Wedding Ring (31 page)

“All right. I blew it.”

His sigh filled the car. “I’m glad you see it.”

“Are we done, then?”

“I’m afraid you’re going to make more mistakes along the way. I’m afraid you’re going to end up in jail.”

She felt the icy fingers of reality begin to tear aside her defenses, and what she saw when she looked inside her own heart frightened her. “I won’t peer into windows again,” she said at last. “But that’s the most I’ll do for you.”

“For me?”

“Yes, for
you
.” She looked at him again. “I don’t care if I go to jail. I’d go in a minute if I thought he’d have to go, too.”

“But that’s not the way it works.”

“I know, Mack. I said I blew it, okay?”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Sometimes I think you’d be better off without me, do you know that? I’m a reminder of better times. Sometimes I think that’s
all
I am to you anymore, that maybe I ought to just step aside. If I did, would you be able to move forward with your life? Would that be enough to kick you out of Reverse gear?”

“It’s not Reverse gear. I want justice.”

“But you know what?” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Every time I think I can let you go, I realize I’m not quite there yet.”

She stared at him. In the dim light of a rain fogged street lamp, she stared at her husband, and her heart felt like it was twisting in her chest. “No?”

“I’ve been looking for you in other women. That’s what my thing with Erin was about.”

“Your thing? Oh, please.”

“And you’ve been pushing me at her.”

“I don’t even know the woman.”

“Anybody would do.” His voice became steely. “It’s the only way you can make that final retreat and be alone with your anger and sadness.”

“You’re blaming your affair on me?”

“There
is
no affair. There won’t be, either, although we damned well came close. And no, I’m not blaming it on you. I’ve been lonely. I’ve let this happen. I let you push me farther and farther away with every action and inaction, every important conversation we didn’t have, every night we didn’t make love. But I’m not playing the game anymore, Tess. If you want me out of your life, you have to tell me. Directly. I’m not going to be the one to do your dirty work. I’m not going to let you blame this on me, claim I fell in love with somebody else and just moved on.”

She didn’t know what to say. She was too honest to insist he was wrong. But was he right? Did she want Mack out of her life so that she would have no reminders of Kayley? Did she want to pack him up with the drawings and the photos and the stuffed unicorn?

Tears filled her eyes. “I see her everywhere. I even see her when I look at Robert Owens, do you know that? I have nightmares about him. There’s a car coming closer and closer—”

“Tess, don’t. I can’t take it.”

“No, you don’t understand.
He’s
not driving the car. I am! I have the same awful dream night after night. I’m in the car, and he’s the one on the sidewalk. And I aim for him, Mack. I put my foot on the accelerator and I aim for him, and I don’t stop until he’s lying dead under my car. I don’t stop….” She put her face in her hands.

He didn’t touch her, he didn’t speak, and she was so glad he didn’t. “I want him to suffer the way we have,” she said at last through her tears.

“You need help.”

“No, I need Robert Owens in jail. That’s the only way my life is going to be any better.”

“It wasn’t any better when he
was
in jail. Don’t you see it? You suffered just as much. You’ve got to get a handle on this, and you can’t do it alone.”

“I’m coping. I’m doing something about him. That’s why I’m here.”

“No, you’re pushing everybody away. Haven’t you learned anything from spending the summer with your grandmother? Don’t you see the similarities? Don’t you get it? You’re going to turn into a bitter, lonely old woman, Tess, just like Helen, unless you do something about this now. You’ve been pushing me away to make sure the same thing happens to you. But you’re going to have to take the final steps alone. I won’t help you. I’m here, and I’m going to stay here until you tell me to go away.”

She wiped her eyes on the drenched sleeve of her raincoat. Then she turned to him. “I don’t want you. I don’t want your help.”

He stared at her; then he shook his head. “I don’t believe you.” He leaned over and reached across, opening her door. “Go home.”

She stood on the sidewalk as he pulled away. The music was still audible from the Owens house as she walked in the rain to her car. But she got in and drove away.

N
o matter how tired Helen was during Nancy’s childhood, she’d always made sure they went to church as a family. The Shenandoah Community Church was nothing fancy, white clapboard, gracefully wrought steeple, musty-smelling rooms in the back and in the basement for the youth program. There was always coffee and conversation after the services, and Nancy was free to run and play outside with the other children before she went back home to finish her chores.

This morning Nancy drove her mother to the little country church, only to find that since her last visit, a large social hall had been added where the classrooms had once stood, and now a new, light-flooded wing housed the children and their programs. The parking lot had been paved; the fine old trees had been pruned and cared for; a rose garden perfect for outdoor weddings graced a side yard that already had a stunning view of distant mountains. The updates were wonderful, and the congregation had grown.

“It’s such an improvement,” she told Helen later over midmorning coffee in the farmhouse kitchen. Helen had refused to stay for the social hour, and Nancy hadn’t wanted to push the issue.

“Don’t go much anymore.” Helen stirred three teaspoons of sugar into her cup. “Seems like a wasted effort at my age. Either I’m going to heaven or not. By now, there’s not much more I can do about it.”

