Three days had passed since Jonathan Moseley had attacked Rachel in the middle of the night. Mason had hoped that they would talk about what had happened, but Rachel had done little more than confirm that she had spoken to her mother about her assault and had rejected any suggestions that they call the police. She had told Eliza that she alone had fought Jonathan off and had omitted Mason’s part in saving her. When he had pressed her, she had given him a weak smile and told him that she was over it all, water under the bridge, but he knew she was lying. Since he knew nothing more of the bastard than that he had assaulted her, he was frustrated that because of the darkness he didn’t even have a face to hate.
Since that night, Mason’s strength had steadily returned. Though he had been sore the morning after he chased away the salesman, he’d taken his mobility as a blessing and had begun to make his way around the confines of his room. Slowly, inch by inch, he had pushed himself, never settling for any amount less than he had done the time before. Now he knew that he was almost fully recovered.
While Mason had taken great pains to regain the use of his body, he had also paid attention to the needs of his mind and spirit. His return to Carlson had been difficult; hearing of Alice’s death had nearly been a mortal blow to his heart, and learning that he had a daughter both delighted and disturbed him. He also often thought of the heated words Rachel had spoken to him when he first admitted his true identity.
But because you ran away, you’ve lost everything!
The harsh truth of the matter was that Rachel was right; by running away from everyone and everything he knew, Mason had forfeited all that he valued in life. Now, eight long years later, he had to pick himself up and begin again. While he could never be certain of his future path, he knew that he could no longer hide from his responsibilities as he once had.
To that end, I will resemble the man I once was…
Over the last three days, Mason had acquired everything he would need, with Charlotte as his enthusiastic accomplice. Turning from the window, he approached the bureau in the corner and looked upon his arrayed treasures that she had managed to procure for the task ahead: a pair of scissors, an ivory-handled straight razor, a dish containing a cake of shaving cream and a brush pilfered from Otis’s room, and a towel. The final addition, just delivered, was a basin of hot water, the steam still rising from its surface and fogging up the mirror that hung above the bureau.
Using the palm of his hand, Mason wiped a clear swath across the mirror’s clouded surface. In it, he found the reflected image of himself that he had been carrying with him ever since he was wounded on the battlefields of France, but nearly impossible for him to see was the man he had once been.
Can I ever be that man again?
“You can’t turn back,” he muttered to himself. “Never again.”
Dipping two hands into the hot water, Mason splashed it onto his face, wetting his beard. Then, with the pair of sharp scissors, he began to cut the damp hair off in clumps. Slice by slice, cut by cut, the façade he had painfully constructed over the years was snipped away until only a residue of whiskers remained on his face. Then he lathered it, being careful not to take too long a look at himself in the partially fogged mirror. He had resolved before he began to let his eyes dwell only upon the final result.
As Mason was about to start shaving, his hand that held the razor began to shake. Tightening his grip upon the ivory handle, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, summoning all the courage he could muster. He had resolved that he would not run from the problems that confronted him, but instead would meet his challenges head-on.
For Charlotte, for Alice, for Rachel and even for myself, I will not run…
Slowly he began to shave his face. Starting with his unscarred cheek, he scraped the sharp blade upward, cutting off his dark whiskers. He worked carefully, dipping the razor back into the scalding water after every pass. Over and over he repeated his work, working from cheek to lip to chin to neck. Finally, all that remained was what he had kept hidden.
Avoiding eye contact with the mirror, he shaved by touch, the fingers of his other hand guiding the blade where it needed to go. Within minutes, he was finished. With great trepidation, he opened his eyes.
Mason’s first thought was that he was most certainly not the monster he had feared he had become. Though the scarring of his cheek was visible, it was not revolting: whitish-pink ridges rose and fell where the skin had been melted across his cheek and jawline. But the effect wasn’t widespread, more splattered than spread; it was almost certainly this fact that had allowed him to grow a beard in the first place. Turning first one way and then the other, he closely examined the face he had allowed to become a stranger to his own eyes. Touching the scars caused him no pain. While it would have been impossible to completely ignore his obvious disfigurement, he realized that Alice would have recognized him.
Did I stay away all of these years for nothing?
Almost immediately, Mason knew the answer to his own unspoken question. The fact was that he was no longer the man who had left Carlson so many years before, but the realization struck him that he wouldn’t have been that man even if he had never been wounded. Even if he had come home unscathed and been met at the depot by a band and a banner blaring his triumph, he would not have been the Mason Tucker who left. The horrors of war, the wanton blood and death and destruction he had witnessed, would have changed him every bit as much as an exploding shell.
Besides, he had shaved off his beard not because of a desire to return to the past, but because he had finally realized that what mattered was the man he would become.
Mason was lost in these thoughts when there was a soft knock on the door. It swung open and standing there, staring at him, was Rachel.
* * *
Rachel knocked softly on the door to Mason’s room before entering, just as she had done many times before in the days since Charlotte found him. He had chosen to take all of his meals in his room, just as her mother did, but today Rachel intended to ask him if he felt like joining her for lunch at the dining room table.
“It’s just about time for lunch and I wondered if—” she began before falling silent at the sight before her.
