From This Day On

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Incredibly, he was smiling when he told her she was welcome and ended the call.

  * * *

  AMY LURKED IN the living room to one side of the window watching for Jakob’s arrival as if she was sixteen and he was her first date. Her relief was as huge, too, when she saw his Outback pull to the curb.

  “He’s here, Mom!” she called.

  “Coming.” Michelle descended the stairs with the aloof dignity of Queen Elizabeth. She had dressed as carefully as if she expected to appear on the evening news, too.

  Armor, Amy thought, having donned her own, although a rather different style than her mother’s. Mom had gone for slacks and a jacket over a silk shell, her hair drawn into a smooth chignon. She always went for pale neutrals—pale blue and gray today. Amy had thought of wearing her best suit again, but the voice of defiance rang out. She’d chosen a very short sweater dress in a vivid plum color instead, over black leggings and black knee-high boots with three-inch heels. A scarf in a dozen shades of purple with a few streaks of scarlet wrapped her neck and trailed over her shoulder. Her hair, she’d finally clipped away from her face and otherwise left loose and wild.

  She braced herself when her mother saw her, but Mom only nodded as if she understood. Both had put on coats by the time Jakob rang the doorbell. Amy’s was red wool, her mother’s knee-length and pale gray.

  Amy opened the door, chin up. Jakob smiled at her, a glint in his eyes. “Nice,” he murmured, then nodded at her mother. “Michelle. You ladies look outstanding.”

  He, of course, looked the executive he was in a well-cut, charcoal-gray suit. No, what he really looked was fabulous. Big, solid, broad-shouldered, dark gold hair curling at the crisp collar of his blue shirt, which accentuated the blue of his eyes.

  He briefly laid a hand on Amy’s back as she closed and locked the door, then turned to pass him. The touch was light, barely felt through the heavy wool of her coat. I’m here, was all he seemed to be saying.

  Her throat seized up.

  She didn’t contribute to what conversation there was during the drive. She couldn’t seem to track anything that was said. Her mother’s composure impressed her. Mom was the one who had to be really freaked.

  They had been instructed to come to the district attorney’s office at the courthouse, semifamiliar territory to her. The halls were no less busy today, their ride up in the elevator silent. Michelle expressionlessly gazed at the numbers above the doors, although the hand gripping her purse showed white knuckles. Amy kept flashing back to the brief encounter in the courtroom below, the intense stare from eyes so much like hers.

  After a glance at her, Jakob handled the brief explanation to the receptionist and once again placed his hand on her back as they were led to Deputy D.A. Hardy’s office. Amy was rather astonished to see that his other hand rested on her mother’s back.

  With a funny little bubble of amusement, she wondered whether he was offering silent support, or propelling them inexorably forward.

  Then she was walking into the office, her eyes locked on the man who rose to his feet behind his desk.

  This light brought out the red in his hair, increasing the resemblance to a fox.

  To me?

  It was her he looked at first, the same shock on his face she’d seen that day in the courtroom without quite realizing that’s what it was. And then his gaze skimmed past Jake and settled on Michelle.

  For a moment no one moved. The man staring at her mother didn’t so much as blink. Amy was only vaguely aware of the click of the door closing behind them.

  “Michelle Cooper.” He sank heavily into his chair. “I hoped...” He closed his eyes momentarily and shook his head. “I always knew this day would come.”

  Without a word, Jakob guided first Amy’s mother and then Amy to the two chairs that faced the desk. He took up a station behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder. It might be the single most comforting touch Amy had ever felt in her life.

  “You hoped?” Michelle said, voice cold enough to freeze marrow.

  “That it was a nightmare. That you’d left school for some other reason.”

  “That you’d never hear my name again.”

  He dipped his head. After a moment his gaze turned again to Amy. “That day when I saw you, I knew. I told myself it couldn’t be, but I knew.”

