The Soldier's Secret Child

by Lee Tobin McClain

  Charlie’s lower lip began to stick out. “I want to go to my own room.”

  Except it wasn’t his own room. “Just a little while, buddy.”

  The dark-haired man stood and went down to his truck. He came back with a sandwich encased in plastic wrap and an apple. “Here,” he said to Charlie. “It’s good. Turkey and cheese.”

  “Thanks!” Charlie grabbed the sandwich and started unwrapping it.

  “That’s your lunch, man,” Vito protested.

  “I have kids. I understand.” He sat back down in the same porch chair.

  “Hey, you don’t have to wait around. I won’t bother her.”

  “I said I’d wait,” the man said quietly. “No offense.”

  So they sat in silence while Charlie scarfed down the sandwich, and then played in the yard with Wolfie. It was another forty-five minutes before Lacey came out the door.

  “Thanks, Eduardo,” she said, still not looking at Vito. “I’m sorry to keep you from your work. I’m fine now.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  They both watched as Eduardo trotted down the steps and swung into his truck. Charlie came over, holding Wolfie tight on his leash, in control for once. “Hi, Miss Lacey,” he said uncertainly.

  She knelt in front of him, giving Wolfie a quick head rub, and then turning her full attention to Charlie. “I need to talk to you about something serious,” she said. “Can you listen?”

  He nodded, eyes wide.

  “I like you a lot,” she said. “I’m really sorry it didn’t work out for me and your dad, but that’s not your fault.”

  Charlie swallowed hard, and Vito did the same.

  “You always have a safe home with your dad. That isn’t changing. You don’t run away from him anymore, okay?”

  “Okay.” Charlie’s voice was low.

  “And because I really like you, this is hard, but...you and your dad are going to need to move out.”

  Charlie looked down at the floor, nodded and turned away, nuzzling his face in Wolfie’s fur. Wolfie, seeming to understand the boy’s sadness, whined a little and licked Charlie’s face.

  Vito felt like he’d been punched in the stomach, hard.

  Lacey stood and faced him. “Vito, I’ve made arrangements for Nonna to stay at the Senior Towers. They have a room open for her for however long she needs, and they can help her move in tomorrow. I have a call in to a friend of mine, a nurse, who’ll check on her every day.”

  “You didn’t have to—”

  “Let me finish.” She held up a hand. “You’re going to have to find another place for you and Charlie to stay. I’m going away for a few days, and I want you out when I get back.” Her voice was cold and distant.

  She didn’t wait for an answer, but turned and walked into the house, letting the door bang behind her.

  Vito’s shoulders slumped and he felt like collapsing down onto the porch and burying his head in his hands.

  She was really, truly rejecting him. He loved her, and he’d lost her. Despair clutched his stomach with strong, cold fingers.

  But he had a son to care for.

  He swallowed the lump in his throat and straightened his shoulders. Looked out across the lawn.

  There was Charlie’s basketball. They couldn’t forget that.

  He walked down the steps, heavily, to pick it up.

  “We gonna play, Dad?” Charlie asked eagerly.

  “No, son.” Vito carried the basketball up the stairs, not even bouncing it. “We’re going to have to start packing, and I have to start looking for a new place for us to live.”

  He went to the front door, held it open for Charlie, and then followed the boy inside.

  He felt utterly broken. And the only reason he was standing upright, trying to be strong, was because Nonna and Charlie depended on him.

  * * *

  It was Lacey’s fifth day at the Ohio Rural Retreat Center, and she was finding some small measure of peace.

  She’d cried so much that her eyes felt permanently swollen. She’d prayed almost continually. She’d sought counsel with the center’s spiritual advisors.

  She knew now that she needed to put her faith in God, not men.

  She knew she wasn’t healed yet, not even close.

