Sunday Kind of Love (5 page)

“Without writers, how would anyone know what was happening?” she asked, warming to her defense. “Newspapers and magazines expose all that's wrong with the world and champion what's right.”

“Gwen, you don't—”

But now that she'd started, Gwen couldn't stop pleading her case, a lawyer in her own right. “What about books, plays, and poems, even the scripts for radio and television? A good writer can make their audience laugh or cry, make them angry or afraid, every emotion imaginable.” Giving his hand another squeeze, she said, “
That's
what I want to experience. I want to touch people's lives, make them feel something. I need you to understand this. With you by my side, if you believe in me, I know there's nothing I can't do.”

From the way Kent looked at her, his expression softening, Gwen began to hope he was about to agree with her. If he could just accept how important writing was to her, that all she wanted was a chance to prove herself, she would accept his proposal, become his wife, and they could live together in happiness for the rest of their days.

Unfortunately, she couldn't have been more wrong.

“I just don't understand why you'd want to scratch things down on a notepad or tap away on a typewriter if no one is going to read them.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Gwen demanded, her voice rising. From his tone, it sounded like Kent was insinuating she wasn't a good writer.

But it was worse than that.

“Any newspaper or book publisher that would hire a woman to write for them couldn't possibly have much of a circulation.”

Bluntly, brutally, Gwen knew the truth. It was because she was a woman. Since she wasn't a man, she couldn't possibly participate in the greater world. Her place was at home, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, smiling prettily for her husband, thankful for everything she was given. From the beginning of their courtship, Gwen had known that Kent was old-fashioned, even a bit chauvinistic.

But that didn't mean she had to like it.

One thing was painfully clear to her: if she wanted to keep their relationship from ending, to prevent her love for him from dying, she had to leave.

Immediately.

Letting go of Kent's hand, Gwen brushed past him, went down the stairs into the lightly falling rain, and headed toward the street.

“Wait!” Kent nearly shouted. “Where are you going?”

“For a walk,” she answered without looking back.

He chuckled weakly. “You can't be serious.”

Gwen didn't so much as slow; she figured that was a good enough reply.

“What am I supposed to tell your parents?” Kent asked.

“You're the one who has all the answers,” she said over her shoulder. “You'll think of something.”

Kent leaned against the porch railing, watching Gwen pass beneath a streetlight without glancing back, striding purposefully down the sidewalk in the rain. He had given up yelling after her; she'd started to ignore him after a while.

Why does she have to be so darn stubborn?

When she'd first gone down the stairs, Kent had considered following, trying to talk some sense into her. He loved Gwen, dearly, and hated to see her upset. However, with her as worked up as she was, he'd known that the only thing he would've accomplished by going after her was that they would both have ended up wet. In his experience, when a woman got an idea in her head, it was next to impossible to convince her otherwise.

It was one of the reasons they were the weaker sex.

No, what Gwen needed was some time to cool off. Eventually she'd realize that she had been in the wrong, come back, and accept his proposal.

He was sure of it.

Kent knew he needed to go back inside and talk with Gwen's parents, but he lingered on the porch. The Fosters were good people, and their hearts were undoubtedly in the right place, but they were still a far cry from the cultured circles he moved among back in Chicago, although Meredith showed a measure of refinement. He shook his head. He couldn't be too hard on them. After all, they had raised an intelligent and beautiful—if somewhat obstinate—daughter.

Now what am I going to say to explain Gwen's absence?

Kent shrugged. It would be just like standing in front of a jury.

He'd think of something.

G
WEN STOPPED ABRUPTLY,
her feet sliding on the wet sidewalk, and turned toward her parents' house. She was at the far end of the block beneath a street lamp. The porch where she and Kent had just argued was shrouded in shadows, dark save for the faint light coming from inside the home. She couldn't tell if Kent was still there watching her, or if he'd gone back to her parents, spinning some excuse for her absence, talking so convincingly that they had no choice but to believe him.

A gust of wind sent shivers racing across her bare skin. Gwen looked up. Though the sky was clearing and a smattering of stars peeked through the clouds, lightning flashed to the east and rain still fell intermittently. She wished she'd had the sense to grab her coat before going onto the porch, but she hadn't known that she and Kent would argue, that she'd become angry enough to stomp off into the storm. Now it was too late to go back. If she returned, Kent would see it as a victory, that she'd come crawling back to him.

And her pride wouldn't allow that.

So instead, Gwen kept walking. Even in the gloom of night, everything felt familiar: the way Donald Camden's porch sagged on one side; how Louise Detwiler kept every last light in her house turned on; the incessant barking of Eugene Martin's dog following her down the street. Unexpectedly, Gwen took a measure of comfort in her surroundings, as if Buckton was a warm blanket staving off a winter afternoon's chill.

Gwen reached into her pocket and pulled out her notebook. It was worn, the edges frayed and the cover slightly bent, but holding it made her feel better. She flipped through the pages, the scratching of words coming into clearer focus when she passed beneath a lamppost. In the notebook, she had recorded hundreds of observations. It was full of jottings about the brilliant colors of a March sun setting over Lake Michigan, the way a woman's head bobbed as she listened to music, the almost joyful growl a man made when he took his first spoon of soup at a diner counter. It was full of anything and everything that caught her eye. It held stories, fictional and factual, just waiting to be told.

