These Sheltering Walls: A Cane River Romance

by Hathaway, Mary Jane

  Alice turned to Gideon and Tom, then back Henry. “Okay. Do you want me to go with you to the basement, or wherever, the place they were holding you?”

  Henry shook her head. “I’ll be fine. It’s that old yellow house on the corner. Not far.”

  Something in her tone must have told Alice she was serious because she reached out and gave her a long hug. “I want to insist you let me stay,” she said.

  “I feel awful that everybody is up at three in the morning.” Henry looked around. “In fact, I’m going to ask if I can go down to the station tomorrow.”

  “Good plan,” Alice said. She gave her one last squeeze and walked toward the back door.

  Henry watched her for a moment then headed across the parking lot toward Gideon. He had his back to her, so Tom saw her first.

  “Can I talk to Gideon alone?” Her voice sounded odd to her own ears.

  Tom didn’t look like he was going to be as compliant as Alice but after a second or two he nodded and stepped away. Gideon turned to her, his face lined with utter grief.

  “I’m so sorry, Henry. I just…”

  “I know. And you’re right. I shouldn’t have tried to be a hero.” She squared her shoulders and gripped the blanket a little tighter.

  He stepped forward and held her face in his hands. “You’re my everything. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you.”

  The parking lot was still illuminated with flashing police lights and officers walked in groups around them, but Henry felt as if they were all alone for a moment. Gideon had always made her feel that way. Gideon and Henry, against the world. Or maybe it was Gideon against Henry. She hesitated, wishing she didn’t have to ask the question that was beating against her heart.

  She gently tugged his hands from her face. “There was something the bigger man said. You know, the guy with the tattoos and―”

  “Rick LaRule,” Gideon supplied. “I’ve met him before.”

  Henry felt her stomach drop. “Well, he said that he told you something and you were going to take the bait. He said you couldn’t pass up a chance at revenge.”

  There it was. The slight widening of the eyes, the fraction of a second blank expression before he found one that was appropriate. “I’m not sure what he meant.”

  Lie.

  Henry closed her eyes for a moment. It was physically painful for her to watch the progression of emotions cross his face. Fear, panic, embarrassment. There was a long silence where all she heard was the squawk of police walkie talkies and the crunch of gravel as people walked around them.

  “Gideon, don’t.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

  He had never looked so trapped and it tore at her heart. “He told me Duane Banner had plans to kill someone as soon as he was released.”

  “But how does that―?” Her sentence broke off as the pieces fell into place. “You were going to go stop him.”

  He nodded.

  “How?”

  He looked back at her and she saw the struggle in his eyes. He didn’t want to tell her the truth, but she would know if he lied.

  “Oh.” Then answer hit her harder than LaRule’s open-handed slap. He had been planning to murder Duane Banner. “But what did you think I would say about that?”

  He gave the barest shake of his head.

  “You didn’t expect to see me again,” she said.

  Henry pressed her fingers to her eyes for a moment. Her worst fears had come true. He’d been planning to leave her. Her stomach rolled.

  It would be so much easier to step into his arms and let him kiss her until she couldn’t remember what they were fighting about. Everything would be fine. They would pick up where they left off. But if she did, the real betrayal would haunt her forever. It was more than his slide into darkness and more than thinking this murder would have been justified.

  “Did something keep you from going?”

  “Tom. He helped me understand. I was in a bad place, Henry. I was confused. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It would solve so many problems. And then I realized after a day or so that I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “When did Tom convince you?”

  “The day you came to see me with Blue. The same day I bought the tickets. But, see, I couldn’t return them. Giving them to Bix and Ruby was the best solution.”

  As soon as he was done explaining, Henry watched realization dawn in his eyes. She hadn’t really been asking about Tom or how the tickets were transferred.

  “Were you ever going to tell me?”

  There was no more struggle, no more fight left in him. Henry looked into his eyes and knew his answer before he spoke.

  “No.”

  Of all the ways she imagined how it would end, Henry never thought it would be in a lie. Stupid not to have seen it coming, really. Her whole life was filled with them. Every friendship, every memory was polluted with nuances and shades of gray. But Gideon had been different. He had been the first, the only one, to speak plainly to her without pretense. And she’d loved him for it.

  “All I ever wanted was the truth,” she whispered, and was surprised to taste tears on her lips.

  “I know,” he said.

  There was nothing left to say. She turned on walked blindly toward the back door, not caring if she was leaving officers waiting or where she was supposed to go next. She wished she could simply accept the lie and move forward. If it was Gideon who fed her fairytales from his hand, surely she would be happy. She loved everything about him, even the way he lied.

  But Henry knew that was madness. Even more than when she first met him, she needed honesty, and it seemed the one thing she truly needed, he couldn’t give her after all.

  ***

  Gideon stood completely still, except for the movement of his chest rising and falling. Henry walked away and didn’t look back.

  In the seconds since she left his side, he saw how his whole life had changed. Henry had drawn him out, coaxed him into making changes he didn’t see until they were already in motion. There was something about her that made him want to be more than a prisoner, an ex con, a murderer. No, that wasn’t quite right. He’d always wanted that. He just hadn’t believed it was possible.

