by T. L. Haddix
Zanny, whose face was buried in Sarah’s neck, her body shaking with racking sobs, didn’t see.
“Owen, we need to get her inside and calmed down. Zanny, sweetheart, look at me.” Sarah cupped the girl’s face in her hands, letting go when she jerked in pain. “Oh, you dear, sweet girl. What in the world did he do to you?”
Zanny didn’t answer. Instead, she took a shaky step away from Sarah, turned to face Owen, whose eyes had returned to normal, and promptly fainted at his feet. Again, he caught her before she could hit the ground. This time, he gently scooped her up into his arms.
“Let’s get her inside. I have the feeling we’ll be calling John home in a little bit. You know what’s going on here, right?” Owen’s voice was low.
“I’m afraid so.” Once Owen had Zanny in the house, Sarah headed for the kitchen. “I’ll get towels and ice,” she called back over her shoulder. She had a good idea of what had set off Dennis Franks; she just hoped she was wrong.
When Zanny came to, she realized she was lying on the couch in Owen and Sarah’s living room. Their concerned faces swam into view, and Zanny felt a tear slip down her hot cheek.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t have a thing in the world to apologize for,” Sarah told her quietly. “Do you feel like you could sit up a little, maybe sip some ice water?”
Zanny nodded, and with Sarah’s help, she sat up against the arm of the couch. Sarah held the glass for her while she took a small drink. The water felt so good and cold going down, especially when it hit her stomach.
“Not too much, not right away. It might make you sick.” Sarah handed the glass to Owen, who was perched on the side of the coffee table, then picked up a damp washcloth. She very gently swabbed Zanny’s face, and then rested the cold cloth against where her father had slapped her.
“Do you think you can talk about what happened?” Sarah asked. When tears welled again in Zanny’s eyes, Sarah pushed her hair back off her face. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk until you’re ready.”
They all sat quietly. The only sound was the soft ticking of a clock over the fireplace. Sarah exchanged the now-hot towel for a cold one, and Zanny half-closed her eyes, exhausted. When Owen reached out and took her hand, Zanny looked at him, half afraid that she would see rejection. Instead, she found calm acceptance. “We’ll figure this thing out. No matter what, you have a home here, Suzanna. I want you to know that. No matter what. Understand me?”
Zanny nodded jerkily, but she didn’t really believe him. “You won’t feel that way once I tell you what happened.”
“Try us.” Sarah’s face was concerned, but not disgusted.
That gave her the courage to speak. “Dad came home last night. When I got up this morning, I got sick. And he knew I…I…That’s when he brought me here. I don’t know how to say it. I’m so sorry.” She wanted to cry again, needed to cry again, but she didn’t have any tears left. She was just so tired. “I need to call Jewel, let her know I’ll be late.”
“Oh, honey. I think you’d better not go in today at all.” Sarah’s smile was a little sad. She lightly touched Zanny’s face. “Other than where he hit you, did Dennis hurt you at all?”
“No. He just slapped me a couple of times and grabbed my arm. That’s all. It wasn’t anything, really, not as mad as he was.”
Owen sucked in a sharp breath and rubbed at his chest. To Zanny’s surprise, he looked away, his eyes damp. “I ought to eviscerate him for that.” When he exchanged a look with Sarah, Zanny spotted an undercurrent she didn’t understand. She didn’t have time to think about it, though. “Zanny, we need to ask you something. Are you pregnant?”
Ashamed, Zanny dropped her gaze to where her hands lay in her lap. She nodded. “I’m sorry. John doesn’t know. I didn’t know how to tell him,” she whispered.
When Owen stood, she flinched. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him go perfectly still, then he carefully crouched beside her. “It’s okay. You’re safe here. No one is going to hurt you. I promise you that. You’re one of ours now, and I’ll see to it that you’re safe.” Moving very slowly, he cradled her close for a tight hug, placing a kiss on the crown of her head as though she were a young child. Then he stood. “I need to take a walk. I’ll be in the barn if you need me, Sarah.”
They watched as he walked away, then Zanny turned back to Sarah, who nodded. “It will all be okay. You can believe him.”
“But I’m pregnant. And John and I aren’t married.”
“No, you aren’t. I have the feeling you will be very soon.”
Zanny bit her lip. “Is it wrong of me to say that I don’t want him if it’s only because I’m pregnant? And that’s why I haven’t told him?”
“Not wrong at all. No woman wants to be married out of necessity. And while this definitely is going to speed things up a bit, I have no doubt that John wants to marry you. He told me as much before he left for school.” She squeezed Zanny’s hands lightly. “This isn’t the ideal order of things, but I know my son. He’s going to be over the moon as soon as the shock wears off.”
“You really think so?”
“I do.”
Zanny let out a trembling sigh. “I hope you’re right. Dear God, I hope you’re right.” She didn’t really believe John would be happy, but right then, she was willing to borrow Sarah’s faith for her own. That was all she could do.
