“Okay.” She grabbed a napkin from the table, blew her nose again and said in a teary voice, “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said, his voice raw with emotion.
Helen, standing forgotten in the kitchen, thought that she would give anything to have Alec say “I love you” to her just like that.
HELEN HELPED preside for the first few hours of Lily’s birthday party. Lily had wanted to invite Ginny for the cake-and-ice cream part, even though she was younger than the other guests. Alec was grateful for Helen’s easy way with the girls as she cut cake, led a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday,” and gently established a seating arrangement for the opening of presents.
Alec dreaded these things. It seemed as if one girl was always jealous because she wanted the birthday girl’s attention while another had some personal crisis that meant tears and drama. Lily invariably had to spend her party smoothing feathers.
While Helen was there, everybody behaved. Bianca wanted to whimper about a broken heart, but Alec overheard Helen taking her aside and murmuring, “I’m so sorry you got hurt, but let’s try to let Lily enjoy her party. I know you don’t want to ruin her pleasure in turning twelve.”
Actually, Bianca would have loved to spoil the party, Alec thought cynically, but once she’d been made to feel guilty she returned to the group looking noble. Her smile barely faltered at the edges.
With the cake devoured, ice cream drips wiped up and the wrapping paper in the recycling bin, the girls laid out sleeping bags in the family room, and argued about which DVD to watch first. Helen and Ginny prepared to leave.
“Happy birthday, Lily!” Helen hugged her.
“Thanks for having me,” Ginny said dutifully.
Lily thanked them nicely for their gift, a necklace with a sterling silver pendant that looked like an origami crane.
When his daughter hurried back to her other guests, Alec grabbed Helen’s hand. “Don’t abandon me!”
She laughed, her eyes merry, kissed his cheek and did just that.
Devlin came home late from a friend’s house, cast one repulsed look at the half-dozen giggling girls, and shut himself in his bedroom. Eventually, Alec was able to do the same.
School started a few days later. With football practices filling Devlin’s afternoons and leaving him exhausted, the teenager became easier to get along with.
Helen left for another trip down the I-5 corridor, stopping in Olympia, Chehalis, Longview and Vancouver. She went on to Portland to “visit their accounts,” she said, and laughed.
“Accounts! Imagine. That sounds so businesslike!”
She was gone all of four days, and he missed her terribly. Helen phoned once, but the connection crackled and she said, “I think my cell phone is dying. I’ll call when I get home, okay?” He hung up feeling frustrated and—damn it!—lonely.
Alec decided dating wasn’t enough. Phone calls every evening were a hell of a lot less satisfying than having Helen comfortably curled in a big chair in the living room reading, ready to go to bed when he went.
He wanted her to be his wife. He was in love with her, and he hoped and prayed she felt the same.
But Helen was no sooner home than the Puyallup Fair began, which meant early mornings and late nights for her and Kathleen. On the couple occasions Alec managed to talk to her, she was distracted and tired.
If he was ever going to see her, clearly he had to “do the Puyallup,” to quote the jingle that was on every radio station.
HE ASKED HER to marry him while they swung above the fairgrounds on the Ferris wheel.
They had left the booth in the hands of Ginny, Emma, Lily and Devlin, and gone wandering among the maze of vendors in search of food. Peter, Paul and Mary were performing in the stadium, “Puff the Magic Dragon” soaring above the whistles and clangs and bloodcurdling screams from the midway. Night was falling, and the aroma of hamburgers and caramel apples and fries wafted through the crowd, mingling with the earthier scents of manure, shavings and hay from the barns. People ate as they strolled, carried neon pink stuffed panthers won at games, mock-dueled with light sabers, called to friends, gathered children.
Alec and Helen had cheeseburgers then caramel apples, which left Helen feeling sticky but contented. Alec’s hand, when it found hers, was sticky, too, but who cared?
“Let’s go on the Ferris wheel,” he said suddenly, looking above her. “I haven’t done that in years.”
She looked up. “It’s an awfully tall one.”
“We’ll be able to see the whole world,” he coaxed. “Come on. The kids will be okay without us a little longer.”
They would, of course. Business had been decent earlier in the day, but in the evening the teenagers came out for the rides, and they didn’t buy soap.
“Okay,” Helen said. “Just don’t laugh if I scream.”
He was already laughing. “You can’t scream on the Ferris wheel!”
“I don’t like heights.”
“I’ll hold you tight,” Alec promised.
He bought two tickets, and in no time they were seated on the swinging bench, a bar lowered over their laps. With a lurch, the wheel started, then stopped for the next couple to be loaded.
Just as they were getting high enough to scare her, the Ferris wheel began to move smoothly. Helen squeaked as they neared the top, but the view was stupendous, the fairgrounds below a kaleidoscope of gaudy lights and crowds and rooftops. The sun was setting, a hazy orange over the Olympic Mountains. If Helen turned her head she could just see the dark bulk of Mount Rainier. Parking lots and city streets and countryside fell away as they were swept up, then down.
Alec’s arm around her shoulders gave her courage to peek down and try to spot their booth. Helen laughed aloud with exhilaration.
“Oh, this is fun!”
