by Gayle Roper
Leigh smiled at him. “You’re a good man, Clay Wharton.”
He smiled uncertainly back and reached absently for the picture on the floor. He looked at it and blinked. He sat up straight and blinked again. He turned it over and read aloud, “Will Wharton, age 10.” He turned the picture face front. “Unbelievable!”
Leigh smiled wryly at his reaction. “That’s how they all figured it out.”
“I brought this down from the attic?” he guessed. He studied the picture, his expression greedy. “I suppose this means he’ll look like Dad when he grows up.” He glanced at Leigh and said hastily, “That wouldn’t be a bad thing. Dad was a good-looking man.”
“That he was. And I think it would be wonderful if he looked like your father.”
“Quiet.” Ted sounded imperious even at a whisper. Terror whuffled agreement.
Leigh thought of Will Wharton bending over her little red Civic. She thought of him saying, Is there a possibility that you’re pregnant, do you think? Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you. “But I’d rather he has your dad’s character and compassion and godly heart.”
Clay nodded. “He was an extraordinary man.”
“Not many busy doctors would take on a pregnant eighteen-year-old just because his wife said God said they should.”
“Is that how it happened? Mom said God told her?” Clay looked at Ted. “I thought it was you.”
Ted managed a head shake.
“Tapped her on the shoulder in my line at the Acme,” Leigh said.
“That doesn’t sound like Mom.”
Leigh shrugged. “Maybe that’s why Will listened.”
“Downstairs,” Ted muttered. “Go. I need sleep!”
“Sorry,” Leigh whispered. “We’ll be quiet. We don’t want to leave you.” What she really didn’t want all of a sudden was to be alone with Clay. She rested her head against the back of Ted’s because in that position she couldn’t see Clay.
She knew they had to talk because there were so many feelings and issues to sort through. Still, the thought of being that vulnerable and open after years of protecting herself was terrifying. What if he guessed how she felt about him, had always felt about him? All she foresaw was potential humiliation, and it petrified her.
“Go,” Ted ordered. “Won’t die while you’re gone. Promise.”
“Ted!” Leigh gave him the slightest bump, and he gave a little laugh that turned into a deep cough. When he stilled, she kissed his ear.
He batted a hand at her. “Go. I mean it. I’m okay now.”
Clay got up and walked around the bed. He held out a hand to Leigh, and she didn’t know what to do but take it. He helped her to her feet. He kept her hand as they left the room and made their way downstairs. She felt as awkward and shy as she had all those years ago, and she hated it. She took a deep breath and whispered, “I am a new creation in Christ.”
“What?” Clay smiled down at her.
She shook her head. “Nothing.” But she felt better as she held that truth close.
They looked in the family room and found Bill asleep on the sofa, the TV flickering, the volume so low it was a wonder he had heard anything.
“He didn’t want to disturb Ted,” Leigh whispered, proud of that kind of consideration from a boy his age.
“He’s a wonderful kid,” Clay said, and her heart swelled. She knew he meant it. After all, he had said it earlier this evening, before he knew Bill was his.
“Sometimes he reminds me of you so very much,” she said, hoping it was a good thing to say.
Clay blinked and shook his head. “I still can’t believe it.”
Bill stirred, and they wandered to the kitchen before their talking woke him. They stood facing each other, each leaning one hip against the counter. Clay, still holding her hand, cleared his throat, but Leigh spoke first.
“Are you mad at me?”
“What?” He looked surprised at the question.
“You have a right to be mad at me, to be furious. I’ve kept you from your son.”
He nodded. “Maybe there’s some anger, but there’s much more shame over how I behaved. I guess I wish you’d told me when you found out you were pregnant. Then I wouldn’t feel like such an idiot now.”
“If I’d told you, you’d have wanted to do the right thing and marry me for all the wrong reasons, and they’d have kicked you out of the Academy.”
He shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal. “You’re right. No married midshipmen. But there were other colleges.”
She shook her head. “Not for you there weren’t.”
He didn’t deny that truth, and she wondered if he really would have married her. Or if he even should have. He’d gone off on vacation, off to Annapolis, off to a life of his choosing while she’d been forced to live the life she’d been handed. A compulsory marriage would have been a disaster, a worse catastrophe than his ignoring her was.
But there could have been, should have been a middle ground.
As his thumb drew circles on the back of her hand and she felt his sincere regret and remorse, she felt herself falling under his spell all over again. Because in spite of everything in their past, today he was a wonderful man. Because in spite of everything, she was so very attracted to him.
He squeezed her hand and said in a voice rife with sorrow, “I didn’t even check to see if you were all right.”
Remember that, she told herself, steeling herself to ignore the aching tenderness in his voice. Just because you’re an idiot who’s still in love with him doesn’t mean he feels anything for you but regret.
She lifted her chin. “At least you know now that I’m not all those terrible things you thought I was.”
He flinched. “I should have known better.”
“You should have.”
“I mean, there was no evidence.”
“None at all.”
“I watched you. I know.”
She frowned. “What do you mean, you watched me?”
He shrugged. “Just what I said. I watched you. I observed you. You fascinated me.”