Nancy retrieved pastries she’d bought in Woodstock to go with the coffee. “Maybe you ought to just go so you’ll have people to talk to, Mama. You spend too much time alone.”

“Not these days. Can’t draw a breath around here anymore without somebody else breathing the same air.”

Nancy let that ride. “I like the new pastor. He asked a lot of questions about you. And he said he’s been trying to visit, but you won’t let him inside.”

“So that’s what the two of you were chewing over?”

“I told him he’d be very welcome now.”

Helen grumbled, and Nancy turned away so her mother wouldn’t see her smile.

“You think Tessa’s all right?” Helen asked when the grumbling had faded.

Nancy brought the pastries to the table. “Why do you ask?”

“I haven’t seen her this morning.”

“She’s up in the attic. While it’s still cool enough to be there.” Nancy hesitated. “I think she needed some time to herself, and there’s not much chance you and I are going to make it up there any time soon.”

“She got home late last night.”

Nancy wondered if Helen had stayed awake listening, as she had. “I don’t like this surveillance she’s doing, and I told Mack as much. It’s like rubbing salt in a wound. But she’s not going to listen to us. She’s going to do what she thinks she has to.”

“Like her mama.”

“No, Tessa’s more like Billy than me. She watches that boy’s house because she thinks she has to, even if it’s ruining her life. And Billy married me because he thought he had to, no matter what the consequences.”

“I haven’t heard you talk about that for more years than I can count.”

Nancy settled herself at the table and took a cheese danish. “Tessa found our marriage certificate in the attic a couple of days ago. She found out I was pregnant before we got married.”

Helen didn’t look surprised. “It was bound to happen. Better now than after you’re gone and there’s no way of explaining it to her.”

“What’s to explain? I met a man, we had sex, I got pregnant. It’s such a common little story.”

“There was always more to it than that.”

Nancy was amazed that the conversation was still in play, but her mother’s understanding tone made her pause and tilt her head in question. “More?”

“Don’t you think I know you were never cut out for your life here? That you saw Billy as somebody who could take you away?”

“I didn’t get pregnant on purpose, if that’s what you’re saying. I’d admit it at this late date, if it were true, but it’s not.”

“No, but you were living in a dream when you were with him. I saw the dreaming part of you practically from the time you learned to walk. You were like a little fairy child, sensitive to sound and color and tone of voice. Everything either delighted you or plain-out scared you to death. There was no in-between. You lived in your imagination.”

“That’s how children are.”

“Not me. Nobody in my family was like that, except maybe Tom. Maybe Fate was like that, and he had it bled out of him one bad piece of luck after another, I don’t know. I know he didn’t like farm life, either, not really. He wanted to travel, see new places and things, drink in life in a way that was outright foreign to me.”

Nancy was surprised. She had never realized that Helen understood, much less accepted, who she was. “You tried so hard to make me into somebody else. Why? Did you just want me to be different?”

“No, I just wanted you to survive. And what else could I offer you? I had the farm, and just barely that. I didn’t have a way to make things easier or better for you.”

“It would have been better just to know you understood.”

Helen didn’t look angry at the criticism. “I can see that now. Back then, though, there wasn’t time to think twice about anything. The way you were, well, it was going to be trouble if you had to stay around here. I thought I was just preparing you. Now I know I was holding you back. So many of the things we try to do for the right reasons are wrong. That’s about the saddest thing in life.”

Nancy didn’t even know what to say. Her entire world needed readjusting. Somewhere inside her was the little girl who had believed her mother thought she was worthless. To find out that had not been the case at all took more than a moment to accept.

Helen seemed to know. She reached out and put her hand on Nancy’s. “And maybe I was just trying to weight you down, Nanny, so you wouldn’t fly off and leave me. Maybe that’s the saddest thing of all. If that’s what I was doing, then I’m just real sorry about it.”

Tessa wasn’t sure where Nancy was taking her. All she knew was that she had come downstairs before noon to find her mother, car keys in hand and “command performance” in her eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about watching the Owens house,” she told her mother once they were in the car.

“That’s fine.” Nancy backed out of the driveway and started down Fitch Crossing. She didn’t chatter, and she didn’t nag. She just drove silently and slowly, as if she were enjoying the view.

Tessa couldn’t let it go as easily. “Mack found me. He said you told him where I was.”

Nancy turned off Fitch and headed north. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about this.”

“I wish you hadn’t told him where I was.”

“You’d prefer I lie?”

Tessa fell silent. She had awakened with a headache and a lump in her throat that might be unshed tears. Aspirin was not the cure.

“He misses you, sweetheart,” Nancy said. “And you miss him.”

“I don’t want analysis.” The words weren’t out of her mouth before she regretted them, and the tone, as well. “I’m sorry. I don’t feel well.”

“Then just lie back, close your eyes and relax. This is going to be fun. You’ll like what I’ve got planned.”

No recriminations. No guilt. Just motherly concern. Tessa did as she was told, and by the time they stopped and she opened her eyes again, she felt better.

