Broken Things (Faded Photograph Series) (29 page)

Cynthia stared at her for some time, as if trying to focus her eyes. “I…I’ve been remembering,” she rasped, “and I…I know who you are.”

“Well, of course you do. I’ve been coming to see you for a good part of a month.” Was she delirious again? It had happened before.

“Do you know who…who I am?” The words came with great effort.

“Yes. You’re Cynthia Matlock.”

“Wh-when I was a girl…” She struggled to inhale. “…folks called me Cindy.”

“Do you want me to call you Cindy?”

“No…I mean…it doesn’t matter.” She paused to suck in a breath. “Wh-when I left home, I…I changed my name. I…I wanted to be a singer.”

Oh, not this again
. Allie smoothed back Cynthia’s thin, scraggly bark-brown hair. “Shh…just rest now. Don’t talk.”

“You…you don’t know who I am, do you?”

Retracting her hand, Allie sighed. How should she reply?

“I…I remember you. I saw…saw your picture. Allie…I remember you.”

“Yes, I’m Allie.”
What picture is she talking about? Was it here at Arbor Springs? Had she seen me on the news weeks ago?

“You’re the one…the one Jack couldn’t get over.”

A taser gun couldn’t have shocked her more. “What?”

A hint of a smile curved the dying woman’s lips.“Y-you don’t know me, do you?” She fought for her next breath. “I…I can tell.”

Tingles of apprehension climbed Allie’s spine. “Are you referring to Jack Callahan?”

“Uh-huh. He was my…my first husband.”

For a moment, the world whirled around and Allie held onto the bedrail for support. She struggled for her bearings. It couldn’t be possible? Really? She peered down at the woman in disbelief. This? This hollowed-out shell of a woman was Jack’s ex-wife?

“If Jack didn’t…didn’t send you, then you…you must really be sent from God.”

“Jack didn’t send me.” Allie barely got the words out.

“I can tell by the look—” She wheezed. “—the look on your face.”

Her shock managed for the time being, Allie became increasingly concerned by Cynthia’s inability to breathe properly. “I’m going to get your nurse.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Jack hadn’t ever been the sort of man to unburden himself to others. He trusted only a select few people in his life with his personal business. But today Steve and Nora joined the ranks as confidants. They’d been granted some time alone since Logan, Marilee, and her folks left to do some shopping. Jack never saw two women so excited about planning a wedding and he was proud of Logan for being such a good sport. Stan Domotor, Marilee’s father, seemed like a pretty tolerant guy too, and that impressed Jack. Any man who could put up with female sensibilities won his instant respect. That was something Jack needed to learn, and it was a long time in coming.

Glancing at his wristwatch, he realized, and much to his embarrassment, that he’d been blabbering on about himself for nearly two hours. During that time, he’d managed to divulge his innermost thoughts about Allie. He wanted to win her heart. But how?

“I think you should send her roses,” Jack’s niece interject from the stairwell.

“Veronica, this is an adult conversation and you were not invited!” Nora scolded her oldest daughter.

“Yeah, well, I’m hardly a baby.” She stood from the carpeted step on which she’d been sitting and strolled into the living room with a defiant lift of her chin. “You can’t just send me out to ride my bike or play basketball like you did the other two.”

Irked by her eavesdropping, Jack narrowed his gaze at Ronnie. After a few moments, however, his irritation vanished and he couldn’t contain a chuckle. Her tenacity reminded him of himself.
Oh, Lord, it must run in the family.

Settling back into the love seat, Jack patted the empty cushion beside him. “You’ve got some advice for me, Ronnie? Let’s hear it.”

With suspicion shadowing her features, she cautiously made her way over to him and sat down. She folded her slender arms tightly, and Jack sensed her discomfort. Perhaps she’d been looking for an argument, a chance to exert her independence and thwart her parents’ authority. Typical teenage tactic, but he’d called her bluff.

“Well?” he prompted with an amused grin.

Veronica looked up at him, uncertain at first, but then a challenging spark lit her brown eyes. His pesky niece was blossoming into a very lovely young lady.

“You don’t have a romantic bone in your body, do you?”

Steve cleared his throat. “Ronnie, change your tone. You’re to respect your uncle.”

“Stay out of this.” Jack’s voice took on a facetious note.

Steve raised his hands as if in surrender, and Jack looked back at his niece.

