Rose Harbor in Bloom (28 page)

“I’m sure you have a reason for asking, and I think talking about Dan helps. Finding his wedding band and the bill from the jeweler weren’t the only reasons I assumed there was someone else.”

“Oh?”

“Not long after he disappeared, I was working at the library when someone came running in and said they’d seen Dan in town. He was in his pickup and he wasn’t alone. There was another woman with him. To flaunt her like that, to embarrass me in front of the entire town, was more than I could take.

“I was determined to confront him for the agony he’d put me and the girls through. I can still remember how angry and frustrated I was. In my rush to find him, I raced out of the library like a madwoman. I fell and badly scraped my knee and then sat and wept.”

“Was it Dan? Was he with someone else?”

“No. It couldn’t have been him. By this time several weeks had passed, and when his body was recovered it showed he’d been dead long before that incident.”

“You were angry?”

“Angry?” she repeated. “That doesn’t even begin to explain how furious I was. Shortly after that, I had some sort of emotional
breakdown, I think. The neighbors were so concerned they called my daughters.”

I could only imagine the pain and anger Grace must have felt. “What happened?”

She laughed, and the sound was genuine. “I emptied Dan’s side of the closet. I carted armload after armload of his clothes outside and hurled them onto the lawn. To my way of thinking, if he wanted to leave me, then he should have taken everything with him.”

“It was a hellish time for you, wasn’t it?”

Grace looked blankly into the distance. “Dan was a different person when he came back after serving in Vietnam. I’m convinced he was a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder, but neither Dan nor I knew what was wrong.

“I didn’t know how to help him. Our marriage wasn’t wonderful, but it wasn’t bad, either. We were content with each other. To the best of his ability, Dan loved me and our daughters. Unfortunately, he couldn’t let go of the past. It tormented him.”

From articles I’d read, I understood how tension and anxiety had profoundly affected our soldiers in and out of combat. Thankfully, there were programs in place to help, but there weren’t nearly enough, and many of those coping mechanisms had come too late to help men like Dan.

“He suffered for years. He never felt he was worthy of anything good. I remember one time I found the Christmas gifts the girls and I had given him in the garage. He’d destroyed them, cut them into pieces, and then for whatever reason he hid them there.”

It was all too apparent Grace’s first husband had undergone a great deal of mental anguish.

“Death was a release for him. He carried the burden of guilt and shame from an incident that happened in the war. At the time, he was nineteen years old, and he was never able to forget it.”

“He’s at peace now,” I whispered. Although I desperately longed for Paul to be alive, more important, I wanted him to know serenity and peace.

“Does hearing about Dan help you?” Grace asked me.

It was time to tell Grace my dilemma. “Mrs. Coryelle stopped by the house this afternoon,” I said, plunging right in.

“Marion Coryelle?”

“Yes. She lives next door.” It wasn’t exactly next door, but down the hill from me, which was why I kept an eye out for her, seeing how elderly she was.

“I assumed she was housebound. Her daughter stops by the library and gets the large-print books for her. She loves to read.”

“She’s a good neighbor … a letter to me was placed in her mailbox, and she brought it to me herself.”

“The letter is what upset you so much?”

I looked away, for fear I wouldn’t be able to continue without my voice cracking. “It was from a friend of Paul’s.”

Grace scooted a bit closer to me.

“It seems Paul gave him a letter to deliver to me in the case of his death. His friend apologized and said he’d forgotten about it and recently came across it and mailed it off right away.”

“Oh, Jo Marie, no wonder you’re upset.”

That was an understatement.

“Did you read the letter?”

“No.”

“Do you want me to be with you when you do?”

“No. I refuse to read it …”

“Would you like me to read it first?” Her voice was soft and gentle.

“I won’t read it … not until I have proof that Paul is dead.” I broke into sobs then, and Rover started to whine and lick my face. Wrapping my arm around his small body, I brought him onto my lap.

Grace placed her arm around me. “You may have to accept that his body may never be located.”

I realized then she didn’t know about Lieutenant Colonel Milford’s phone call. Sniffling, I straightened and drew in a deep, calming breath.

