From This Day On

by Janice Kay Johnson

  The fact that he was right didn’t negate how much she’d wanted to see him. Amy didn’t say anything.

  “I’m out in Beaverton at a manufacturer,” Jakob said abruptly. “Any chance we can meet here? There’s a place called Hall Street Grill that’s good.”

  They agreed on a time and she told him a little shakily that yes, of course she could find it. Just as abruptly, he ended the call, and she unlocked and got into her car feeling something so unfamiliar, it took her a minute to identify it.

  Wonder.

  Once again, Jakob was insisting on being there for her when she needed him. He was mad at her, and still hadn’t hesitated. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before.

  She heard him again, rough and even a little angry. This thing with your mother, with Dad, with the guy who raped your mother, we’re in it together. Don’t try to get rid of me, because you’ll fail.

  He meant it.

  Amy started the car and mentally calculated how she’d get on Highway 26, which would take her to Beaverton, a suburb only a few miles outside the city. There were shopping malls; she’d find something to do to kill an hour before she met Jakob.

  * * *

  AMY NILSSON HAD to be the most stubborn damn woman he’d ever known.

  Jakob looked at her across the table in their booth, thinking how quickly she could make him mad. She had a talent, it appeared. He usually contained his anger better than this.

  Still, the sight of her was having a calming effect. For one thing, this was the first time since their initial dinner together he’d seen her dressed up, and the result surprised him. Her business suit, approximately the color of her hair, was well-cut, revealing a nice length of stocking-clad legs and emphasizing a tiny waist. With her hair up in some kind of loose knot, her lashes darkened and with her often sulky mouth accented by a copper-red color, she looked as sophisticated as any businesswoman he met in the course of the day. He was intrigued to see this different side of her.

  The best parts, though, were that she was here, and that she had admitted to wanting to see him. So, okay, they both knew she wouldn’t have called, but her admission that she’d been tempted was a step in the right direction.

  To what?

  He ignored the question, since he still didn’t know the answer.

  They had already ordered and had their drinks.

  “The morning paper mentioned the trial.” He crossed his arms on the table. “I had a gut feeling. I should have paid attention.”

  “You really didn’t miss much. I got all dressed up so I wouldn’t attract attention.” Amy waved at herself. “I thought someone might stop me before I got in the courtroom, but I guess the disguise worked.”

  He smiled at that.

  “I walked in, made it almost all the way to the front and saw him.” She shrugged as if to say, See, no big deal, but Jakob didn’t buy it. The signs were there on her face, subtle, but he was looking for them. Tiny creases on her forehead, a tightening around her eyes, her lips more pinched than they ought to be.

  “Did he see you?”

  She met his eyes, and that’s when he saw how shaken she was.

  “Yes.” She swallowed. “The proceedings hadn’t started. He and another guy were still standing and talking by their table. You know. He glanced around before he sat down and saw me standing there, not very far away. I guess I was staring. So he did, too.”

  “He recognized you.”

  “How could he?” she snapped. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You look like him,” Jakob said simply.

  “So there’s a resemblance. Haven’t you ever seen kids that looked enough like you they could have been yours? Do you immediately think, oh, wow, that girl must be mine?”

  He frowned. “No, of course not. And you’re probably right. But I’m more ordinary-looking than you are. You... There’s a reason Dad calls you ‘imp.’ I always think of words like pixie and sprite when I see you. You’re exotic. He has that look, too. You almost expect his ears to be pointed.”

  Her mouth opened and stayed open. “Exotic?” she squeaked, a good minute later. “Ordinary?”

  She still seemed stunned when their food came. “Eat,” he told her, and she finally blinked and looked down at her plate.

  “I take it the concept is new to you,” Jakob said, between bites of his Dungeness crab melt.

  “Of my skinny, freckled self as exotic? Um, you could say that.” She swiped a fry through ketchup, but instead of eating it she studied him with perplexity. “You said always.”

  He cast his mind back. “There was something about you, even when you were a baby. I’d sneak into your bedroom and stare at you when you were sleeping. I got into trouble for it.”

  “You got into trouble over me plenty of times.”

  Jakob laughed. “Later, I was usually asking for it. Mostly, when we were little, I was only interested. Your mother never trusted me, though. I remember trying to figure out why, when your hair was plain brown in some light, it caught fire in others. She was suspicious whenever she caught me creeping close to touch your hair.”

  Her eyes widened. “Is that why you cut my pigtail off? To pay me back?”

  He winced. Damn, another episode he’d hoped she would never remember. “I was mad,” he admitted. “I was mad a lot by that time.” He’d been...nine, he thought, and bitterly resentful because he’d thought he would have his dad to himself again after they moved out, leaving Michelle and Amy behind. “I was also still fascinated by your hair. I thought if I cut some off I could keep it, and that would give me time to study it.”

  She snorted. “Which was why you were stupid enough to hide my pigtail somewhere Dad would find it right away.”

  “Yeah.” He couldn’t help it. A smile was playing around his mouth. “Give me a break. I wasn’t very old. I thought under my mattress was incredibly clever.”

