Stay a Little Longer (25 page)

“You don’t have to hide from me,” she said softly.

“It’s still hard enough for me to look at,” he answered, his deep voice resounding in the quiet room. “I don’t want you to
be afraid.”

“Why would you say such a thing?”

“Because the last thing I would want is for you to be frightened of me.”

Purposefully, Rachel crossed the small room to stand at Mason’s side, her eyes never leaving his, never straying to catch
the tiniest glimpse of what he’d chosen to keep hidden from her. Though she desperately wanted to see his face, to know how
it had changed, she wanted him to be the one to let her in, to trust her enough to share that part of him.

“I would never be scared of you, Mason,” she reassured him, gently placing her hand upon his arm. “Besides, if you were really
that afraid of frightening people away, you never would have shaved your beard off in the first place.”

Slowly, Mason nodded. “You’re right,” he agreed. “I chose to shave away my past because I’m tired of running away from who
I am and from everything that I left behind. If I’m not willing to show myself to you, to let you see what that damned war
turned me into, then how would I ever be able to walk out of this room and back into the world?”

Without expecting any answer to his question, Mason turned toward Rachel, allowing her to see all of his face: the scarring
that ran angrily along the right side; the pink-and-white ridges that rose from his jawline and colored his cheek in splotches.
To her eyes, it was as if someone had splashed candle wax onto Mason’s face. Looking intently, she realized that she had expected
it to be much worse.

But now that Mason had removed the dark beard from his face, Rachel felt a stirring of joy at having once again laid eyes
upon the man she had known many years before. A sliver of memory at the way he had looked the day he married Alice rose in
her thoughts; he had been dashingly handsome in his suit, his immaculately shined shoes gleaming in the sunlight, and she
had been uncomfortable at finding her soon-to-be brother-in-law so attractive. Today, standing before her, unwanted scars
and all, Mason still resembled the younger man who had sent butterflies racing through her stomach.

“I bet I’m a hell of a sight,” Mason offered with a weak smile.

“All I see is the same Mason Tucker I knew eight years ago.”

“I don’t look like a monster?”

“Not to my eyes.”

As if she had no control over her own body, Rachel’s steady hand rose toward Mason’s scarred face. Though surprise was clearly
written across his features, he didn’t flinch, did not make any move to avoid her touch, instead held her gaze steadily. When
her fingertips touched the raised ridges of his scars, Rachel felt a chill race across her skin. Mason’s flesh felt both warm
and smooth, undoubtedly because of his recent shaving, but she swore that she could feel the rhythmic pulse of his heartbeat,
a steady thrumming that seemed to hurry with every passing moment.

Though Rachel knew that it was inappropriate for her to be touching Mason in such a way, she found herself unable to remove
her hand. Seconds passed as slowly as if they were hours, but still her fingers caressed his skin. Vivid memories of Mason’s
rescue of her flashed across her mind. Tremors of emotion cascaded in her breast and she had to fight back tears. A sudden
desire to have Mason take her in his arms welled up in her heart, and she began to feel uncomfortable with her own thoughts.
Quickly she removed her hand and turned away from him.

What… what am I feeling… ?

For a moment, the room was silent except for the continued lashing of rain against the windowpanes. Mason was the first to
speak, asking, “Do you suppose that Charlotte will be frightened at how I look?”

“I don’t think so,” Rachel answered, thankful to have something beside her own confused emotions to consider. “If anything,
Charlotte will find it a bit exciting, just another reason to spend all of her time at your side.”

“I hope you’re right. I’d hate for her to be scared of her own father.”

“Are you going to tell her the truth?”

“I’m tired of running from my past, Rachel,” he declared. “All these long years away have done nothing but spread pain across
the lives of everyone I’d intended to protect. I can never make up for what happened to Alice, though I would give my own
life in exchange, but I’ll be damned if I’ll allow anyone else to suffer because of my cowardice. It’s past time that I began
to make amends for what I have done. There are so many people I need to apologize to, and I intend to start doing that right
away.”

“
Where
do you intend to start?” she asked.