“My little coward.”
She elbowed him, just a little poke.
“Helen Schaefer,” he said, “will you marry me?”
Her heart took a leap as dizzying as the Ferris wheel’s upward surge. “What?”
He was looking at her tenderly. “You don’t have to give me an answer, but I thought it was time I asked. I love you. I want you to marry me. I know I’m asking a lot. The kids and I come as a package, and God knows Devlin is no prize right now.”
“I…”
He covered her mouth with his hand, murmured, “Don’t answer, unless you’re going to shout ‘Yes!’”
When she said nothing at all, his hand fell away and the lines seemed to deepen on his face. “I shouldn’t have asked yet.”
“No, it’s not that.” Joy and terror mingled, creating suffocating pressure in her chest. “I’m not saying no. I…I think…” She had to swallow. “I think I want to marry you. But I need some time.”
His face changed again. Whoosh! They plummeted, swept by the operator and the line of waiting customers, rose toward the deep purple sky. Peter, Paul and Mary were singing “Lemon Tree,” about bittersweet love. Helen hoped it wasn’t an omen.
“‘Maybe,’” Alec said, “is plenty good enough for me right now.”
He kissed her as they vaulted over the top of the world, bumped to a stop, swung. Lost in his kisses, Helen forgot to look down at the tangle of metal beneath them and the ground so far below. And she forgot her vow.
Being in love was so sweet, how could it ever hurt?
She didn’t surface until the carnie said in a gruff, amused tone, “End of the ride, folks.”
“Oh!” Flushing, Helen let him lift the bar then scrambled to the platform, swaying as she tried to recover her equilibrium.
Alec gripped her arm and steadied her. Secure on the ground, she felt odd. The Ferris wheel continued loading and unloading behind them. She and Alec walked away in silence. She didn’t know what to say. That same mix of panic and happiness made her a little queasy.
She wanted to marry him. More than anything in the world. She knew she did. The only thing stopping her was…what?
Was she afraid of being hurt? Of course she was. But wasn’t she being paranoid, to shape her life around the possibility that Alec would get cancer or congestive heart failure or whatever, not in thirty or forty years, but soon? They both knew how quickly things could go wrong. She could just as easily be the one who got sick and he wasn’t quailing at the possibility.
She stole a look at Alec, hoping she hadn’t hurt him. He glanced down at the same moment, smiled and squeezed her hand.
“Just remember. I love you.”
Helen sucked in a shaky breath, blinked against the threat of tears and forced her own smile for the kids as they turned into the booth.
“Make a million bucks while we were gone?”
“Yeah, right.” Devlin’s eyes narrowed as he looked from his father’s face to Helen’s and then back again.
Ginny hugged her mother. “You were gone forever.”
“Alec talked me into a ride on the Ferris wheel.” She ruffled her daughter’s hair. “It was very romantic and awfully high.”
“Oh.” Ginny’s brown eyes were reproachful. “I like Ferris wheels.”
“Then I’ll take you for a ride on it tomorrow night.” Helen looked around. “What say we shut the doors and go home?”
“Yeah!” Emma said, pushing herself out of the folding chair where she’d been slumped. “I am so tired.”
Helen closed out the till while the others brought in the tables they’d set out front and lowered the plywood “awning,” locking it securely.
Devlin, who had been unexpectedly cheerful that morning, walked several feet behind the rest in what appeared to be sullen silence. Or maybe she was misjudging. He might just be tired, like they all were.
She said quietly to Emma, “Do you know? Is something wrong?” She nodded just slightly to indicate the trailing teenager.
Emma glanced back. “No-o-o. I don’t think so.”
The walk to the exhibitors’ parking lot seemed longer each day. Helen was glad to get there.
They’d brought two cars, and arrived at hers first. Pulling keys from her tote, she said, “Thank you all so much. Alec, Devlin and Lily, you were a huge help!”
“It was fun,” Lily said.
“Yeah, it was.” Alec squeezed the nape of Helen’s neck. “You drive carefully.”
“You, too.” She rested her cheek on Alec’s hand, just for an instant. She would have liked to lean against him.
“You’re worried about him?” his son said loudly. “That’s a joke!”
As if in slow motion, they all turned. The teen’s usually handsome face was twisted into an expression Helen could only think of as mean.
“Devlin!” his father snapped.
Shocked, Helen asked, “Why would you say something like that?”
In a tone suggesting they were all stupid not to know, the boy said, “Because he’s going to die anyway.” Turning an ugly look on his father, he added, “Or didn’t he tell you?”
Beside her, Alec stared at his son as if he were a stranger.
A sickening sense of foreboding chilled Helen despite the warm night air. Her voice emerged just above a whisper. “Tell me what?”
“He had a heart attack! He tried to check out after Mom died.” The boy’s shrug was jerky, less indifferent than he was trying for. “So, he’ll have another one. And then he’ll croak.”
From far away, Helen heard Lily crying. Emma had put her arm around Ginny, who shriveled against her and stared. Helen seemed incapable of responding to any of them. Instead, she turned and faced Alec.
“Is that true? Did you have a heart attack?”
