The Sweet Gum Tree (19 page)

Katherine Allred

it. Maybe he did care about me in a way, but our relationship was more like that of a brother and sister than husband and wife. I was his trophy, the most suitable candidate to help him get what he really wanted, respectability and power, both precious commodities in our small southern town. The baby was simply window dressing, something that would complete the picture of a happy family he was trying to project.

I knew deep inside that his happiness, like mine, was merely an act, albeit a convincing one. He helped Jenna and me with the nursery, doing most of the manual labor. We teased him unmercifully when he put the rails of the crib on upside down and had to redo them. And as my girth expanded he became more solicitous, insisting I stop working so hard around the house, making sure I had something to prop my swollen ankles on. He would rest his hand on my stomach, laughing when the baby kicked vigorously. Toward the end of the pregnancy, he even attended Lamaze classes with me.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that these warm exhibitions occurred for the most part when others were around. Not that Hugh was ever anything but kind. But as my pregnancy progressed, he seemed to lapse into brooding silences more often when we were alone, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d reached the same conclusion I had. Because I finally realized just how big a mistake we had made in marrying for the wrong reasons. A mistake I now had to live with and handle alone. Jenna thought Hugh had wings and a halo, and my family had their own small crisis to deal with.

A week before Christmas my mother came over to help me decorate our tree. My normally effusive mother remained silent as we strung lights, her brow furrowed. I waited, knowing she’d get around to what was on her mind sooner or later. Finally, with a sigh, she sank onto the couch.

“Your father asked me to marry him.”

This news came as no surprise to me and I smiled. I’d wondered how long it would take him to get up the nerve.

“What did you tell him?”

“That I had to think about it.” She nibbled her bottom lip. “It would mean moving to Jonesboro and leaving the Judge.”

“Mama, it’s not like the Judge will be alone. Aunt Darla and Aunt Jane will still be there to take care of him, and Jonesboro is only twenty minutes away.” She looked up at me, her eyes pleading. “What would Jane think, Alix? I can’t hurt her again.”

I sat down and took her hand. “Do you love him, Mama?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I think I always have.”

“Then marry him. Aunt Jane will understand. She wants you to be happy.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Talk to her.”

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I guess Daddy wasn’t taking any chances on her backing out once she said yes. The wedding took place on Christmas day, and my mother was as giddy as a teenager. If Aunt Jane felt any lingering sadness, she hid it well, and the day was wonderful for all of us. The next week was spent in a flurry of getting Mama moved to Daddy’s house in Jonesboro, although for the most part I was relegated to sitting in a chair, watching.

A few days later, on a cold January night, I went into labor. We hadn’t been in bed long, maybe a few hours, when a nightmare woke me. Drenched in sweat, I swung my feet over the side of the bed, pulled on a robe, and waddled into the kitchen to warm a cup of milk. The first pain hit as I finished pouring milk from the pan. Gripping the edge of the counter, I held my breath until it ended, then dumped the milk down the drain and rinsed out the pan and cup.

Some deep, instinctive need to be alone kept me from waking Hugh. I sat in the dimly lit room at the table, keeping an eye on the clock as the pains came closer together, each one lasting a little longer than the one before. I was still there four hours later when Hugh stumbled sleepily from the bedroom, his hair rumpled and his eyes partially closed.

“Alix? What are you doing?”

“Having a baby,” I told him calmly.

His eyes flew open. “Now?”

“Pretty much.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“There wasn’t much sense in both of us staying awake this early in the labor.” I couldn’t tell him the real reason. At the time, I don’t think I understood it myself. Hugh wasn’t the father of my baby, and way down inside I didn’t trust him, didn’t trust any male anymore.

He squatted beside me. “How far apart are the pains?” I glanced at the clock. “Every fifteen minutes.”

“Okay, I’ll call the doctor and then we’ll get you dressed.” I offered no objection as he took over. Another pain hit and all my energy focused inward. And that’s where it stayed for the next eight hours as I worked to give birth to my daughter.