“With the most important person of all,” he answered softly. “I need to talk to Alice.”

N
EEDLES OF STINGING RAIN
continued to plummet from the heavy, dark clouds above as Rachel hurried across the street beside the depot, intent upon
keeping up with the pace that Mason set. Pulling her shawl tightly around her shoulders, she shivered and did her best to
avoid stepping into the wide puddles still filling with water.

I’ll be soaked to the bone in seconds!

Though the storm’s ferocity had subsided somewhat, it remained unpleasant: periodic gusts of wind howled at her feet and threatened
to sweep her to the drenched ground; the chill that hung in the air grew heavier with every passing moment, carrying with
it the promise of snow in the days and weeks ahead; and while no more tongues of lightning forked across the heavens, the
deep bass rumble of thunder still occasionally rolled across the afternoon sky.

Ahead of Rachel, Mason plodded steadily forward. It surprised her that he was even able to walk, let alone move so quickly.
But now he moved as if he were a man possessed, drawn to something or somewhere he could no more control than the raging of
the storm.

“There’s one good thing about this weather,” he said over his shoulder.

“What’s that?”

“No one else will be willing to come outside in it.”

Mason was right; Carlson’s streets were so empty that it could have been the middle of the night instead of the middle of
the day. Nearly every window they passed was shuttered against the miserable weather, and even in those that were open, no
faces were pressed to the glass. Only an occasional dog, too despondent in the rain even to bark, witnessed their passing.

And that was just the way that Mason wanted it.

Though he didn’t have a hat to cover his head, Mason had turned up the thick collar of his coat; Rachel knew that this was
not entirely for protection from the elements, but also to prevent him from being recognized. His many long years away had
made him overly cautious and his eyes constantly darted to some distant place, searching for a face that might linger upon
his own for a moment too long. Still, he hurried on.

Lifting the hem of her skirt so that it wouldn’t drag in the mud, Rachel struggled to keep up. There was no need for her to
show Mason where to go and he never faltered, though she still wondered where he found the strength to move so quickly. They
crossed Main Street at its northern end, made their way past a group of houses, and then down a short lane before the cemetery
came into view.

Though she had just been to visit Alice’s grave with Charlotte only weeks before, Rachel felt her breath being taken away
at the sight of the cemetery. Wisps of hazy clouds hung as if they were cobwebs above the tombstones. Shivering, she flinched
as another rumble of thunder echoed from the distance.

Mason came to a halt at the base of the cemetery’s hill. Running a hand through his wet hair, he stared solemnly at the dark
iron gates and the tombstones that lay beyond. Rachel wondered if he had finally been struck by the enormity of it all. Though
he had undeniably felt pain when he first learned of his wife’s death, realizing that she lay in the cold earth, forever beyond
his embrace, now seemed to have paralyzed him.

“Mason, I—” she began, unsure of just what to say.

“It’s all right, Rachel,” he reassured her. “I suppose I thought that I was ready to see this, to see Alice’s grave, but the
hurt is more than I thought it would be. Convincing myself appears to have been easier than doing the deed. It’s just… hard
to believe…”

“You don’t have to do this now, not today, not if you’re not ready for it,” she said carefully. “We can come back later, sometime
after you’ve regained more strength, after you’ve had more time to come to grips with all that has happened while you were
away.”

Slowly, Mason turned to face her, fixing her with a gaze that was heavy with sadness and pain. “I don’t think there will ever
come a day when I’ll be able to accept what my actions have caused.”

“Mason, I didn’t mean that you—” she said quickly, fearful that she had offended him, but he silenced her by placing a hand
upon her shoulder.

“If I were to walk away from here now, I would never be able to return,” he explained. “There have already been far too many
excuses. After what happened to you, and my needing to stop that bastard from hurting you, I made the decision to change my
life, and that is just what I intend to do, no matter how much it might hurt. I won’t do any more running… that’s already
cost us all far too much.”

Together they made their way in silence up the gently sloping hill toward the cemetery. The going was difficult across the
wet grass and muddy earth; occasionally, Mason offered his hand to steady her. Even in the aftermath of the storm, the gate’s
hinges squeaked when opened.