Gone was the disheveled, scruffy beard that had covered Mason’s face. Before him was a still steaming bowl of water and his shaving instruments, a testament to what he had done.
At the sight of her, Mason quickly turned toward the wall, showing her only half of his face. His deep blue eyes darted toward her and then back to the safety of the wall in a look of embarrassment. It took only an instant for her to understand why.
The wounds to his face!
Suddenly, all of the words that Mason had spoken to her about his traumatic experiences on the war-torn battlefields of France came rushing back; the explosions that tore up the earth, the mud mixed with the blood of his fellow soldiers, but particularly the attack that led him from the relative safety of the trenches into a bombardment that sent him hurtling through the air and away from all he had known and loved. She recalled the tension in his voice as he spoke of waking in a hospital surrounded by the screams and moans of the wounded and dying. All that he had done since that day was aimed at hiding what had happened to his face.
“You don’t have to hide from me,” she said softly.
“It’s still hard enough for me to look at,” he answered, his deep voice resounding in the quiet room. “I don’t want you to be afraid.”
“Why would you say such a thing?”
“Because the last thing I would want is for you to be frightened of me.”
Purposefully, Rachel crossed the small room to stand at Mason’s side, her eyes never leaving his, never straying to catch the tiniest glimpse of what he’d chosen to keep hidden from her. Though she desperately wanted to see his face, to know how it had changed, she wanted him to be the one to let her in, to trust her enough to share that part of him.
“I would never be scared of you, Mason,” she
reassured him, gently placing her hand upon his arm. “Besides, if you were really that afraid of frightening people away, you never would have shaved your beard off in the first place.”
Slowly, Mason nodded. “You’re right,” he agreed. “I chose to shave away my past because I’m tired of running away from who I am and from everything that I left behind. If I’m not willing to show myself to you, to let you see what that damned war turned me into, then how would I ever be able to walk out of this room and back into the world?”
Without expecting any answer to his question, Mason turned toward Rachel, allowing her to see all of his face: the scarring that ran angrily along the right side; the pink-and-white ridges that rose from his jawline and colored his cheek in splotches. To her eyes, it was as if someone had splashed candle wax onto Mason’s face. Looking intently, she realized that she had expected it to be much worse.
But now that Mason had removed the dark beard from his face, Rachel felt a stirring of joy at having once again laid eyes upon the man she had known many years before. A sliver of memory at the way he had looked the day he married Alice rose in her thoughts; he had been dashingly handsome in his suit, his immaculately shined shoes gleaming in the sunlight, and she had been uncomfortable at finding her soon-to-be brother-in-law so attractive. Today, standing before her, unwanted scars and all, Mason still resembled the younger man who had sent butterflies racing through her stomach.
“I bet I’m a hell of a sight,” Mason offered with a weak smile.
“All I see is the same Mason Tucker I knew eight years ago.”
“I don’t look like a monster?”
“Not to my eyes.”
As if she had no control over her own body, Rachel’s steady hand rose toward Mason’s scarred face. Though surprise was clearly written across his features, he didn’t flinch, did not make any move to avoid her touch, instead held her gaze steadily. When her fingertips touched the raised ridges of his scars, Rachel felt a chill race across her skin. Mason’s flesh felt both warm and smooth, undoubtedly because of his recent shaving, but she swore that she could feel the rhythmic pulse of his heartbeat, a steady thrumming that seemed to hurry with every passing moment.
Though Rachel knew that it was inappropriate for her to be touching Mason in such a way, she found herself unable to remove her hand. Seconds passed as slowly as if they were hours, but still her fingers caressed his skin. Vivid memories of Mason’s rescue of her flashed across her mind. Tremors of emotion cascaded in her breast and she had to fight back tears. A sudden desire to have Mason take her in his arms welled up in her heart, and she began to feel uncomfortable with her own thoughts. Quickly she removed her hand and turned away from him.
What… what am I feeling… ?
For a moment, the room was silent except for the continued lashing of rain against the windowpanes. Mason was the first to speak, asking, “Do you suppose that Charlotte will be frightened at how I look?”
“I don’t think so,” Rachel answered, thankful to have something beside her own confused emotions to consider. “If anything, Charlotte will find it a bit exciting, just another reason to spend all of her time at your side.”
“I hope you’re right. I’d hate for her to be scared of her own father.”
“Are you going to tell her the truth?”
“I’m tired of running from my past, Rachel,” he declared. “All these long years away have done nothing but spread pain across the lives of everyone I’d intended to protect. I can never make up for what happened to Alice, though I would give my own life in exchange, but I’ll be damned if I’ll allow anyone else to suffer because of my cowardice. It’s past time that I began to make amends for what I have done. There are so many people I need to apologize to, and I intend to start doing that right away.”
“Where do you intend to start?” she asked.
“With the most important person of all,” he answered softly. “I need to talk to Alice.”
Chapter Twenty-two
NEEDLES OF STINGING RAIN continued to plummet from the heavy, dark clouds above as Rachel hurried across the street beside the depot, intent upon keeping up with the pace that Mason set. Pulling her shawl tightly around her shoulders, she shivered and did her best to avoid stepping into the wide puddles still filling with water.