“I think romance is overplayed.” He could be brutally honest too. “It’s not real life.”

“Define ‘real life,’ Uncle Jack.”

He grinned. “Real as in not depicted in those silly romances you read.”

Ronnie gave him a patronizing stare. “This has nothing to do with what I do or do not read.”

“Good comeback.” Jack looked over at Nora and gave her a wink. She likely worried that her smart aleck daughter would offend him. But Jack rather enjoyed the sparing. “All right. I’ll confess. I don’t have a single romantic bone in my body.”

“Well, that’s gotta change if you want Mrs. Littenberg to marry you.”

“Who says I want to get married?”

“Everyone wants to get married.” Veronica’s tone said he was dumber than a stick..“I mean, who wants to be lonely and grow old?”

“You can take her over your knee anytime, Jack,” Steve offered. “I won’t even call the cops.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “What are you talking about? I rarely took Logan over my knee, and he deserved it more than Ronnie.”As he stretched his arm out across the settee, his niece seemed to relax.“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No. Dad won’t allow me to date.”

“Good for him.”

Veronica clicked her tongue. “This isn’t about me, Uncle Jack. It’s about you.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

“If you want to be more than just friends with Mrs. Littenberg, then you should send her roses.”

Jack wagged his head. “Too expensive.”

Ronnie rolled her pretty brown eyes. “You’re investing in your future.”

Jack chuckled, but considered her suggestion. “Allie wouldn’t be impressed by roses.”

“I beg to differ,” Nora said. “As much as I hate to admit it, my daughter is right. Women like to be…” She searched for the word. “…pursued.”

“I don’t know about that. I answered plenty of calls from women who were being…
pursued
, and they didn’t appreciate it.”

“There’s a difference between stalking and pursuing,” Veronica said.

Jack turned to her again. “How do you know?”

She twisted around and swatted his arm. “Stop being difficult! It’s so annoying!”

Jack looked at Steve. “Maybe I’ll take her over my knee after all.”

“Be my guest.”

Ronnie threw her hands in the air. “Oh, forget it. I give up!”

She stood, but Jack caught her wrist. “I’m sorry. I’ll quit teasing you and I’m a man of my word.” He pulled her back into a sitting position. Maybe he’d send Allie roses just to please his niece. There was just something about Veronica that tugged at his heart―something about her, or the impenetrable look on her face that Jack recognized, although he couldn’t put a name to it. “So you think I should send her roses, huh? What color?”

Veronica shrugged, acting out her obvious discouragement.

“I think the traditional red would be nice,” Nora put in.

“Why don’t you just pick some of those blue things growing in the lot next door and save a ton of money?” Steve suggested with a guffaw that made Jack chuckle too.

“You two are hopeless.” Veronica crossed her arms.

Nora nodded. “Yes, they are. And now we’ve agreed on something twice in the same day, Ronnie. What do you know?”

She bestowed on her mother a rare smile.

“You’re lovely when you do that,” Jack said honestly. “You should smile more often.”

Veronica swung her gaze at him. Surprise splayed across her features. For a moment, she didn’t know how to respond.“Thanks, Uncle Jack. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

* * *

The sun began its descent in the western sky. Allie watched it through the windows in Room 8. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that Cynthia rested comfortably now since the clear plastic tubes containing a flow of oxygen had been placed in her nostrils. Before she’d drifted off, however, Cynthia, also once known as Roxi Callahan, managed to tell Allie more than she ever wanted to know about her marriage to Jack. But there was one aspect of the tragic tale that went ignored. Logan. Cynthia never mentioned the son whom she abandoned, and Allie found herself having little or no respect for a woman who would leave her baby.

Turning back to the sunset, she fought off the self-righteousness. She knew she shouldn’t judge Cynthia Matlock. They’d experienced similar situations. Hadn’t the woman confessed to being afraid of Jack? Allie, herself, could relate to a degree. She’d been terribly frightened of Erich at times. But where Cynthia had fled, Allie had stayed, and therein laid the difference between them.

“Angel..?”

Allie cringed. She wished the woman would stop calling her that! “I’m still here.”

Cynthia glanced in her direction. “Did you and Jack ever get married?”

“Nope. We’re just…friends.” Allie hated the terse note in her voice. But she couldn’t seem to help it. Part of her was angry with this woman while the other part commiserated with her. “I married someone else, although my husband is dead now. I have one son named Nicholas.”

