Stranger in Paradise (Home Front - Book #2) (21 page)

But the seconds turned into minutes, and the minutes turned into hours, and in the bedroom her husband slept alone.

* * *

The next few weeks passed slowly for Jane. Fenelli and the paper kept her busy, which was a good thing because it seemed as if much of her daily routine had dropped by the wayside. Nancy came by less and less often, and when they bumped into each other at the grocery or the dry cleaner, Nancy looked uncomfortable and their conversation was awkward.

Pat recovered from her back spasms, and the bridge club went on without Jane. “Well, I do hope you’ll consider me next time you have an opening,” Jane said, meaning it, but the embarrassed silence that followed her statement spoke volumes.

“It’s such a disappointment,” said Jane to Edna at Sunday dinner in early October. “I had so hoped I was making friends.”

Edna cast a glance at her son, but Mac’s face was impassive. “Just you wait until the baby’s born,” said her mother-in-law, patting Jane on the arm. “Once the little one is here, everything will fall into place. You’ll be part of the crowd before you know it.”

Jane merely smiled and concentrated on her roast beef. The problem cut much more deeply than Edna could possibly imagine. It had taken a while, but Jane had finally figured out where it had all gone wrong.

The day of the bridge party at her place.

The moment Ginger Higgins strolled into the house, curiosity in full bloom, the climate had changed—and not for the better. Jane played and replayed that afternoon in her mind, trying to make sense of things, but each time she did, she came back to the same thing: Nigel’s book. Comical eccentric Uncle Nigel with the socialist brain and the hedonist heart was as harmless as they came, no more a threat to anyone’s security than Nancy’s dog Bingo.

Somehow, thanks to Ginger, Jane had been dragged into America’s political problems before she even had an idea of exactly what those problems were. Through no fault of her own, she was being painted with the same brush as the Hollywood Ten, and that brush was tinted red.

She’d tried to bring it up with Mac the other day, but he’d seemed preoccupied and distant. “Don’t worry about it,” he’d said, kissing her on the forehead. “It’ll blow over, Janie.”

It’ll blow over.

Wasn’t that basically what Dr. Burns had said last week when she went to see him about the ache in her belly that was always there, lingering at the edges of her consciousness? “I’m concerned but not alarmed, Mrs. Weaver. Get plenty of rest, watch your diet, and I’m certain it will go away before long.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, between the main course and the dessert. “I don’t know why, but I’m feeling a trifle under the weather.”

Mac’s parents couldn’t have been more understanding. “You get her home pronto,” Les ordered his son. “Girl in her condition needs to be resting, not yapping with her in-laws.”

“How’re you doing?” Mac asked as they made their way back toward Levittown. “You were quiet tonight.”

Jane tried to smile but didn’t quite manage it. “I... I’m having some pain, Mac.”

Mac felt a cold lump of fear lodge itself in his gut. “Where?”
A headache... sore shoulder... wisdom tooth
....

“M-my back.” Her hand fluttered, then came to rest against her belly. “And here.”

He gripped the wheel until his fingers turned white. “We’ll get you home,” he said, battling a sense of dread more real than the sound of his own voice. “You need to put your feet up.”
The doctor
, he thought.
Soon as we get in the door, I’m calling him
.

She dozed the last few miles, her hand moving in restless circles over her distended abdomen.
A couple of more minutes, Janie. We’re almost home
.

And then he saw it. He was stopped for a traffic light on Newbridge Road. A shaft of lamplight pierced the interior of the car and he turned to look down at Janie when a flash of crimson next to her caught his eye. A scarf? He reached over—

Wet. Sticky.

Blood.

They said that there would be more babies, that sometimes God knew best, but it seemed to Jane as if the sun had fallen from the sky.

When she awoke in that sterile hospital room, she had only to look at Mac’s face to know the awful truth: her dreams for the future had been shattered.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, her hands seeking the comforting roundness of her belly. “Oh, God, no...”

