From This Day On

by Janice Kay Johnson

  And considering the lifetime of resentment she had stored up against her mother, none of that filled her with a sense of goodness.

  “Once in a while you’d have an expression, or turn a certain way, and I couldn’t help seeing him,” Michelle continued.

  “Mom?” Michelle raised her elegantly shaped eyebrows. “You should have quit while you were ahead.”

  Her mother looked surprised, then apparently reviewed what she’d said. “It wasn’t often.”

  Amy spooned the sour cream on top of the soup, then carried the bowls one at a time to the table. Her mother had poured them glasses of milk.

  “Will you tell me about him?” Amy asked. “Not the rape. Just...how you knew him. Whether you were friends.”

  Over lunch, Michelle did. Apparently Steven Hardy had been friendly from the minute he slid into a seat next to her the first day of a beginning economics class. She described a twenty-year-old guy who was funny and smart, but whose jokes sometimes had a cruel edge. There had been flashes of temper every time he asked her out and she made yet another excuse.

  “He confronted me once at a frat party. I was with someone else and hadn’t expected to see him. I don’t think he was drunk when we talked, but he started putting away beer, and he watched me until I left. By that time, he was falling-down drunk. He apologized the next time I saw him and said he wasn’t much of a drinker.”

  He was a politics major, on the debate team, a wunderkind even on a campus where the students were all above average in brains and academic ability.

  “You’re telling me I got smart genes?” Amy asked.

  “I suppose I am.” Her mother had finished her soup and now looked at the bowl as if she wasn’t sure what it was doing in front of her.

  “Okay,” Amy said. “And a temper, too.”

  “I doubt temper is hereditary.”

  “Maybe not,” she conceded. Nature versus nurture. Each human being started with a pool of built-in abilities and shortcomings, shaped then by parents and environment. She had the trickle of a thought: a man could change, if he was sufficiently motivated—say by shame.

  “He startled me—almost scared me—a couple of times, not on purpose but because he had this way of moving that was so quick and silent. I’d think I was alone, and there he was.”

  Amy remembered, that day in the courtroom, the way he’d turned with a seemingly preternatural suddenness.

  “Listening to myself,” her mother said, “I’m realizing that there were things about him that made me uneasy. Then, I never stopped to analyze why he made me a little nervous.”

  “I’ve read that humans are the only species that disregards internal warnings. Any hint of danger and a rabbit bolts—”

  Her mother’s eyebrow quirked. “Or freezes.”

  Normally, she’d have been amused. This subject was too sensitive. “Panics, anyway. It doesn’t stop and think, It’s silly to worry just because that eagle is soaring low. I’ve seen it around a lot and it’s never come after me before.”

  “That was me.”

  “We’re better at hindsight than we are at foresight.” Reassuring her mother, of all people, felt awkward.

  They both fell quiet.

  Her mother pushed the bowl away at last. “It’s to his credit that he didn’t try to deny what he did.”

  “Yes.”

  “I wonder why he didn’t. I could never prove anything.”

  “He doesn’t know you have DNA.”

  Michelle looked impatient. “That doesn’t prove anything, even if it hasn’t degraded. All he’d have had to do was argue consensual.”

  Amy conceded the point grudgingly.

  “He seemed...different.”

  “It’s been almost thirty-five years. I’ll bet you’ve changed as much or more. From what you say, you weren’t very confident.”

  “No, I wasn’t.” She sighed. “I think he might be genuinely remorseful.”

  Amy thought so, too, but... “Is that enough?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been too angry today to be able to think reasonably yet.”

  “You were amazing.”

  Mom swung a surprised gaze to Amy. “Thank you.”

  “You were.”

  The connection was brief but real. A spark of true emotion with this woman who looked like her mother but was subtly altered.

  Oh, well. She remembered her original quest when she’d moved in for this housesitting stint. She would uncover clues to her mother’s true identity. She would somehow, magically, get to know the woman who had always been an enigma to her.

  She’d succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.

  Either that or an alien had taken over her mother’s body.

  “I’m going to leave in the morning,” her mother said. “I haven’t told Ken everything. It’s time I did.”

  Not surprised, Amy nodded.

  * * *

  THE FLIGHT WAS an early morning one. Amy didn’t envy her mother the grueling hours ahead. She couldn’t imagine spending that long cramped in a coach seat on an airplane. Although wearing the same outfit she had on the outgoing trip, Mom already looked weary and rumpled in a way she hadn’t when Amy had picked her up at Portland International so recently. Amy only hoped Ken recognized her at the other end.

  Mom had recovered enough to suggest coolly that it would be fine if Amy wanted to drop her at the curb at Departures.

  Amy’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “I’ll walk you in.”

  No argument, at least. Her mother didn’t say anything when Amy drove into the parking garage, or when she insisted on pulling the suitcase into the terminal.

  They stopped for Mom to check the bag, and then headed for security. Just short of the end of the line, Michelle stopped and faced her.

  “This visit didn’t turn out quite the way I expected.”