Stepping toward the bedside, Allie continued, “I know you and Jack had a son―have a son. His name is Logan. I’ve met him. He’s a fine man. A youth pastor. He’s going to get married soon.”

Huge tears welled in Cynthia’s eyes, then spilled down the sides of gaunt face. Allie felt a pinch of remorse for intentionally hurting someone who was so obviously already wounded.

“My baby…”

“You remember him?”

“Of course. I’ve been thinking about him…”

“Why did you leave him?”Allie whispered as tears of her own filled her eyes.

“I didn’t mean to. I planned to come back for him, but Jack…” Cynthia sniffed. “…Jack threatened me.”

Big deal. Erich had threatened Allie plenty of times, and Jack’s temperament wasn’t nearly as formidable.

“Did Jack ever hit you? Hurt you…physically?”

A long pause “No, but I was young and got it in my head somehow that he’d hired someone to kill me.”

“Nonsense. Jack would never do something like that.”

“I know that now. But you probably don’t believe me. You’re his friend and he always loved you.” It seemed to take every ounce of strength she possessed to speak. “Of course you’d take his side.”

“No.” Allie shook her head. “I’m not taking sides. I’m merely trying to understand how you could have left your child.”

“I wasn’t thinking straight. But now…now I know that Jack treated me better than the other two jerks I married. Compared to them, Jack was a royal prince.”

Pulling the padded armchair closer to the bed, Allie sat down. “Logan might like to meet you. Can I tell him that you’re here? Can he visit you?”

“He must hate me,” Cynthia wheezed.

“I doubt it. Logan isn’t the type to hate anyone.”

With rheumy eyes, dulled by pain, she searched Allie’s face. “What does he look like?”

Allie smiled, thinking of the young man. “Dark hair, brown eyes…he looks very much like his dad.”

“Yes, Jack’s mother often made the same comparison. It used to grate on my nerves.” Cynthia struggled to inhale. “I thought Logan looked more like my side of the family, like my father.”

“Are your parents still living?”

“I have no idea. When I left home, I never looked back.”

“Where are you from?”

“A little nothing town in Iowa.”

“Any brothers? Sisters?”

“One sister.” Cynthia sucked in a breath. “Little Miss Perfect. My father adored her, but I was the one who was too fat, too ugly, too loud. I lost weight in high school, and he said I was too thin. When I got my first boyfriend, he called me a ‘hussy,’ but when my sister started dating, she was just ‘popular.’”

Allie grimaced at the unjust treatment..“Did your parents ever know you got married? Did Jack meet them? Did they know about Logan?”

“No.” Cynthia rolled her head from side to side. “I told Jack my parents were dead because in my mind, they were.”

“What about your daughters?”

“Don’t even mention them, those two…two
gold-diggers
!” Cynthia squeezed her eyes shut, but tears leaked from their corners anyway. “I’d call them something else, but you made me promise not to swear.”

“I appreciate you keeping your end of the bargain.” Allie tipped her head and pressed the issue. “How are your daughters gold-diggers?”

“They said they’d take care of me.” Her voice broke. “But they went back on their word. They thought I had a life insurance policy. They found the papers. But it wasn’t any good ‘cause I’d quit paying on it years ago. When they found out, they stuck me in this place.”

Allie’s heart melted and any residual anger she had toward Cynthia Matlock vanished. How utterly pathetic it was that this poor lady’s life had been marked by bad relationships.

With a shaky, bony hand, Cynthia dried her tears. Allie scooted her chair closer.

“I think that all these years, you’ve wanted what every woman in the world wants. Love. We want to be wives who are cherished by their husbands and mothers who are adored by their children.”

“No one has ever loved me.” Cynthia’s voice was but a rasp. “Never.”

“That’s not true.” Plucking tissue from the box, Allie wiped the other woman’s tears from her face. “Jesus Christ loves you. He loves you so much, He went to the Cross for you.”

“Where was He when I needed Him?”

“He was never far away. In fact, He’s been waiting for you to call on Him. He’s the Lover of your soul and you’ll never know true love until you know Him.”

Cynthia gave her helpless look, tears leaking nonstop from her eyes, so Allie sat on the bed and gathered her frail body into her arms. With the dying woman’s head resting on her shoulder, Allie rocked her like a little child.