Spring Rain (5 page)

Suddenly, Terror remembered his lessons about standing with his paws on the window ledge. He reared up and watched Clay with sad, accusing eyes.

“I’m coming back,” he assured the animal.

Terror looked skeptical. It was as if he knew how Clay had come back to Leigh.

He shook off the guilty feeling as he pulled the restaurant door open. The dog knew nothing. It was his own conscience talking, more tender than ever after the visit to the house by the bay. He took a table by himself at the back of the dining room and gave his order. He pulled out James Scott Bell’s latest legal thriller and began to read.

Unfortunately he couldn’t keep his mind on the well-written caper. Leigh kept popping up on the page, her brown eyes alternately warm as they’d been when he left her all those years ago or scornful as he imagined they’d be today.

“Fine Christian you turned out to be,” she’d say. “Venal as any other man.”

Lord, what am I going to do about her? I know she lives in the
garage behind our house. I know she went out of her way to ignore me when I was here for Dad’s funeral. And the other times I’ve been here since, she’s been pointedly gone. God, I know this mess is my own fault, but could You help me anyway?

He saw her again in his mind—young, lovely, and lonely, so very lonely. And he’d taken advantage of her vulnerability. There was no other way to describe what he’d done.

Oh, not that he’d forced any intimacy on her. She’d been more than willing. She welcomed it, in fact, and for a while he allowed himself to hide behind that truth. He wasn’t all that culpable because she had been eager, compliant. But he couldn’t hide long from the fact that she’d been susceptible to his loving because no one had loved her in a terribly long time, if ever.

He could still see her as he prepared to leave her house that long ago night, her hair mussed, her eyes warm and full of deep emotion.

Already his conscience was screaming at him now that his body wasn’t. “Leigh, I—” The “I’m sorry” stuck in his throat.

She misunderstood. “It’s all right if you can’t say it tonight, Clay.” She raised a hand and rested her fingers gently against his lips. Her other hand lay over his heart. “I love you, too.” She rose up and gave him a quick kiss. “Just hug me good night. You can say it later.”

But there hadn’t been a later. He’d known there wouldn’t be even as he held her in his arms and kissed her again and again. He was leaving the next morning with his parents and Ted for a last family vacation, and as soon as they returned, he would leave for the Naval Academy and four years where his time wouldn’t be his own.

Tell her there’s no later
, he ordered himself.
Tell her!

But he hadn’t. He’d been a coward, and that night had colored the rest of his life as no other single experience ever had.

He had driven past her house twice between vacation and leaving for school, but it looked unoccupied. When he’d come home at Christmas, his first break from the Academy, he’d driven past again, telling himself that if he saw her, he’d stop and apologize. Not that an apology was sufficient for the hurt he’d dealt, but it was the best he could offer. He’d been both disappointed and relieved when no one seemed to be home. Several more times during that Christmas visit and subsequent breaks he’d driven by, but
the house was always dark and empty.

He knew he could ask Ted about her. Ted would know. After all, they had been tight friends. But somehow he couldn’t say anything to Ted. He knew about Ted’s promiscuity and had condemned it loudly like the good little pharisee he’d been. The tension between the two of them was palpable every time they were in the same room. So he’d become a hypocrite, condemning Ted and denying his own breaking of the seventh commandment.

It was during Christmas break in his sophomore year when he’d overheard a conversation that had untied many of the guilt knots constricting his soul. He’d been coming into the kitchen when he stopped to retie his Reebok.

“I found Billy the cutest birthday gift, Ted.” His mother was standing at the kitchen table as she held up a little blue sweater with bears on the front and a little hood with a tassel on it.

Ted grinned at the sweater. “Leigh will love it. I’m planning on giving her a three-month’s supply of disposable diapers. Not very elegant, but imminently practical.”

Leigh? Baby? His heart stopped. It couldn’t be! Not from one time! No!

“It’s hard to believe he’ll be a year old at the end of January,” Julia said as she put the sweater back into its box.

January. Clay turned from the doorway and raced to his room. He counted on his fingers the whole way. He collapsed on his bed with relief when he knew January couldn’t be his fault. March could have been. January, no.