  “What did you intend?” Amy asked, although she suspected.

  “To tell you it was none of your business.”

  “You did tell me.”

  Those perfect eyebrows arched. “Too late.” The tiniest of frowns marred her forehead. “I was quite angry, you know.”

  Amy nodded.

  “I’m beginning to think it has turned out for the best.”

  The grudging concession almost made Amy laugh. “Living with a secret that damaging can’t have been healthy for you,” she pointed out.

  “I suppose it wasn’t. Or, as it turned out, for you, either.”

  Wow, she’d noticed? Amy felt a little bad at the thought; she and Mom had made progress.

  “I can never be the mother you want me to be,” her mother said, as if her thoughts had paralleled Amy’s.

  Amy met her eyes. “How do you know what I want?”

  “I see other women. I saw them then. I just...” She seemed to struggle for a moment. “I did my best.”

  If that didn’t sound like an epitaph. For the first time, though, Amy didn’t feel bitter. Probably her mother had coped the best she could.

  And now...well, events had pushed her into changing. Amy was beginning to think they might actually be able to build a meaningful relationship, even if it was never filled with warm fuzzies.

  She noticed the clock on the wall and felt regret. “You’d better go.”

  “Yes.” Her mother hesitated, and for a suspended instant Amy thought she might hug her or kiss her cheek. But this was Mom. She simply nodded. “Please stay in touch. And if the pruning doesn’t go well...”

  “Beg Mr. C. for help. I will. Promise. Email me when you get there.”

  “Very well.” Michelle joined the line, and although Amy watched for a while, she never turned her head.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  JAKOB WAS RUN
NING his electric shaver over his jaw when his phone rang. The phone he’d taken into the bathroom with him so he didn’t suffer from separation anxiety.

  “Hi,” Amy said after he’d answered. “It’s not raining today. I wondered if you’d like to go for a run after work.”

  “Yeah,” he said, a huge smile growing on his face. “I can do that.”

  “Okay, well...” She sounded hesitant enough that interrupting was easy.

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  “I’ll expect you,” she said, and was gone.

  He looked into the mirror and realized his jaw was only half-stubble-free. And he was going to draw blood if he didn’t quite grinning.

  * * *

  “MOM’S GONE,” AMY SAID.

  Jakob braked at the stop sign a block from her house and glanced at her. “Already?”

  “She said she hadn’t told Ken everything and thought it was time she did.”

  He turned the corner and accelerated. “Did you two talk?”

  Wearing no makeup and with her mass of hair in a ponytail high on her head, Amy looked barely legal age. She had on low-slung run pants and a snug-fitting, seamless, long-sleeved shirt he recognized as a Boulder River offering from a year ago. They’d touted it for the fabric’s breathability and the shirt’s comfort as a base layer. He hadn’t seen it as sexy until now.

  “Some.”

  He had to drag his mind from the way the fabric stretched over her small breasts, and back to the topic at hand.

  “You know what she’s going to do?”

  Amy shook her head. The ponytail swung. “She did say she thought he might be genuinely remorseful.”

  “That was my impression, too.”

  “She talked about what he was like back then, too.” She frowned ahead as he turned the Subaru into the small lot that offered access to one section of trail. “She said he was really smart and ambitious. Debate team. Biting wit.”

  “None of that’s changed. From all reports, he can slice defendants off at the knees.”

  “He had a temper. He didn’t like hearing no.”

  “If he still has a temper, he’s gotten good at hiding it.” Jakob had read everything he could find about the man. “He’s controlled in front of juries and judges, and young attorneys in the office all talk about what a mentor he’s been to them. I didn’t get any undertones.”

  “No, and he’s been married for twenty-six years.”

  He shrugged. That meant only so much. “Women tolerate abuse.”

  “That’s true. Still...”

  He parked and they got out. Jakob locked, then put his keys in a pocket he could zip closed. He put the temperature at about forty-five Fahrenheit, comfortable once they got moving. He began to stretch as Amy did the same.

  Not until they began at a slow, easy pace did he say what he’d been thinking. “Part of me thinks the guy deserves whatever Michelle decides to dish out. The other part of me feels some regret. He’s doing good.”

  She started to pick up the pace and he lengthened his stride.

  “I told Mom whatever she decides I’ll support.”

  “What about you? He looked as if...” He didn’t finish, not sure how to put it.

  “As if he thinks it would be great to incorporate me into his family? Never mind what kind of explanation for my existence he plans to come up with?” She gave a short, harsh laugh. “Any reaction I got from him is because I look like her.”

  It had stung, Jakob could tell, to find out she had a sister who, at least in looks, was like her. The discovery would make anyone uneasy, but Amy more than most. If she’d grown up with this sister, she wouldn’t have been the odd one out. She would have had the sense of kinship, of family, she’d lacked.

  “You do,” he agreed, without any special emphasis.

  “Would you be attracted to her?” Amy asked, her tone suddenly hostile.

