by Dianne Drake
“He?” James choked.
“We had a little boy.” She swiped at the tears rolling down her cheeks. “And when they let me hold him, that’s when I knew it was too late. That there was no going back. I cheated you of your son. You didn’t get to hold him, James. You didn’t get to…”
James swiped at his own tears. “Fallon, I’m so…” His words broke off. He sucked in a sharp breath. “I wouldn’t have hated you. Couldn’t have…”
“I hated myself, James. Don’t you see? All these months I’ve hated myself, because I wasn’t strong enough to keep him alive. Because I wasn’t strong enough to tell you and fight the fight to keep our baby, if that’s what I had to do. It was just easier to be alone. But you deserved better. Then, and now. I’ve watched you with Tyler. You’re such a good father. A great father, and you love being a father. You need all those children, James. And I can’t be the one to give them to you. Couldn’t even be the one to give you our son.”
“Did he have a name, Fallon? Our son, did he have a name?”
She nodded. But her lips only formed the words as her voice failed her. “James Allen Galbraith, Junior.”
He didn’t say anything for a while. Just sat in the chair across from her and stared out the window, for which she was grateful, because she didn’t want to be in his arms, didn’t want to feel the pain that would surely radiate from him, pain she had caused. So they sat in silence, for half an hour, or an hour…she didn’t know. Time passed and she was too numb to feel it. But finally James cleared his throat, squared his shoulders. He stood. And she knew that once he walked out of the room, he might never come back. At least, not emotionally.
It’s what she deserved. What she’d known all along would happen. But being right about it didn’t make her feel any better, didn’t bring her any relief.
She couldn’t watch him go, however. So she shut her eyes, blocked it all out. Held her breath until she heard the door close behind him.
But it didn’t close. Yet she waited. Dear God, she waited for ever, then finally opened her eyes, only to find James kneeling in front of her, the pain on his face so acute she wasn’t sure either of them could get through this.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Fallon, I’m so sorry. What you did… I don’t blame you for anything. How could I?”
“But you should. And in time you will. You should have known about the baby at the beginning so you could have celebrated the happy days with me, and at the end mourned the loss. You should have held him in your arms the way I did, and stood next to me at the grave when I…when I buried him. It was your right… He was your son and I took that away from you.” She reached out tenderly to brush a tear from his cheek. “I was so confused…”
He took hold of her hand and kissed it. “I know you were. But, Fallon, I do understand that you did what you thought was right for me, and for Tyler. How could I ever be angry about that?”
“Don’t you understand, James? I’m the one who’s angry. I thought you might be, tried to convince myself you would be, but in my heart of hearts I always knew you’d forgive me. But I’m the one who’s angry. So damned angry.”
“At me?”
She shook her head. “At me. For not being strong enough. See, I didn’t ever want to tell you. At first I thought that I’d never tell you, and that maybe we could get back together and simply go on. You’d never have to know. But after a while I knew that I couldn’t go through with that because I can’t lie to you, and not telling you the truth was lying. But I didn’t want you to suffer the pain I had. Or suffer even more pain because I hadn’t included you. Yet I knew that I was bound to tell you everything if we stayed together long enough, and I didn’t want to hurt you. So I’ve been trying to push you away, James. Not because I hated you but because I loved you. But I couldn’t do it. I was too…weak.”
“You’re not weak, Fallon. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. And what you perceive as weakness is truly strength.”
“Then I hate being strong.” She sniffled. “And all this time when you’ve said you made a mess of things…it was always me. I knew that, and I kept on letting you think it was you because I was still trying to find a way to keep my secret. I was right about one thing, though. When I told you that you don’t need me, you don’t. Now that you know the truth, you can move on. Start over.”
“How the hell can you tell me what I need, Fallon? How the hell can you tell me to move on when you know it’s breaking my heart? Everything you’re telling me is breaking my heart. You are breaking my heart. But I still love you, and I don’t want to walk away.”
“Do you honestly think you could look at me every day for the rest of our lives and not think about what I did to you? You’ll think about it for a while…days, months, years. Convince yourself that you’re not angry. But then one morning, out of the blue, you’ll wake up, look at me, and finally realize you hate me. And every time you’ll look at me you’ll remember what I did…and I can’t bear that. Can’t even look in a mirror at myself and not think about what I did, so how can I expect you to simply think it will go away? Right now, it’s so raw, you don’t know…but I’ve lived with it. I do know. That’s why you and Tyler… You have each other and you can get on with your lives, and in time you’ll both forget…”
“We’ll forget you? Is that what you think? Tyler loves you, I love you, and you really believe that we’ll just get over you because you tell us to?”
“Because you need to,” she said, her voice breaking. “You need to, for both your sakes.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about what I need. Not a damn thing.” He shut his eyes, trying to rein in the emotion. It wasn’t sinking in yet. Oh, he understood the words. Every last, ugly one of them. And he even understood why Fallon had made the choices she had. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what she’d gone through all those months, and the pain of realizing how she’d gone through it alone was nearly as bad as the pain of losing his son. So maybe she was right. Maybe in time, when it all made more sense, his feelings, his reactions would change.