“You observed me.” For some reason, that idea made her feel violated. “Sort of like I was a virus growing under a microscope?”
He waved away that picture. “No, no. More like you were a beautiful diamond glinting in the sunlight. All your mysterious facets intrigued me.”
A diamond was definitely better than a virus, but still. “When?”
“Then. Now. Back in high school. On visits to Mom and Dad. Here at the house. Whenever I was around you, which I admit hasn’t been much.”
“Why?”
“Because you captivated me. You always have. You still do.”
She blinked. She knew she’d just been paid a high compliment, but she couldn’t allow herself to be impressed by it. She would remain aloof, independent. It was her only protection. “I mean why haven’t you been around?”
“Recently because it was painful to see you, so very painful.”
She brought him pain, not the soaring joy he could bring to her. She bled a bit at that hit. Well, what had she expected? Maybe she was fascinating, but so was a space alien or a two-headed goat. She was right to guard her heart.
“Back then I did drive past your house before I left for the Academy,” he said. “Several times. You were never there.”
“I was working two jobs.”
He nodded. “I even got up the nerve to call when I came home at Christmas.”
“By then I was already six months pregnant and living in Glassboro.”
“But I didn’t know that.”
“You could have learned it with a couple of quick questions.”
He sighed, regret evident. “I could have.”
“Too bad I didn’t matter enough to you to motivate you to ask the questions.”
“You mattered.” His voice was deep, intimate.
“I did?” She hoped she sounded skeptical rather than delighted.
He nodded. “You do
.”
She stared at their joined hands. When had he taken her other hand? How she wanted to believe him, to trust him, but she’d been down that path before. She didn’t have the courage to open herself like that again. She pulled out her old mantra: If she’d truly mattered, he’d have come to her, for her. So she snorted and pulled her hands free.
“I only mattered hormonally, and then only for an evening.” She turned and walked from the room before she started to cry. She told herself she had been right all these years. He was a louse.
She stopped at the family room door. “Come on, Bill. Time to go home.” When he didn’t move, she walked over and shook him. “Come on, bub. Up you go.”
“I can carry him,” Clay said from directly behind her.
“No. He’ll walk.”
She shook Bill until he staggered to his feet. She turned him toward the back door, holding on to him to show him the way. He sleepwalked as she directed.
How many times through the years have I left this house with my son? How come it never hurt quite like this before?
Clay stood by the kitchen door, waiting. “I’ll walk you across.”
She shook her head. “Why don’t you just watch?” Her voice could have cut the glinting diamonds he had compared her to.
The door opened as she reached for the knob, and Julia and David walked in, windblown and much at ease with each other. Julia looked relaxed. The tension in the room hit them both immediately, and they looked from Leigh to Clay.
“Good night,” Leigh said quickly. “Billy and I are just leaving.”
“Bill,” the boy muttered as he stumbled down the steps.
The two of them walked across the yard, Mama falling into step as they reached the door.
The two of us, she thought. She glanced at Mama and corrected herself. The three of us. My family.
“I didn’t know,” she heard Clay say in wonder and sorrow to his mother as he watched her. “I didn’t know.”
“And you didn’t bother to find out, did you?” Julia asked, her voice more acerbic than Leigh had ever heard it. Julia’s sigh drifted on the night air. “That’s what hurts and disappoints me the most.”
Give it to him, Julia. He deserves it. Make him bleed.
So why, she wondered as she climbed the steps to the apartment, do I feel so miserable for him?
Twenty-four
HE STARED ACROSS the lawn at the house for a few minutes, then turned and looked up at Leigh-Leigh’s apartment. His insides were tossing with anger.
Just like the waves, he thought in an unusual flight of fancy. My stomach feels just like the waves look. He shivered. He hated the waves! He hated feeling this way.
But the waves weren’t his problem right now. Frustration was.
They weren’t taking him seriously.
He’d almost killed that stupid little dog and the kid, and they still weren’t taking him seriously. They were throwing birthday parties and having fun!
When Leigh-Leigh and the brother and the kid went out to her house, he thought they’d get the treasure and bring it right to him. That was the way it was supposed to happen. That was the way it should have happened.
But no. They’d come home empty-handed. They’d even been smiling! They should have been shaking with fear, fear of him.
And she wouldn’t answer her phone. How was he supposed to threaten her if she wouldn’t answer her phone?
Somehow he had to make them pay attention! All he needed was an idea.
Once when he was a kid, his old man had come home drunk and passed out before he made it inside. He lay on his back in the yard. Somehow he threw up, and all the ugly, smelly stuff just lay there in his mouth, the part that didn’t spill out and dribble down his cheek and into the grass. He started to make terrible choking sounds.
He had grabbed the old man’s arm and tried to turn him over, tried to move him so the stuff would go out of his mouth and throat. He’d been shaking and so scared.
“Ma,” he yelled as he pulled and pulled, but he was too weak to move the heavy weight. He ran inside. “Help!”
“Get out of my sight, you little weasel,” his mother said as she kicked in his direction.
“Pa’s sick!”
She snorted. “He sure is.”
“He’s choking! He’s gonna die!”
