The Way Home (47 page)

“I know.” Meg looked at her helplessly. What was she supposed to say now?

When the silence stretched, Patsy sighed a little and patted Meg’s hand. “You must be tired.”

“Yes, I am.” More than that, she wanted to be alone. She smiled to soften her quick agreement. “I’m glad you came.”

“If you need me, you just have to call,” Patsy said as she rose.

“Thank you,” Meg responded politely. Patsy sighed again, her eyes reflecting a trace of hurt that Meg was helpless to erase.

“Jack said he’d like to see you, if you’re up to it.”

“I’m really very tired,” Meg lied, unable to face the thought of more sympathy, more questioning looks.“Maybe tomorrow.”

“I’ll tell him.” Patsy lingered a moment more, looking as if there were more she wanted to say. But she seemed to change her mind and, with another assurance that Meg had only to call, she took her leave.

Meg felt nothing but relief as the door shut behind her sister. It was nice of Patsy to be so concerned, but there was really nothing to worry about. She was fine. The blank emptiness that filled her soul was much easier to deal with than the anguish they all seemed to think she should feel. As far as she was concerned, if she never felt anything again, that would be just fine.

Jack glanced at Patsy as they left Regret. Her expression was pensive, a little sad. He found himself wanting to reach out and take her hand, to tell her that, whatever it was that made her look that way, he’d take care of it. His hand had actually started to lift from the wheel when he happened to glance down and see her wedding ring, the plain gold band seeming to glow in the weak sunlight.

He clamped his fingers around the steering wheel, his grip so tight that his knuckles whitened. She was married. Funny, how easy that was to forget. But then, wasn’t it always easy to forget something you didn’t want to remember?

“How is Meg, really?” he asked, needing to break the silence as much as he wanted an answer. When Patsy had come downstairs after seeing her sister, she’d told Ty that Meg was fine, that she just needed rest. But Jack had seen the worry in her eyes.

“She’ll be all right,” Patsy said, her tone forceful, as if she could will Meg’s recovery.

“Ty says she hasn’t cried. Seems odd, considering how much she wanted that baby.”

“Some hurts go too deep for tears,” Patsy said quietly.

Just what was it that had hurt her too deep for tears? Jack wondered, looking at her profile. Five years ago he would have asked, but things had changed.

“It’s tough, her losing the baby like that,” he said. “I know she and Ty were both looking forward to being parents.”

“I don’t think there’s anything quite like the pain of losing a child,” she said softly, speaking more to herself than to him.

“You sound like you’re speaking from experience,” he said slowly.

Patsy blinked and glanced at him as if just now realizing whom she was talking to. Color ran up under her skin and she lifted one shoulder in a half shrug.

“I’m just speaking as a woman,” she said, sounding casual.

Too casual? The most incredible idea had begun to form in his head. It was based on nothing more than intuition and perhaps on the need, even after five years, to have some explanation for the woman he’d loved choosing to marry another man. Hardly aware of what he was doing, Jack pulled the Packard to the side of the road, shutting off the engine, half turning in his seat so that he faced her.

“I really need to get home,” Patsy said, looking uneasy.

“Five years ago we were sleeping together,” he said slowly, working out the possibilities in his head even as he spoke.

At his blunt statement, Patsy flushed and then paled. Her mouth compressed into a thin line. “I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by discussing the past, Jack. I’m married now and …”

“I took my mother and sister to Europe to give them a chance to get over my father’s death,” he said, barely aware that he’d interrupted her. “You said you’d wait for me.”

“Jack, I don’t …”

“You said you’d wait forever, if necessary. But I’d been gone only a few weeks when Beryl’s friend wrote and mentioned that you’d married someone else. Beryl read me the letter so I could hear what was happening at home. She didn’t even know that I knew you.”

His first reaction had been disbelief. It couldn’t be Patsy Harper she was talking about. Not
his
Patsy. For a few crazy minutes he’d almost managed to convince himself that there was another Patsy Harper who lived in Regret, Iowa. The Patsy he knew had said she loved him more than life itself. That girl wouldn’t have married someone he’d never even heard of.

“Jack, I’m sorry.” Patsy reached out, her fingertips brushing his hand where it lay along the back of the seat, her eyes full of regret. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“Didn’t you?” The question was sharp with remembered pain.

“Of course not. I loved you. The last thing in the world I wanted was to hurt you.”

“I was barely out of sight when you married someone else,” he said, the words less an accusation than an observation.

“I …” Patsy’s fingers knotted together in her lap. She looked away from him, staring out the windshield. “I don’t see any point in discussing this now. It all happened a long time ago.”

“I never could figure out why you’d marry someone else,” Jack said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “It just didn’t make any sense.”

“Jack …”

“Unless there was a reason you needed to get married in a hurry,” he continued slowly.

“Jack, please.”

“A reason like finding out you were pregnant and the baby’s father was half a world away.”

Jack stopped and waited for her denial, waited to hear her tell him he was making something out of nothing. Even if he didn’t believe it, he wanted to hear her say he was wrong. But the seconds ticked by and she said nothing, only continued to stare out the windshield, her body rigid, her skin nearly as white as the collar on her dress.

“My God.” The words were a breath, as much prayer as profanity. What had been wild speculation was slowly sinking in as the truth. “My God. You
were
pregnant, weren’t you?”

He saw her throat work as she swallowed, but that small movement was the only evidence that she’d heard him; that she wasn’t a statue but a living, breathing woman. A woman who’d betrayed him in a way he’d never have believed possible.

