She did manage to dredge up the enthusiasm to buy a Christmas tree. But it sat undecorated for nearly a week before she started to trim it.
Halfway through the project, she realized her heart wasn’t in it. She paused, sat down at her computer and without forethought, started writing to her father and Azucena.
December 14
Dear Dad and Azucena,
Standing alone in front of the Christmas tree convinced me to write. That and Azucena’s letter.
She’s right, I do need you. I wish I didn’t. I lived without you nearly all my life, so it shouldn’t be difficult to go on pretending you really are dead, the way Mom told me. But I find that impossible.
You made a new life for yourself, started another family. After being alone for more than six months now, I’m beginning to appreciate what it must have been like for you without Mom and me. At one time, I believed that you’d betrayed your marriage vows to Mother, but I don’t feel that way anymore.
Azucena, thank you for opening my eyes. Thank you for having the courage to write me and defend my father. He is a good man.
Dad. I don’t blame you for Jack’s death. How could I? If anything I’m thankful, so very thankful, that you brought me to him that fateful evening. In fact, loving Jack has helped me understand why Mom did the things she did.
From the day I found your letter and realized you were alive, I’ve been agonizing over one question. What made Mom lie to me? Why did she tell me you were dead? Especially since her love for you was so unmistakable. I saw it in her eyes any time she mentioned your name. Your wedding photo was on her bedside table, so it was the last thing she saw at night and the first thing every morning.
Now I think I understand a little better. Mom was the kind of woman who only loves once. She never divorced you or remarried because she gave her heart completely and totally to you. Why she lied to me, I can’t say, but I have no doubt of her absolute devotion to you. I understand because it was that way with Jack and me. Now, here’s the shocking part of our relationship. I disliked him on sight and he felt much the same about me. Because I wore Mom’s wedding band, he assumed I was married, and I let him think it. Many times since, I’ve regretted not telling him the truth. There just didn’t seem an easy way to do it and when I tried he wouldn’t listen. I thought there’d be plenty of opportunities to explain after I’d squared things with Gary.
You see, Dad, Jack and I weren’t lovers, and yet we shared an intimacy I could never hope to find with anyone else. He is the only man I’ve ever truly loved. Mom and I are alike in that way. So, Dad, I don’t blame you for what happened with Jack. Like I said, I’m grateful to you for bringing him into my life.
Again, Azucena, thank you for your letter.
Merry Christmas and much love to you all.
Raine
January 2
Dear Raine,
I can’t tell you how happy Azucena and I were to get your letter. It was the best Christmas present I’ve ever received. Our time together last spring was far too short, and there was much to tell you, much to explain.
Perhaps I can answer some of your questions now and help you understand what happened between your mother and me. I loved Ginny, still do, and know deep in my heart that she continued to love me. Our love for each other was never in doubt. But as I said the night I saw you, she stayed in the United States because she wanted what was best for you. So did I. You were always our first consideration. Your mother wanted a high quality of education and health care for you. Nor did she want to take you away from your grandparents who adored you. I was the one foolish enough to ruin my life, and I didn’t want you or your mother to pay the penalty for my sins.
As I also explained, from the midseventies until you were about nine, your mother visited me on several occasions while you stayed with the woman you called Aunt Elaine. Ginny’s visits were short and it was agony for her to leave. Many times I pleaded with her to agree that I should return to the States and accept my due. No prison sentence could be worse than the hell of being away from the two of you. Each time she persuaded me to remain in my adopted country. I wasn’t strong enough to do what I knew was right. Now it’s too late. Azucena and our three sons need me.
When you were five, your mother and I decided to tell you I was dead. It was a decision we made together. You were at the age when you started asking probing questions about your father. The circumstances of my leaving were too complex and difficult for a child to understand. Nonetheless, I always worried that someone might make the connection between the two of you and me, a man considered a traitor and worse. I worried that if people did know you were my wife and daughter, they would scorn you—and I couldn’t stand the thought of that. It seems I worried for nothing, for which I am profoundly thankful.
What I didn’t realize at the time we told you about my “death” was that your mother would come to believe the lie herself. I can’t explain it in any other way. I think it was easier for her to let me go if she could convince herself I really was dead. As the next few years passed, her visits stopped and she only rarely answered my letters. For a period of time I drifted from town to town, more a prisoner than if I’d been locked behind bars. Only when I accepted a teaching position here in El Mirador and met Azucena did I have a chance to start a second life. Don’t blame me for this weakness, Raine.
About your loving Jack. I will always be grateful for his friendship and I miss him dearly. He was an honorable man and a hero. He gave his life for you and without knowing it, he saved me, too. Often it was his visits that kept me sane at a time when the world seemed beyond my control. He was a true friend. It makes me proud that my only daughter would give her heart to such a man.
You will heal, Raine. The terrible pain you suffer now will ease. This doesn’t mean you’ll forget Jack, or love him less. With effort you can learn to love again. I know.
