The Way Home (12 page)

“Please don’t hit her again, Harlan,” Ruth begged softly, her faded eyes flicking anxiously from her husband to her daughter.

The plea seemed to reach him and he let his hand drop. “You’ve raised a pair of whores, Ruth,” he said angrily.

“I’ve done my best, Harlan. They’re good girls, really they are.”

“They’re sluts,” he snapped. “Sluts, just like all women.” Ruth had no reply for that but only hung her head in apparent acquiescence. “I married you when no one else would have you and your two brats. I took all three of you in. If it wasn’t for me, you’d all have starved in a gutter.”

“Yes, Harlan,” Ruth whispered, not lifting her gaze.

“This is what I get,” he said, his eyes flicking from her to where Meg still stood, apparently frozen in the center of the room. “I won’t have people talking about this family.”

“Of course not, Harlan. I’m sure Meg didn’t mean any harm.” Meg saw her mother dart a quick look in her direction as if hoping she would agree that she hadn’t meant any harm; that she’d help pour oil on the troubled waters. Meg said nothing, feeling as divorced from the scene being played out in front of her as if she’d been in another room.

“I won’t have it,” Harlan said again, but the worst of the rage seemed to have left him. He lifted one hand and smoothed it over his hair, and Meg noticed that his fingers were shaking. “I’ve a good name and I won’t have it dragged through the mud.”

“Of course not, Harlan,” Ruth murmured soothingly.

“May I go now?” Meg asked, her voice as dead as she felt inside.

The question seemed to momentarily renew his flickering anger. “Get out. I can’t stand to look at you.”

Without another word, Meg turned and walked out of the room. She paused in the hall, picking up her purse and the kewpie doll from the table where she’d set them when she came home. She went to her room and closed the door behind her with a quiet little
snick
that seemed to reverberate inside her head.

She began to shiver and her purse hit the floor with a thud. But she held on to the kewpie doll as she crept onto her narrow bed. She lay down, drawing her knees up to her chest and closing her eyes. Her cheek ached and her mouth felt puffy as her tom lip started to swell.

She hugged the plump little doll closer, trying to remember how happy she’d been when Ty gave it to her. But the warmth of that memory wasn’t enough to drive away the chill that had settled in her chest.

She’d been completely unprepared for the depth of her stepfather’s anger. And no matter how she tried, she couldn’t understand his accusations. Deep inside, a memory stirred — of hearing the same words, the same accusations. Only it had been Patsy he’d been calling a whore, and Meg had pulled the covers over her head, trying not to hear the ugly words, the hateful tone.

“Meggy?” Her mother’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. She scratched at the door. Meg squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could simply pretend to be asleep as the door opened and her mother crept into the room.

“Are you all right, sugar?”

How many times had she heard her mother ask that question after one of her father’s beatings? She’d creep into the girls’ room, nursing her own bruises even as she tried to soothe theirs. And she’d always ask the same question.
Are you all right, sugar?
And always, she got the same answer.

“I’m fine, Mama. He didn’t really hurt me.”

Meg opened her eyes as her mother sank down on the edge of the bed. So caught up in the past was she that Meg was half surprised not to see any marks on her mother’s face, no evidence that the violence had turned in her direction after Meg left.

“I’m sorry, Meg.” Ruth reached out to brush a strand of golden hair back from Meg’s face. “I tried to tell you how upset he’d be.”

“Why? Why should it upset him if I’m friends with Ty? The McKendricks are a good family. Why did he call me those things and get so angry just because I’d gone out with Ty?”

“He’s worried about your reputation,” Ruth said.

“He’s worried about his own,” Meg corrected her bitterly. “He said those same things to Patsy, didn’t he? I remember hearing him shouting at her and then it would get quiet and after a while she’d come into our room crying. Did he hit her, too? Did he take a strap to her the way Pa used to do?”