“What happened?” he asked hoarsely. “Where’s the baby?”

When she didn’t respond, he reached out and grabbed her shoulders, jerking her around to face him, uncaring that his grip was bruisingly hard.

“Tell me, damn you!”

“She died.” The words were stark, flat, without emotion. Yet they carried the impact of a knife thrust. Jack released her as if her skin had suddenly become red hot.

“What happened?”

“It was a crib death,” she said, still in that unemotional tone. “The doctor said it just happens sometimes. No one knows why.”

“How … how old was she?”

“Three months.”

“What was her name?”

“Sara. She looked like you.” The words seemed almost involuntary, as if she was surprised to hear herself saying them.

Sara.
Jack stared past Patsy at the field that edged up against the road. He couldn’t absorb what she’d told him. He’d had a daughter. Her name had been Sara and she’d lived for three months and then died without him ever knowing of her existence.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, bringing his eyes back to her face. The anger was gone now, leaving bewilderment in its place. “Why did you marry someone else?”

“Because he was a good man and he cared for me.”

“I
loved
you,” he said.

She flinched as if the words were tiny darts. “You were gone and Eldin was here. I’d met him when I was working at Rosie’s. He was … kind.”

“Did he know when he married you? About the baby? About … about Sara?” The name sounded odd on his tongue.

“He knew. He said it didn’t matter.” Patsy lifted her chin. “He loved her as if she were his own.”

“But she wasn’t, was she? She was mine. And I never even knew she existed. My God, Patsy, how could you keep something like that from me? Did you think I wouldn’t marry you?”

“No. I knew you’d marry me.”

“Then why?” he asked, struggling to understand.

“Oh, Jack, it wouldn’t have worked.
We
wouldn’t have worked. We were from two different worlds. There were so many things …” She shook her head and Jack saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. “You’d have ended up hating me.”

“You didn’t even give us a chance to try,” he said, half hurt, half angry. “You simply decided it wouldn’t work and married someone else. Didn’t you think I had a right to know I was going to be a father? Dammit, Patsy, how do you think I feel, knowing she died without me ever even seeing her?”

“I never intended for you to know.”

“And what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me? Is that it?” he asked bitterly.

“The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you,” she said. “Well, you did a hell of a job of it for someone who wasn’t even trying.”

He saw her wince at the savagery of his tone, but he didn’t try to soften his anger. She’d had no right to make the choices she had. No right to shut him out, to keep him from his child. Unable to bear to look at her a moment longer, Jack started the car again and pulled out onto the road.

The drive to Patsy’s house was completed in silence. Jack could think of nothing to say to her, nothing that could express his anger, his hurt, his grief over the child he’d never had a chance to know. It was a betrayal even deeper than her marriage, one he didn’t know if he could get past.

He pulled the car up in front of her house and pushed open his door before the sound of the engine had died. He strode around the front of the car and opened her door for her, but he didn’t offer his hand. Right now he couldn’t bear to touch her. She stepped out of the car but didn’t move toward the house. Instead she stood looking up at him.

The pale sunlight found gold highlights in the soft brown cap of her hair and illuminated the porcelain clarity of her skin. Despite his anger, Jack couldn’t stop himself from noticing how beautiful she was. No other woman had ever affected him the way this one did. In five years, he hadn’t been able to forget her. There was more than a touch of despair in the thought.

“I did what I thought was right, Jack,” she said quietly.

“You made choices you had no right to make — choices for me.” But the anger was gone.

“I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“Five years too late,” he said with a kind of weary acceptance.

He saw tears start to her eyes, but it was beyond him to offer her comfort. His own pain was too raw, too new.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“So am I.”

Patsy waited a moment longer, as if hoping he’d say something more, but he just continued to look at her, his eyes bleak. She turned away and started toward her house. But she’d only gone a short distance when she stopped. Her back still to him, she spoke.

“Will I … will I see you again?”

Jack could hear what the question cost her. He wanted to tell her no. He wanted to walk away and never see her again. To put her from his life once and for all.

He wanted to go to her and take her in his arms, to beg her to tell him how she could have kept his child from him, how she could have married someone else, how she could have broken his heart in so many pieces that he doubted it could ever be repaired.

“I don’t know,” he said finally.

She hesitated a moment longer and then nodded, accepting his answer. He watched her with a hunger he resented but couldn’t deny as she continued up the short walk and into the house. She closed the door without looking back. Only then did he go back around the car and slide behind the wheel.

She’d lied to him. She’d kept him from his child. She was married to another man. But he knew he’d be back. God help him, he couldn’t stay away.

Meg attended church, as usual, the second week after her miscarriage. Since returning to Iowa, she and Ty had gone to church with his parents every Sunday. Her own family hadn’t been much for churchgoing — her father having been violently opposed to hearing sermons about the evils of liquor. After her mother married Harlan Davis, they’d begun to attend church on a more regular basis, and Meg had always been secretly amused by the pained look on her stepfather’s face whenever the collection plate had been passed around.

But since her marriage, Meg actually enjoyed the time spent in the little church. She could snuggle her arm against Ty’s and count her many blessings while the pastor preached hopefully of better times being just ahead.

This week she’d just as soon have stayed home. Though she knew there were those who’d say such thinking was a sin, Meg didn’t feel as if she had very much to thank the Lord for. She’d lost her baby and, with it, her last hope that Ty would come to love her. How could he love her when she couldn’t even be trusted to keep his child safe?