  The thought of Fiona Farmingham coming to visit with her today was terrifying. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Fiona; she barely knew her. And she had Fiona to thank for the idea of coming here. When she’d blurted out a piece of an explanation to Eduardo in that horrible truck ride home—“my husband wasn’t who I thought he was”—Eduardo had urged her to get in touch with Fiona, who’d had something similar happen to her. And then he’d gone further and called Fiona, who’d texted her the address of the retreat center where she’d stayed when her world had fallen apart.

  There was a knock on the door of her small, monk-like cell. “Your visitor is here,” came the quiet, soothing voice of the retreat receptionist.

  Trying not to show her reluctance, Lacey went out to the reception area and greeted Fiona with a handshake, then an awkward hug.

  “Would you like to walk?” Fiona asked. “When I was here, I always liked the trail around the pond.”

  “Um, sure.” She hoped Fiona didn’t plan to stay long, that she wouldn’t say anything to burst the fragile, peaceful bubble Lacey had built around herself.

  But it couldn’t last forever, of course. She was going to have to get back to renovating the guesthouse. To rebuilding her life in Rescue River as a strong single woman.

  That had been her goal all along. When and why had she let that fade? But she knew the answer: it was when Vito and Charlie had come. Ever so gradually, they’d slipped into her heart so that now, having lost them, she didn’t feel strong. She felt weak and vulnerable and raw.

  “Thanks for agreeing to a visit,” Fiona said as they walked toward the center’s small pond, separated from the main building by a stand of trees. “I just felt really led to talk to you. And if your nights have been anything like mine were, you’re not sleeping well, so I figured an early morning visit would be okay.”

  “I appreciate it,” Lacey lied politely. “Where are your kids?”

  “With the nanny,” Fiona said, sounding apologetic. It was no secret that she was quite wealthy after her scandalous divorce settlement, but she didn’t flaunt her money; in fact, people said she didn’t like mentioning it.

  A red-winged blackbird, perched on a cattail at the pond’s edge, let out its trademark “okalee, okalee” before taking flight, bright red and yellow wing patches flashing in the early morning sun. “This is an amazing place,” Lacey said, meaning it. “Thank you for telling me about it.”

  “Of course. How are you doing?” The question wasn’t a surface platitude, but a real inquiry.

  “I’m...managing, but barely,” Lacey admitted.

  “That’s normal,” Fiona said matter-of-factly. “When I found out my husband had a whole other family, it took a year to even start to feel normal again.”

  Her blunt words reached Lacey in a way the retreat counselors’ soothing tones hadn’t. Fiona had been there, had experienced the loss and humiliation Lacey was going through. “Did you ever feel like it might have been a dream, like you were going to wake up any minute and none of it would be true?”

  Fiona nodded. “All the time. And then you keep on realizing, no, it’s true, my life wasn’t at all like what it seemed to be.”

  “Exactly. It’s like my memories were stolen. The happiness I had with Gerry was all a huge lie.”

  “Well.” Fiona reached out to run her fingers alongside the reeds that rimmed the pond. “I don’t know if it was all a lie. My therapist said that men who lead double lives can really believe they love bot
h women. Or in my case, both families.”

  Lacey inhaled the rich, damp-earth fragrance of the wetlands. “I don’t know how you stood it, with four kids to watch out for. I’m barely managing with just myself.”

  “You do what you have to do. For me, the betrayal was the worst part. It messed with my whole image of myself as a woman, like I wasn’t enough.”

  Lacey looked over at Fiona, tall, with long, wavy red hair and an hourglass figure. She had felt like she wasn’t enough? “Did you get over that?”

  Fiona shook her head. “You will, I’m sure, but I didn’t. I’ve got my hands full with my kids and starting a business. Even if I felt like I could trust a man again—which I don’t—I wouldn’t have time for it.”

  “I hear you. My guesthouse is yelling for me to get back to renovations.”

  They walked in companionable silence for a few minutes. Green-headed mallards flew down and landed on the pond, skidding along. Overhead, the sky turned a brighter blue.

  “I just wonder if everyone in town knew but me,” Lacey burst out finally.

