be nine at the oldest. And then there was the age factor—Mrs. Remington’s age. It couldn’t have happened.
She gave a small laugh. “No. I was too bruised for another man. And I wore the wounds all over me like body armor to keep men away.”
Claudia sipped her coffee, savoring the full, sweet flavor and enjoying the warmth in her throat as she swallowed. She couldn’t imagine sitting at her mother’s kitchen, the living room a mess, and her mother relaxing and having a conversation.
“A year after BJ’s murder, Donnie showed up at the door with his mother. She was emaciated, dying from uterine cancer, looking for Nathan, of course. I could see the resemblance between him and Donnie as soon as I laid eyes on the boy. It was my worst nightmare come true, that some woman would knock on my door holding Nathan’s child.”
“Donnie is Mr. Remington’s son?”
“The product of one of his many affairs.”
Claudia opened her mouth to voice her disdain, then snapped her jaw shut. “So the two of you reconciled and raised his son?”
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t take him back. I couldn’t. He is completely unrepentant.” She sipped another sip. “Donnie’s mother was in the last stages of her cancer. About to be put on hospice, and she simply couldn’t take care of him anymore. She was looking for Nathan because she needed him to be Donnie’s father.”
“Did he know about Donnie before that day?” Claudia pinched off a bite of the muffin and popped it into her mouth.
“Oh, yes. He knew. As a matter of fact, without me even knowing, he’d been paying child support Donnie’s entire life.”
“Well, that’s something at least.”
“I know.”
They laughed at the paradox, though it was far from funny.
“Anyway, Nathan met them here. He expressed his regret that she was going to die, but very kindly refused to do anything that would interfere with his bachelor lifestyle. He said he would continue to support Donnie, whoever raised him, but didn’t have room in his life for a boy.”
“Jerk.”
“But then we knew that.” She smiled and Claudia smiled back.
“Donnie doted on his mother, and I couldn’t bear the fear in his eyes. How could I do anything but offer myself? It just seemed like God had given Donnie to me, and me to Donnie. We needed each other. He and his mother moved in with me a couple of weeks later, and she was dead in six months. By then all her affairs were in order, and I had already been named Donnie’s legal guardian. Nathan still pays child support, and I opened a little bakery with my divorce settlement.”
“I had no idea.” Mrs. Remington had spent the last ten years giving back and building a new life.
“How would you have?”
Claudia’s defenses kicked in and she thrust a sharp glance at the older woman.
“No. I’m not scolding you for not coming to see me. I understood how difficult it must have been for you to cope. I saw you at the funeral. You were destroyed. I wanted to take you in my arms and make everything right. But your parents were there, and given some unfortunate circumstances, I didn’t feel like I could intrude.”
“By unfortunate circumstances, you mean my mother’s affair with your husband?”
She nodded. “I wasn’t sure how much you really knew.”
“I figured it out.” She didn’t tell her about the letter her mother had written to her “darling.”
“I want you to know something.” She leaned forward in her chair, folding her arms and resting them on the table. “Your mother came to me a few days after the funeral.”
“Did you punch her?”
She chuckled, her slightly plump fingers toying with the pumpkin muffin in front of her. “I like to think I am too dignified to act on my impulses.”
“I admire your restraint.” Claudia gave a short laugh. “So what did my mother want? Absolution?”
“In a manner of speaking. But don’t be too cynical. The affair was short-lived, and she and your father reconciled. But more than that, she reconciled with God. She seemed to have truly repented, and I chose to forgive her.”
“But not your husband?”
“He didn’t want forgiveness. He wanted a free pass.” She sighed and swallowed down a sip of coffee. “True repentance isn’t just saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ It’s saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’ll never, ever do that again because my relationship with you means more to me than anything.’ ”
Claudia couldn’t hold her gaze. She looked down at her fingers. “But my mother didn’t want a relationship with you. The two of you.” She glanced up.
“No, we are not friends. But I no longer want to punch her.”
Claudia blew out a laugh. “That makes one of us.”
Mrs. Remington smiled. Claudia expected a scolding, even a mild one. One of those, “Now Claudia, she’s still your mother,” sort of scoldings. But the older woman bit into her muffin instead.
Embarrassment heated Claudia’s neck. “Anyway, so my mother repented to you, but not because she wanted a relationship with you.”
“For her relationship with God.” She reached over and laid her hand over Claudia’s. “Honey, whatever your relationship with your mother, it’s your business. And I’m sure you didn’t come over here after ten years to talk about that.”
“I just …”
“It’s time for healing, isn’t it?”
Tears burned and spilled over. This was too much. She’d thought she could be here, but she couldn’t. Not yet. “I—Mrs. Remington, I need to go. I’m sorry.” She grabbed her purse and stumbled back through the living room.
“Claudia, wait, please.”
Claudia stopped just before reaching for the door.