But hating Fallon?
That would never happen. “It wouldn’t be hate I’d have, waking up with you on that morning, Fallon. I might be angry, might want to put my fist through the wall…hell, if your walls weren’t made of logs I’d put a fist through one right now. But these are things we can work through. Maybe get counseling…get it right away.”
“I can’t trust that, James. I can’t trust…anything.”
“Not even me?”
“I do trust you. That’s the thing. You’re the best person I’ve even known. The most noble. Someone who deserves a life with someone they can trust. And can you really say, right now, that you do trust me? Completely? Is trust your initial reaction toward me after everything I’ve told you?”
It wasn’t. To be honest, there were so many emotions in him right now, he didn’t know what he was feeling. “I need some time…”
“All the time in the world,” she said, almost sounding relieved. “Because I don’t have the heart to ever find out that you stopped loving me one day, and started hating me.”
“I never knew you thought so little of me, Fallon,” he snapped, rising from the couch.
“I don’t think so little of you. But I do trust human nature. It always comes through.” And, finally, it was over. She’d pushed him away.
“You’re wrong, Fallon. Dead wrong. I love you. That’s all this is. I love you. But I can’t do this right now.” He stormed out, got to the den door, then turned around and went back to the living room. “And just so you’ll know, I still love you. But you know what? I don’t think you love me. You couldn’t. Or else you’d have included me in this decision…not the one about our baby, but the one about ending our relationship. Because true love’s about inclusion, not exclusion. And you talk about people turning their backs…about how you thought I’d turn my back on you eventually. Well, you’re the one who turned your back. Not me.
You.”
“That’s not fair! I’m doing this for you.”
“Don’t!” He ran an angry hand through his hair. “Pushing away someone who loves you, someone you love… You’ve fooled yourself into thinking you’re doing this for me when, in reality, it’s for you because it’s the easy way out. Without me, you won’t have to deal with your guilt. Not over what you did to me. But especially not over losing our baby. And that’s the real guilt here, Fallon. The real anger.” His voice softened. “Our baby died and you don’t know what to do about it. Push me away, and you push that away from you, too. And, sweetheart, we really should be pulling together now. Now’s the time we should be depending on each other to get us through it, except you won’t let yourself depend on anybody, will you? And that gets to the heart of the matter. You can’t let yourself depend on someone else.” He shut his eyes, drew in an agonized breath. “Look, I love you, Fallon, and that’s not going to change. But I love Tyler, and he needs me. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the one you trusted enough to help make you whole again, but my son needs that from me now.”
“And you should give it to him,” she said.
“I’ll give it to you, too. If you’ll let me. But you have to be the one to ask, because I’ve done everything I can do, and I’ve run out of ideas. I want to marry you, want you to be Tyler’s mother, but the next move is yours, Fallon. I have to fight the battles for my son, and I’ll fight the battles for you…for us, too, but I have to know you’ll be fighting with me, not against me. And here’s the thing. It’s OK to depend on someone else. I don’t think you realize that, don’t think you’ve ever allowed yourself to do it. And I’m not criticizing you for that, because I think you learned at a very young age that you couldn’t depend on anyone. Tyler’s learned the same thing but I’m going to teach him differently. I’m going to show him that some people will let him down, but most will not. You depend on someone, they let you down, it breaks your heart, and that’s all he knows right now. All you know. Because of that you grew up strong. So strong that you became the one everybody else depended on. Then somewhere along the line you perceived any weakness in yourself as something that would let the people who depend on you down. They take you for granted…I took you for granted. But the one who takes you the most for granted is you, because you have to keep yourself at a respectable distance, especially when deep down you just want to lean on someone else for a little while. But here’s the thing, Fallon. We all need to depend on others at one time or another. Hell. That’s all I’ve been doing since Tyler came into my life.”
He paused for a moment, watched her for something, anything. Saw the barriers up all around her, didn’t know how to bring them down. And realized it wasn’t up to him. Couldn’t be up to him. Fallon had to want it. Fallon had to do it. Until she did, this was where they would stay. On that sad note, he walked over to her, bent, kissed her tenderly on forehead then straightened. “You’re afraid to reach out, Fallon. Because what if you did and no one was there…like no one was there when you were a little girl? That’s what this is about. Somewhere, some time, you’ve convinced yourself it’s easier to do it alone. You stand out there by yourself as this larger-than-life woman who doesn’t need anybody, someone who can handle everything by herself. But you’re still that little girl who got pushed away, and you’ve convinced yourself that if you do it all alone, no one will hurt you. But you’re hurt. And you’re wrong. You can’t do this alone. You shouldn’t do this alone because what you’ve gone through… Our son died, Fallon. You didn’t kill him. It wasn’t your fault. No one should ever have to face something like that alone, and I’m sorry you didn’t know that.”