  “Where did she go?” An officer rushed up, pen in hand. “We’re headed to that old house. I thought she was coming with us.”

  Gideon shook his head, not knowing what to say.

  “I think she’s tired. Does she have to go tonight?” Tom asked. He was standing close to Gideon but he hadn’t noticed.

  “Huh. Probably not. They just picked up LaRule and a few other guys he had with him. Looks like they didn’t count on her being able to get outta that basement.” The officer grinned.

  Gideon surge of relief. “Thank God.”

  “Can we come with you? If we don’t touch anything?” Tom asked. He nodded toward By the Book. “I want to see how our clever friend got herself out.”

  Gideon shot him a look. He didn’t want to see anything like that.

  “I guess. We’re heading over. They might stop you at the door, but you’re welcome to walk over with us.”

  As soon as he was gone, Gideon turned to Tom. “What’s that about?”

  “Facing your worst nightmare.”

  They started down the alley. “I’ve never been afraid of basements.” Gideon was so tired. He thought of turning around and heading home, but knew he wouldn’t sleep tonight anyway.

  “Something they do in therapy. A traumatic event happens and you return to the scene right away, if you can. You walk around it, reclaim it. Make sure it has no power over you.”

  The truly traumatic event was that Henry had discovered his lie but there was no way to erase its power.

  “Every time she’s late, you’ll worry. Every time she comes home a few minutes after she said she would, every time she doesn’t call by a certain time, you’ll think back to this moment,” Tom said.

  Henry wasn’t going to be cal
ling him. She certainly wasn’t going to be coming home to him.

  “Spend as much time as you can near where she was held. Just let it soak in.” Tom pointed out the house as they turned the corner. “You need to reclaim the spot or every time you drive by this place, you’ll get anxious.”

  Gideon was less worried about the big yellow house than By the Book. He would never be able to walk by again without thinking of Henry and of the poetry section.

  A few minutes later they were peering through the doorway. Officers set up large floodlights with extension cords and although at first they made them stay back, after a while, it seemed obvious that all there was to be found was Henry’s other shoe. A crime scene photographer took pictures as the officers talked to each other. It seemed so simple, so ordinary. Gideon started to understand what Tom meant. This basement was like hundreds of others in the city, but it could have been the scene of Henry’s murder.

  He shivered. It wasn’t that cold in the basement but he felt chilled to the bone. Looking around, he saw the pins Henry had pulled from the hinges and the marks she’d made in the wood as she worked. He remembered the long streak of blood on her arm and felt his stomach clench. She had worked hard to save herself. She had wanted to live.

  “Take your time. Or as long as they’ll give us,” Tom said. He stood close enough to talk but not close enough that Gideon felt crowded.

  He let out a slow breath and looked around. He could imagine the despair she must have felt, the desperation. A long time ago he had felt those same emotions and been utterly helpless to save anybody except himself. Gideon glanced at the ceiling. It seemed closer than before. He focused on the far side of the room and tried to stay calm. Henry had suffered in here but she’d triumphed, too. She had kept her wits about her and―

  “Hey, don’t touch anything,” an officer called out as Gideon walked toward the far wall.

  “Gideon, wait.” Tom was jogging beside him. He reached out, concern on his face. “Just take a breath. It can really make you feel―” He noticed the writing and stopped short.

  “What is that?” The officer stared at the large, uneven letters and cocked his head. “Gidons inncent? Is this English?”

  “Gideon is innocent. Rick killed Barney.” Gideon read the words in a sort of daze. The message was a crazy jumble of letters that sometimes covered one another, but it had been dark and she must have been scratching the words with her keys.

  In what Henry believed was the last moments of her life, she had been determined to save his.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”

  ― James Joyce

  Henry curled up on the sofa and held a book in her hands. She’d told everyone she was tired and needed a nap. The truth was that she was completely worn out. She’d spent hours down at the police station giving her statement. Patsy was on her way, even though Henry had promised she was fine. Alice had brought over breakfast that morning and given her a thorough look, apparently to make sure she wasn’t falling to pieces. Then Kimberly had arrived and although Henry was deeply thankful for the chance to hug her mother, it had turned into a visit from her grandparents, too. And then Lisette had called. Henry had done her best to assure everyone that she was fine but she was not. She was as far from fine as she could imagine.

  Her dreams had been fragments of her ordeal, interspersed with Gideon’s expression as he confessed his lie. Henry had finally rolled out of bed, exhausted and refusing to spend one more minute reliving it.

  But in the quiet moments between all the interviews and fussing relatives and Alice’s breakfast, Henry started to realize she had been wrong. Not wrong in the way someone is when they park in towing zone, or even the kind of wrong where a person adds salt instead of sugar to their coffee. She had been horribly, terribly wrong. The kind of wrong Kimberly had been when she left her with Lisette. The kind of wrong that shattered friendships and ended true love.

  Gideon had kept something important from her, but Henry had only seen the lie, and not the man who had always tried to protect those he loved. She understood what it meant to make a bad decision. She wasn’t perfect. Redemption was an ugly, down-in-the-mud, every single day sort of thing. She wanted nothing more than to accept his apology now. But not it was too late.