  “We don’t look that much alike.” Yes, they did, but she wanted to acknowledge it now more than ever.

  After a moment he reached for a picture frame on his desk she hadn’t noticed and held it out to her. “My daughter and son.”

  Jakob was the one to step forward and take it. He tilted it so that she could see the photograph of a woman and a man, both looking to be in their early twenties. The guy didn’t have a face Amy would have noticed in a crowd. The young woman was another story. She riveted Amy, who stared in shock. She heard herself make a sound.

  Jakob’s fingers massaged the ball of her shoulder.

  “Your sister,” Steven Hardy said.

  She would have known they were related if they’d come face-to-face on the street. She had more freckles than Amy did, and her eyes were more hazel than brown, but the hair, cropped short, was the same, and the shape of her face and the chin, Amy saw every day in the mirror. Even her build, slight and petite.

  Jakob carefully laid the framed photograph on the desk. Michelle’s gaze flicked to it, then returned to Hardy.

  “Do you have any idea what you did to my life?” she said in a hard voice.

  He shook his head, pinched the bridge of his nose, then nodded.

  “You try rape cases,” Amy said.

  “Yes.” His voice was hoarse. “I do.” There was pain in his eyes when he looked at Amy’s mother. “Every time I talk to a victim, I see you.”

  “Giving them justice, when I didn’t get it.”

  “Yes.”

  Amy wished, suddenly, that they had a recorder. He wasn’t denying anything. Would he, if they went to the press? Had it occurred to him they could be secretly taping?

  “I was drunk,” he said after a minute. “That’s not an excuse, only...” He trailed off as if forgetting what he had meant to say. “I woke up in the morning, puked my guts out and tried to remember what happened. No.” He breathed heavily for a minute, his jaw working. “I didn’t want to remember. I was scared to death. I kept waiting for the cops to come for me.”

  “I wish I’d called them.”

  He nodded. “You can still ruin me.”

  “I want to,” Michelle told him, and it was clear she meant it. The very fact this man lived in the same city had terrified her not so long ago, and now she showed only anger and resolve.

  “I hope you won’t,” he said, sounding tired. His eyes dropped to the photo of his two children and anguish made his face spasm. “I want you to know I never did anything like that again. I’m still ashamed to know I was capable of being that kind of animal. I have...tried since to redeem myself.” It was the first time he’d done anything like beg.

  Michelle’s hard stare didn’t soften. His shoulders twitched, not quite a shrug. Silence settled.

  Against her will, Amy was transfixed by how much he looked like her. How much she looked like him.

  I don’t want to.

  She wanted to feel no connection at all. But...oh God, her sister. She couldn’t stop herself from dropping a hungry gaze to the face of the very young woman with whom she felt an undeniable connection, even if this sister never knew.

  He must have noticed. “Emma. Her name’s Emma. Her brother...” The hesitation was almost infinitesimal. “Your brother’s name is David.”

  “Not my anything,” Amy said fiercely. “They have nothing to do with me.”

  Her comment clearly caused him more pain and she didn’t care.

 
He looked at her mother again. “What did you do when you left Wakefield? If you don’t mind telling me.”

  She wrenched her gaze from his, bowed her head and seemed to contemplate her hands, marble-white and unmoving. “I knew I was pregnant. My parents would have blamed me. I was fortunate enough to meet Amy’s father.”

  “My father,” Jakob said, speaking for the first time. His eyes were cool and direct. “He’s a good man.”

  Steven Hardy flinched.

  “Amy did not know until recently that Josef was not her biological father. I’m sorry she ever had to find out.”

  He was the one to bow his head now and fight for control. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”

  “I don’t care.” Moving swiftly, Michelle snatched up her purse and rose to her feet. “Then, I was so afraid I hid from you. I couldn’t go to class. I could barely make myself scuttle to the dining hall. Just once, I wanted to look you in the eye and make sure you knew you did much worse than push me into sex before I was ready. Probably all you worried about was that it was unprotected. Let’s have one honest moment. You raped me. You are no better than the men you prosecute.” She turned and started for the door.

