As much as she wanted to — and oh, how she wanted to — she couldn’t take that girl back to the moment she walked into the clinic and stop her just in time. But when she saw her emerge, hollow-eyed and heartsick, Blythe just felt sorry for her. It was a surprising sensation after so many years.
“I forgive you,” she whispered.
And hearing the words, her shoulders settled. She nearly slid to the floor. Blythe closed the lid of the toilet and let herself collapse, elbows on her thighs, face in her hands. She wept again, but it wasn’t the full-body racking that had shaken her all night. Or the deep, heartbroken sobs that had followed her sketching. Now, tears of relief leaked from her eyes. No, she wouldn’t get her child back. She wouldn’t get Nate back.
But for the first time in six years, she felt like she could have herself back.
She took another five minutes to let the last of her tears fall, but then she stepped out of her stall and washed her face with cold water. After patting it dry with a few paper towels, Blythe regarded herself in the mirror. Her mascara was still intact, but that was the only thing about her face that looked remotely normal. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her eyelids puffy. Her nose was swollen and red, but at least she didn’t have a client meeting ahead of her. And with any luck, the redness and swelling would go away soon.
With as much stealth as she could manage, Blythe slipped back to her desk, plugged her digital sketchpad into her computer, and started designing Dr. Saddlers’s billboard.
****
“BLYTHE, THAT’S PERFECT!” GRETCHEN crowed. “I love the tricycle and the ballet slippers.” On the rectangular template in front of her, Blythe had arranged the doctor’s photo and information on the left-hand side, and his tagline filled in the space on the right, but underneath both, miniature footprints meandered around iconic images of childhood and adolescence. A bassinet, a doll, a tricycle, a soccer ball, a pair of ballet shoes, and a graduation cap.
“Thank you. It’s not quite finished.” Blythe glanced at the clock on her computer screen and was surprised to see that it was almost six. She’d be walking home in the dark, but it wouldn’t be the first time.
“Still, it’s great work. I’m impressed with how much you accomplished today.” Blythe wasn’t sure if Gretchen thought she’d worked fast or if she expected less of her after witnessing her emotional state that morning.
“I love what I do,” Blythe hedged. She was saved from further awkwardness when her phone chimed. Gretchen nodded in the direction of the sound and gave her a parting wave.
“I’ll let you get to that. Don’t stay too late tonight.”
Blythe waved back before checking her phone.
Wednesday, Nov. 12 5:52 p.m.
Mom wants you to come for dinner.
Calvin. After the day — and night — she’d had, Blythe was grateful for even his terse message.
Wednesday, Nov. 12 5:53 p.m.
Hi to you, too. What’s for dinner?
Wednesday, Nov. 12 5:53 p.m.
Tacos and stuff. Beans. Guac. You won’t starve
Please come. They’re all being so weird around me.
Blythe smiled a sad smile. If having to move back to Lafayette meant that she got to build a stronger relationship with her little brother, then it was worth it. Now that she knew without a doubt that love, marriage, and children wouldn’t be hers, she wanted to take care of the relationships and family she did have.
Wednesday, Nov. 12 5:54 p.m.
Love to. How about you pick me up at work???
Wednesday, Nov. 12 5:55 p.m.
Sigh. Okay, fine. Be there in 5.
True to his word, Calvin pulled up on Jefferson Street five minutes later. His black eye was now a deep purplish brown. Blythe winced just looking at him.
“I still can’t get over it,” she said, shaking her head. “How was your first day back at school?”
Calvin rolled his eyes and gave her a disgusted look.
“Seriously? It was shit. Do you know that some people actually laughed when they saw me?”
“Assholes… How are the ribs?”
“They fucking hurt,” Calvin said, looking pissed. “I have to do these coughing exercises every two hours. Any idea how much it hurts to cough with two broken ribs?”
“Shit, Calvin, should you even be driving?”
“Please, don’t you start. Mom tried to say the same thing, but if I have to fucking go to school, I can fucking drive.”
Blythe threw up her hands in surrender. “Excellent point.”