Katie came into the world with a loud protest, her tiny face screwed into a mask of fury as she screamed her displeasure at being shoved from her warm nest, only quieting when they wrapped her in a blanket and put her in my arms. Tears filled my eyes as I inspected her. She looked so much like Nick that I didn’t see how anyone could miss it. Her small head was covered in thick black hair that showed an immediate tendency to curl on the ends, and even when she was finally quiet, the indication of dimples showed clearly on her plump baby cheeks.

Hugh stayed with me through the whole thing, coaching me, rubbing my back and stomach when the pains became intense, happily cutting the cord when the doctor 107

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handed him the scissors, and later, filling my room with pink flowers and handing out cigars.

But by then I didn’t care if it was all an act. I had Katie, and in the space of a single instant my life changed. She was my world, the reason I lived and breathed, and nothing else mattered to me.

Katie wasn’t what people call a “good” child. From the beginning she was bright and intelligent and constantly moving. Her smiles and laughter lit up our lives, and her gray eyes always sparkled with joy. We all spoiled her shamelessly, and she soaked it up like it was her right, then demanded more.

Even Hugh wasn’t immune to her charms. One afternoon, when she was three months old, I caught him in the nursery. Katie’s chubby fists were buried in his hair, and she was laughing hysterically while Hugh blew raspberries on her tummy. I slipped away quietly before they saw me, and at that moment I really and truly loved Hugh. It was destined to be both the first and last time I harbored any real emotion toward him.

Three months later, when Katie was six months old, she died. The doctors said it was SIDS, but I only knew that one second I had my beautiful, warm child in my arms, and the next she was gone and I had nothing. When they buried her, they should have buried me too. The only thing left was an empty shell that breathed in and out, that ate because she was forced into it, and refused to talk to anyone. I locked myself in the nursery and stayed there until my family, sick with grief and worry, threw me out and packed all of Katie’s things into boxes before forcing me to go to the doctor. But there was no pill known to man that could help me get through the trauma of losing my child.

I would wake in the middle of the night, Katie’s desolate cries echoing in my ears, and drive to the cemetery, staying there in the dark with one hand on her grave, singing lullabies until Hugh would show up and take me home.

And somehow, in my pain and anguish, it was Nick I blamed. Nick I raged at during those lonely, empty hours by Katie’s grave. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t left us. If it had been me he sent for instead of Lindsey, Katie would be alive now. He should have been there, should have found a way to keep her safe. But he hadn’t, and I hated him even more because of it.

Strangely enough, it was Ian, Hugh’s father, who brought me back to some semblance of life. One morning he showed up at our house, marched into our room, and ordered me out of bed.

“Get dressed,” he told me. “You’re going to work.” He gave me a job as his “assistant”, a position obviously created to keep me busy. I only went along with his tyranny because it was easier to comply than to resist. But gradually, the work caught my interest and I began pouring myself into the lumber industry. After two years, I knew more about the business than Hugh did. A year after that I went to the bank and used the Morgan name to secure a loan. When I got it, I 108

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opened my own building supply company, Morganville’s first. I deliberately made it as big as the chain stores in Jonesboro, and every minute of my time, night and day, went into making it a success. Southern Supply became my life, the only thing I cared about.

And so, the first time I became aware that Hugh was having an affair, I ignored it.

In a way, it was almost a relief. For a while I didn’t have to deal with him myself. I never knew who the woman was and didn’t want to know. The only thing I wanted was to bury my head in the sand and forget the past, forget that my arms and heart still ached for the daughter I’d had such a short time. And I was succeeding admirably. As time went on, I became numb inside, a condition I welcomed and struggled to maintain.

I felt nothing, not anger, or joy, or sadness. Life was easier that way.

Then, fifteen years after he left, Nick came home.