  “I wondered the same thing, and I found out as soon as the truth started getting publicized. People did know, and they rushed to tell me how they’d suspected, or what they’d heard.” She sighed. “That was bad enough, but when my kids started getting teased and bullied, I’d had it. I had to leave. It’s why I moved to Rescue River.”

  “Oh, how awful for you and your kids!” Lacey felt almost ashamed for being upset about her own situation. Fiona, with her four kids suffering, had it so much worse.

  “It was awful, but things are better now. Much better. What happened with your husband? How did you find out?”

  So Lacey explained the whole situation. “And then Vito, he brought Gerry’s child into my home! He was living there all along, knowing that secret.”

  “Ouch.”

  The sun was rising higher, and Lacey slipped off her sweatshirt and tied it around her waist. “He was an old friend, but he lied to me.”

  “Did he actively lie? He seems like a really nice guy, but you never know.”

  Lacey thought back. “No, he never actively lied. I think the subject of Charlie’s dad might have come up once, but he told me Charlie’s father had died. And that he was Vito’s war buddy. All of which was technically true. But—” she lifted her hands, palms up “—why did he come to live in the guesthouse—with my husband’s son—when he had to know how much the truth would hurt me? And then we...” Tears rose to her eyes and she blinked them back. “We started getting close. I thought he cared for me.” She almost choked on her words.

  Fiona put an arm around her, giving her a quick shoulder-hug. “That sounds so hurtful. But do you think he did it on purpose, to be mean?”

  Unbidden, an image of Vito’s kind face swam before Lacey’s teary eyes. She thought back over the time when he’d decided to stay at the guesthouse. “Nooooo,” she said slowly. “He was actually reluctant to stay, and only agreed because his grandma was so keen on it.”

  “So he didn’t exactly come knocking on your door, looking for a place to live.”

  “No. But he should have told me the truth!”

  “He should have.” Fiona hesitated. “That’s a pretty hard thing to tell.”

  “I guess.” Lacey didn’t want to look at Vito’s side, not yet. She was still too angry at him.

  “And the thing is, were you perfect? That’s what my counselor made me look at, in my situation. Were there any mistakes you made, in your marriage?”

  “I was stupid,” Lacey said bitterly.

  “Well...yeah. You kind of were.”

  Lacey blinked, surprised. Not many people would speak that bluntly to someone who wasn’t an old friend.

  “We weren’t wise as serpents, were we?” Fiona stared off into the distance. “Neither of us. And people suffered because of it.”

  Lacey had never thought of it that way. She’d focused on how she was an innocent victim, not on how she’d had a responsibility to be wise as well as gentle and kind.

  And yes, people had suffered. She thought of Charlie’s hurt face when she’d told him she wouldn’t be doing things with Vito anymore. It was a big part of why he’d run away.

  Kicking him and Vito out on the street... Making Nonna move to the Towers... Yeah. “I’ve made a lot of people miserable, dragged them down with me.”

  They were coming to the end of the loop around the pond. “Don’t beat yourself up. That’s not what I mean at all. I’m really sorry for what happened to you. It’s just...we’re all a mix, right? Nobody’s perfect. Not your husband, not you. And not Vito, either.”

  “True.”

  They walked quietly for a few more minutes, and when they reached the parking lot, Fiona stopped. “I’ve got to get back to the kids. But I just want you to know, there’s life after this. You can come back, live well. Keep on praying, and I’ll pray for you, too.”

  They hugged, for real this time. “Thanks for coming to see me,” Lacey said. “It helped. A lot.”

  And as she waved, and then headed back inside, she felt better. Not healed, but better. And it was a good thing, because tomorrow she had to go back to town, hold her head high and probably encounter Vito and Charlie.

  Chapter Sixteen

  A week later, Vito parked in front of the Senior Towers and headed inside. He’d been so busy with Charlie and his job that he hadn’t visited his grandmother for the past couple of days, and he felt guilty.