Your loving father
For four months Lorraine and her father exchanged letters. Email was out of the question, since at this point neither Thomas nor the school had a computer. Every night Lorraine eagerly checked her mail and sent off lengthy letters of her own. For the first time in her life, she came to know her father and to appreciate his wit and intelligence. He wrote often of his sons, Antonio, Hector and baby Alberto. The two oldest boys sometimes enclosed pictures they’d created for their big sister. Lorraine posted them on her refrigerator and smiled whenever they caught her eye.
Thomas encouraged her to visit again, to give Mexico another chance. Someday she would, she promised. As the weeks and months passed, she found herself thinking about the possibility. Then, on the anniversary of her mother’s death, Alberto became seriously ill. Lorraine knew what she had to do—but she needed to talk it over with her mother first.
Taking a large bouquet of spring flowers, Lorraine visited the cemetery in early May. She arranged the tulips and daffodils about the gravesite, then stood next to Virginia Dancy’s engraved marble marker.
“Hi, Mom,” she whispered, staring down at the perfectly manicured lawn. This was her first visit since shortly before Christmas. Her throat felt thick, and tears gathered in her eyes.
“I was angry with you for a while,” she said, her voice hoarse. “But I understand now why you did the things you did.” She was silent as she thought about that for a moment.
“I’m not the same person I was a year ago.” Lorraine knew she was wiser now. More mature. More tolerant, braver, a better person. Thanks to her love for Jack, of course, but also her growing relationship with Thomas and Azucena. She’d changed in other ways, too. Outer ways. For one thing, the style of her hair. She’d had it cut to a more practical length. She felt Jack would have approved of that. Bit by bit her casual wardrobe changed from tailored slacks and silk blouses to cotton shorts and T-shirts. Already she’d reaped a small harvest from the garden she’d planted and that winter had taken up knitting. Gary and Marjorie’s newborn daughter was the recipient of her first project, a bea
utiful—even if she did say so herself—yellow baby blanket.
“I’ve grown up,” she added softly. “Dad and I write now—a couple of letters a week. His wife is a lovely, gentle woman, and his three sons are beautiful. I know you’d want him to be happy—that’s why I’m telling you this. He is. Happy for the first time in ages. He’s got a wonderful family and he’s made peace with his past. He still believes the war was wrong, but he deeply regrets his involvement with the bombing.”
She waited a few minutes and then brought up the subject she’d come here to talk to her mother about. “I’ve decided to put the house on the market,” she said. “I waited because…well, because it helped me deal with losing you and Jack. I might have continued to live here if Alberto hadn’t come down with strep throat last month. El Mirador doesn’t have a medical clinic, and Dad ended up taking Azucena and the baby into Mérida to see a doctor. By the time they got there, Alberto’s temperature was 106 and he had scarlet fever. He nearly died. The town needs a medical clinic and a trained medical professional. Do you realize what I’m saying, Mom? What I want to do?
“Alberto should have been on antibiotics much earlier, and he would have been if El Mirador had a clinic. Dad and I’ve written to each other about this several times now. I’m going to take the money from my inheritance and the sale of the house and use it to build a clinic in El Mirador. So many people want to help. Gary got Med-X to donate supplies, and even Group Wellness wants to contribute. If you don’t mind, I’m going to name the clinic after someone you never met, someone I’ve told you about. His name was Jack Keller.
“You probably wouldn’t have liked him,” she said, and smiled sadly. “In the beginning I didn’t, either, but I came to love him and in time you would have, too.”
Peace settled over her. An inner peace that told her she’d made the right decision. There was nothing more for her in Louisville. Her father, his wife and her three half brothers, all the family she had in the world, waited for her in a Mexican village on the Yucatán Peninsula. There she would build a lasting memorial to Jack. There she would make a new life for herself the way her father had all those years ago.
“Jack, Jack.” The six-year-old boy raced across the yard, rimed with autumn frost, to join Jack at the fence. They stood together watching a number of llamas graze contentedly in the pasture.
“How’s it going, Andy?”
“Good.” The boy was the spitting image of Jack’s friend and fellow mercenary, Tim Mallory. He leaped onto the bottom rung of the fence and folded his arms over the post. “Hey, you’re walking without your cane!”
“Yup.” His offhand response showed no hint of the massive effort and patience this accomplishment had required. Jack had lived in Texas with Murphy and Letty for nearly a year, using the time to recover his strength and learn to walk all over again. He’d never intended to stay that long, but his physical therapy had been extensive.
Recently Cain and his wife, Linette, had visited him from their cattle ranch in Montana and brought their two daughters with them. Cain’s girls were relatively close in age to Murphy’s boys, and the kids had gotten along famously. Cain had hoped for a Deliverance Company reunion, but Tim and Francine couldn’t get away. Their llama ranch on Vashon Island up in Washington State was thriving, and Tim Mallory had a small but growing herd.
When he could travel comfortably, Jack went to visit Tim and Francine himself. He’d originally planned to stay a couple of days, but found he enjoyed the view off Puget Sound. It reminded him of Mexico and the years he’d spent aboard Scotch on Water and those all-too-brief weeks with Lorraine.