“Gram’s church?” She sat forward and gazed at the picturesque building. Well-wishers from the late service were still shaking the pastor’s hand. But as they sat there, the last stragglers had their word with him and left.

“His name’s Sam Kinkade. He’s a nice young man and a good preacher,” Nancy said. “Today he spoke about loving yourself. He said we have to love ourselves before we love God or our neighbors. It was something to think about.”

Mack had attended church regularly after Kayley’s death. Before, they had gone intermittently as a family, but it had been more for their daughter than for themselves. Now Mack went because he wanted to be there, and Tessa hadn’t set foot across the threshold.

“We have an appointment,” Nancy said.

For a moment Tessa was afraid her mother had dragged her here to talk to the pastor, to spill her feelings in his clerical lap and receive some sort of mini-salvation. But Nancy put her hand on her daughter’s arm.

“He’s going to give us a tour. I have an idea, and I think this might be the place to pull it off. I want to put on a show of your grandmother’s quilts. And I think this is the place to display them.” Nancy got out and started toward the church, and in a moment Tessa caught up with her.

“Does Gram know?”

Nancy laughed. “Are you kidding?”

“It would be a surprise?”

“Just until somebody spills the beans. Then we’ll have to hogtie her and throw her in that old truck of hers to get her here.”

“But it’s a wonderful idea!”

Nancy stopped and turned, even though the pastor had seen them and was waiting. “Really? I’m glad you think so. That means a lot.”

“What made you think of it?”

“Your grandmother has gotten very little validation in her life. She kept the family farm against terrible odds, she raised a daughter with no help from anybody else, she made those incredible, out-of-this-world quilts. And who knows about them? Who knows about this woman’s life? She deserves a little applause before she dies, don’t you think?”

Tessa started toward the church again when her mother did. “You’ll do a terrific job of it, too.”

“You think so?” Nancy looked pleased.

“Of course. Nobody can organize the way you can. And you’re wonderful at displays. You could take broken eggshells and make something special out of them.”

“Most likely I’m blushing about now. But thanks.”

Tessa saw Nancy
was
blushing, and she realized how little praise she gave her mother. Apparently it was a family failing.

Reverend Kinkade came forward to meet them. He was dark-haired and handsome enough to make the young women in the congregation attend more regularly. He was about Tessa’s age, perhaps a year or two younger. He seemed like the kind of man who would be more comfortable in blue jeans than his simple black robe.

Nancy introduced them, and they shook hands. His grip was firm, his blue eyes unwavering. “I have visits I have to make in a little while,” he said, “but you’re welcome to linger as long as you like after I’ve showed you around.”

They wandered through the rooms, and Nancy pointed out where quilts could be hung. Sam—as he preferred to be called—was enthusiastic about the idea.

“I’ve been told Helen’s given away dozens of quilts to church members,” he said. “And I hear she’s quite a character, to boot. I’d have to agree from the little I’ve seen.”

No pussyfooting there. Tessa thought this might be a minister she could relate to. “Yes, to both. But she’s an artist.”

“If I had my way, this building would be in use every minute of every day. I’ll have to get permission from our lay leaders, but there shouldn’t be any problem. Particularly if we can leave some of the quilts up for the following Sunday?”

“That would be wonderful,” Nancy said. “More recognition.”

“I wonder if any of the people she’s given quilts to would bring them back for the show, maybe with stories about what they’ve meant to their families,” Tessa said.

“What a great idea.” Nancy put her arm around her daughter’s waist. “What do you think about hanging some of them outdoors if it’s a good day? As dry as the summer’s been, we’re probably safe. We could hang them from the lowest branches of the big trees.”

“Or display some of them between stepladders in the rose garden?” Sam suggested.

By the time he left, there was little question the quilt show was almost a fait accompli. “It’s too bad I don’t have more time to pull it together,” Nancy said, “but it’s going to be big enough to please her.”

“Maybe too big.”

Tessa gazed around the sanctuary. Sam wasn’t sure they would be allowed to use it for the show, but Nancy had asked him to try to get permission. It was a quiet room, and it probably held a hundred people if they squeezed together on the pews. There was only one stained glass window above the altar, but the side windows looked out on mountains and trees, holy enough to suit even the fussiest parishioner. Fresh roses and linen adorned the altar, and the cherrywood pulpit had been polished to a high gleam.

“I’m just going to sit here a moment.” Tessa expected Nancy to fuss, to ask if she was feeling well and did she need a drink of water? But Nancy just squeezed her shoulder before disappearing into the hallway.

Tessa wondered if there was any place on earth as quiet as the chapel of a country church. The silence seemed to thrum against her eardrums. The air-conditioning was off now, but the cool stillness seemed to embrace and surround her, a tangible presence. She thought of Mack and understood for the first time what he had found in church and what she hadn’t even looked for. She was uncomfortable here, not willing or ready to yield to the comfort within these walls, much less give any consideration to the more academic question of God. But by the time she got up to find her mother, she understood her husband better.

Nancy was outside, gazing up at the branches of an oak tree. “Ready?” she asked when Tessa joined her. “I’m starving. Let’s go home and make some lunch.”