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The Sweet Gum Tree

All hell broke loose in Morganville when I left Hugh. The gossip zipped back and forth like a hummingbird on amphetamines, and the entire town was at war over its differing opinions. Part of them thought I’d lost my mind, and the other part, the part that knew about Hugh’s continued affairs, applauded my good sense. Not that any of it bothered me. I moved through the storm of rumors calm and unruffled, offering no explanations or apologies, ignoring the whispers that followed me wherever I went.

Both my family and Hugh’s were frantic, and after two months of attempted brow-beatings, wailing, and guilt trips, had resorted to giving me the cold shoulder. Even my mother barely spoke to me. For a while, the silence was a relief. I still had the Judge, who thought anything I did was just fine and dandy, and my father, who’d never approved of my marriage to Hugh anyway. And, much to my surprise, Jenna. She’d always seemed to think Hugh walked on water, but when she found out I was divorcing him, her only comment was, “It’s about time.” The truth was, Hugh and I hadn’t had a marriage since Katie died. We lived together like strangers, each going our own way, barely speaking when we were in the same room. I’d simply made the separation official. Leaving had finally become easier than pretending to be happy with each other when we weren’t.

Hugh, of course, played the wounded spouse, the man whose wife had dumped him with no warning and for no apparent reason, but I knew he was relieved. He’d signed the divorce papers with no hesitation at all, especially since I was asking nothing from him, not even his name. In one more month I would be Alix French again.

I felt neither relieved nor depressed. It was only one more event that had no impact on me. I moved back to the farm, into the room in the barn, and at best, I was content.

In a sense, the place had changed. The single twin bed was the same, as was the blue and green plaid curtain on the window, faded now with time and strong sunlight.

The same chair still sat in a corner. But the large room hadn’t stayed empty all this time.

Cody, my cousin, had used it for several years when he’d first returned from college, and he’d added an apartment-sized stove and refrigerator, and a four-foot-long section of cabinets, the base holding a kitchen sink. He’d also had a phone line installed.

Cody had turned out to be something of a surprise. He’d majored in criminology and as soon as his degree was in his hand, he’d moved back to Morganville and went to work as a deputy. Now he was the sheriff and one of my very best friends.

Once, he’d tried to apologize for that night at the Burger Zone when I was a kid, but I cut him off. I refused to think about Nick, or remember that night. I refused to feel anything. People who felt got hurt. Hadn’t I learned that the hard way? I wasn’t going 111

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to let it happen again. Which is why I took the news of Nick’s return without so much as an increase in my heartbeat. Oh, yes. I had learned.

It was an early spring day, the first green shoots beginning to push their way out of the ground. I locked the doors of Southern Supply and climbed into the Chevy, piling the sheaf of papers I carried on the seat beside me. Kenny Millsap, my general manager, ran the store on Saturdays, but I always took paperwork home with me on Friday nights. It gave me something to do on my days off.

I was a bit puzzled to find Jenna’s Lincoln parked in front of the barn when I got home. Five years ago she’d bought out Mid-Delta Real Estate and I knew she’d had an appointment scheduled early this evening. If it was already over, it probably hadn’t gone well.

“Hi. What’s up?” I asked, as I caught sight of her pacing the length of the aisle in front of the empty stalls. She looked agitated and upset, and the horde of cats that normally hung around had all found cover.

She followed me to the door of my room before answering. “Alix, you aren’t going to believe who my appointment turned out to be.”

“Who?” I put the papers on a small table against the back wall and pulled a pair of jeans and a shirt out of the closet. I wanted to take a walk in the woods behind the barn before supper, get a little exercise and fresh air.

“Will you stop and look at me? This is important.” Still holding my clothes, I turned to her. “Okay, you have my complete attention.

Now, who was it?”

“Nick Anderson.”

I remained silent, didn’t even blink. If her news startled me, I let none of it show in my face.

“Well, aren’t you going to say something?”

“What do you expect me to say?” I draped the clothes over a chair and stripped off my dark blue tailored suit, balancing myself with one hand on the chair back.

“I expect you to be upset, or mad, or something!” She waved her hands in the air.