“Mom says one day no one’ll know you used to walk with a cane,” Andy said. He rested his chin on the top of his hands and heaved a deep sigh.
“Hey, there’s Bubba!” the boy said next, pointing toward a llama at the far end of the pasture.
“Bubba?” Jack asked, grinning.
“Dad and him don’t get along very well, but I know he gives Bubba some extra feed every day.”
“Did you ask him why?”
“Yeah.”
“And what did he say?”
Andy shrugged. “That Bubba did him a favor once and he hasn’t forgotten it.”
Jack knew all about that favor. Six years ago, the very night Andrew Mallory was born, two hired assassins had paid a visit to Vashon Island. Their job had been to eliminate Tim and Francine. Unbelievably enough, the timely appearance of the big llama had been a lifesaving intervention.
“What else did your mother say?” Jack asked. “About my walking, I mean.” At one time Francine had been the best physical therapist on the West Coast. She’d been in charge of his rehabilitation from the beginning.
“She said—” Andy paused and let out a slow breath “—it would take longer for your heart to get better. Did your heart get hurt when you fell off the cliff, Uncle Jack?” He turned and regarded Jack quizzically.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s difficult to explain.” Jack didn’t want to talk about Lorraine and, in fact, hadn’t. Not to Murphy or Tim or their wives. But that didn’t mean she was ever far from his thoughts. Although it’d been a year and a half, not a day passed that he didn’t think of her.
Bits of memory came to him at the oddest times, often when he was least prepared to deal with them. He couldn’t help wondering what had happened to her once she’d returned to the States.
Was she happy? Had she told her husband about him? How had Gary Franklin reacted? Had she forgotten him and gone on to have the baby she’d wanted so badly, badly enough to mention to Dr. Berilo’s nurse? The thought of Lorraine with a child wrenched his heart. Only recently had he come to realize how much he wanted children himself. It was seeing his friends with their sons and daughters….
“Is Andy talking your ear off?” Tim joined him at the fence.
“Hardly.” Jack enjoyed the boy’s company and his energetic bursts of conversation.
“Some pretty freakish weather going on around the country,” Tim said, glancing up at the sky, which was a clear bright blue with clusters of high clouds.
“Looks downright perfect to me,” Jack murmured. In fact, he liked Washington and had given some consideration to purchasing a few acres here himself. Somewhere near the water. Early on, in a moment of pain, he’d sold Scotch on Water. He’d done it knowing he’d never be able to sleep on the boat again and not think of Lorraine. Little did he realize then that he wouldn’t be able to sleep anywhere and not think of her.
“The weather here seems fine,” Jack said.
“I’m talking about what happened in Louisville, Kentucky.”
“Louisville?” Lorraine and Gary lived in Louisville.
“You didn’t hear?”
“No.” It required an effort to conceal his interest.
“Tornadoes in the area. They’ve done a lot of damage to the city. The news is full of pictures.” He shook his head. “Hard to believe a storm could cause so much destruction.”
“How many people were killed?”
“Five so far, but they’re sure to discover more bodies in the next day or two.”
“That’s a lot,” Andy inserted.
“It wasn’t just one part of the city, either,” Tim continued. “From what the newscaster said, quite a few neighborhoods were affected. Crazy how one house’ll be leveled to the ground, while the house across the street is untouched.”
That night, Jack stayed up late and watched the news reports for himself. Afterward he couldn’t sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, Lorraine was there, and when he did manage to drop off, his dreams were filled with her. In one, he was searching but couldn’t find her. Her voice grew weaker, more plaintive and urgent. Then he saw her, buried under a huge pile of rubble. No matter how hard he dug, how frantic his attempts, he couldn’t reach her. He awoke in a cold sweat.
By the time dawn swept over the pasture and the nearby wate
r, bringing the bright crisp sunshine of November, Jack had packed his bags and booked a flight out of Sea-Tac for Louisville.
“You’re leaving?” Francine said as she poured him a cup of coffee.
Jack took his first restorative sip and nodded.
“Any particular reason?” Tim asked. He secured the straps of his coveralls and retrieved a mug from the kitchen shelf.
“Yes,” Jack said. He didn’t elaborate. He caught husband and wife exchanging a look.
“Is it important?” Francine asked. She buttered toast and piled it on a platter.
“Yes.” Her questions were a subtle way of telling him it might not be a good idea to take on too much just yet. After all this time, he was still as weak as one of Tim’s newborn llamas. He was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
“Where are you going?” Tim pried. “Kentucky?”
Jack was surprised he’d been that readable. “What if I am?”
Tim and Francine sat next to each other, across the table from him. “Is she there?” Francine asked.
No one outside of Mexico knew about Lorraine—and yet they all seemed to know. Jack couldn’t figure it out.
Both husband and wife waited for his response. “I don’t know where she is now, but I suspect it’s Louisville,” he said grudgingly.
“And you’re going to find out,” Tim announced with finality, as if this would be the romantic conclusion they’d all been expecting.
The Sooner the Better Page 23