“Because you didn’t want to see me. Everyone paid a huge price because of my selfish stupidity.”
“Ma and Dad say you’re really good at your job,” Patrick said. “They didn’t mention you’re really good at beating yourself up.”
“That’s because I haven’t apologized to them for blowing a hole in our family. But I will.”
“You had some help, Nolan.”
“Maybe I can also have help putting things back together.”
“More your area of expertise than mine, but it’s why I’ve been hanging around waiting for you to stop ignoring my phone calls, even if I did feel like punching your eyeballs for how long it was taking.”
“Sorry about that.” Sorry about so much more. “How much longer does your business keep you in Denver?”
“A few days. I promised Ma another weekend, and I have a meeting on Monday. I’ve seen you now, so I can fly home after that.”
“Come to Canyon Mines before you go,” Nolan said. “Have a proper visit with us—with Jillian. She would love it.”
Patrick scratched under his beard. “I’m unencumbered tomorrow.”
“Perfect.” Nolan would push a couple of meetings into next week. When Jillian found out the reason, she would free up her time as well. “Come spend the day.”
“Does Jillian know any of this?” Patrick asked.
“Just the bare bones,” Nolan said. “But she’s plenty old enough now to know that parents are people who make mistakes.”
“By the way,” Patrick said. “I am sorry for being so late today. No more games.”
CHAPTER TWENTY–TWO
Maple Turn, Missouri, 1952
The Oldsmobile churned up dust as Matthew spun into Maple Turn on a Friday afternoon toward the end of his sophomore year of college. He would only make the drive, at least in this direction, a few more times before his parents expected him to work full-time at Ryder Manufacturing for the summer. Last summer had been in the showroom. This intolerable season would be learning to operate the machines that made hardware. He couldn’t talk his father out of it. No argument about his lack of aptitude around machinery was persuasive. In fact, Matthew’s pleas only persuaded Judd all the more of the importance of Matthew’s starting at the bottom to fully understand the business. How could he ever solve engineering and productivity issues if he didn’t understand what a machine could do and how? So he would spend his summer wearing a leather apron under the tutelage of a series of machinists who probably wouldn’t trust Matthew to tie their shoes much less operate the expensive machinery Judd relied on for the business’s profits. Judd had already laid out a schedule for Matthew to cram in learning the basics of cabinetry carpentry during school breaks next year.
Meanwhile Jane would be three hours in the opposite direction in central Illinois. He’d be lucky if he could finagle a couple of long day trips to see her on Sundays. And all he could tell her was that he had to work, not that he had to stay home on Saturdays to look after his mother because his reckless running at the mouth had destroyed her mental health four years ago and she’d never recovered. And likely never would. As if to cement Matthew’s ties to Alyce and Maple Turn, Judd had bought the brand-new Oldsmobile for Matthew’s seventeenth birthday—but kept the title in his own name. Matthew read between the lines clearly. You did this. You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to use this car to pay the price.
The honking horn from the car riding his rear bumper made Matthew laugh, something he didn’t often do anymore in Maple Turn. He eased to the shoulder and let the car pull up beside him.
“Jackson, you old dog.”
“Mattie! Did your old man tell you he took me on?” Jackson’s dimpled grin was as devilish as ever.
“How did you swing that?”
“I’m not entirely sure his new manager knows the boss considers me a bad influence, even if I am the preacher’s kid.”
“Well, my mama always thought you were cute.”
“I still am.”
“What are you going to be doing?”
“Machinist in training.”
Matthew threw his head back and laughed again. “You and me both, buddy. Come summer.”
“I’ll be machining circles around you by the time summer rolls in.”
“Maybe they’ll make you my tutor.”
“That would really give the old man a stroke.”
“Maybe I should drop by and talk to the preacher.” What would Jackson’s father think if he knew the truth about one of his deacons?
“About what? Got some repenting to do?”
Matthew ran his index finger around the top curve of the steering wheel. “Just haven’t really talked to him in a long time. I always liked him.”
“You see him in church, don’t you?”
Matthew did. Twice a month. And every time his conscience stabbed him. The last time he preached on “The truth shall make you free.” Matthew knew the truth—at least some of it—and he didn’t feel free. He’d wanted to know the truth and destroyed his mother. He knew the truth, and he let his best friend’s father—a man of God—think Judd was a fine, upstanding Christian. That all the Ryders were. The longer Matthew kept the silence, the more he was no better than Judd. Would more truth truly free him or bind him more tightly?
But Mama.
“Let’s go fishing this summer,” Matthew said.
“Maybe pick a few locks.”
Matthew smiled and nodded.
“You ever going to let me pick that lock on the back of the factory?” Jackson winked.
“Probably not. I rarely even think of it.” If only Jackson knew the locks he’d gotten past four years ago. At least then he’d appreciate why Matthew was even still in Maple Turn.
“Then there’s no harm in trying, is there?” Jackson said.
“Only if you want to keep your new job.”
“There is that.”