  “All I remember is waking up in the morning and going to the bathroom. I caught sight of myself in the mirror and started to scream.”

  “It was blood-curdling.” Okay, damn it, he was laughing again. “I’ve never heard a scream like that before or since.”

  “I hated you.”

  Suddenly, he wasn’t amused at all. Hearing her say that again made him feel really lousy.

  “I know,” he said. He looked at the sandwich in his hand and discovered his appetite had gone missing.

  “You still didn’t like me even when we were adults.”

  Jolted by the sadness in her voice, Jakob focused on her to see that she had her head bent and was twirling the same French fry in the ketchup with great concentration.

  “Why do you say that?” He had to clear his voice. “I was polite.”

  She glanced quickly at him and then away again. Her smile was small and twisted. “You mean, when you couldn’t think of an excuse not to be there when I visited?”

  He’d wanted to believe she hadn’t noticed. “I wasn’t home that often.”

  “You always had been the weekend before I came. Or Dad would mention that it was too bad I was missing you, you couldn’t make it until the next weekend.”

  Hell, he thought. Where could he go with this? Keep pretending she’d imagined things, that the fact they went years at a time without seeing each other was nothing but chance?

  Amy might let him get away with it, but clearly she knew better.

  “Did you want to see me?” he asked carefully.

  Her expression was unreadable. “I don’t know. It stung, that’s all. I had this feeling Dad felt obligated to pretend I was welcome, and you weren’t bothering.” She shrugged. “Water under the bridge.”

  “Things weren’t how they appeared.”

  Amy made a scoffing sound in her throat, and the wounded skepticism in her ey
es blistered him. “Maybe not with Dad. Although the jury is still out on whether he really cared.”

  Jakob stared at her with astonishment. “You didn’t believe him.”

  She dropped the French fry at last and pushed her plate away. “I wanted to.” Her voice came out small and gruff. “Best way to make yourself credulous is to want something.”

  “What a load of crap!”

  She shrugged again. “Okay.”

  Nothing good could come of this topic, he told himself. Let it go. He summoned some willpower. “What are you going to do about your father?”

  The wounded look in her extraordinary, gold-flecked eyes was obvious. “Nothing,” she said after a moment. “What should I do? Embrace him as dear Daddy? I don’t think so.”

  “I guess not.” Jakob rotated his shoulders, desperate to ease some of the tension that gripped his body. “You’re picking your mother up tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes. God. I’m not getting any work done.”

  He wasn’t, either. He hadn’t been able to concentrate a damn this morning for worrying about Amy.

  “You don’t know how long she’s staying?”

  “Not a clue. Probably no longer than she can help,” Amy said dryly. “Our visits are strictly duty. This one is...different.”

  Duty. She’d spent a lifetime believing neither of her parents felt anything but obligation toward her. He’d seen her face when Dad insisted he had always loved her as his daughter. The hope in her eyes had hurt Jakob to see.

  “Do you want me to come to the airport with you?”

  “Of course not,” she said briskly. “Then Mom and I would have to be polite to each other, and what good is that?”

  A humorless laugh escaped him. “You’re breaking my heart. You know that, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  Jakob shook his head and reached for his wallet. “You wouldn’t understand. No, I’ll get this.” He threw some bills on the table even though they hadn’t gotten the check yet and neither of them had finished their meals.

  Amy walked ahead of him out of the restaurant. He pushed open the door and, in an automatic gesture, put his hand on the small of her back to usher her through it. Big mistake. He almost groaned at the feel of subtly shifting muscles. Touching her was not a good idea. Which part of that was he having trouble understanding? He removed his hand as if the palm had been burned.

  Amy gave no sign she’d even noticed he had laid a hand on her. “I’m parked right here,” she said, stopping by her beater.

  “I see.” Damn. Nothing about this lunch had gone the way he’d wanted it to. He didn’t like leaving her this way. “I told you I had issues where you were concerned.” Appalled, his common sense wanted to know what in hell he was thinking. Or whether he was.

  Amy had turned to look at him. Her lips were slightly parted. Her curls were beginning to escape their confines, and she put one hand up to brush them back from her face.

  “You tell me when you’re ready to hear what those issues were.” His voice was thick. “If you ever want to know.”

  The apprehension in her eyes made him feel unbelievably self-centered. She had enough to deal with. The last thing she needed was him to dump his “issues” on her. What she needed from him right now was friendship and support she could trust, not...whatever he had in mind.

  She still hadn’t said anything. He nodded. “I’ll call tomorrow to find out how it’s going,” he said, trying hard to sound gentle. “Okay?”

  Amy bit her lip then nodded. “Yes. Okay.”

  He even managed a smile of sorts before he strode toward his Outback, parked a couple vehicles away from hers. He started it, backed out and waited until she drove away. Then he bent and clunked his head on the steering wheel a couple of times, making sure it hurt.

  * * *

  “I HAD NO idea how miserable that flight would be without a break in Hawaii,” Amy’s mother complained. “If only there was three more inches of leg room.”

  “I’m sorry you felt you needed to come,” Amy felt obliged to say. Trailing behind, she was pulling the large suitcase her mother had checked, while Mom gripped the handle of the smaller carry-on and carried a sizeable tote bag.