  For any guy with brains, the correct answer was a gimme. But he doubted Amy would believe any “no” that came too quick. He dredged up a memory of that photograph. His reaction to it had been a sharp sense of surprise and some anger, because he knew it would hurt Amy. Now he did his best to recall the young woman’s face.

  “If I’d never met you...I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Probably wouldn’t have occurred to me. She’s too young for me. As things stand—no.”

  “Why not? She looks like me.”

  “There’s a resemblance. That’s not the same thing. And she’s not you. Looks are only a part of what I feel for you.”

  She speeded up again. He kept pace. Half a mile passed without either of them saying anything. Occasionally one or the other had to drop back to pass or let themselves be passed by bicyclists and other runners, including a couple of women pushing high-wheeled baby strollers.

  “He’s not my father,” she said flatly. “My curiosity is satisfied. That’s all I wanted. I have a dad.”

  “Who’d be mad if he heard you say anything else.”

  “I’ve figured out that I wouldn’t be as normal as I am if it weren’t for him.”

  “As normal as you are?” Maybe unfairly, that set him to steaming. “What’s not normal about you? You think other people don’t have self-doubt? Sexual hang-ups? Shitty relationships with their parents?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Their feet pounded in unison. If he hung back a little, he could watch her mass of curls bob and swing. Her stride was smooth and natural, her legs long for her height and her butt taut.

  “You want to try cross-country skiing?” he asked.

  Her cheeks and nose were red when she turned her head. “How can you be mad one minute and ask me something like that the next?”

  He grinned. “I think I can convince you to like yourself better.” He lengthened his stride again, issuing a challenge.

  Amy shot him a look and passed him by. He glanced at his watch. “Let’s turn around.”

  Without argument, she slowed and made a U-turn, then stepped on the afterburners. They didn’t talk for a while after that. Even he was breathing hard by the time he estimated they were half a mile from the parking lot and began to slow down. When she realized she’d lost him, she looked over her shoulder, had to do a quick-step to avoid mowing down a white-haired jogger, and let herself relax into an easy pace, too.

  Not until they were walking a cooldown did he say, “So?”

  “So what?”

  “Cross-country skiing?”

  “As long as you guarantee no defective bindings.”

  He laughed. “That’s a low blow.”

  Amy smirked, having obviously enjoyed delivering it.

  “Is that a yes?”

  “That’s a yes, I’ll try it. Emphasis on try. No promises here.”

  Was there a subtext? he wondered. Had she realized he’d been hinting for a future with her? He couldn’t tell.

  “If you like to run, you’ll like Nordic skiing,” he told her, keeping it light. “Gliding is better.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “But you have to be surrounded by snow and frigid air to do it. I like not seeing my breath.”

  “That’s my Amy,” he said without thinking.

  She came to a stop and bent over, hands on her thighs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re back to fighting weight.”

  He could tell she was thinking about it. Finally she straightened, rolled her shoulders a few times and then punched the air. Fighting, but definitely bantamweight.

  No, he thought with amusement, flyweight.

  One of her fists came to rest against his chest. “My Amy?” she asked, eyebrows arching high, but a hint of vulnerability in her eyes.

  “Ye
ah,” he said, voice scratchy. “If I get my way.” He took her small fist in one of his hands, lifted it to his mouth and kissed her clenched knuckles. “You ready to go?”

  She was dazed enough for it to take a minute for her to answer. “Oh. Sure. Anytime.”

  He let her hand go, took out his keys and asked, “Your place or mine?”

  * * *

  THEY WENT TO HIS.

  In the car, Jakob settled the brief argument by pointing out that they both needed showers, and she’d look better wearing one of his T-shirts than he would wearing one of hers.

  He didn’t say whether the shower would be taken together, and Amy wasn’t quite confident enough to ask.

  Conversation died shortly after that exchange. Sexual tension thickened the air and made it hard to breathe. She would have thought it was in her imagination, but then she saw the tightness of his grip on the steering wheel and the jerk of a muscle in his jaw when he glanced sidelong at her.

  She hopped out as soon as he parked and started straight for the old freight elevator. His remote control beeped and his footsteps sounded on the concrete right behind her. Reaching past her, with one stab Jakob summoned the elevator. Amy stared straight ahead, waiting for the doors to open. He stood so close, she felt the heat of his body. A spasm of longing felt like a lightning bolt.

  She was going to feel really dumb if he offered her the shower first and then wandered to the kitchen to see what he could put together for dinner.

  The doors opened and a guy about Jakob’s age stepped out. The two men exchanged a few words. Unable to parse what they were saying, Amy waited inside. She wanted him so desperately, she didn’t know how she was going to wait.

  If he wanted her the same way.

  He stepped in beside her and pushed the button for the top floor. Still silence. They both stared straight ahead.

  What if he doesn’t...?

  Amy didn’t let herself finish the thought. It was her insecurity speaking, not the core certainty she was beginning to accept, the belief that Jakob meant what he said. And one of the things he’d said was, I love you.

  She had come to believe that he had wanted her as a teenager, that the attraction he’d spent two decades fighting was the reason for their distant relationship.