They drove in silence for a moment, but then Calvin looked over at her with a sly smile.
“There is one perk, though.”
“What’s that?” she asked, smiling at the glint in his eye.
“April Zimmer.”
Without warning, her smile doubled. “Who’s April Zimmer?”
Calvin shrugged like it was no big deal, but Blythe knew otherwise.
“She’s first clarinet in music.” His voice hushed in a kind of awe. “When she saw me today, she rushed up and was like ‘Oh my God, Calvin! What happened!’ She hugged me — which hurt like hell but also didn’t — and she sat with me at lunch.”
“She sounds sweet.”
Calvin pulled into their parents’ driveway, looking a little dreamy. “She is. But she’s scary, too. When this douche in my physics class asked what happened to my face, she got all stormy and was like, ‘He’ll be fine in a few days. What about yours?”
Blythe laughed. “I think I like April Zimmer.”
Cal pressed his lips together to contain his smile. “Yeah, me too.” Then he looked at Blythe. “And I like Nate… I mean, I always have, but he’s really good for you.”
It was her turn to press her lips together to keep them from quivering. Calvin noticed, of course.
“What? Did he break up with you again?” His look of scorn was instant. Blythe sighed.
“Well, we weren’t exactly back together…” She tried to keep the tremor from her voice, but she couldn’t quite manage it. “But it can’t work now… We can’t work.”
Scorn became shock. ‘“Why the hell not? He is so crazy about you it’s gross. Of course, it can work.”
Blythe shook her head. “No, it can’t. I did something… something terrible that I can’t undo, and I had to tell him last night… He hates me. It’s over for good.”
Calvin frowned. “Well… like… what did you do? You’re acting like you killed somebody.”
Pain flashed through her at his words, and she had to shut her eyes to absorb them.
“Blythe?” Calvin’s voice, usually so full of sarcasm and contempt, softened immediately. “What happened?”
Blythe realized that she wanted to tell him about it. No one in her family had ever known. She’d kept the whole nightmare from them. Of course, her brothers had been too young at the time, and she had no desire to tell her parents. She had relied on the support of her friends and the counseling staff at Tulane to get her through it.
But Calvin wasn’t a little kid anymore. He had real-life problems, too. And he knew what it meant to suffer. If she told him this, they’d have each other’s secrets, and Blythe had no doubt that he would protect hers just as she protected his.
“I found out I was pregnant the day after we broke up.” She heard his quick suck of breath. Calvin didn’t need her to fill in the gaps.
“You had an abortion and never told him,” he said simply. There was no judgment in his voice. No anger. Blythe felt both a measure of relief and gratitude. Maybe he could know the truth and still not think less of her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.” She looked into her brother’s eyes, waiting for confirmation.
“Do you regret it?”
Blythe slumped against the passenger seat. “More than anything in my entire life. I’d give everything I have to undo that decision.” The words were true, and it was hard to say them. But she noticed a differenc
e. She could say them and feel them now without hating herself.
“Wow… I don’t know what to say… I’m sorry, Blythe.” His words were so gentle that tears welled in her eyes again, and one slipped down her cheek. She didn’t want to cry anymore, but his tenderness touched her. She nodded and fought for composure.
“Still, I think you’re wrong,” Calvin said, giving her an earnest look.
“I know I was wrong. I get—”
Calvin shook his head. “No, you are wrong. You and Nate should still be together.”
It was a sweet thing for him to say, but she knew better.
“He’ll never be able to forgive me. His own mother was nineteen when she got pregnant with him,” Blythe said, hearing again Nate’s condemnation of her as he compared the two of them. “His father completely abandoned them as soon as he found out, but Lila still kept Nate.”
The shame of his judgment came back to her — almost as strong as when he’d shouted her down the night before. Blythe now understood that, for Nate, her choice was unthinkable. Given his own history, he would never have allowed it. It made her decision to leave him out that much more despicable.
“He’ll never forgive me,” she said again.
“Bullshit.”