“That night burns in my mind like a fire,” Mrs. Remington said. “Every day I see my daughter, lying in her own blood unmoving, her eyes open and staring, and I know she is seeing and hearing everything going on around her.”
Claudia took in a lungful of air. Slowly she turned. “Me too,” she whispered. “It was like she was trying to communicate but couldn’t, and I wanted so badly to hear her.”
“You know what I remember most?”
Claudia’s brain screamed for her to run away. To not pull up this memory, because every time she allowed herself to think about it, she smelled the blood, heard her own screams, saw herself for the coward she was that night.
“What I remember most,” Mrs. Remington said, smoothing Claudia’s hair behind her ear. “Is you, staying beside her. Refusing to be moved because you believed she needed you. You were the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
As much as she wanted to believe Mrs. Remington, Claudia’s mind reje
cted the words. She shook her head. “I was a coward. A complete idiot. I couldn’t do anything but cry.”
“Crying doesn’t make you weak. It just shows you care.”
Suddenly feeling very weary, Claudia sank to the living room floor. Mrs. Remington sat down too. Claudia met her gaze. “After a couple of weeks, I moved on. And I was truly okay for a long time. I didn’t have nightmares or anything about that night. I know it wasn’t really right for her to be my best friend. But she wasn’t that much older than we were, and she was the only person I could talk to.”
“When did you stop being okay?” Mrs. Remington asked softly. She sat no more than three feet away, her legs folded, her elbows resting on her knees.
Claudia stretched her legs out and crossed them at the ankle. “I had a miscarriage two years ago.” Claudia’s hands began to tremble and she laced them together in her lap. “I guess the blood triggered the memories.”
“Have you seen a counselor?”
Claudia smiled. “You sound like Vic.”
“I take it that’s a no?”
“I saw one for a while. I thought the nightmares and panic attacks were because of postpartum depression. When I figured out that I most likely have post traumatic stress disorder from that night, I just didn’t feel comfortable talking about it. I felt like I was blaming her for how mixed up I am over that night. As if it were somehow her fault.” A twinge of guilt still pressed through her.
“That makes sense.” Mrs. Remington paused, then went on. “You were only a girl at the time. Still on the edge between being a child and being an adult. In many ways you teetered more toward the child side, just by virtue of a lack of life experience to that date. It’s natural for a girl that age to take the blame for everything.”
A knock at the door startled Claudia. She jumped and stood up quickly.
“Looks like you have the only man I know who is right on time,” Mrs. Remington said. She stood with a grunt. “I’m too old to be on the floor.”
Claudia’s stomach curled. “I don’t know what you mean. I have the only man who is on time?”
“You didn’t know Mr. Campbell had an appointment to see me?”
Claudia felt the blood drain from her face. She shook her head. “We’re separated.”
“Oh, dear.” Mrs. Remington frowned. “I assumed the two of you were meeting here.” She opened the door and Vic stepped inside. “Hello, Mrs. Remington,” he said extending his hand. Then he saw Claudia. His eyes clouded in confusion and then brightened as his gaze took her in. “Claude? What are you doing here?”
Luckily, Mrs. Remington understood the discomfort of the situation. “She came to visit with me.”
Vic’s eyes never left Claudia’s, and her stomach tightened with dread. “Will you stay while I interview Mrs. Remington?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, Vic. I can’t.” She swept past him. “Good-bye, Mrs. Remington. Thank you for the coffee and muffin.”
Without looking back, Claudia hurried to the Tahoe. Her hands and jaw tingled, her breathing sharpened into quick bursts of air. She didn’t bother reaching into the glove box for her bag to breathe into. She needed to get distance between herself and Vic … fast.
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY
Harper
Harper felt the cramps before she was fully awake, and they escalated into heavy pains as clarity dawned. Fear washed over her, and tears formed as she carefully sat up and made her way through her darkened room to the door.
Before she made it down the hall, into the bathroom, blood gushed from her body, and she knew her baby’s spirit was gone to heaven.
“Mom!” she called as the tears began to flow. “Mom!” her voice laced with panic, rose to a fever pitch. Her parents came running.
“Oh, no,” her mother said, sorrow filling her eyes, her tone understanding loss of a child. “Honey, I’m so sorry.”
Her dad stood in the hallway, eyes dark with confusion. “What? What’s going on?”
“Sid, please go call an ambulance. She’s losing the baby and there’s too much blood. We better not drive her.”
Harper wept during the quick ride to the hospital. Thank God she hadn’t told Casio. Losing the baby would most likely have been too traumatic for him. It could have set his recovery back months or longer. Her parents followed behind in the car. Traffic was practically nothing this time of night. Wee hours of the morning. Wasn’t this always the time babies were born? Was it also the time they died?
Grief nearly consumed her as the paramedics wheeled her gurney into the ER and the nurses took charge, pressing absorbent pads against her to soak up the blood flooding out of her. “I’m losing my baby,” she whimpered to the white-haired nurse who closed the curtain around her cubicle of a room.