Her flesh was soft, tender, already drawing in upon itself as if it had never happened, but there was nothing on earth that could erase the yawning emptiness inside her heart.

She had failed in the single most important venture of her life, failed to do the one thing every other woman on the planet did with ease. Her blood and Mac’s had mingled in that child, forming sinew and bone and a conduit between her dreams and his that would span the generations. That child had been her anchor in the world of family, the embodiment of those who had come before and those who were yet to be. Her father had lived in that child and her brother and Mac’s as well. The baby would have tied Jane to the Weavers with a knot of love so tight and strong nothing could have ever unraveled it.

And now it was over. In the blink of an eye Fate had once again touched Jane with its unforgiving hand. There was nobody left for her anymore. No reason to dream. Her dreams of a home and family seemed so foolish to her now, the dreams of a woman who should have known better than to think these dreams could come true. Hadn’t she learned the truth during the war when first her brother and then her father were taken from her? How arrogant she had been to believe the gods would smile upon her.

For a little while she had embraced fife with both arms, only to discover she held nothing but air. She felt as brittle as the late autumn leaves on the ground beyond her hospital window, dry and dead inside, ready to blow away on the wind.

She looked at her husband, napping in the chair beside her bed. His hair was overgrown, brushing against his collar and over the tops of his ears. A shock of it fell across his forehead and she wished she had the right to brush it back for him, to feel the silky strands beneath her fingertips....

You’ve lost that right. You lost it with the baby you wanted more than life itself.

It occurred to her that Mac had lost everything, too. He’d lost the future just as she had, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he hated her for her failure. She’d told him she would be the perfect wife, that he would never regret their impulsive wedding, that together they would build a family as strong and loving as the feelings she held deep in her heart, and she had failed. Just as she had failed to keep her mother and father and brother out of harm’s way.

“You deserve better,” she whispered to Mac. “You deserve so much better than I can ever give.”

There had to be a way to make it up to him, but at the moment she couldn’t imagine what it could possibly be.

* * *

What scared Mac the most was that Jane didn’t cry. Not once. Not when he drove her to the hospital. Not when the pains racked her slender frame, doubling her over with their force. Not even when she awoke in the recovery room and the awful truth rose up between them. He waited for the catharsis of tears, for the explosion of grief everyone predicted was right around the corner, but it never came.

McTiernan sent flowers, a gesture of goodwill that surprised Mac, all things considered. Mac’s parents had shown up at the hospital, faces lined with grief over the loss and concern for Jane, but not even his mother could coax anything from his stoic wife. She remained as closed from him as if she were locked behind a wall of steel.

Six days after the miscarriage he took her back home to the house on Robin Hood Lane. Nancy must have come in while he was at the hospital, for the nursery had been stripped of the little stuffed animals and other toys they’d arranged along the built-in bookshelves in anticipation of the baby’s arrival. Despite the crib and bassinet and rocking chair over near the window, the room looked desolate and empty. It hurt him like a shot to the gut to see the place where so many of their hopes and dreams for the future had taken root, and while Jane changed into a nightgown and robe, he shut and locked the door to the nursery and pocketed the key.

This couldn’t be happening. Things like this didn’t happen to him. He’d skated through his entire life, making certain he was never left open and vulnerable like this. He and Jane had started with the highest of hopes; their whirlwind romance had been blessed from the first moment. Where was it written that things went wrong?

Let’s get the hell out of here, Janie
, he thought, unable to erase the look of that empty nursery from his mind.
Let’s pack up and head for Timbuktu or Tahiti
. Everyone knew you couldn’t hit a moving target, and God knew, he’d been a moving target for a long, long time.

“There’s a casserole in the fridge,” he said when Jane made her way, wobbly as a colt, from the bedroom to the den. “Why don’t I warm it up? You could probably use a good meal after all that hospital food.”