To Rachel’s eye, the cemetery seemed bigger than she remembered; it was as if the tombstones, glistening wet with rainwater,
darker than they’d be under the glare of the sun, had multiplied. The wooden markers at the rear of the encircled graveyard,
the oldest graves in the cemetery, seemed so frail in the aftermath of the storm, warped and swollen from so many previous
downpours, that she wondered if they wouldn’t collapse. A large raven took flight from atop a stone near them, its long wings
flapping quickly, a scornful caw directed at their interruption.

Rachel gently led Mason to Alice’s tombstone. Cut from a lighter stone, it hadn’t grown as dark as those around it, but it
still looked gloomy. Immediately after they stopped before the marker, a break appeared in the still swiftly moving storm
clouds above and a shaft of sunlight fell upon the cemetery, sending dazzling reflections of light off the tombstones; the
brilliance was so intense, so surprising, that Rachel had to shade her eyes. Mason didn’t notice the change, his gaze never
leaving the grave where his wife lay.

Tentatively, his shaking hand reached out to grasp the wet stone. Rachel watched silently, remembering how she had struggled
with the same emotion that Mason surely felt. Though Alice’s death had been painful for her to bear, and even though she still
missed her sister, she’d been able to use the passage of time to dull her ache, comforting herself with her memories of their
time together. For Alice’s husband, only now discovering what terrible things had happened in his absence, the pain was much
sharper.

As if he had been felled by a mighty blow, Mason dropped to one knee in the wet grass before Alice’s tombstone. His hands
gripped the top of the marker, his shoulders shaking violently as his sorrow finally overwhelmed him. Still, he didn’t make
a sound, his silence in the face of his wife’s death louder than any words.

Rachel began to move away, to allow Mason the time and space to properly grieve for Alice, but she had not gone more than
a couple of steps before he implored her to stop, looking upon her with reddened, wet eyes and a tight face full of pain.
“Please don’t leave, Rachel,” he requested. “There’s nothing I could say that you can’t hear.”

“I shouldn’t hear the words that you want to speak to her,” she disagreed. “Whatever you have to say should be for her alone.”

A hurt smile flitted across Mason’s face. “Long ago I might have agreed with you, but I worry that I will lose my nerve. Please
stay with me until I’ve had my say.”

Part of Rachel still wanted to disagree, but she nodded her head.

For a long while, Mason was silent, his fingertips tracing the indentations of the carving of Alice’s name into the tombstone.
When he finally spoke, his trembling voice was little more than a whisper.

“When I left Carlson… I believed that I would be… true to our words to each other, my dearest Alice,” he began, “but then…
then things changed. That godforsaken war, with all of the explosions and screams and mud and blood, all things that I naïvely
hadn’t expected, overwhelmed me. They changed me into something that I believed you wouldn’t be able to understand, wouldn’t
accept.

“My decision not to return I misguidedly believed was for your benefit, when I should have seen that I was only being selfish,”
Mason kept on, the timbre of his voice growing with his inward anger. “And now that I’ve come back home, I find our daughter,
Charlotte, waiting for me and I realize how many lives my failure has changed.”

It was all that Rachel could do to hold her tongue, not to offer some defense regarding Mason’s behavior, but she remained
silent.

“It’s,” Mason continued, “unbearable for me to think of what you must have gone through in those days. I see you brokenhearted,
pregnant with a child your husband never knew about, struggling to find some reason to keep going, and, in the end, not succeeding.
I wish I could have taken away your fear, comforted you, but I failed you. For that, among many other things, I wish I was
the one who had died.”

“Mason—” Rachel blurted before clamping her hand upon her mouth.

“It’s true,” he said, turning to her.

All she could offer in answer was to shake her head as tears began to well in her eyes.

“But that is a wish that can’t ever come true,” Mason continued, turning back to his wife’s grave marker. “And because of
that, all I can do is to make the best effort I can to raise our daughter… and to ask for your forgiveness for what I have
done.”