  She sat in the corner of the couch, feeling small and completely lost. There wasn’t any way to explain her actions, no way to make it better that she could see.

  A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts and she considered not answering. She sat very still, listening for the visitor to go back down the hallway. Instead, there was another knock, and Gideon’s voice called through the door.

  “Henry, can we talk?”

  She was at the door so fast she didn’t even have time to put down her book. Swinging it open, she was already laughing, crying, reaching out for him.

  “I… well…” He didn’t seem to know what to say and she kissed him, hard.

  He stopped trying to talk and wrapped his arms around her, backing her into the room and closing the door with his foot.

  Henry couldn’t believe he had come back to her. He hadn’t given up on her. She leaned back, putting her hands on his cheeks, touching his hair, sliding one hand toward his heart. “You still love me,” she said.

  “Of course I do. Yes. Of course. Always.” He couldn’t seem to get enough of her, as if she weren’t quite real.

  “I’m sorry. For what I said. You don’t have to be perfect. I’m so far from it. I’m just learning how to love someone. I promise I won’t hold you to some standard that―”

  “Henry,” he said. “I came here to say I was wrong. I lied because I was afraid to lose you. I didn’t trust you enough to tell you the truth.” His words were thick with emotion. “Please don’t give up on me.”

  Henry started to cry but of all the tears in the last few days, these were tears of joy. “Never.”

  “But there’s something else.” He looked as if what he had to say next was going to be harder than telling her about the tickets. “I’m not completely well, Henry. I know have a lot of work to do. Things might get worse before they get better. And if you want to just be friends while I try to sort things out, I’m okay with that. I understand―”

  He broke off whatever he was going to say as she kissed him, giving him her answer with all the love she could show him. After a moment, she looked up into his eyes. “That night in the Finnemore house, I made you some promises. I said I’d always be myself with you, even if I didn’t like who I was. I don’t think I understood what I was promising. Now I do. I’m quick to judge, Gideon. I jump to conclusions. I never want to give someone a second chance.”

  He shook his head just a bit, as if he disagreed. She put a finger to his lips. “I’ll try to do better. Loving you is the best thing that ever happened to me and if you can bear with me while I try to change, I’d be so grateful.”

  Gideon bent his head and kissed her jaw, her temple, her ear. “And for a breath of ecstasy, give all you have been, or could be.”

  Sara Teasdale’s words skipped like stones across her heart, leaving ripples as they went. For one chance at happiness, they were willing to give up everything, including the people they had once been. She’d always thought real love meant accepting someone else just as they were. Maybe true love meant letting go of the person you had been, to become the person you were meant to be. Henry looked up into Gideon’s eyes and saw true forgiveness, and a future full of possibilities she never could have imagined.

  Epilogue

  Charlie popped her head in the sacristy door, bright pink hair wrapped in a pretty updo. Tiny daisies dotted the curls. “Father Marcel is asking your phone how far it is to Aruba. Should we be worried?”

  Henry smiled at her reflection in the small mirror. “No, not until they start arguing.” Charlie shrugged and went away again, leaving just Henry and Patsy in the room. “Remind me again why elopin
g wasn’t a good idea?”

  “Because you’d cheat all of us out of the joy of a fancy party,” Patsy said. “It’s not nice. We needed a fancy party. A low country boil, lots of crawfish, live zydeco music. We need it to get us through the winter.” She looked up from where she was fixing the last pin in Henry’s hair. “Plus, I would have hidden in your trunk. You never would have gotten away with it.”

  “Kimberly has plenty of big parties, almost every month,” Henry said.

  The door opened a crack and Alice poked her head inside. Her pale green bridesmaid dress matched Patsy’s except it had an empire waist, perfect for Alice’s pregnant belly.

  “Almost ready? We’ve got five minutes, which means I better run to the bathroom.” And without waiting for a response, she popped back out.

  “I wish Alice would take a break. She’s been standing all morning,” Henry said. “Paul keeps trying to shove her into a chair but she zips away.”

  Patsy nodded. “Wait until she gets that last little burst of energy before the baby arrives. Nesting is a scary business. I spent two full days just scrubbing down my kitchen before Jack was born. You know me. That was really out of character.”

  Henry stood up, carefully moving the swaths of cream silk to the side. “I never wanted a big wedding,” she said almost to herself. “I never imagined this. Or any wedding, really.”

  “Big wedding. Listen to you,” Patsy said, laughing. “Fifty people in a tiny country church and a reception in the backyard isn’t big.”

  “True. Compared to what Kimberly really wanted, this is closer to that elopement.” She took one more look in the mirror, at the gentle draping over the bodice, the little cap sleeves. Turning, she glanced behind her at the long row of tiny pearl buttons and glimmering silk. She never could have imagined this, not in a hundred years. But here she was, Henry Byrne, getting married as if it were the most natural step.

  “Hey, don’t cry now. You’ll ruin your make up,” Patsy jumped forward with a tissue. “Take a deep breath. Everybody gets nerves on their big day.”