Discomfort and something she read as guilt tightened his face. “I had a minor heart attack. There were…special circumstances. Even the cardiologist doesn’t expect a repeat. I’ve gotten a clean bill of health ever since.”
He said more, something in her face causing him to talk faster and faster, until they all heard the desperation underlying his explanation.
There was something about a kink in an artery that had created a bottleneck where a blockage occurred. A shunt. He had a shunt, to open up the bottleneck. He was in great shape. Ate right. The heart of a twenty-year-old, the cardiologist said. He ran four times a week. Damage was minimal. Meaningless. No reason to think…
She heard it all, and none of it.
A heart attack. All of this time, they’d talked about the pain of losing their spouses, and Alec had never said, “I had a scare myself.” He knew how awful those two years had been for her, how afraid she was to love again, with the specter of that loss never leaving her side.
He had let her fall in love with him, and never warned her.
Her voice interrupting him was cold, harsh. “Please don’t come tomorrow. Kids, get in.”
She got in the car, closed her door and leaned over to unlock the passenger side. Emma and Ginny hurried ’round the car and scrambled in. Helen backed out and drove away, across the bumpy field, without once glancing at Alec or his children.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ALEC STOOD MOTIONLESS, staring after Helen’s car. Two minutes ago, he’d believed she would marry him. Now, this fast, she was gone. Out of his life.
Agony gutted him. If he had been alone, he might have crumpled to his knees.
Lily’s sobbing penetrated when nothing else might have. He turned, held out his arm to her and looked at his son. “Happy?”
Devlin’s face was bleached white, his eyes shocked. “I…”
Unlocking his jaw, Alec laid down one rock-hard word at a time. “Don’t…say…anything.”
Guiding Lily, he turned and walked toward their car. He guessed Devlin was trailing behind; right this minute, he didn’t care. He hadn’t known he could come so close to hating his own child.
Lily cried the entire time. He unlocked her door, helped buckle her in, and walked ’round to the driver’s side as Devlin climbed in the back. Then he drove home, without one of them saying a word the entire forty-five minutes.
Alec had barely pulled into the garage when Devlin wrenched open the car door, jumped out and raced upstairs. As the garage door closed behind them, Alec turned off the engine and sat wondering if he had the energy to follow.
And do what? Pretend to work or watch TV or read? Get on with life, as if he’d never met Helen? Cheer Devlin on in the next JV football game, as if he hadn’t willfully, hatefully destroyed his father’s chance at happiness?
Alec didn’t know if he could do it. Any of it.
His eyes were dry and burning; his body ached as if he had the flu. He was tired to his bones, sad and angry.
If anything would keep him going, it was the anger.
“Daddy?”
He had been both aware and not aware of Lily, who hadn’t moved to get out of the car either. Of her puffy face and wet eyes and shuddery breaths.
“Yeah, honey?”
“I’m scared.”
Once again, she recalled him to obligations and the people who loved him. The thought hurt, because Helen wasn’t one of them, but his daughter needed him.
He took her hand. “Why are you scared?”
Pained bewilderment gazed up at him. “Why did Dev say that?”
The blade in his chest twisted. “I don’t know,” Alec said thickly. “I guess I’ve got to find out.”
“Will you—” her breath hitched “—forgive him?”
“He’s my son. How can I not?” He knew it was the truth, but for now felt only anger and confusion. Why? Why? “I’ll talk to him.” But not now. God help him, not now. “It�
�s not your worry, Lily.”
“I like Helen,” she said in a small voice. “I thought…maybe…”
Pain crashed into him, a wall of it. He, too, had thought maybe.
I’m not saying no. I think I want to marry you.
Words to hug close to his heart. She loved him. She had to, or she couldn’t have been so close to overcoming her fears.
“Devlin’s right,” he said to himself as much as to Lily. “I should have told her. It never occurred to me.”
“Are you going to die?”
He turned his head to see Lily’s eyes welling again with tears.
“No!” He bent to hug her fiercely. “You remember what I told you. I’m going to be fine. Your brother was just making trouble.”
She nodded against his shoulder, sniffled. “Okay.”
He gave one more squeeze, then released her. “Let’s go up, shall we?”
Somehow he found the strength in him to trudge up the stairs to the kitchen, to ask if Lily was hungry, to be glad she wasn’t.
“Can I watch TV?” she asked, and he nodded, his ability to give any more just about bottomed out.
Alec sat on a stool at the breakfast bar, propped his elbows on the counter and buried his face in his hands.
Would she listen to him? Would she believe he hadn’t meant to lie, even by omission, that he had genuinely never considered his health an issue?
Was he in denial? he asked himself. Had he just not wanted to admit that if the damn artery had blocked once, it could again, that he might die, leave his children alone, put Helen through hell?
Alec didn’t like to think of himself as stupid, but the last time Alec had seen his cardiologist, he’d said, “No need for you to come back in six months. Let’s make it a year this time.”
He was fine. Had never felt better.
That one scare had been a wake-up call. He’d grabbed fast food when he was in a hurry, never thought about the fat content of anything he put in his mouth, didn’t worry about regular exercise because he thought he was reasonably fit.
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