“I have to go, Jackson. Mama will be waiting.”
“She looks good these days, Mattie. She really does.”
“Good to hear.”
Matthew turned into the long driveway and waved out the driver’s window. His mother returned the gesture from the porch, where she was waiting as he was sure she would be. She always wanted him to telephone when he was leaving his dorm in St. Louis, and she knew how long it took to make the drive home. During the winter months, he might be able to persuade her to wait for him inside the house, but she’d be watching nevertheless and checking her watch.
The cost of stumbling on his own adoption, and whatever Judd meant by helping with adoptions, was his mother’s mental breakdown. She’d never been herself after that night. He was bound to her afresh in her raw need. He missed so many classes after that to look after her that it was a wonder he graduated high school at all. Getting into a decent college in St. Louis under those circumstances probably had more to do with his father’s influence than Matthew’s achievement. Judd paid more attention to him, but everything had a price.
First came the car when he was seventeen—so he could drive his mother around and so he could easily travel back and forth from college on weekends.
Then college of course. Judd insisted he attend and study business, because Alyce had always wanted it. How could Matthew decline? One look at his mother made him agree to anything. She was too frail to risk seeing what would happen if he did not do as she wished.
And Judd knew it.
So Matthew finished high school, enrolled in the college Judd selected, and came home on the weekends twice a month, bringing his studies with him, even though there would be a slate of obligations awaiting him at the big house.
He got out of the car, removed his briefcase and overnight bag, and climbed the porch steps. His mother offered her cheek, and he kissed it.
“So lovely to have you home for a bit.”
She said this every time, as if he came home once a semester rather than every other weekend.
“Always good to com
e home.” Matthew stuck to the script.
“Have you met a nice girl yet?” This line in the script put hope in her eyes.
“Not yet, Mama.” Matthew couldn’t let her hopes rise. She would love Jane. But he wasn’t sure he could let his own hopes rise, so it was unfair to let his mother start planning a wedding in her mind. Maybe the best thing was to stay away from Jane all summer and let the spark fizzle out. They weren’t much of anything yet. A few dates. Running with the same crowd. She was only a freshman, barely finished being a schoolgirl, while he was a businessman in training with a jaded view of life he wouldn’t wish on anyone.
“Well, soon, maybe,” Alyce said. “You’ll be a catch when the right girl comes along.”
They went inside, where Gertrude’s dinner preparations filled the house with tantalizing aromas. Somehow they’d gotten through Matthew’s high school years by eating charred dinners or Judd or Matthew going out for food and bringing it home. Matthew had taken on keeping the house in order, but he was never much good at cooking. Alyce always intended to make a meal or straighten a room, as she always had even after they moved into the big house, but more and more Matthew and Judd would find her staring vacantly. Even her garden was half the masterpiece it once had been, and she’d never knitted another stitch after that night she’d measured Matthew’s arms before throwing her basket across the room.
Judd kept her busy. That was the best he knew to do, and Matthew had no better ideas—at least none Judd would accept. Once Matthew’s departure for college was imminent, Judd persuaded her that a woman of her position in the community ought to have hired help, and Gertrude joined the household. She understood from the start that her duties involved being a companion to Alyce as much as housekeeper and cook. The ladies’ auxiliary at church had regular activities, and Judd made sure Alyce got there. The Maple Turn Women’s League for Town Improvement honored her presence even though she no longer had creative suggestions. Garden society events, civic committee meetings, lunches—she did fairly well at these occasions if she had someone at her side to keep her attention focused so she didn’t fall into staring.
“I want to cut some lavender,” Alyce said. “We should have fresh flowers in the house.”
“Isn’t it early for lavender, Mama?”
“There must be something in the garden. I’ll go look.”
Matthew watched her move through the house and caught Gertrude’s eye.
“I’ll get your garden scissors, Mrs. Ryder,” Gertrude said, trailing after her.
Judd came out of his study.
“Matthew.”
“Judd.”
At least his mother spoke to him in sentences.
“She needs more than this,” Matthew said.
“She’s doing well,” Judd said. “She gets out nearly as much as she used to, and most people don’t notice anything off.”
“How can you say that? They don’t even know what happened, but after four years, they’ve just gotten used to this is how Alyce is. But maybe she could get well again with the right help. Doesn’t she deserve that chance?”
“You know why we can’t do that, Matthew. We can’t have her talking to people, answering probing questions. We can’t risk it.”
“You mean you can’t risk it.”
“You did this, Matthew. You made a choice that brought on this change.”
“As if your choices have nothing to do with it.”
“Don’t get smart with me.”
“What about the pastor? Wouldn’t he understand? Couldn’t he be some help somehow?”
“Matthew, we’re not having this discussion.”
Matthew clamped his mouth shut. This was how it always went. They orbited around each other in the same house, caring only about Alyce. But they didn’t talk about the room. Ever.
