Shadows from the Grave

by Haddix, T. L.

  Annie looked at him and smiled. It was a sad smile, and something about it broke Chase’s heart a little.

  “I know,” she relented. “And I guess time’s up, huh? Might as well get this over with. As to your question, actually, no. Being an only child, being raised the way I was? I just never wanted kids.”

  Chase decided to follow the conversation, wherever it led. “I thought you had a relatively happy childhood.”

  Annie smiled. “Look,” she said. “I love my mom, and Ralph is wonderful. They’re great parents, and they’re two of the kindest people I’ve ever met. But growing up, it was common knowledge that Ralph wasn’t my real father. You were a geeky kid; you know how cruel kids can be. I was prime fodder, and even if I managed to have a normal life at home, the moment I got on the school bus in the mornings, that normalcy ended.” She moved back to the cooler and sat down. There was a bottle of champagne sitting in the bottom of the cooler, and she pulled it out. “Do you mind if we open this?”

  “Not at all.” He sat back down as well and quickly removed the cork from the champagne. Annie held up two plastic cups to catch the bubbling liquid and managed to keep most of the champagne in them.

  When Chase finished pouring, she handed him a cup and raised her own in a toast. “To the future, whatever the hell it is.” She took a deep swallow and continued her story. “So I’m a pretty happy kid, moving along, blissfully ignorant to pretty much everything around me. Then one day in first grade, my best friend came to school and told everyone in our class that I was a bastard. I didn’t even know what the word meant, just that it wasn’t good.”

  “First grade?” he asked.

  She nodded. “First grade. I don’t know if the teacher knew what my friend was saying or not. But what I do know is that when I went home that afternoon, I felt pretty lousy. I asked my mom what a bastard was. Chase, I can still see the look on her face. It hurt her so much, and she knew instantly what had happened. She just didn’t know who had let it slip.” A single tear slid down her cheek. He handed her a napkin and put his arm around her. She let him pull her close without protest.

  “How did your mom handle it?”

  “The same way Carly Tucker faces everything—head on,” she said. “She sat me down and explained what the word meant. I knew I was adopted, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. I honestly don’t think that little first grader that I was had a clue of what the implications of being illegitimate were. It took me a while to understand that I had been conceived in the midst of an alcohol and drug-fueled adulterous affair.”

  Chase tightened his arm around her and rested his cheek on her hair with a sigh. “I’m so sorry, Annie. How in the world did your friend find out, though?”

  Annie snorted derisively. “She overheard her parents discussing my ‘situation,’ and she carried the tale to school. She didn’t know what it meant any more than I did.” She turned her face to his. “My mother never let me go back to that girl’s house again. My best friend, Chase. All I knew was that I’d lost something important, and it hurt.”

  Chase saw the sadness and hurt that still lingered in her face. He raised his free hand and touched her cheek with a feather-light touch. Annie closed her eyes and turned her face toward his caress. She nuzzled his hand and placed her own over it to hold it more firmly in place.

  Chase slowly drew her face to his and, giving her time to draw back, he carefully brushed his lips over her temple. “Annie,” he breathed, “you are so much more than you even know.” She shook her head in denial.

  “You are,” he insisted. “Annie, I—”

  “No, Chase,” she said, her voice tight with emotion. Another tear rolled down her cheek, and he wiped it away with his thumb. “Just stop. I’m not finished. There’s more.” She placed two fingers across his lips, stopping the words she couldn’t let him say. Not until he’d heard it all.

  “Please, just let me finish. This is hard enough as it is,” she begged. Chase moved his hand to hers and placed a soft kiss in the palm. He sat back against the wall and drew her with him, keeping her in his arms.

  “Go ahead,” he urged. “I’m listening.”

  Annie took a deep, shuddering breath. “By the time I was a teenager, I’d pretty much heard all the comments, the jokes, the sly little remarks. I blamed my mom so much for that. Being a teenager is a rocky enough proposition, but add in the kind of pressure I had on me? I was not a nice person when I was younger.” She leaned her head into his shoulder. “I was so cruel to Carly. I sometimes wonder how she ever forgave me.”