The nurse patted her leg. “Let’s just see what’s going on.”
First she listened for a heartbeat. Her expression softened with compassion and her lips flattened together. Harper didn’t have to be told there wasn’t one.
Tears of pain and grief poured from Harper as the nurse did a pelvic exam. “Your doctor will be here soon, honey. I’m going to help you get into a gown, and we’ll get an IV started.”
Harper had no fight. She allowed herself to be led through the motions. Her head swam by the time the doctor arrived. After another internal exam, the doctor turned sharply to the nurse. “Book an OR now. We need to get this hemorrhaging stopped. Did you not see how heavily she was bleeding? She should have gone right in with the doctor on schedule. The fetus hasn’t even been expelled yet.”
“I’m sorry, doctor, but there was an accident on the highway and everyone is working it.”
The formidable Latino woman shook her head. “Ridiculous. Go. Get the OR. Find somewhere for me to take care of this woman, even if you have to kick someone out.”
Harper felt herself fading as Dr. Ramirez walked around her bedside. “Stay with me, honey; you’ll be okay.”
Blackness overcame her like a tunnel. The sound of voices calling her name echoed in her head. And for a while, her grief was gone.
She slowly came to, aware only of the emptiness deep inside, once filled with a mother’s heart. Nothing beat there now.
Her sigh beckoned her mother to her bedside.
“Hi, honey.” Breathy relief softened her tone. “How are you feeling?”
Harper looked around, frowning. “They kept me in the hospital?”
“Your heart stopped once. Thank God the doctor got here when she did.”
“That Ramirez is the only person in this whole hospital with a lick of sense.” Her dad took up vigil on the other side of her bed. “You have a lawsuit against those incompetent idiots in the ER. You almost died.”
“Come on, Dad,” she said, so weary of heartache and disappointment. She closed her eyes, wishing for sleep. “I’m not suing anyone.”
“Can we have that in writing?” A youngish doctor entered. He wore scrubs and Nikes and looked like he should be on TV instead of walking into a real-life hospital room. He grinned. “Just kidding. Although we’d appreciate it. Not that I’m admitting to any wrongdoing on our part.”
Harper smiled, so grateful for the moment of emotional relief.
Her dad glowered at the doctor. “What are you, some kind of clown? My daughter almost died and you’re making smart remarks?”
“Dad!” She glanced at her mother, silently pleading.
“Hon, let’s go get some coffee.” Thankfully, her mother pulled him out of the room.
Harper cut her eyes at the doctor. “Sorry. He always gets like that when I have a near-death experience.”
The doctor’s eyebrows went up. Then he gave an appreciative nod and went along with the joke. “I see his kind all the time. We like to call him the overprotective sort.”
Harper laughed. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“So, I’m on call for Dr. Ramirez today. She asked me to check on you especially.”
“Super. How am I?”
“Vitals are good. But you did start through the tunnel toward the light, so we’d like to keep you overnight just for observation.”
“Was there damage to my heart?”
“We’ll keep an eye on you for a while, but you’re strong and you were only gone a few seconds. Very doubtful there are long-term damages.” He glanced down at her chart. “I’m more concerned with the hysterectomy.”
Harper frowned. “I think you have my chart confused. I had a miscarriage.”
His face drained of color and emotion. He cleared his throat and pulled up a chair to her bedside. “Miss Abbott.”
“My name is Harper.” Harper’s stomach dropped, her heart pounded in her ears.
“Harper. I wish I didn’t have to be the one to tell you this. You were farther along than Dr. Ramirez believed originally. That’s why the bleeding was so severe. By the time they got in there for the D and C, the only thing they could do was remove the uterus. The bleeding wouldn’t stop otherwise.”
Harper nodded. Numb, too numb to reach up and wipe the tears away from her cheeks. She turned her head toward the window. He may as well have killed her.
Casio. All of this was his fault.
The beating, the pregnancy, the miscarriage, mutilation. If only he’d pulled his gun, put it to her head, and pulled the trigger.
Claudia
Claudia knew she couldn’t put this off. She sat across from her mother at the kitchen table. Elizabeth seemed nervous. Which was more than unusual. “Mom, I was hard on you about Mr. Remington.”
Her mother’s jaw dropped. “How did you find out who?”
“Daddy and Mr. Remington exchanged words that night on the bus. I just put two and two together. Then I went to see Mrs. Remington yesterday. She said you went to see her after BJ’s funeral.”
Mother’s eyes filled and she nodded. “That was the worst thing I could have done to your father.” She gathered a steadying breath and composed herself. “I regret every moment I spent with Nathan. It took many years to heal the pain in your father. And I don’t think it ever fully goes away.”
“I’m glad you two were able to work it out so that you kept the ministry and the marriage.”
The Crossing Page 19