But that meant—His mind balked at what it meant. Leigh, sweet Leigh, had already been pregnant when they had slept together. Sweet Leigh? Hah!

He didn’t have to feel so guilty after all. Relief coursed through him. He stared at the ceiling, smiling to himself.

But if it wasn’t him, then who?

Suddenly Clay was furious. Who had done this to her? What craven coward had gotten her pregnant and then left her?

His skin turned cold. Ted. It had to be Ted. He was always around her. He was giving her diapers. His mother was giving her a sweater. It had to be Ted.

But how could that be? He was gay.

Maybe she was his last gasp of hope that he could be straight?
Surely he’d rather be straight. Anyone’d rather be straight.

When he thought about it now, all these years later, it was amazing how he’d been able to deceive himself and feel the sinned against instead of the sinner. She had already been pregnant! It was like she’d cheated on him when he’d been faithful to her. There’d never been another for him, and there she was, sleeping around.

Talk about perverted thinking! Surely the heart was deceitful above all things.

He nodded to the waitress who brought him his dinner and wondered at his own stupidity and lack of honor. Could he blame it on his age? He’d only been eighteen. But he’d known right from wrong. He smiled wryly as he cut into his fried chicken. He’d known. Oh yes, he’d known.

You were guilty, Wharton. Whether she was sleeping around or not, you were still guilty. And don’t you ever forget it.

J
ULIA MADE DINNER
, but her mind wasn’t on the work. She kept grinning and humming the doxology. Clay was coming home!

It was amazing how the mere promise of his presence made her feel better. Of course he was her son, and she enjoyed him for that reason, but it was more than that. There was solidity to Clay, a Christian strength that communicated to her and made her feel that life wasn’t so hard, so impossible after all.

She felt guilty sometimes because Ted was the son who was always there for her, but Clay was the son who gave her strength. Not that she loved one more than the other. She did not. She had vowed the day they were born that she would never be a Rebecca, favoring one son over the other. But despite the twins’ similarities, which were many, they were definitely different men, and those differences were what made Clay her tower of strength now that Will was gone.

If only his visits weren’t so rare. So very rare.

She blinked against tears. She knew she shouldn’t take his absence personally. It was the demands of a career navy life, the distance of his assignments. She wouldn’t let herself dwell on the fact that he’d been as near as Virginia for the last two years, two of the loneliest years of her life, and he’d rarely come to see her. Of
course he’d called and written, and they’d e-mailed almost daily. But that wasn’t the same as an in-person presence. Still the last thing she needed to do was greet him with, “Hi. I’m glad you’re home. It’s about time.”

She had understood not seeing him during his Naval Academy years. His time wasn’t his, though he did come home for the major holidays. And in the summers he had his cruises. Then he was stationed in Hawaii, and they’d been only too glad to go visit him instead of expecting him to come home.

“I’m going to get a house on the beach,” he said when he first got his orders.

Sure you are
, Julia had thought, amused at his naïveté.

As always he ignored everyone’s skepticism and pursued his own path. He went on-line with realtors, and after his first gasp of disbelief at the astronomical prices of beachside rentals, he persisted. And he succeeded. He somehow found a tiny two-bedroom house with a miniature living room, a miniscule kitchen, and a wide porch that opened right onto the sand, priced within his housing allowance.

“That’s Clay all the way,” Will had said with a father’s pride.

Ted had just rolled his eyes and made plane reservations to the fiftieth state.

Smiling at the memory, Julia sweetened the iced tea she had just brewed and put the pitcher on the table. She noticed that the saltshaker was getting low and refilled it.

How had Clay managed an indefinite leave? Not that she was complaining. Not at all. It just surprised her that the navy was being so compassionate and open-ended.

She checked the baking chicken breasts. They were almost ready. She dropped the angel-hair pasta into the boiling water and gently stirred it.

Billy burst in, disheveled and smelling like sweaty boy. It was a nostalgic smell that always took Julia back to the twins’ childhood. She wanted to grab Billy, give him a great bear hug, and kiss him loudly and with verve, but she restrained herself. Shows of affection embarrassed him these days.

“You’re just in time, guy. Wash those hands, and then you can set the table.”