She shook her head, dark hair fanning across her slender shoulders like a mourning veil. “I’m tired,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I believe I’ll nap on the divan.”

“I’m not much of a cook, but I can scramble a mean egg, Janie. Why don’t you let me—”

“No.” Her voice was harsh, brittle. A voice he didn’t recognize. “I’m fine. I just need to sleep.”

He watched as she walked away—back straight, that damn English stiff upper lip locked into place. He wanted to go to her, cradle her in his arms, ease her pain, and by so doing ease his own pain, but he was rooted to the spot, as much a prisoner of sorrow as she was.

Hold me, Mac
, Jane thought as she curled up on the sofa alone.
Please tell me everything will be all right, that you still care, that we’ll have other chances, other babies. Tell me that I still have a home, a family
....

Talk to me, Janie
, thought Mac as he smoked a cigarette and stared out the kitchen window.
I didn’t want it to be this way. I wanted that baby as much as you did. We can try again. We can still have our family. Tell me we can still make it all turn out okay
....

But Jane fell asleep on the sofa and Mac smoked his way through a pack of cigarettes, and with each day that passed, the silence between them grew deeper until neither one could remember how it had been before.

* * *

Nancy, however, remembered, and as the days passed, Jane was never far from her mind. Though why she should spend so much time thinking about the Englishwoman’s troubles when her own troubles with Gerry grew worse with each day was beyond her, but that was the way it was.

“Come
on
,” said Margie, with a melodramatic groan. “Are you going to bid or not? The school bus’ll be here in twenty minutes.”

Nancy stared at the cards in her hand. This used to be the highlight of her week, this card game, sitting around the table with her friends, talking about nothing and everything, while the world went by. Now it seemed empty, pointless. Pat’s back had started acting up again and she had to drop out once, a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Nancy had suggested they ask Jane to join the game. “After all, she’s a wonderful card player,” she’d said, ignoring Ginger’s snort of disapproval, “and it isn’t like she’s not one of us.”

But Jane wasn’t one of them, and in the end the bridge game was cancelled. Everybody knew that Jane didn’t fit in, even if Nancy didn’t. Ginger had made the situation crystal clear. It was bad enough that Jane worked at the newspaper, but now the whole neighborhood knew about Jane’s uncle, the socialist, and they treated Jane as if she had a contagious disease and needed to be quarantined.

And Nancy fell away with them. The kids, she rationalized. She just couldn’t do anything that would make life difficult for her girls. Being one of the crowd was so important at that age; being different meant being lonely. She wanted so much more for her children than that.

She put her cards face down on the table and stood up. “I’ll be back in a sec,” she said, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “I think I hear the baby crying.”

She disappeared down the hall, ignoring the whispers behind her. She couldn’t quite catch her breath; shame held her in its grip. The nursery was still and dark. Debbie lay on her tummy, arms and legs splayed in the froglike position all of her girls had loved. Nancy bent down and smoothed the strawberry blond curls, then placed a kiss on her daughter’s forehead.

She could hear the laughter of her friends drifting toward her from the kitchen, and she closed her eyes and leaned against the cool glass of the window. The ruffly dotted swiss curtains brushed against her cheek and she saw the curtains in Jane’s nursery, saw the crib and the bassinet, felt the love and the hope and the pain as clearly as if they were her own.

“Coward,” she said softly. She’d sent flowers and penned a note. She’d even slipped over to the house and packed away the teddy bears and stuffed dogs, but she hadn’t mustered up the courage to look Jane in the eye. She knew she could absorb Jane’s sorrow over the baby, but she didn’t know if she could absorb Jane’s disappointment in her.

A few houses down a woman her own age struggled with the loss of a child. If Jane could find the strength to cope with tragedy, what on earth was wrong with Nancy that she couldn’t find the strength to offer her friendship?

Where are you, Nance?
Gerry’s words echoed inside her heart.
I swear to God I can’t find you anymore.