But if she became a housewife, if she chose to give up her dream, they would remain silent, forever…

Gwen walked as if in a trance. When she stepped onto Main Street, deserted because of the weather and the hour, she felt confused and conflicted. Absently, she wandered to her father's storefront,
BUCKTON BAKERY
painted on the glass. Gwen placed her fingers against the words, just as she'd done countless times before. She remembered the look on her parents' faces at the dinner table, how excited they'd seemed at the idea of her and Kent getting married, then wondered what Meredith and Warren would say if they could see her now. Would they think she was being unreasonable, that she was a fool for not rushing to accept Kent's sort-of proposal? Or would they stand by her, wanting her to chase her dreams?

Unfortunately, Gwen didn't know the answer.

“What am I going to do?” she muttered to her reflection.

Still flipping through her notebook, Gwen left the center of town and headed toward the river. High above, the sky continued to clear; the moon, nearly full, peeked through the fast-moving clouds, then once again disappeared, like a child playing hide-and-seek. Growing up, Gwen had spent countless hours along the banks of the Sawyer River, pulling the sticky, puffy seeds from milkweed pods and tossing them into the water and watching them gently drift away, a parade of white. But tonight, the river was almost unrecognizable. It moved swiftly, swollen with rain, a dark, turbulent rush. Still, like the rest of town, it gave her a sense of solace as she struggled with the dilemma before her.

Suddenly, a strong gust of wind raced along the river, snatched at Gwen's skirt, spun through her hair, and yanked the notebook from her hands. It fluttered before her for an instant, its pages spread open like a butterfly's wings, before landing with a plop in the water.

“Oh, no!” Gwen shouted, running after it.

Fortunately, it hadn't gone far. The notebook lay on the water's surface, a couple of feet from the bank, in a small eddy undisturbed by the current. Gwen knew that she had to act quickly. Even if the river didn't steal it away, the paper would soon be ruined and all her writings lost.

So without hesitation, she stepped into the shallow water. It was chillier than expected, but Gwen bit down on her lip and inched forward. The water rose from her ankles to her calves, then to her knees. Her every instinct shouted that she was in danger, that she should get out of the river, but she paid them no mind. Her notebook was so tantalizingly close, yet still just out of reach.

But then, unexpectedly, the notebook began to race away from her, as if someone was pulling it on a string. Gwen lunged for it. Immediately, she knew she'd made a terrible mistake. One moment, the river's muddy bottom was beneath her foot; the next, it was gone, leaving behind a dark nothingness for her to fall into. Unable to stop herself, Gwen plunged beneath the water, soaking every inch of her. The powerful, insistent river grabbed her, just as it had the notebook, dragging Gwen away from the bank. Terrified, she fought with all her might, struggling to break free, but she was caught, completely at the river's mercy.

“Help! Somebody help me!”

Even as she shouted, Gwen knew that no one would hear her. All the while she'd been walking, she hadn't seen another person.

No one was coming to her rescue.

She was all alone.

Hank steered down the dark, windswept roads just outside Buckton, his pickup truck's windshield wipers sweeping away what little rain continued to fall. Lightning flashed occasionally, but the storm was moving off. His window was down, his arm draped over the door frame, the breeze tugging at his shirt. Tony Bennett's silky voice sang in the cab.

His hope had been that some time away from his workshop, far from his father and his drinking, would clear his head, but Hank couldn't stop thinking about Pete. Everywhere he went, he was reminded of his brother: the pond tucked among the evergreens off Route 32, where they used to swim in summertime; the steep hill on Caleb Ellroy's land they'd sled down in winter; and the ball diamond Roger Auster's dad cut into an abandoned wheat field so the boys would have a place to play baseball.

There was no escape from his memories.

Hank drove for miles, twisting and turning down the narrow, tree-lined roads. Finally he stopped at an intersection, the way branching in opposite directions. With the engine idling loudly, he peered out the rain-streaked windshield at the hill that rose to his right, a route that led away from Buckton and toward home. Hank's heart thundered like the storm, his mouth as dry as cotton. The accident that had claimed Pete's life happened on that road, on a stormy night a lot like this one, at about the same time…

“Damn it,” he muttered, squeezing the steering wheel.

Pressing down hard on the accelerator, Hank turned left, his tires skidding as he headed toward the river. He hadn't gone the other way since his brother had died.

“Look at that poor man. Isn't he the one whose oldest boy killed his brother in that car accident a couple months back…”

His father's words rolled around in his head. Even though Hank spent plenty of time alone, holed up in his workshop, he knew that to many in Buckton, he was a murderer. Undoubtedly some wished he was behind bars; luckily for him, the county attorney had chosen not to press charges, figuring that living with what had happened was punishment enough. Regardless, Hank was still a prisoner of the past. On his few trips to town, he'd heard plenty, some comments whispered, others spoken right to his face.