She just stared at him. “Liar.” She walked into the kitchen without a backward glance.
“Little liar,” Stanley taunted him from the sofa where he was slouched watching TV.
“Stanley, you’ve got to help.” He ran to his brother and grabbed his arm. “He’s choking!”
Even today as he stood in the quiet backyard, he remembered his terror and the metallic taste of fear on his little boy’s tongue. He hated the old man, but he didn’t want him to choke to death in the front yard. It wasn’t right somehow.
Stanley had sneered at him and hit him on the side of the head, knocking him to the floor. He saw stars and bit his tongue, and blood fell onto the rug. He’d get a beating for that, he knew. Tears fell too, but he couldn’t tell if they were because he hurt or because no one paid any attention to him.
The old man was going to die because no one would listen to him. Just like when Stanley set the garage on fire, and no one believed him when he said it was burning until the fire engine came. They had a burned-out garage for five years before it finally fell down.
“Hey, sweetheart, honey bunch!” The voice was deep and loud and came from the front door. It was Ma’s latest, Georgie. “I got me a drunken bum here who was drowning in his own vomit right there in the yard. Looks bad to the neighbors, baby.”
Ma came running from the kitchen with a great big smile. “Georgie!”
So the old man wouldn’t die. He guessed he felt relieved. He pushed himself back against the wall, hoping Georgie wouldn’t notice him. Georgie always rapped him on the head with his knuckles, and it hurt lots.
Ma pushed open the door, and Georgie dragged the old man into the house. “Where?” he asked Ma.
“Who cares?” she said, looking with disgust at the limp figure with the awful slime down his front. He stank, and Stanley made mocking noises like he wanted to throw up too. Worm gagged for real, but he didn’t let himself get sick. The blood on the rug was bad enough.
“How about we leave him here?” Georgie asked Ma.
Ma nodded, and Georgie dropped the old man. He hit the floor with a terrible thud, but he landed face down. Georgie stepped over the body and grabbed Ma. They started giggling and kissing. Then they ran upstairs.
“Go outside, Stanley, Ernie,” she yelled. “Don’t come back ’til I call you.”
Nobody called to him now. He was alone, but he was going to be rich. It was just a matter of time and a good plan.
Twenty-five
CLAY SAT ON THE jetty facing toward land, watching Terror run down the beach at breakneck speed, apply the brakes, spin and run back with just as much energy and zest. He had rarely looked happier.
At least someone’s happy, Clay thought as the dog grabbed a pile of browned and broken sea grasses in his teeth and tossed it in the air. As it rained down on him, he chased as many pieces as he could, nipping at them, snarling and barking to chase away the grave danger they represented to the canine population of Seaside.
Maybe there’s a magic wand in one of those piles. Clay took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Wouldn’t it be great if life’s problems could be dealt with that simply?
He’d been sitting here since before sunrise, thinking, praying. He’d gone back to the house a couple of times to refill his coffee mug and get something to munch. He nodded to his mother when she came to the kitchen, and she nodded back, but they didn’t speak. Neither one seemed to have anything to say.
But he’d heard her all night, over and over.
“And you didn’t bother to find out, did you? That’s what hurts and disappoints me the most.”
Rarely had either of his parents said he disapp
ointed them. Her comments, deserved though they were, cut deeply.
It wasn’t just that he’d disappointed her. It was that she knew what Leigh had been through, and when she spoke, it was from knowledge. Her distress showed him quite clearly how much Leigh had suffered because of him.
He was on his third large mug of coffee as he watched Terror pick his way across the jetty to him. A brisk rub on the head and the dog was off again. Sighing, Clay turned back to the sea, and, forearms resting on his knees, stared blankly at the horizon.
God, I didn’t know! I should have, but I didn’t. How did I not know? How could I not know? Shouldn’t you feel it somehow when you have a son? Shouldn’t you be able to sense it somewhere deep in your heart or soul?
And shouldn’t you know when you’ve irrevocably changed the life of a girl you loved, however adolescent and selfish that love was?
Obviously not.
Last night when he’d realized what Ted was telling him, he’d been devastated. She’d known that, and she’d held his hand. She’d comforted him. She’d tried to make him feel less guilty, less a failure.
She was amazing. She’d broken his heart and mended his spirit at the same time.
And then she’d withdrawn. She’d stuck her firm little chin in the air and become the stone princess again, pulling up the drawbridge and leaving Don Quixote standing alone on the other side of the moat.
And he hadn’t the vaguest idea why.
The surprise was that her distancing herself hurt as much as Ted’s bombshell of a story. The very last thing he wanted from her was detachment, separation. She’d shared her concern, her warmth. She’d looked into his eyes and offered absolution and understanding. He wasn’t sure about a lot of things this morning, but he knew with certainty that he wanted to be the recipient of that grace again.
Maybe if he could figure out why she pulled back, he could figure out how to fix whatever was bothering her. As an officer and an engineer, he was by nature and training a problem solver, and he was good at it. He stared at the horizon and played back their conversations of last night again and again. Try as he would, he couldn’t put a finger on any one thing that upset her. She’d just slowly pulled away.