He looked pained but said, “Sure, Grandma Jule.”

Julia turned back to the stove, her heart catching, as always, on the Grandma Jule. Billy had called her that since he was a baby, and he’d called Will Grandpa Will. Courtesy titles, but precious ones.

The microwave beeped, signaling the green beans were finished. Julia dumped them in a dish, sprinkled some almonds on them, and set them on the table. She eyed the boy, almost daring him to complain about one of his least favorite vegetables, but his head was down as he laid the flatware in place.

“You’ve got the silver backwards, Billy. Forks on the left.”

Making a face, he looked at the settings. “It’s stupid to have the fork on the left. Most people are right-handed.”

Grinning at his impeccable logic, Julia poured the pasta into a colander. “We’ll do it the right way even if it seems stupid, okay?” She poured olive oil over the pasta and shook Parmesan cheese in a fragrant, heavy snowfall and garlic salt in a pungent spritz.

Billy shook his head at the absurdity of it all as he realigned the flatware. “We’ll do it right even if right’s wrong.”

The last word as always
, thought Julia.
Does that sound familiar or what?

Leigh came in just as Julia set the chicken on the table. They sat and automatically bowed their heads.

“And give Clay a safe trip,” Julia concluded her grace.

“Clay’s coming?” Billy’s eyes were bright as he reached for the pasta. “Cool.”

“You hardly know him,” Leigh said, frowning.

Billy shrugged. “Just because I haven’t spent time with him doesn’t mean I don’t know him. Ted talks about him lots. So does Grandma Jule. And I’ve got his hat.”

Clay had left a midshipman’s hat at home one Christmas several years ago when the leather band inside split vertically, causing it to rub his forehead and making it very uncomfortable to wear. Billy had claimed the white hat with its black visor as his own, declaring he was going to be a midshipman too.

“Still planning to go to the Academy?” Julia asked as she poured herself some iced tea.

“Nah.” Billy tried to wind the angel-hair and ended up pushing a mangled wad of pasta, numerous ends dangling, into his mouth. Julia flinched but said nothing.

“Too much work,” Billy mumbled around the angel-hair. “Too many orders. Mike and I’ve talked about what we want to do, and we’ve decided.” He took time to drink half his glass of milk in a gulp. He always inhaled his milk so he could have iced tea.

Just like the twins
, Julia thought.
What is it about little boys that, different as they are, they’re all the same?

Billy set his glass down and eyed with suspicion the green beans his mother had served him. “Lots of the guys want to be sports stars, but Mike and I know we’re too small for that. Besides, that’s too much work.”

“And you’d have to eat lots of vegetables,” Julia said seriously.

He made a face. “And think of all that sweating. So we’re going to be rock stars.”

Julia couldn’t help herself. She laughed out loud. “And rock stars don’t sweat?”

“Oh, sure, during performances and all. Those lights are hot, you know. But they don’t have to beat each other up at practice and lift weights and all that stuff. And they sure don’t have officers telling them what to do or grandmoms making them eat veggies.” He tried another twirl of pasta with the same unsightly results. “They just have fun.”

“Uh-huh,” said a bemused Julia, neatly twirling her own pasta. “I wasn’t aware you or Mike played any instruments.”

“We don’t.” It was obvious that he saw this as no impediment. “I think I’ll take up the drums.
Bam! Boom! Bang!”
He punctuated his words with spoon crashes against the table.

Both he and Julia glanced at Leigh, awaiting her “Hah! Fat chance! No drums in my house.” Instead, all they saw was a preoccupied woman playing with her beans.

Billy looked at Julia with a frown. “What’s wrong with her?”

Julia shrugged. “Long week, I guess.”

Billy shrugged too. “If she decides to complain about the drums, I’ll just come over here and practice.
Bam! Boom! Bang!”
Again the spoons crashed. “Right, Grandma Jule?”

“Hah! Fat chance.” She twirled more pasta into a neat bundle. “What do you think drums would do to poor Teddy?”

He brought his last green bean to his mouth, took a deep breath, and shoved it in. He forced a swallow, then looked at his clean plate with great satisfaction. “Teddy’d love the drums.”