Was she Pat, with the ready wit and quick laugh?

Was she Margie, always looking for the easy road?

Or, dear God, was she Ginger Higgins, suspicious and angry and willing to hurt others to maintain the status quo—even if the status quo might not be worth maintaining?

Mac told me you were a real fighter
, Jane had said the day of her bridge party. The skepticism on Jane’s face had been painfully obvious.

You’re not the girl I fell in love with
, Gerry had said, and for the first time Nancy understood exactly what he’d meant.

The old Nancy had vanished in a cloud of soapsuds, buried by the minutiae of daily living, gone but not forgotten. She’d been so busy trying to live her life according to someone else’s rules that she’d forgotten how to be happy, how to be kind, how to be the woman Gerry had married.

“It’s going to be a different world, Nance, once this war is over. The sky’ll be the limit,” Gerry had written in a long-ago letter.

“We’re able to do things our grandparents never dreamed of,” Nancy had written back. “Maybe one day we’ll even be able to fly to the moon! I don’t want us to become like everybody else, Gerry. I don’t want to live anyone’s life but my own. We’re special. Look at the crazy way we ‘met’. I just know we’ll always be special!”

Those words, and the emotions behind them, were as real to Nancy as the sound of her baby daughter’s breathing.

And that’s when it finally hit her that the lesson she was teaching her daughters was one of distrust and hatred and suspicion. She had been so busy building fences and drawing boundaries, which isolated her from new ideas and new experiences, that she had denied her children the right to make their own choices.

Being “different” had worked for Cathy and Johnny.

It had worked for her and for Gerry when the rest of the world laughed at their mailbox romance.

It could work again. She knew it could work again if she could just find the courage to take that first step toward her husband and their future, toward finding the real Nancy Wilson Sturdevant, toward rebuilding a friendship that could be part of that future.

She whispered a quick prayer, then went out to tell her friends the card game was over for the day. She had more important things to do.

* * *

Gerry’s train was late. Nancy waited in the station wagon, tapping her fingers against the wheel while she watched her daughters in the back seat. The baby had finally dropped off to sleep, and she had warned both Linda and Kathy not to wake her up. “Just eat your cookies and be good,” she’d cautioned, not even feeling guilty that supper would be delayed. “We’re going to take Daddy for a little drive after work.”

The girls naturally thought a drive sounded swell, and they were on their very best behavior—and so was their mother. It had to work. Her plan was too wonderful not to work. Why, it had taken over an hour to dig up the map and figure out where the right place was. She knew what roads to take, where to park, how to tell him what was in her heart.

Certainly mending fences with her very own husband couldn’t be any harder than it had been to mend fences with Jane. The walk up to the Weavers’ front door had been the longest walk of her life. She wouldn’t have blamed Jane if she’d slammed the door right in her face. Nancy wasn’t entirely certain how she herself would’ve acted in a similar situation.

But, of course, Jane had done no such thing. The young woman was pale and drawn but still beautiful—and unfailingly gracious. She’d welcomed Nancy and the girls into her house and fixed them tea while Nancy struggled to tell Jane how sorry she was. Jane nodded, eyes downcast, and poured sugar into the teacups. There were no words to convey Nancy’s regret and it soon became apparent that none were needed.

“I’m going to the library tomorrow morning,” Nancy had said as she got up to leave. “W-would you like to come along?”

Jane looked at her as if trying to see into Nancy’s soul. “What would the neighbors say?” she asked, her voice light but sharp.

“I don’t care what the neighbors say. It’s what
I
think that counts, isn’t it?”

Jane’s smile was the best answer Nancy could have hoped for.

Now if Gerry was only half as receptive, she’d be home free.

“Close your eyes,” she said the minute he climbed into the car, grumbling over the fact that she wouldn’t relinquish the steering wheel. “We’re going for a ride.”

His brows lifted. “A ride? It’s suppertime.”

In the back seat their daughters giggled.