  That wasn’t the reason for the heaviness in his soul, though. That came from his unresolved issues with Lacey. Even now, if he looked down the street, he could see her on the porch of her guesthouse, talking and laughing with a couple of visitors.

  He hoped to catch her eye, but she didn’t even glance his way.

  He trudged inside the Senior Towers, trying to look at the bright side. Charlie was doing well; Vito had explained the whole situation to his social worker, and a couple of sessions with her, Vito, and Charlie had helped the boy to understand as much of the truth as an eight-year-old needed to know. They’d talked over running away, and Charlie had promised to make a phone call to his social worker if he ever felt like doing it again.

  They’d found half of a double to rent on the edge of town, with a huge fenced yard and a dog-friendly neighbor in the other half of the house. So that was another good thing.

  His course work was going well, and his new job even better. He loved working with the at-risk boys, and already his supervisor had talked with him about a possible full-time opening once he had his degree.

  The scars weren’t really an issue, in the job or otherwise. In fact, he felt almost foolish about how much he’d let them get in his way when he’d first returned to Rescue River. Now if a newcomer stared or a kid made a comment, he could let it roll off him, knowing that to most people, it was what was inside that mattered.

  Lacey had helped him see that first. He owed her a debt of gratitude, but it was one he couldn’t pay. To approach her again, after what he’d done, would be an insult to her.

  He straightened his shoulders and ordered himself to focus on what he could do, not on what he couldn’t. He’d go spend time with Nonna, help her feel better and recover from the move.

  He walked into the Senior Towers and crossed the lobby. He was about to push the button on the elevator when he distinguished Nonna’s voice, and he turned to see her emerging from the exercise room in the midst of a crowd of women. She wore hot pink sweats and a T-shirt that said... He squinted and read the words, Vintage Workout Queen.

  She walked to him and gave him a strong hug. “My Vito! Come on. Sit down here in the lobby. I can spare a few minutes before I meet with my business partners.”

  Vito blinked. “Business partners?”

  “Yes, Lou Ann and Minni
e. The matchmaking business is taking off. Now, tell me what’s new with you, and you know what I mean.”

  He tried to deflect the conversation to his work, and to Charlie, but Nonna saw right through it.

  “I’m glad those things are going well, but what about Lacey? Have you mended that fence yet?”

  He shook his head. “No, and I don’t think it’s going to get mended. Some things just can’t be fixed.” Nonna didn’t know the details of what had happened between them, didn’t know about Charlie’s parentage, but she knew something serious had split them apart.

  “Bella? Are you ready?” It was Lou Ann Miller, and it took Vito a minute to realize she was talking to Nonna. He’d almost forgotten his grandmother had a first name. “Oh, hello, Vito.”

  “Go rouse Minnie,” Nonna instructed the other woman. “We have to do a quick consultation with our first client, Vito, here, before we start working on our business plan.”

  That was the last thing he needed. “Nonna... I was really just coming to check on you, not to talk about my own troubles. How are you feeling?”

  She waved a hand. “I’m fine. Better every day, and these ladies—” she waved toward Lou Ann and Minnie, now both coming down the hall, talking busily “—they keep me in the loop. Lou Ann knows about all the news outside the Towers, and Minnie knows what’s going on inside. I love it here!”

  Vito felt a pang. He wasn’t really needed by his grandma, not anymore. Nonna was making a new life for herself.

  The other two women reached the cozy corner where Nonna and Vito sat, and Lou Ann pulled up chairs for both of them, leaving Vito surrounded and without an escape route.

  Immediately, Nonna launched an explanation. “Vito, here, is estranged from the woman he most loves, because of some kind of fight. He thinks the relationship is doomed.”

  “Do you still have feelings for her?” Lou Ann demanded.

  He was torn between telling the three interfering woman to go jump in the lake and embracing them for taking his troubles seriously. He chose the latter. “I still have feelings. But I did something that hurt her terribly.”