“…don't know why he doesn't leave. Folks will never forget what he done.”

“His poor father! First his wife, then his son! It's not fair.”

“…been better if he'd died instead…”

Sometimes Hank wanted to scream in frustration and anger, to confront the people talking about him and tell them that they were wrong, that they didn't know what had actually happened. But instead, he held it inside where it festered, a wound slowly turning rotten. Besides, like his father had said, people believed what they
wanted
to believe, and no amount of telling them otherwise would ever change their minds.

Coming down a steep hill, Hank caught sight of a bridge up ahead, spanning the Sawyer River. The moon kept peeking in and out of the dispersing storm clouds; in its soft glow, the bridge's exposed beams looked like bones bleaching in the moonlight. Hank knew this bridge well, had fished off its struts as a kid, so he didn't fight the urge to pull his truck onto it, the tires slapping across its wooden planks, before coming to a stop halfway across.

He got out, leaving the engine on, music drifting from the open window. Facing the water, the breeze was brisk, but Hank paid the chill no mind. He was lost in thought, remembering his mother, worrying about his father's drinking, wondering how different his life would be if Pete were still alive. The only person in the whole world who had stood by him was Skip Young, his friend since they'd been boys. But it wasn't enough.

Hank felt caught in a trap of his own making, with no way out. He desperately wished things were different, but he'd made a fateful decision and there was no going back. This was his lot in life, to be a pariah, all alone.

But then, as Hank struggled against his mounting misery, he heard something, a noise loud enough to cut through the whistling wind and the music playing over the radio.

It sounded like someone was screaming.

I'm going to die!

Caught in the river's grip, Gwen was pulled along by the current. With every passing second, her sense of desperation grew. Again and again swells washed over her, plunging her head beneath the water's surface, pushing her down, and forcing her to fight her way back to air. Her eyes scanned both banks, searching for anyone who might help her, but she was quickly moving away from town and all she saw was darkness.

“Help me!” she shouted anyway.

Gwen was growing weak, too tired to struggle for much longer. Her clothes were soaked through, weighing her down, pulling her like a ship's anchor toward the bottom of the river. She wondered if she would die not from drowning, but from the
fear
of it.

She clawed at the water, hoping for something to grab hold of, a fallen tree branch or some other debris, but there was nothing. Slowly but surely, it was becoming harder for her to stay afloat. How long had she been in the water? How far had she drifted? In the end, Gwen knew it didn't matter. If she didn't get out of the river soon, she was going to drown.

And she would never see her family again…

A vision struck her. She imagined her own funeral, her mother weeping uncontrollably, distraught over the loss of her only child, as her father struggled to remain stoic, even though he was devastated on the inside. Her aunt Samantha cried silently, her small shoulders shaking. Kent was there, of course, his eyes bloodshot, underlined by dark circles, while his hands trembled. Seeing him, Gwen realized that one of the reasons he was so overcome with grief was that he blamed himself for her death; she had drowned because he'd forced her away.

Inspired to prevent such a grim future from coming to pass, Gwen made one last attempt to save herself. Fighting hard, she made ready to shout another cry for help, but when she opened her mouth, it was flooded with water. Gagging, her chest burning, she struggled to breathe but found that she couldn't.

Panic grabbed her tight.

But then, briefly, through the swells of water tossing her around, Gwen thought that she saw something up ahead, a building or bridge, a structure looming toward the sky, lit from behind by the moon. She raised her hands, flailing them about, but doing so used all the strength she had left. Completely spent, she closed her eyes, uttered a silent prayer, and surrendered to her fate.

This was the end.

Hank cocked his head and listened. He heard the wind whistling through the bridge's beams, Doris Day singing on the radio, and an owl's hoot from the east bank of the river. But then, just as he was about to chalk it up to a figment of his imagination, Hank heard it again.

It was a shout, the words indistinct.

It sounded like it had come from behind him, upstream. Hank hurried across the bridge, leaned against the railing, peered into the darkness, and searched the river. The Sawyer was running fast, close to overflowing from all the rain. Here and there he saw clumps of leaves, a chair, fallen branches, and even the carcass of a deer, the animal unfortunate to have wandered too close to the river in search of a drink.

Heaven help anyone who fell in…

“…help me!”

Hank's heart quickened when he heard the words, this time clear enough for him to make out. Suddenly he saw a pair of flailing arms coming right at him. He couldn't believe it. Dumbstruck, he was too stunned to do more than stare.

Caught in the powerful current, the person—Hank couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman—came closer in a hurry. Then, just before they reached the bridge, drifting into the darker shadows cast by the moon's glow, their head slipped beneath the water's churning surface, leaving a lone hand raised toward the sky. A split second later, the person was lost from sight beneath the bridge.

Shocked out of his stupor, Hank turned and sprinted for the opposite side. Without any hesitation, he hoisted himself up and over the railing, hurtling into the air, hanging for an instant before plunging down toward the river. He plowed into the water feetfirst, sending up an enormous spray, the rainwater colder than he'd expected. Immediately, he began kicking, forcing his way back to the surface, gulping a lungful of air, his head on a swivel, looking.