On Saturday Matthew took his mother to lunch in town. She loved it when they did this. He hated it. She always chose a prominent restaurant and a table smack in the path of everyone coming and going. Her friends would see them and stop by the table to say hello and grill him about how college was going. Alyce’s face would flush with the pleasure of showing him off and hearing how tall and handsome he was and how much he favored Judd—even though that was impossible. Inevitably someone would make a comment about how before he knew it, he would be going into the family business or that soon enough the whole business would be in his hands when Judd retired.
Today was no different. Matthew had learned long ago to order food that was palatable at room temperature when he was out with his mother. His plate would always grow cold before he got to eat his lunch. Mrs. Babcock from church. Miss Bizwell from the library. Mrs. Caldwell and Mrs. Booker from the garden society. They all paraded past the table, and each time Matthew put down his fork and stood politely to shake hands and answer questions.
Going to college wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but going into Judd’s business? Knowing that room was there? Wondering what was happening in it? Not being allowed to ask questions because of what it might do to his mother and having Judd hold that over his head? For how long?
He never got an explanation four years ago about the circumstances of his own adoption, but he’d lain awake enough nights to be persuaded that Alyce was tormented by the knowledge that he’d been stolen.
And if he did sleep, he faced his own torments—visions of Mrs. Liston demanding to know what happened to the baby she’d heard cry and insisting Judd had been outside the delivery room.
Wondering if another woman had heard him cry.
Alyce must have known where Matthew came from. Maybe not at first. Maybe she found out after she’d fully and wholly become his mother in her heart, when it was too late to think of giving him up. Giving him back. She might even be implicated in some way. He was a grown man now, but what would happen to her frail state if legal action descended on her because Matthew exposed Judd?
What a weak man he was that he could not see right from wrong and choose the moral path. Instead, he went to college to get a degree in business and met a nice girl named Jane who captured his heart. He pretended they could have a future when he would be dragging her into a big, ugly secret.
Jane didn’t deserve that.
He didn’t deserve Jane.
But he loved her already.
He would have to break her heart—and his—for her own good.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Sweats and a bathrobe might not be a professional wardrobe in most businesses, but Jillian was in charge of her own articles of incorporation, and on mornings when she woke early and reconciled to the truth that sleep was over for the next sixteen hours or more, it wasn’t unusual for her to start her day in garb aimed more at warmth than fashion. Chic was never foremost in her mind, but she’d eventually progress to jeans and a long-sleeve tee and a more publicly presentable second layer of insulation against January weather than the tattered favorite fleece robe.
She inspected the taupe coffee cup, already filled and emptied twice on an empty stomach. The milk and sugar in her morning concoctions should count for something toward food groups—practically the same as a bowl of cereal.
Her dad’s steps descending the back steps made her mutter. “Shoot.”
“Did you say something?” Nolan stuck his head in.
“Nothing,” Jillian said.
“Pretty sure it was something.”
“Nothing important.” She’d missed her chance for a third cup of coffee without his lifting one eyebrow—how did he do that?—to question how many she’d already had.
“I’m making breakfast,” Nolan said. “Why don’t you get dressed?”
“Am I twelve and late for school? People all across America eat breakfast in their bathrobes.”
He cocked his head. “But not today. Something tidy. Green, perhaps, to go with your eyes?”
“Dad!” Jillian wasn’t budging out of her chair. “What are you talking about?”
“Just breakfast.�
� He clapped his hands twice. “Hop to. By the way, what do we have for breakfast options?”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to fix breakfast?”
“I wish I’d had time to go to the store. But I shoveled our walks and the neighbors’ when I got home yesterday. No time now.”
“The bigger problem is you’re a terrible grocery shopper, but why the urgency?”
“We have eggs?”
“Yes, I just bought two dozen.”
“Cheese?”
“Cheddar and swiss.”
“Sausage?”
“Italian.”
“The usual assorted vegetables?”
“Dad.”
“Go on, scoot,” Nolan said. “You get dressed. I’ll throw together a breakfast casserole and squeeze some fresh oranges.”
Jillian laughed. “When have you ever squeezed fresh oranges?”
“There’s always a first time. Do we have oranges?”
“Sadly, no.” She would like to have seen him squeeze them.
“I will make do.” Nolan tugged at the back of Jillian’s chair. “Go on.”
“Dad! What is this about?”
“Can’t a father make breakfast for his daughter?”
“Well, sure, but you’re being especially demanding about it today.”
“Do as I say, Jillian. You’ll be glad you did.” Nolan rolled her chair toward the door, nearly dumping her out of it.
“I see I have no choice.”
“Now you’re getting the hang of things.”
Upstairs, Jillian jumped in the shower. If Nolan had time to bake a casserole, she had time to clean up from start to finish. She found the green sweater he’d given her for Christmas a couple of weeks ago, a perfect match for both their eyes, and scrounged up a clip to tame her hair on top of her head and let the dark waves hang loose around the sides of her face. The aroma filling the house suggested Nolan had found more than enough to work with and had a promising meal in the oven. Now he was banging around making cleaning-up sounds.
In the Cradle Lies Page 17