“Don’t think about what happened between him and your sister. That’s all in the past,” Ruth told her, her eyes shifting uneasily away from Meg’s. “You just think about not riling him. He’s not a bad man if you step a bit careful.”

“You mean if I do exactly what he says, the way you always do?” Meg asked. The bitterness in her voice made her mother flush and look away.

“He’s not a bad man,” Ruth repeated, her voice weak. Meg looked at her a moment longer and then closed her eyes. “I’d like to go to sleep now, Mama.”

“Of course, sugar. You get some sleep and everything’ll look better in the morning. You’ll see.”

Meg didn’t respond. She heard her mother’s quiet footsteps go across the room and then pause.

“Just try not to make him angry again, Meggy,” Ruth pleaded softly.

Meg didn’t open her eyes until she heard the door close behind her mother. When she lifted her lashes, a single tear slipped from the comer of her eye and was quickly absorbed by the pillow.

Hugging the plump, smiling little doll, she wished with all her heart that she was still child enough to believe her mother’s promise.

CHAPTER 6

The day after taking Meg to the fair, Ty opened the door to an unexpected visitor.

“Jack!” Ty’s voice was warm with pleasure. “When did you get into town?”

“Yesterday. How’ve you been?” Grinning at each other, they shook hands.

“Pretty good, all things considered. Come on in.”

“Is that coffee I smell?” Jack sniffed and gave Ty a hopeful look.

“Your mother still serving tea?” Ty asked, laughing as he held open the door so that Jack could enter the house.

“Yes. She’s convinced that the consumption of coffee is the source of half this country’s problems. Thinks if we’d all drink something more civilized, like tea, we’d be much better off. Course, things don’t look too rosy in England, either, and the British drink gallons of the stuff.”

Jack followed Ty into the kitchen as he spoke and watched eagerly as Ty took a cup from the row of hooks under one cupboard. He picked up the sturdy aluminum pot that sat on the back of the stove and filled the cup before handing it to his friend.

“It’s hot,” he warned as Jack lifted the cup to his mouth.

“It’s coffee” was Jack’s response as if nothing else mattered. Risking a scalded tongue, he sipped at the dark brew and then sighed with pleasure.

“You’re an angel of mercy, Ty.”

“I aim to please.” Ty topped off his own cup and sat down at the table, gesturing Jack to a seat. “From the look of you, you must have spent the entire summer lying on a beach,” he said, giving his friend’s tan a look of mock disapproval.

The sun had bleached Jack’s hair to a pale blond and the dark-gold tan made his eyes look emerald green in contrast. Jack Swanson had never had any trouble finding female companionship, and the tan gave him the look of an adventurer that surely wouldn’t diminish his appeal. Ty was willing to bet that he’d had more than enough company for any trips he cared to make to the beach.

“A fellow can’t work all the time,” Jack protested, looking hurt.

“True enough. What are you doing in Iowa? I thought I was going to meet you in Los Angeles in a couple of weeks.”

“Mother sent me a letter hinting rather loudly that I might want to come home for a visit,” Jack said as he sat down. “I caught the train east and figured I could fulfill my filial duty and then drive back to California with you. If I’d known the weather was going to be like this, I might have ignored Mother’s hints, no matter how loud they got.”

Ty glanced out the window at the drizzling rain and shrugged. “You can’t expect palm trees and sunny beaches in Iowa.”

“I suppose not. Especially this time of year. I guess I should be grateful it’s not snowing.”

“It’s a little early for snow,” Ty said, but his eyes were thoughtful as he looked at the gray sky outside. Summer was over. Odd, he hadn’t given it all that much thought lately. Yet, a few weeks ago, that’s all he’d wished for.

“So, how was your summer?” Jack asked, almost as if reading his thoughts.

“Fine.”
And wasn’t it a surprise to be able to say that and mean it?

“Beryl tells me you’ve had plenty of company,” Jack commented, arching one dark brow in question.

“I thought Beryl was staying with your aunt Marion on Long Island. I wouldn’t have dared risk spending the summer at home if she hadn’t been gone. Mother would have spent all her time in Europe buying wedding presents,” Ty said, smiling.