James drew in a deep breath, wanting her to respond, to say something, anything. But she wouldn’t. He knew that. Knew from the expression in her eyes she was shutting him out again. And now there were no more words. It truly was up to Fallon. “I love you,” he said. “I’ve done so many things the wrong way, so have you. But I’d never wake up some morning, look at you, and hate you. That’s not what you’re running away from, Fallon. And not why you’re pushing me away either. I’m sorry for the choices we’ve both made, but there would never be a morning in my life that I wouldn’t wake up knowing I loved you more than life. I trust that in myself. And I only hope you find some way to trust it in me, too. And in yourself. But if you can’t…”
James withdrew to the den and shut the door, leaving Fallon alone, next to the Christmas tree. Looking up at the star on the top. “What have I done?” she whispered, pulling the blanket up to her chin, then rolling into a ball in the cushions. “What have I done?”
CHAPTER TEN
THE evening settled in bright and clear for the inaugural journey of the Christmas train, and a light dusting of snow throughout the day had made the whole event even more perfect for all the children lined up, anxiously waiting to board. For Fallon, it meant nothing, as she’d turned down numerous invitations to take the first ride. But for Tyler, and his new best friends Paige and Pippa, the all-day anticipation had been almost as bad as waiting for Christmas itself to arrive.
“Why can’t she come?” Tyler whined, as he and James moved through the line to climb the steps to the train car. The train consisted of a circa 1928 steam locomotive, two cars and a bright red caboose. All restored to period, with a few exceptions meant to occupy the interests of children. Additions such as twinkling lights, music piped through the entire train and a refreshment stand specializing in hot chocolate and sugar cookies. Santa’s huge throne-like chair, too. Elevated on a platform, painted in glitzy gold. For two weeks, a child’s fantasy come true.
“She has other plans,” James said stiffly. She was going to sit at home and order tongue depressors, or thermometers, or accomplish some other equally dull task. That’s all she’d done for the past week…work. Since their talk, she’d avoided him as much as she could, choosing instead to spend any time they might have had together with her head buried in a catalog. Oh, she was wonderful with Tyler. They’d gone Christmas shopping, gone to the Ramseys’ to bake Christmas cookies, gone sledding. All of it when he was working, of course. Then, when he came home, she retreated to her catalogs. That had been their sole existence for seven long, stressful days. But he’d never once thought that she wouldn’t come with them for a ride on the Christmas train.
Then, a little over an hour ago, she’d begged off, saying she had work to do. Tyler’s response had been to turn sullen, then knock over and break a lamp. Sometimes it seemed like they were taking two steps forward, one step back. And this latest setback with the boy was definitely that one step back. In another week, after Christmas, the backward steps they were going to have to face would be insurmountable, he was afraid. But what choice did he have? Fallon didn’t want him. Even after everything that had been said between them, she hadn’t budged. But Tyler desperately needed him, which made his course clear.
It took an hour to board everyone, get them seated in close proximity to Santa, who was, after arguments and promises, Walt Graham, on his best behavior. New diet, being overseen and cooked by Catie, owner of Catie’s Overlook. Promises to take his medications, being overseen by Neil, Eric and Gabby. Promises to exercise more, being overseen on daily walks with Pippa and Paige Ramsey. All part of the bargain to be Santa. “Ho, ho, ho!” he yelled as the train finally pulled away from the station and dozens of children sat on the edges of their seats, waiting to be called to visit Santa.
“I wish Fallon had come,” Gabby said, handing her son, Bryce, to his dad while she made herself comfy on the seat by propping a pillow behind her back. “She’s been working like crazy, and we’re really not going to be doing much toward opening the hospital until after my baby arrives. She’s been so stressed out lately, and I think this would have been good for her.”
“Any excuse,” James muttered, sounding as bitter as he felt. It was sinking in, all of it. And, yes, he did hurt. Badly. But he was also angry, and not about the decisions Fallon had made
those months ago. He was angry for the ones she was making now…the ones that kept him from helping her get through this. That kept her from helping him get through this. They needed to be doing this together, dealing with it, healing, holding onto each other through the pain, but every day she seemed to pull away from him more and more. “If it hadn’t been work, it would have been something else.”
“Sounds like the two of you aren’t doing very well right now.”
“Actually, there’s no such thing as the two of us. Ask Fallon. She’ll be the first to tell you that we’ve gone our separate ways. It’s what she’s wanted all along and it finally happened. She got her way.” She’d won, but they’d both lost.
Gabby exchanged wary glances with Dinah, who was sitting directly across from her. “I thought she’d been doing better lately,” Dinah ventured. “I mean, the only times I’ve seen her these past several days she’s been with Tyler. And she looks totally happy. They have a good time together, and I don’t think she’s faking that.”
“She’ll do anything in the world for Tyler.” Just not for Tyler’s dad, he thought.
“Well, give it time,” Gabby consoled. “I’m sure things will work out. Fallon’s come a long way in just these past weeks. After what she’s been through, it’s pretty amazing, when you come to think about it.”
“Well, what I don’t have is time. Being a single dad is taking up every spare minute I have. I’m either working or taking care of Tyler, which isn’t a complaint. But it’s a fact of life for me now, and while I’d rather be doing everything with Fallon, she’s not budging.” He didn’t know if her friends knew, or even suspected, the reason, and it wasn’t up to him to tell them.