  “Sweetheart, I hate to break it to you, but teenagers are put on this earth to torment their parents. Just ask my mom if you don’t believe me,” he said. “You just had a little more angst than most.”

  “I had ammunition most kids don’t have,” she said. “I knew by then about Ransom, about the whole sordid mess. I used that information to hurt Mom, and to some degree, Ralph. We didn’t argue, not too much really, but I let her know in subtle ways that I thought I was better than her. All through high school, I did everything I could not to be like her, which wasn’t a bad thing, in a way. Mom had a pretty rough childhood, and she’s often said she would have gotten further in life if she had been more like me as a child.”

  “How so?”

  Annie smiled, but it was a sad one. “I got straight A’s, I was on the honor roll, and I worked after school as soon as I legally could. I also never let a boy do more than kiss me. I was determined I wasn’t going to be weak like my mother. I certainly wasn’t going to wind up pregnant by a married man and be at the mercy of strangers the way she had been.”

  Chase was suddenly afraid he knew what Annie was going to say next. He didn’t know if he could handle hearing the words, but regardless, he had to ask. “What happened?”

  “Oh, it was incredibly simple,” she said. “I met Rafe.” She shook her head, remembering. “I had my plans laid out so carefully. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life—own a flower shop. I’ve never doubted that. All the turmoil through those years, I was always able to find solace in the flowers. I didn’t even bother taking a summer off after high school to enjoy it, even though Mom and Ralph wanted me to. I went straight from high school to Madison and Ivy Tech.” She stopped to get a bottle of water and took a long drink from it.

  “College was Ralph’s idea, for the most part. He promised me he would back me in my own shop, but I had to get at least an associate’s degree first.”

  “Smart,” Chase remarked.

  She nodded. “Ralph is a very smart man. I learned so much from him over the years, and even now, if I have a problem with the business that I just can’t get my head around, he’s my go-to guy.” She took another drink and replaced the cap on the bottle. “In any event, I was sailing through my courses, and it didn’t take the instructors long to notice. By the third semester, the spring I turned nineteen, I was tutoring in what little spare time I had. That’s how I met Rafe; he needed help with algebra.” Chase’s arms tightened around her, and she paused. She drew back and looked at him, and he shrugged.

  “What do you want me to say? I don’t like the guy,” he said. Annie slid her arms around him and squeezed him tight. She rested her head on his shoulder again and kept it there.

  “I was green as grass, Chase, and full of my own importance. I was begging Fate for a comeuppance, and I got it. I thought I knew so much, and it turns out I didn’t know anything.”

  “Were you still living at home then?”

  “Yes. Mom and Ralph had moved to Hanover, and it just made sense for me to stay there. I helped with the bills, the chores, that sort of thing.”

  When she fell silent, Chase nudged her. “You know you don’t have to tell me any of this if you don’t want to.”

  She shifted in his arms so that she could see his face. “Yes, I do, Chase. You know I do. I had hoped I wouldn’t have to, but things are changing between us, whether I like it or not. Telling you this… it’s part of the p
ackage.”

  Chase couldn’t speak for a minute, but he finally found his voice. “Okay. So, you meet Mr. Hot Shit. Then what?” When Annie gave a startled laugh, Chase smiled. “I’m going to be in hock to Mom’s Swear Jar, and I know I shouldn’t make that kind of comment about someone I met briefly on the street. He’s probably a really nice guy,” he said dryly. When he rolled his eyes, Annie laughed again.

  “Actually, he’s an unmitigated ass.” Her smile faded, and she looked across the room as memories rolled across her face. From the clouds, Chase assumed they weren’t good ones.

  “Rafe was my first. My first real boyfriend, my first lover. I suppose he was even my first love, as misguided as I was. I know you don’t like hearing that, but it doesn’t change the truth.”

  “I can handle it,” he assured her.

  “I started out as his algebra tutor and, within a month, we were dating. Within three months, I was pregnant.” She closed her eyes and, unable to face him any longer, turned her face into his shoulder. His arms came around her and pulled her even closer. He had absolutely no idea what to say, but fortunately, Annie kept talking.