Beryl was Jack’s younger sister, and it was one of Helen McKendrick’s fondest fantasies that Beryl and Ty would one day marry. No matter how pointed their disinterest, she refused to give up hope.

“She was but she’s home for a few days before going back to Vassar and apparently she has friends who keep her up-to-date on all the local gossip. So what gives?”

“With what?” Ty asked, annoyed to find himself flushing uncomfortably.

“With the gorgeous dame you’ve been seen around town with,” Jack prompted in a creditable tough-guy voice.

“She’s not a gorgeous dame,” Ty snapped. “I mean, she’s gorgeous but she’s not a dame.”

“Not a dame? Then this must be love,” Jack said teasingly, pressing one hand over his heart.

“Lord save me from small towns.” Ty stood up and went to the stove, lifting the coffeepot to add coffee to his nearly full cup. “Everyone spends too much time wondering what everyone else is doing. I’ve spent some time with Meg Harper, that’s all.”

“Meg Harper. Patsy Harper’s little sister?” Jack’s voice was sharp, all the teasing humor abruptly gone. Ty turned and looked at him, the coffeepot still in his hand.

“Yes. Do you know her sister?”

“No.” It was Ty’s turn to raise his brows, and Jack seemed to realize that the flat denial sounded odd. “She was in school with us, I think.”

“A few years behind us,” Ty said. He topped off his friend’s coffee cup and set the pot back on the stove before sitting down again. “You dunked her pigtail in an inkwell, if memory serves me.”

“Could be.”

“You sounded like you remembered her pretty well,” Ty said curiously.

“She was pretty. You know me. I never forget a pretty girl.” Jack lifted one shoulder in a half shrug and grinned though the expression didn’t quite reach his eyes. But if there was more that could be said about Patsy Harper, Jack didn’t seem to have any inclination to say it, and Ty decided not to pursue the question.

“Her sister’s more than pretty,” Ty said slowly. “She’s a real beauty. Just a kid, of course, but beautiful.”

“She can’t be all that much of a kid,” Jack protested. “She’s got to be, what? Seventeen? Eighteen?”

“Seventeen.”

“Lots of girls are married by that age. Beryl says you’ve been squiring her about quite a lot.”

“Beryl seems to say a great deal,” Ty said with some annoyance. “Doesn’t she have studying to do or something?”

“Not in the summer, Ty.” Whatever shadows might have been in Jack’s green eyes were gone, and they shone with laughter. “That’s what summer vacation is about — you don’t have to study.”

“Well, next year maybe she should take a few extra courses. It would give her something to do besides keep tabs on me.”

“It wasn’t Beryl,” Jack protested. “It was actually Louise Draper who told Beryl you and Meg had been seen together a few times.”

“We’ve happened to go the movie at the same time and a couple of times, I bought her a sundae at Barnett’s afterward. Not much to tell.”

“Well, it’s apparently enough to set people talking,” Jack said.

“She’s just a kid, for crying out loud,” Ty snapped angrily. “I’m practically old enough to be her father.”

Jack’s brows shot up, his eyes widening. “Not unless you were very precocious.”

“All right. Her older brother, then,” Ty conceded.

“I could point out that you could also have been Anne Masterson’s older brother, but there wasn’t much brotherliness about your relationship with her,” Jack said.

“You know what I mean,” Ty said irritably.

He got up again, shoving his chair back so that legs scraped across the black and white linoleum in a way that would have made his mother scold. Restless, he walked to the window and leaned one hip against the deep sink.

He didn’t like the idea that people had been linking his name and Meg’s, though he realized he should have expected it. He might have been away from home for ten years, but he shouldn’t have forgotten how fast gossip could get started in a small town.

“It doesn’t matter, really,” Jack said, his eyes on Ty’s brooding expression. “You’ll be leaving soon and any gossip will die down pretty quickly after that.”