  She gave Amy a cool glance over her shoulder. “I’m having trouble understanding why you were interested in what I’d put in that time capsule to start with, and even more trouble understanding why you felt you had the right to open it.”

  “You expected me to open your mail.”

  “Bills. Junk mail.”

  “If I’d forwarded the invitation to you, you wouldn’t have gotten it in time.”

  “You could have called. Emailed.”

  They were both silent while stuffed in an elevator with four other people. They stayed silent as they walked down an aisle in the concrete parking garage.

  Amy unlocked the trunk of her car and heaved the large suitcase in. Her mother carefully wedged the smaller one in beside it.

  “Surely you can afford to replace this car,” her mother said over the roof as Amy unlocked.

  She didn’t bother with a reality check. “It runs. Hondas can get 200,000 miles plus. Why would I replace it until I have to?”

  Mom sniffed.

  Inside, Amy put the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it. “I was curious,” she said. “Living in your house made me feel as if I was getting to know you. The thing from Wakefield came and I thought, cool, a clue to Mom’s past.”

  Her mother’s stare was incredulous. “What are you talking about? I’m your mother! You lived with me for eighteen years. To suggest you don’t know me...”

  “I know hardly anything about your life before I was born. You never once mentioned Wakefield College. You never told stories like most people do. I don’t even remember my childhood that well, because you didn’t tell stories about it, either. No ‘remember when you were four and you said something so cute’ reminiscences from you.”

  Mom was staring at her in shock.

  Amy shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m only making a point. I was filling in my own history, that’s all. I had no idea I was going to be taking the lid off some great secret.” A secret that belonged to both of them, that Amy had had a right to know about.

  No, she wouldn’t feel guilty.

  Her mother had withdrawn in a way entirely familiar to Amy. They didn’t talk during the entire drive. Amy kept sneaking glances at her, feeling resentful at how unfazed she was by the lengthy flight despite her complaints. The crease in her linen-weave slacks was still sharp, any tousle in her expertly highlighted blond hair looked stylish, her blouse remained tucked in. No creases in her cheek from sleeping awkwardly, no rumples in those slacks that couldn’t really be linen—not even Mom was that good. No signs of exhaustion around her brown eyes. Perfectly applied makeup.

  No wonder I always felt so inadequate.

  Only now Amy knew something new. The cool facade and formidable self-control had been created to hide terrible pain. Knowing what she did changed everything.

  Disconcerted, she remembered Jakob saying the same thing. And he’d been right—Amy was stunned to realize that all of the important relationships in her life had undergone a sea change. She’d never see Mom or Dad the same again. And Jakob—well, two weeks ago she wouldn’t have listed him as important in her life.

  And now he was.

  Mr. C. was out in his front yard when Amy pulled up, and Mom went over to greet him while Amy unloaded the suitcases. She carried them upstairs one at a time. Good thing Mom hadn’t surprised her with this little visit. Otherwise she might have had to explain why she’d better change the sheets.

  She had a feeling her mother was not going to appreciate knowing that Jakob was also privy to her deep, dark secret. And oh, yeah, Josef, too.

/>   “Amy?” her mother called from downstairs. “For goodness sakes, you didn’t have to carry both my bags upstairs by yourself.”

  Amy started down. “Are you hungry at all? I suppose you’re all skewed time-wise. Um...what time is it in Sydney?” She hadn’t paid that much attention the night Jakob figured it out so she could call.

  Studying her delicate gold watch, Michelle momentarily appeared dazed. “I believe we’re nineteen hours behind right now.”

  Something about timelines always boggled Amy’s mind. She grappled with it, though. “It must be early morning there. Like 6:00 a.m.? You should be feeling ready for breakfast then. We’ll just substitute lunch for it.”

  “I believe I could eat,” her mother decided. “You needn’t go to much trouble, though.”

  Amy ignored her and put together a salad with balsamic dressing and feta cheese. She set out sourdough rolls she’d discovered at a neighborhood bakery.

  “You’ve taken good care of the garden,” her mother said at length.

  “Thank you. As long as you’re here, I might have you give me a lesson on pruning roses so I’m ready.”

  “Of course. It hadn’t occurred to me you wouldn’t know how. Fortunately, it’s not that difficult.” She paused. “The house is in good shape, too.”

  Amy laid down her fork. “Did you expect to find beer soaking the floors? Take-out pizza boxes growing mold and piled ten deep in a corner?”

  Her mother frowned. “Of course not. I wouldn’t have asked you to house-sit if I’d thought any such thing.”

  “But you don’t know me well enough to be sure of my lifestyle. Isn’t that right?”

  They stared at each other.

  “I had no idea you were bitter,” Michelle said. “Or why you are.”

  “Bitter?” Amy considered the word. “I don’t think I am. Angry, maybe, to find out I’ve been fed a lifetime of lies. Yeah. That’s definitely a better word.”

  Her mother, too, set down her fork. “You think I should have told you that you were a child of rape. Please tell me how that would have made your life better.”