“I heard from the army, Lieutenant Colonel Milford, earlier in the week,” I continued. “The site where the helicopter went down is now accessible, and the bodies were retrieved. Six men were on the helicopter, and the remains of five men were located. The army is running DNA tests now. However slight the chance, there’s a possibility that one man might have managed to survive.

“It could be Paul. He could be alive. I refuse to give up hope … If he were dead, I’d feel it. I know I would.” I don’t know why I argued so hard or adamantly, as if it was necessary to convince Grace that my husband might be alive.

She didn’t say anything for a long time, and when she spoke, her voice was so low I had to strain to hear. “All that year Dan was missing, I thought I’d know if he was dead, too. I was convinced I’d feel it.”

“Did you?” I asked.

“That was part of the reason I believed he’d found someone else who could make him happy.” Leaning forward, Grace looped her arms around her knees. “It made no sense that he would decide to kill himself when he did. None whatsoever. Our first grandchild was about to be born, and Kelly and her father were especially close.”

“You didn’t feel it?”

“No, and you won’t with Paul, either. As much as you love him, as much as I loved Dan, he had his own life path, and Paul had his, too.”

I thought about the letter awaiting me in my nightstand. Grace reached over and touched my arm. “You don’t need to
read his letter now. Wait if you wish. You know where it is, and your heart will tell you when the time is right.”

Her advice was good, and I recognized the wisdom of her words. I had other questions but felt unsure how best to phrase them. “How … How did you go on?”

The same thoughtful look I’d seen earlier was back. “A death of someone so close to us, like a husband or a child, hurts beyond comprehension. The pain is strong enough to kill a person, and unless you’ve been through it personally, no one could ever understand. I know how badly my friend Olivia wanted to help see me through Dan’s disappearance and death. She’d lost a son, so she understood, but there are no words of comfort, nothing anyone can say to ease this kind of pain. There simply are no words.”

I swallowed and nodded.

“It’s a wound, but unlike a physical cut, there is no medication that will take the pain away, nor is there a prescribed time in which it will heal. You know if you broke a bone in about six weeks it will mend itself. It isn’t that way dealing with a death. Do you believe you’ll get over losing Paul?”

“Will I?” I needed answers, not more questions. “Did you get over Dan?”

“No,” she whispered. “He was my husband, the father of my children. I spent the majority of my adult life with him—I will always love Dan. But at the same time, I can assure you that life goes on. In the beginning, you won’t want it to. It feels like everything should stand still; life as you know it should stop while you try to absorb what has happened.”

That was how I’d felt when I’d first gotten the news about the helicopter crash. It felt as if life had come to an end for me, too. I dragged myself from one day into the next with no sense of time or distance, stunned, horrified, shocked, and disbelieving.

“You remarried.” Grace had a new life now, and this was more statement than question.

“I have,” Grace said, and her eyes brightened. “This is another life lesson that attaches itself to the death of a loved one. Because life does go on, no matter how hard we try to cling to the way it once was, we are pulled along, too. In my case, I went kicking and screaming. I’d had a year without Dan. A year to learn to live without him.”

“Me, too … It was a year April twenty-seventh.” I needed her to tell me that this grieving would get easier, that I’d survive the same as she had. The way I felt just then, it seemed impossible. Death would be preferable to this agony.

“I will tell you from personal experience, you will heal, Jo Marie. The scar of losing Paul will mark your heart, but you will heal.”

Everyone insisted there was no possibility my husband had survived. My heart told me so, but in my stubbornness I refused to believe it, clinging to hope. And yet everything Grace said rang true. In time, the same as she did, I would heal. Paul had come to me that first night after I took over the inn. Like Grace, he’d assured me this inn would be a place of healing.

“One day you might even fall in love again,” Grace went on to say.

I laughed outright, seeing how long I’d remained single. “It took me thirty-six years to find Paul. If it takes that long again, I’ll be in my seventies.”

“Life just might surprise you.”

I never had been much good with surprises, but I had time to wait and see.