I’ll be soaked to the bone in seconds!
Though the storm’s ferocity had subsided somewhat, it remained unpleasant: periodic gusts of wind howled at her feet and threatened to sweep her to the drenched ground; the chill that hung in the air grew heavier with every passing moment, carrying with it the promise of snow in the days and weeks ahead; and while no more tongues of lightning forked across the heavens, the deep bass rumble of thunder still occasionally rolled across the afternoon sky.
Ahead of Rachel, Mason plodded steadily forward. It surprised her that he was even able to walk, let alone move so quickly. But now he moved as if he were a man possessed, drawn to something or somewhere he could no more control than the raging of the storm.
“There’s one good thing about this weather,” he said over his shoulder.
“What’s that?”
“No one else will be willing to come outside in it.”
Mason was right; Carlson’s streets were so empty that it could have been the middle of the night instead of the middle of the day. Nearly every window they passed was shuttered against the miserable weather, and even in those that were open, no faces were pressed to the glass. Only an occasional dog, too despondent in the rain even to bark, witnessed their passing.
And that was just the way that Mason wanted it.
Though he didn’t have a hat to cover his head, Mason had turned up the thick collar of his coat; Rachel knew that this was not entirely for protection from the elements, but also to prevent him from being recognized. His many long years away had made him overly cautious and his eyes constantly darted to some distant place, searching for a face that might linger upon his own for a moment too long. Still, he hurried on.
Lifting the hem of her skirt so that it wouldn’t drag in the mud, Rachel struggled to keep up. There was no need for her to show Mason where to go and he never faltered, though she still wondered where he found the strength to move so quickly. They crossed Main Street at its northern end, made their way past a group of houses, and then down a short lane before the cemetery came into view.
Though she had just been to visit Alice’s grave with Charlotte only weeks before, Rachel felt her breath being taken away at the sight of the cemetery. Wisps of hazy clouds hung as if they were cobwebs above the tombstones. Shivering, she flinched as another rumble of thunder echoed from the distance.
Mason came to a halt at the base of the cemetery’s hill. Running a hand through his wet hair, he stared solemnly at the dark iron gates and the tombstones that lay beyond. Rachel wondered if he had finally been struck by the enormity of it all. Though he had undeniably felt pain when he first learned of his wife’s death, realizing that she lay in the cold earth, forever beyond his embrace, now seemed to have paralyzed him.
“Mason, I—” she began, unsure of just what to say.
“It’s all right, Rachel,” he reassured her. “I suppose I thought that I was ready to see this, to see Alice’s grave, but the hurt is more than I thought it would be. Convincing myself appears to have been easier than doing the deed. It’s just… hard to believe…”
“You don’t have to do this now, not today, not if you’re not ready for it,” she said carefully. “We can come back later, sometime after you’ve regained more strength, after you’ve had more time to come to grips with all that has happened while you were away.”
Slowly, Mason turned to face her, fixing her with a gaze that was heavy with sadness and pain. “I don’t think there will ever come a day when I’ll be able to accept what my actions have caused.”
“Mason, I didn’t mean that you—” she said quickly, fearful that she had offended him, but he silenced her by placing a hand u
pon her shoulder.
“If I were to walk away from here now, I would never be able to return,” he explained. “There have already been far too many excuses. After what happened to you, and my needing to stop that bastard from hurting you, I made the decision to change my life, and that is just what I intend to do, no matter how much it might hurt. I won’t do any more running… that’s already cost us all far too much.”
Together they made their way in silence up the gently sloping hill toward the cemetery. The going was difficult across the wet grass and muddy earth; occasionally, Mason offered his hand to steady her. Even in the aftermath of the storm, the gate’s hinges squeaked when opened.
To Rachel’s eye, the cemetery seemed bigger than she remembered; it was as if the tombstones, glistening wet with rainwater, darker than they’d be under the glare of the sun, had multiplied. The wooden markers at the rear of the encircled graveyard, the oldest graves in the cemetery, seemed so frail in the aftermath of the storm, warped and swollen from so many previous downpours, that she wondered if they wouldn’t collapse. A large raven took flight from atop a stone near them, its long wings flapping quickly, a scornful caw directed at their interruption.
Rachel gently led Mason to Alice’s tombstone. Cut from a lighter stone, it hadn’t grown as dark as those around it, but it still looked gloomy. Immediately after they stopped before the marker, a break appeared in the still swiftly moving storm clouds above and a shaft of sunlight fell upon the cemetery, sending dazzling reflections of light off the tombstones; the brilliance was so intense, so surprising, that Rachel had to shade her eyes. Mason didn’t notice the change, his gaze never leaving the grave where his wife lay.
Tentatively, his shaking hand reached out to grasp the wet stone. Rachel watched silently, remembering how she had struggled with the same emotion that Mason surely felt. Though Alice’s death had been painful for her to bear, and even though she still missed her sister, she’d been able to use the passage of time to dull her ache, comforting herself with her memories of their time together. For Alice’s husband, only now discovering what terrible things had happened in his absence, the pain was much sharper.
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