Chapter Nine
Owen stayed in the barn for some time, trying to calm down enough to not track Dennis Franks down and rip his head off. When Sarah found him, without hesitation, she walked straight up to him and wrapped her arms around him, holding on tight. Owen could feel the fine tremors coursing through her, and he returned the embrace firmly.
“She’s asleep.”
“I want to kill him, Sarah.”
“I know. So do I.”
He hesitated. “This isn’t the first time he’s hit her. She was too casual about it. You would think we would have known. Why didn’t we see?” His voice broke, his heart and mind full of self-recrimination.
Sarah just held him tighter. Finally, after a shuddering sigh, she lifted her head from his shoulder. “She’s safe now. And she will never go back there. We’ll see to that. He won’t get another shot at her.”
They exchanged a look that spoke volumes. Owen knew this incident would probably lead to some nightmares for Sarah, and that made him angry all over again. Seeing Zanny hurt was stirring up painful memories for them both. He cupped her face with a shaking hand and pulled her to him for a comforting kiss. When he lifted his head, he rested his chin on her hair.
For a few minutes, he took simple comfort in the act of holding her close, and Sarah let him. When he felt some of his reason returning, he let her go with another quick kiss. “Just so you know, I’m going to strangle your son. He promised me he would protect her.”
She just shook her head. “Why is it that they’re always my kids when they’re bad, your kids when they’re good? Owen, things happen. This is far from the worst turn of events I can think of. They love each other. They’ll be okay. And I talked to her after you left. They slipped up one time. She’s devastated by that and so embarrassed. John will be, too.”
Owen wasn’t so sure they would be okay. “They’re too young. And he promised me. I had that specific discussion with him before we left. He’s let me down. You know the statistics as well as I do. How many unhappy couples do we see a few years after something like this happens? They get married too young or for the wrong reasons, and it destroys them.” He raked his hands through his hair. “I don’t want that for my children. Or for Zanny. I thought he knew better.”
When she laughed, he glowered at her, which made her laugh harder.
“You think this is funny? Because I sure as hell don�
�t.”
“I don’t think the situation is funny, but you’re outraged over the fact that in the heat of the moment, our son forgot to use protection? That’s hilarious, especially if you take into consideration that we ended up with that same child in exactly the same way.” She walked over to him and curled her hands into his T-shirt. Her gaze was full of love as she looked up at him. “That, I believe, is an excellent example of the definition of irony.”
Owen’s face heated with embarrassment, and he rested his hands on her shoulders and squeezed gently. “We were married when that happened.”
“We were.”
He blew out a frustrated breath. “I guess I’d better call him, get him back here. What’s he going to do about school? How’s he going to finish now?”
“I will call him. You’re still too upset. You’ll just yell at him if you talk to him right now, which might make him too upset to drive home safely. And we’ll figure everything out once the shock has worn off. Come on, let’s finish up the yard work. It’s a good thing the girls are in school. I would hate to have had them witness the whole mess from earlier.”
Owen let her take his hand and lead him out of the barn. “And that you’re off work today. Fine, you call him home. Use the phone in the studio so Zanny doesn’t hear. But I get to claim him once he gets here.”
Chapter Ten
When the lady from the front office called him out of class, telling him that he needed to call home, John immediately thought of his grandmother. Eliza Browning was getting on in years, and though she was still relatively healthy, he knew that could change at any moment. His heart pounding, he found the nearest phone booth and placed the collect call. His mother answered the phone.
“Mom? What’s wrong? Is it Grandma?”
“No. Everyone’s okay. I do need you to come home, though.”
John knew immediately she wasn’t telling him the truth. “You call me out of class, in the middle of the semester, to tell me to come home, but everything is okay. I don’t think so. What’s going on?”
“There was a problem with Dennis Franks. Zanny’s here. She’s okay, I promise you, but she needs you.”
“What kind of problem?”
Sarah hesitated. “He threw her out. He brought her here this morning.”
John sucked in a sharp breath. Moving the receiver away from his face for a few seconds, he cursed virulently. “Can I talk to her?”
“No. She’s asleep. She was pretty upset. Can you let your professors know you have to come home for a few days and head in?”
“Yeah. I can probably be on the road in about an hour. Mom, you swear to me she’s okay?”
“Like I said, she’s upset, and she’s scared, but she’s okay. You be careful coming home, and don’t drive too fast. It won’t do Zanny any good if you wreck trying to get here.”
“I know.” He rubbed his eyes, a niggling thought in the back of his head. He didn’t like the way this sounded. Sarah wasn’t telling him something, and John wondered if he knew what it was. He wasn’t about to ask, in case he was wrong. “Mom? Thanks for calling me.”
“Just get home, John David. I love you.”
“You, too.”
Hanging up, he pressed a hand to his stomach, his mind racing. It was entirely possible Dennis had finally just lost his mind and thrown Zanny out. John knew she was afraid of that. But he didn’t think that was what had happened. Her last two letters to him had been a little vague and distracted. He’d wondered about that, but now, it made an odd kind of sense. He thought back to her assurances that she’d had her period, but that it had been a little lighter than usual.