Blythe looked at her brother in disbelief. “You didn’t see him after I told him the truth. He was so angry.”
Calvin rolled his eyes.
“And you didn’t see him last spring when I wrecked my bike.”
“What?” She squinted at him in confusion.
Calvin pointed to the thin scar over his right brow. She remembered him telling her it had taken twenty stitches.
“When Mom and I went to the walk-in clinic, Nate was there with his mom. She had pneumonia or something.” He waved his hand to brush aside the trivial. “Anyway, he talked to Mom for like fifteen minutes, and I swear, every time she said your name he leaned forward a good two inches. It was like he was trying to get closer to you just by listening.”
Blythe felt stunned. Neither Alexandra nor Calvin had mentioned the encounter. She wanted to know more.
“Like that!” Calvin said, pointing at her. “He looked just like that!” Blythe realized that she leaned forward in her seat, clinging to every word he said.
“What else happened?” she said, growing a little irritated with her know-it-all brother.
“Well, when Mom told him that you weren’t married, I swear, his relief was… like… massive.” Calvin gestured with his outstretched hands as though he held invisible bowling balls. “He was still so in love with you, and he looked just the same Saturday night. He’ll forgive you… He’s just pissed right now.”
Blythe sighed. She couldn’t afford to listen to him. Hope like that was far too dangerous for her.
“I wish you were right, Cal, but last night changed everything.” She opened her car door, forcing herself to leave the subject behind. “C’mon, let’s get inside before Seth eats all the guacamole.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THAT NIGHT, NATE DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER sleeping.
He drove home from Blythe’s apartment and went straight into his garage. He scanned the space until his eyes fell on the pile of lumber and PVC pipes that stood in the corner. The stash was everything he needed to build the wall-mounted tool rack he’d wanted for months. Nate told himself that the supplies had sat idle for too long. Better to focus on that than the panic that threatened to choke him.
Nate threw himself into the job. Measuring. Marking. Sawing. Nailing. Soon, he had a tall, sturdy frame to mount hooks for shovels and rakes. With the pipe, he made angle-cut cuffs for hand trowels, lopping shears, and pruners. As he worked through the night, he chose the power tools at every opportunity. His table saw and nail gun required a keen concentration that cleared his mind whenever Blythe’s heartsick face crossed his vision.
Night bled from the sky, and the sun rose. When he was so tired he couldn’t think anymore, he dragged himself to bed and crashed. He spent the day thrashing around in bed. He awoke, smelled Blythe’s perfume on the pillow beside him, and groaned into his mattress. Images of their break up years ago and whatever had happened to them last night merged and shuffled together, scenes of pain, anger, and regret looping endlessly. Every time he’d drift off for a few minutes, a piece of the truth, the awful loss, would brush against his consciousness, and he’d jolt awake, his stomach tight and his heart racing.
He didn’t want to believe any of it. He didn’t want to believe that Blythe had ever been pregnant. That she’d aborted their child. That she never told him in the first place. That things could never be the same.
Wishing that night would fall, he drifted off again, and it shouldn’t have surprised him at all when he awoke to banging on his back door at half-past seven.
Nate pulled on a pair of jeans and dragged a T-shirt over his head before he crossed the house. He muttered a few curses, knowing it was Lila, knowing she’d be the only one to demand entrance after dark. But when he opened the door, he was surprised to find both Lila and Father Gabe, the latter looking more than a little perplexed. Under the yellow glow of his porch light, Lila stared fixedly at the doorknob, and Father Gabe’s mouth hung open as though he were speechless.
“Uh…” The priest’s gruff stammer broke the silence as he shuffled his feet on Nate’s doorstep. “Lila seems to think something is very wrong.”
Nate closed his eyes and sighed. Of course, she did. He’d likely kept her awake all night with his project, and she hadn’t known what to do. Guilt bowed his head, but that didn’t mean Nate wanted to talk about it.
“It’s fine. Everything’s fine,” he bit out. Nate dragged a hand through his bed head and tried to shake the stress from his shoulders.