A slow, easy smile came over George as he wrapped his arm around Mary’s shoulders and brought her head close to his own. “Our daughter is the class valedictorian?” Pride echoed with each word.

“Yes. Oh, George, I’m so proud of her.”

“I know it’s crazy, but I feel personally responsible for fathering such a brilliant child,” he added, and his voice shook with emotion.

For a long moment, they simply held each other. Mary knew how he felt, because his emotion mirrored her own when she’d first discovered Amanda had been awarded top honors. Like mother, like daughter, even if she had no right to feel anything.

“I’ve only known about Amanda for a few hours, and I think the buttons could burst off my shirt, I’m so proud.”

Mary ran her hand down the side of his face, loving him with such intensity that it felt as if her heart would burst. The only thing she had contributed to their daughter, other than her DNA, was giving her life. Amanda’s adoptive family had nurtured and loved her. It was her adoptive mother who’d stayed up nights with a sick baby, who’d kissed her scraped knees, who’d sat with Amanda while she’d learned to read. Her family deserved the right to be proud of their daughter, and no doubt they were.

“Now, what’s this about being unable to attend the graduation?” George asked, growing serious.

“It’s a huge graduating class.”

“And your point is?”

Mary knew his look of sheer determination all too well. “Tickets are handed out to family and friends only. No one is allowed into the auditorium without a ticket.”

“So we’ll get tickets.”

“That’s the point, George. There are none to be had. I tried, believe me.”

“Are you seriously going to allow that to stop you?” he challenged, and then amended his thought. “Stop us?”

In any other circumstances, Mary would have gone toe to toe with the person who would try to keep her from attending that ceremony, but unfortunately, the cancer had taken the fight out of her.

“We’re going to hear our daughter speak,” George insisted.

“I don’t think I could bear a scene at the front door,” she whispered. “And I doubt that I could sneak in unnoticed.” Unfortunately, she stood out in a crowd with her bald head.

“Not to worry,” George stated calmly. “I have connections. One way or another, I will have two tickets by tomorrow afternoon.”

Mary could hardly believe it was possible. She thought just being in the vicinity would be enough. Hailey Tremont, the teenager
who worked for Jo Marie, had fed her tidbits of information about Amanda, and so had Connor from the coffeehouse. She’d savored each tiny bit and hoped to hear more.

Mary had learned that the following Monday’s newspaper would run a copy of the speech from the valedictorian. Being able to read her daughter’s thoughts was as good as Mary assumed it could be. To see and hear Amada herself with George at her side was more than she could have dreamed.

George released her and wiped the moisture from his cheeks. Mary did, too, and then they looked at each other and started to laugh.

“Look at us,” George said.

“We’re nothing but a pair of softies.” Oh, how she loved him. She’d never stopped loving George, but seeing him, being with him intensified her feelings a hundredfold. Yet in less than forty-eight hours she would need to find the courage to leave him again.

Both appeared caught up in their own thoughts as George started the car and headed back to the freeway on-ramp. Mary made an honest effort to stay awake until they arrived back at the inn, but it was a lost cause. She didn’t remember closing her eyes, but the next thing she knew, George was driving over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

“Are you awake?” he asked in a whisper.

“Yes … I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be such poor company.” It was barely after three in the afternoon and she could hardly keep her eyes open.

“Nonsense. You needed to sleep. Tell me the address of the inn.”

“Pardon?”

“Rose Harbor? I’ll put it in my GPS, and then you can rest and not worry about giving me directions.”

“Oh, right, you haven’t come in from this direction, have you?” She reached for her purse. “I have the address here.”

“I could probably find it. I know the general direction, but this makes more sense.”

Had that really been only yesterday morning that she was reluctant to divulge her whereabouts? It seemed silly now, in light of everything she’d told him since then.

Mary had never intended to tell George about Amanda. Seeing his reaction to the news made her realize how selfish she’d been. How cruel to keep this information to herself all these years. To be fair, she hadn’t wanted to invade his life. He’d married, and it seemed grossly unfair to his wife.