“What the hell are we going to do?”
He headed back to the class he’d left, formulating what he’d say. That was Thursday, and if he was right about his suspicions, he probably wouldn’t get a chance to come back until sometime the next week. Kentucky had a three-day waiting period for marriage licenses, and he had the feeling he would be needing one.
When Zanny woke up, she was surprised to find Owen seated on the loveseat across from her. He was wearing glasses, and his feet were up on the seat beside him, a portable drawing board braced against his upraised legs. His pencil softly scratched against paper as he sketched. For an instant, he looked so much like John that looking at him almost hurt.
Slowly sitting up, she was thrilled when the nausea didn’t make an appearance.
“Good morning, sunshine.” Owen looked over and smiled. “How do you feel?”
“Okay. Better than I did.”
“That’s good. Sarah had to run and get some groceries. We didn’t want you to wake up alone, so I came in here to work. Think you can eat something?”
Zanny wasn’t quite sure what to think of his relaxed state. She’d always gotten along well with Owen, but she’d had more interaction with Sarah. “I don’t know. I need to excuse myself, though. I’m sorry.”
“Bathroom’s down the hall. You know where. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen you want. Sarah should be back soon. I’ll be here.”
With a quiet smile of thanks, she padded out of the living room and down the hall to the bathroom. She didn’t raise her gaze to the mirror until after she’d washed and dried her hands. “What a mess you are,” she muttered. Her hair was flat on one side and standing straight up on the other, and much as she’d feared, her face was bruised. The area wasn’t terribly dark, but it was obvious where her father had struck her. “I guess it could have been worse.”
Pulling up her sleeve, she winced. The handprint where he’d grabbed her arm was still as clear as if he’d made it minutes ago, instead of hours, only the marks had turned dark blue. When she gently probed the flesh, the resulting pain made her bite her lip. The marks on her face would fade quickly, but her arm would take some time to heal.
Feeling as though she had been dropped into an alien world, she heard a cheery, if off-key, sing-song hum when she came out of the bathroom. She went farther down the hall and into the kitchen. Sarah was there, unloading grocery bags, and as Zanny watched, Owen came in with more. Zanny stood out of the way until he’d passed, then hurried to help. Sarah stopped her.
“You have a seat, young lady. You get a pass today. Are you hungry?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I can fix something.” Zanny eased down onto the kitchen stool on the other side of the counter.
Sarah just smiled. “Let me get these put up, and I’ll play short-order cook.”
“Well, the girl might starve to death before that happens,” Owen teased from the pantry, where he’d started putting away Sarah’s purchases. “How many people are you planning to feed? I about strained my back carrying this in.”
“Hush. This is the normal order, and you know it. It isn’t my fault your teenage daughters are as hungry as the boys were.” She winked at Zanny across the counter. “More so, maybe. But don’t tell them I said that.”
“My daughters, huh?”
Zanny blinked when Owen tossed a small, empty bag in Sarah’s direction and stuck out his tongue. More than ever, she felt as if she’d woken up in a parallel universe. They were acting as though that morning had never happened.
Sarah paused, bananas in hand. “What’s wrong? You have the strangest look on your face.”
Zanny struggled for words. “I don’t—I just didn’t expect the two of you to be so casual about this.” She gestured to herself. “It doesn’t bother you? What we did?”
Owen straightened and came to stand at the end of the counter, picking at the label on a plastic container. “It does bother us, but as someone wise told me a little while ago, it isn’t the end of the world. As a matter of fact, it’s about as far as you can get from the end of the world. Anyhow, yes, we would have preferred a different order to things. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to cond
emn you, Zanny. It’s a baby, not a bank robbery.”
When she burst into tears, he patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Don’t do that. Please don’t. It’s okay. Sarah? A little help?”
“I’m okay,” Zanny insisted. “I don’t know why I’m crying so much.”
“It’s the hormones, and probably the stress,” Sarah told her, coming around to wrap Zanny in a careful hug. “Things will even out. Now, what sounds good? How about some chicken soup?”
Zanny let Sarah fix her lunch, and after they’d all eaten, Owen headed back to his studio. As much as Zanny tried to help with the cleanup, Sarah wouldn’t let her.
“I called John earlier. He’s driving in. Should be here in a couple of hours.”
“Was he upset?”
“Some. I didn’t tell him about the baby, just that your father had brought you here and you were upset. How do you want to handle telling him?”
Zanny crossed her arms over her middle. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure that out for weeks.” She walked to the door that led out to the kitchen garden and looked out. “What a mess. I don’t want him to have to leave school, Sarah. Not because of me.”
“Well, let’s wait and see what we can come up with. Things will work out the way they’re meant to.”
Even though she tried to stay awake, all the long weeks of not sleeping and of being worried to the point of exhaustion had finally caught up with her. She dozed off while Sarah was talking to her as they were sitting on the front porch.
“Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you inside. I’ll put you in Emma’s room and get you something to sleep in. You need rest.”