  Amy rose hastily. Jakob’s arm curled protectively around her.

  “What are you going to do?” Hardy asked.

  Amy’s mother paused only briefly. “I haven’t decided,” she said, and kept going.

  Jakob opened the door and ushered the two women out. They left silence behind them.

  * * *

  AS SHE HAD on the trip downtown, Amy sat up front beside Jakob, her mother in the backseat. Mom had insisted. Amy mostly gazed out the side window without really seeing anything, although she was aware of his occasional glances. Once she caught him watching her mother in the rearview mirror. As little reason as he had to like his one-time stepmother, he looked worried.

  When they reached the house, he parked at the curb and got out. Both of them were slower to move, so he was able to make it around, open their doors and even put a hand under Michelle’s elbow to help her out. Then without a word he walked them to the front porch.

  Amy unlocked. She wanted to ask him in—and she didn’t. She’d be sorry she hadn’t if Mom went straight to shut herself into her bedroom, but Amy felt like she needed to make herself available. Plus...she wasn’t sure yet what to say to Jakob.

  It seemed rude, though, not to say anything.

  “If you’d like to come in...”

  He shook his head before she could finish. “I need to get back to work and you’ll both feel like you have to make conversation if I stay.”

  Her mother held out her hand. Her dignity was unimpaired, but the ice had melted and she was once again the woman Amy hardly knew, older, somehow more vulnerable and yet approachable in a way she never had been.

  “Thank you,” she told him. “I suspect you came today for Amy’s sake, not mine, but having you present steadied both of us, I think. I’m sure you had plenty of important things you should have been doing instead. This was kind of you, Jakob.”

  He shook his head. “We haven’t had the best relationship, but I haven’t forgotten the couple hundred school lunches you packed for me, the times you drove me to school when I missed the bus, or to Little League or a friend’s house. We’re still family.”

  Tears sprang into her eyes. “Oh, dear.”

  He laughed, a chuckle low in his throat, and leaned over to kiss her cheek.

  The astonishing rush of emotion on her mother’s face stunned Amy. Mom managed a nod at him then fled inside. Amy had to blink back tears of her own.

  “Thank you.” She dredged up a smile for him. “Really.”

  He smiled again, kissed Amy, too, but on the lips, and turned to go. Dread filled her.

  “Are you...” Oh, no. She was really going to cry. “Are you still mad?”

  “Mad?” He raised his eyebrows. “I was never mad, Amy. More shocked.”

  She nodded. Her fingertips crept up to touch her lips, still warmed by his.

  “See you,” he said, took the porch steps two at a time and crossed the small front yard in a few strides.

  Amy was still standing in the same place when the Outback pulled away from the curb and turned at the corner, disappearing from her sight.

  * * *

  JAKOB’S PHONE RANG when he was only a couple of blocks from Amy’s. On a leap of hope, he fantasized that she would beg him to turn around and come back.

  Not Amy. Bryan the compassionate architect. Amy had described him that way, to Jakob’s irritation. Usually he didn’t like to talk when he was on the road, but for some reason he answered and put his phone on speaker.

  “So, you gotten bored with your stepsister yet?” his friend asked hopefully.

  He laughed. “Sorry, no. And you can forget the stepsister part. It’s ancient history.”

  “You do share a last name.”

  “She’s Amy. I don’t think about her last name.”

  “Well, damn. I was hoping for a rebound effect.”

  “Not happening.” He hoped like hell Bryan didn’t call Amy. And that, if he did, she didn’t happen to mention she wasn’t seeing Jakob anymore.

  Except that wasn’t true. They’d not only just seen each other, but he also thought it was a major breakthrough. He still remembered his frustration back when she admitted to having gone alone to slip into the courtroom to see her father the first time. After having encouraged Jakob to go back to work so she could be sure he wouldn’t interfere—or be at her side.