“Well, it seems fine,” Father Gabe grumbled, his words full of sarcasm, his hesitation to disturb Nate clearly gone. “Open up and let us in.”
“Jesus,” Nate hissed, stepping back to let them through.
“Thought you didn’t believe in him,” Father Gabe muttered, letting Lila enter ahead of him. “Lila, would you make us some of that Bristol House tea Nate keeps for you?”
Without a word, his mother set off for the kitchen, leaving Nate and the priest standing in his den.
“Well, aren’t you going to ask me to sit down?”
Nate rolled his eyes. “Where are my manners? Oh, they’re probably still in bed, which is where I’d like to be.”
“Puh! It’s not even eight o’clock! You usually look spry as a rooster well past my bedtime. Not tonight. You look like a half-drowned coon — ugly and angry.”
Nate crossed his arms and stared down the old man.
“You had enough, Padre? Or you want to joke a little more at my expense?”
Father Gabe shrugged. “I don’t want to joke at all. I want to find out what’s bothering you because whatever it is… it’s bothering my best friend.”
Nate sighed and sunk into his recliner. Why did Lila have to be so sensitive to everything? He couldn’t stub his toe without her feeling it. It was something he’d never get used to. He should have known she’d probably spent the whole day pacing in her apartment, unsure of what to do.
But there was nothing she could do. Nothing anyone could do. Everything was ruined. Still, he had to humor Father Gabe.
“Sit if you want to sit.”
Father Gabe lowered himself onto the couch and rested his elbows on his knees. He eyed Nate, waiting for him to speak.
“Well? What’s wrong?” The old man demanded. “I’ve got my money on Blynn.”
“Blythe… It’s Blythe. As in ‘joyous’ or ‘cheerful.’ Is that so hard to remember?” Nate snapped.
“Around you? You bet your grumpy ass!” The priest cocked a monstrous, gray eyebrow at him and crossed himself. “What’d you do this time?”
Indignation filled the room.
“This time is not my fault,” Nate barked, but he sounded defensive even to his own ears. Father Gabe di
dn’t miss it either.
“If that were true, why are you so angry?” The old man challenged.
Nate’s eyes went wide with disbelief. “Can’t I be the wronged party and be angry? I have a right to be angry.”
Father Gabe didn’t back down. “Anger is a secondary emotion. It protects you against something worse. Usually frustration, pain, or fear. Which one is behind your anger, Nate?”
Nate ignored the question and flung out the truth in his defense.
“Do you know what she told me last night? She was pregnant back then. We were supposed to have a baby together, and she didn’t tell me,” Nate choked on emotion. “She ended it. She killed our child. You’re telling me I’m not angry about that?”
Father Gabe’s old eyes closed in sorrow. A deep sigh escaped his bulbous nose, and he crossed himself again. He picked up the crucifix he wore on the chain around his neck and kissed it. When he opened his eyes again, they were full of sympathy.
“You tell me why you’re angry, Nate.” His gruff voice was as gentle as it could get. Now that he’d let the words out, Nate felt like he’d lost half his strength with them. He slumped in his recliner and rubbed his forehead.
“I’m angry because she didn’t tell me,” he said. Father Gabe nodded.
“What would have happened if she’d told you?”
Nate gave the priest an incredulous look. “I would’ve stopped her.”
Father Gabe ignored his surly tone.
“How would you have stopped her, Nate?”
“I would’ve married her. I would’ve supported her and the baby,” he said, knowing it was true. True without a doubt. That was what should have happened. “I would’ve taken care of her.”
As soon as the words were out, a chill ran through him. Nate remembered the last serious talk he’d had with Richland and how he’d dismissed his father’s concerns. I’d never do to anyone what my asshole father did to Lila, and I’d certainly never abandon Blythe.
But sitting across from his friend the priest, Nate realized he had.
He had abandoned her.
Did it really matter to her that he’d done it the day before she found out she was pregnant instead of the day after? He sent her away. He told her not to come back. He gave her those words the day she found out.
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