  “I was so ashamed,” she said. “When I told Rafe, he got angry. Told me I’d ruined a good thing, like he hadn’t had any part in the conception. Before I could blink, he was gone. As clichéd as it sounds, he left town in the dead of night.”

  “Ah, Annie. I’m sorry you had to deal with that,” he said sadly. “How did your parents take it?”

  “Oh, it devastated them both. I was so afraid to tell them. I just knew Mom would throw all those years of piousness in my face, and she would’ve been well within her rights to do so. But she didn’t. She was heartbroken for me.”

  “Because she’d been there?” he asked. Annie nodded. With hesitation, he asked, “Do you mind if I ask what happened? What you decided to do?”

  Annie heard the odd note in his voice and pulled back to look at him. “What’s wrong?” she asked with a concerned frown. When she put it together, she gasped. “Oh, God. Kiely. I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  Chase interrupted, “Stop apologizing. I know you aren’t like her, Annie. It’s just that I know this didn’t end well, and it obviously still hurts you. I don’t want to see you hurt more by talking about it.” He drew in a sharp breath when Annie reached up and touched his face with her fingertips. She placed a very gentle kiss on the corner of his mouth.

  “I adore you, Chase Hudson,” she said. “And I’m actually okay to talk to you about this. I’ve never told anyone about this, but I want to tell you. I need to.”

  “Then please do.” He tucked her head back into his shoulder. “You’ve never told anyone?”

  “No, not even Beth and Lauren. I don’t want them to know. It would only hurt them, and it isn’t necessary,” she said. “After Rafe left, and I had confessed everything to Mom and Ralph, I had some tough decisions to make. I was about twelve weeks pregnant by then, and I knew I had to make a choice one way or another. God forgive me, Chase, I didn’t want that baby. I didn’t want to be a parent, didn’t want the responsibility of another human being. I hated that child growing inside me.”

  She shifted in his arms. “There were a dozen times when I started the drive to Cincinnati to have an abortion. I even made it all the way to the clinic once.”

  “What stopped you?”

  “Mom. Very simply, Mom did. I kept seeing her face when I had told her about the pregnancy, and I kept thinking that she could have chosen to abort me, but she didn’t. I had a lot more support and love in my life than she did, and getting rid of the pregnancy just because it was inconvenient for me? I couldn’t do it.” Annie hadn’t realized she was crying until Chase handed her a napkin. She thanked him and wiped her face.

  “So I went back home that day and told Mom I wanted to give the baby up for adoption. She made some phone calls and didn’t try to talk me out of it. Ralph has a cousin in Virginia who counsels teen and single mothers, and Mom made the arrangements. By the time I was five months pregnant, we had flown to Virginia, and I was enrolled in a program that helped young women who find themselves pregnant, don’t want to have an abortion, and don’t want to or can’t keep the baby.”

  “What did you do about school?” he asked.

  “I finished out the spring semester like nothing had happened,” she said. “I was about twenty pounds heavier then, and I didn’t wear tight clothes, so hiding the pregnancy wasn’t an issue.”

  “So you made it to Virginia. What then?”

  “The further along I got, the more certain I was that I had made the right decision. Mom was with me and was going to stay until I had the baby. Do you know how much of a sacrifice that had to be for her, and for Ralph?” she asked.

  “She probably didn’t see it that way,” he assured her. “She loves you. You needed her.”

  Annie smiled sadly. “I know. But I see it that way.” She paused. “But those months in Virginia, we grew so close. We rebuilt our relationship, became friends. It was wonderful, at least that part of it was. Things just didn’t turn out the way I’d planned.”

  “They rarely do, I’ve found,” he remarked.

  “Isn’t that the truth?” she asked. She let out a deep sigh. “Ralph had flown down to spend a couple weeks with us for the Fourth of July. The day before he was scheduled to fly back, we all went out to eat. It was such a perfect day, hot, sunny, breeze blowing off the ocean. We were so happy. I was seven months pregnant, but I had really started to feel hopeful that things would be okay. I’d be able to return to Indiana after I had the baby, and I could go on with my life. I had even started to get past Rafe’s abandonment, or at least see it with less emotional eyes. It still hurt,” she said, “but it had grown to more of a dull ache, you know?”