  Now she had admitted she’d been wrong, she didn’t have to do every hard thing in her life alone. He was willing to bet those were words she’d never spoken before in her life.

  Bryan suggested they get together soon without getting specific. Jakob agreed in the tone that said, Yeah, sure, someday, without any suggestion he wanted it to be soon.

  Making the decision to work from home, Jakob called to inform his P.A., who had a couple of messages for him.

  A minute later, he couldn’t have said what they were.

  Maybe he should have been pushy and accepted Amy’s not-all-that-sincere invitation. But he knew he had been right not to intrude. If Amy had been alone, that would have been different. He thought she and her mother needed to talk. He was still blown away that Michelle had been willing to let him accompany them this afternoon. Asking for more would have been a mistake.

  The question was, should he make the next move? Or did Amy need more time?

  He pulled into his parking garage and sat for a minute before he got out. He couldn’t help wondering what Amy and Michelle were saying to each other. The whole scene with Hardy had been difficult and painful all around. He felt no sympathy for the man; he had committed an unforgivable sin. The sad part was that, by all reports, he was a committed public servant. The tormented glance he’d given the picture of his children made Jakob think he was a loving father, too. There’d been a second photo displayed on his desk, too, that Jakob hadn’t seen but assumed was the wife. She and Hardy’s kids would be devastated if Michelle decided to level any kind of public accusation. Them, he felt sympathy for. Michelle had barely glanced at that picture. She had burned with her own outrage, her own devastation.

  A decisive man who rarely second-guessed his choices, Jakob wouldn’t have wanted to make the one that faced a woman who had suffered in silence for thirty-five long years and finally had summoned the courage to alter the balance of power. Yeah, she would be hurting other people if she did decide to ruin him. But what would continued silence do to Michelle?

  Jakob shook his head, got out and locked. Despite everything, he felt lighter as he walked to the old freight elevator. Today, Amy had raised him from the depths. She’d have never asked him to stand by her today if she didn’t trust him, at least. He
had to believe that.

  * * *

  “YOU DIDN’T EAT anything,” Amy said tentatively to her mother’s back. She finished hanging her coat and closed the door to the closet. “I could heat some soup or make sandwiches.”

  Her mother hesitated. “I don’t know if I can eat.”

  “You should, you know.”

  A faint smile curved Michelle’s lips and her eyes focused on her daughter. “People who live in glass houses.”

  Amy managed a small laugh. “I will eat if you will.”

  “Very well.”

  She put on a can of black bean soup, deciding a hot meal might do them both good. Her mother drifted over to the small paned windows and gazed out at her garden. Amy would have thought it dreary, but for once the symmetry and rigid lines worked better than a looser cottage style that would have been nothing but soggy brown stubble and random, arching canes at this time of year. Was this what it meant to give a garden “good bones”?

  Taking sour cream and a block of cheddar out of the refrigerator, she kept an eye on her mother.

  “Did we accomplish anything?” she asked, after a minute.

  Mom turned. “I don’t know. I think I’ll have to process it.”

  Amy nodded.

  “Your resemblance to his daughter is quite remarkable,” Michelle observed.

  Trying to hide her flinch, Amy reached for the grater.

  “And to him. I knew, and I didn’t.” She moved restlessly, her gaze fastened on something Amy couldn’t see. “Your hair, of course, and the shape of your face.”

  Amy was concentrating on grating the cheese when she glanced up to see that her mother was now focused entirely on her.

  “Whatever you may think to the contrary, I didn’t see him every time I looked at you. You are very much your own person.”

  “Thank you.” Inadequate, but Amy hoped her mother meant what she’d said. She’d have given a lot not to resemble a biological father she didn’t want to acknowledge. Finding out how much she looked like him had increased her distress. It made her feel as if she was made up more of him than of her mother.