  “I do know.” He tenderly pushed a curl off her forehead. “So what happened?”

  “We were scheduled to meet with prospective parents a couple days after Ralph left, and we all decided to make an early night of it. Mom and I were staying at Ralph’s cousin’s house, and since we wouldn’t see him again until the baby was born, they wanted to spend some time together. So we headed back to the house…” Her voice trailed off as she thought about that evening. “We never saw it coming. One minute we were laughing, and the next thing I knew, it felt like we were flying.”

  Chase frowned. “You wrecked?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Guy ran a red light, slammed straight into us. Two seconds sooner, he would have hit the front passenger side, and Mom would probably have been killed. Two seconds later, and it would have been a close call. As it happened, he hit the car right where the right rear wheel well meets the back door frame. There are so many what-ifs, Chase. If I had been sitting behind Mom like I usually did, I’d be dead. But we’d bought an antique chair, and it only fit behind her seat, because Ralph is so tall. That stupid chair saved my life. Mom still has it. Says she’ll never get rid of it.” Chase tightened his arms around her, and Annie hugged him back.

  “We thought we were all okay, aside from a few cuts and bruises,” she continued. “The guy who hit us wasn’t so lucky. He was killed on impact.”

  Chase cleared his throat. “I take it things weren’t okay?”

  “No, they weren’t. When he hit us, he pushed our car into another car that was parked near the intersection. I couldn’t get my door open, and we had to wait for the EMTs. They got there and cut the door open and, of course, everyone was freaking out because I was pregnant. I remember the paramedic asking me over and over again if I felt okay. I was a little nauseated, but I felt fine. They put a collar on my neck and laid me on a backboard before trying to get me out of the car. The next thing I remember was being in the ambulance, and Mom looking down, white as a sheet. Then it all faded away.

  “When I woke up, it was the next day, late the next day. I was in the ICU, and the baby was gone. I didn’t get too anxious. I remembered the wreck and thought they’d probably just had to take him early
, but he was really gone, Chase.” Her voice choked. “He never even had a chance.”

  Chase felt the shock to the soles of his feet. “Oh God, Annie. I’m so sorry,” he said, and buried his face in her hair. For several minutes, they just held each other, not speaking.

  “It doesn’t end there,” she said quietly. “See, when the guy hit us, the impact tore the placenta loose from my uterus. You know what a placenta is, right?”

  “Um, it’s the thing that surrounds the baby in the womb, right?”

  “Yes, it is. It’s the lifeline—supplies blood and nutrients to the fetus. It implants into the wall of the uterus after conception, and it grows from there,” she explained. “When mine tore loose, I started hemorrhaging. I remember being surprised because something like that should hurt, but it hadn’t. The doctor couldn’t even explain why it hadn’t. Anyhow, babies can’t survive very long under those conditions. No blood means no oxygen. By the time the ambulance arrived, it was already too late. They rushed me into surgery as soon as we reached the hospital, but they couldn’t stop the bleeding. They had to do a hysterectomy in order to stop it, or I would have bled to death right there on the operating table. As it was, it was a close thing.” She turned her face away from his.

  “So you see, whether to have children or not isn’t really an option for me anymore. I’m okay with that. I just wish I’d been given the choice, instead of having had it made for me.” She had gone stiff as she had shared the news of her infertility, and Chase didn’t know what to say or how to react. He carefully eased her face back toward his and tipped her chin up so that she met his gaze.

  “I have no words,” he whispered. He wiped her tears away with his thumbs. When Annie raised her hand to his face and wiped his cheek, Chase was startled. She looked at the wetness on her fingers with an astonished expression before she reached up to touch his face again. This time, she moved her hand into his hair and tugged, sitting up to meet his mouth with her own as she pulled his face down to hers. The kiss they shared was tender and gentle. Somewhat tentative at first, it quickly grew deeper. When she pulled back, he followed. Neither of them wanted to end the kiss. Before long, an urgency crept in, and finally Chase tore his mouth away with a groan. They were both breathing hard. Annie buried her face in his neck with a groan of her own.