What Happened to Hannah (10 page)

“Sure.”

“The first time my mom came back here, when she first brought me here to live, I was, like, five, I think . . . She stood there, like you are now, and she told me almost the exact same story. Only she told me what Gran was really afraid of.”

“She did?” Scratches, dust . . . but not the truth. It would be too wrong to tell someone so innocent about something so evil.

“Mom called him Gran’s husband. I didn’t even know he was her father until after she died. Sheriff Steadman explained it to me.”

“He shouldn’t have.”

“Why not? Because of how he died? Because of what he did? Gran never talked about it, but my mom did. She thought it was important for me to know about people like him. So I could avoid them. So I’d know what to do if it happened to me.”

“What would you do?” She had to ask.

“My mom said to call the cops and run like hell . . . like you did.”

“Like . . . She told you?” Hannah, the blood draining from her face, heard the distant shouting in the back of her head and felt dizzy. She lowered herself onto the little rocker, barely noted the creak of the wood as it took her weight. “What did she tell you exactly?”

“That you were never afraid of him.” She glanced at the floor. “She told me how you used to try to help Gran . . . and her when you could. She said you were smart and brave and that’s why she named me after you. So maybe I’d be like you.”

Her throat tight, her eyes were stinging with tears, she started to shake her head slowly. She couldn’t look at the girl; she had the story all wrong. “I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t smart. And I was always afraid of him.”

She pressed her fingers to her lips trying not to cry—not so much for the past itself, but because her sister, who suffered agonies of her own in ways Hannah could only imagine, had gone to her grave with such misplaced beliefs—had named her daughter after a delusion.

“You all were,” Anna said, her voice soft with compassion. “He was a terrible man. My mom said that you running away to save your own life that night gave Gran the courage she needed to kill him.”

Hannah looked up. She could tell by her expression that she didn’t know any more of the story than that. She didn’t know the truth. Maybe Ruth hadn’t known the truth . . .

“And Gran used it like a time line,” Anna went on. “She’d say: a long time ago, before Hannah left. Or a while back, a few months or years or whatever, after Hannah left home. But it was never before or after he died.”

She smoothed the creases of her slacks and took a deep breath, trying to tug herself together. The less they talked about the past the safer she would be.

“She probably wanted to forget all about him. I’d like to.”

Anna pressed her lips together and nodded, but then she said, “My mom used to tell me that . . . that Gran wanted to forget. But she couldn’t because of me. Gran was afraid it might have been passed on to me, you know, all the anger and the bad temper but Mom said it wasn’t hereditary. You don’t think it is, do you?”

“No, I don’t.” But she once did. And sometimes, in weaker moments, she still worried about it. “Your grandmother was from a different time, she didn’t know. She didn’t know about leaving an abusive husband. She didn’t know that it was a learned behavior, that his father was probably exactly like him. She . . .”
thought I had it, that I was the spawn of the devil himself,
she almost said. “She did the best she could.” Then when it occurred to her, she grew concerned. “She didn’t accuse you . . . or say something that . . . she never . . .”

“No. She didn’t talk about it and we got along okay, so . . . I don’t have that kind of temper anyway. I guess she thought I got mostly her genes or something.”

“What about your mom?”

“My mom’s temper? No, she was more . . .” She hesitated. “She didn’t have much of a temper, either.”

They both heard tires in the gravel drive. Hannah took a deep breath and stood up.

“I’m glad your mom was better informed. I think she was very wise to tell you about it. I didn’t at first. I tend not to talk about it much, but she was right. You do need to know how to take care of yourself.”

Chapter Seven

T
urns out she was a pillar in the St. John’s Altar Society. The ladies couldn’t say enough about her,” she told Joe later that afternoon as she drove to the high school to pick up Anna after track. “They maintain the altar and the interior of the church, raise funds for flowers and candles and vestments, you know, all the stuff used at the altar.”

“Hence their name, I suspect.”

“Well, yeah. But then the priest—he’s young, a different one than I told you about—he comes over to us after the graveside service, practically in tears, and tells us how much he’s going to miss her. She was the rectory housekeeper, can you believe it? For most of the last twenty years. That was her
job
.”

“Many people turn to their church in times of crisis.”

“Well, yeah. But the weird thing is I never pictured her as having a job. Or as being an active member of . . . anything. Or as anyone other than who she was the night I left—this sort of beaten spirit who couldn’t lift a finger to help herself, much less someone else. I don’t know.” She slowed at the stop sign. “It’s like it’s finally, genuinely sinking in that time didn’t stop here once I was gone. I mean, I knew it didn’t but . . . I never thought of my mother actually getting up off the floor and making a real life for herself . . . and for Ruth, and then Anna. I never thought of her as . . . being a real person, you know?”

“I believe that’s a common childhood ailment. My younger son didn’t think I could spell my own name until he was almost thirty.”

“But you were always real to him. He loved you, cared about you,
worried
about you. They both did. I didn’t worry about her, Joe. If I thought about her at all, I simply assumed she stayed locked up in the house and on welfare like before. I was so wrapped up in myself, so busy worrying about
me
that—”

“No, no, no,” he broke in, his voice stern. “You don’t get to do this to yourself, my friend. You’re not there to add to your guilt list. That’s all in the past. It’s good that you’re getting to know who your mother was. Try to feel proud of her achievements, happy that you were mistaken, glad that she found a purpose in her life. But you have suffered enough for the past. You have tried to forgive her, now you must also forgive yourself.”

“I know.” Her voice came out as weak as her resolve. “It wasn’t her fault, or mine.” Four years of therapy and the final outcome was that her family was a no-fault accident, an act of Nature beyond the control of those involved. Theoretically, even her father wasn’t responsible due to ignorance or mental defect—although
her
nature wasn’t that theoretical. Her more practical mind told her that right or wrong, at one point or another, they had all made choices.

“Tell me what else happened.” He always knew when she needed to talk, and not about anything in particular.

“Um, two young brothers, a little younger than Anna, and their mother came up to us after the priest left and asked if we wanted them to move their cows.” She smiled at the silence on the other end. “Did I mention there are three cows in a fenced field next to the house?”

“Aromatic cows?”

“Not really, plain brown cows pretty much. Apparently they’re 4-H projects for these two boys and Mama let them use the field in exchange for chores. Anna knows them pretty well. She and I sort of talked it over real fast and decided they could leave the cows for now and maybe work out something with the new owners, and we’d use the boys to help us clean out the house.”

“Always thinking, aren’t you? By the way, I’ve been looking over this list you e-mailed me and I can’t think of anything to add. You seem to have thought of everything. Two antique dealers there at the same time is good business, and having them and the used furniture buyers doing a preliminary walk-through will save you some time, I believe. Was that a car horn?”

“Yes.” She sighed and rolled her eyes. Joe disapproved of talking on the phone while driving—even with a handless earpiece. “They do that here. Honk and wave. I have no idea who they are. And I’m pretty sure they don’t know who I am. I think they just like to honk and wave—like it’s the friendly thing to do. But it’s also annoying, and very distracting.”

“Especially when you’re on the phone.”

“I knew you were going to say that.”

“I know you knew. So, where are you going?”

“To pick Anna up from school.”

“This late?”

“She has track until five thirty. I’m a little early. I’m hoping to see her run.”

“How is she doing?”

“Dealing with Mama’s death or dealing with me?”

“Yes.”

“She cried a little during the service. Not hysterically. A few loose tears . . . Oh! That’s something else I found out. Mama had heart problems for several years. She’d been in the hospital a couple of times, so this wasn’t unexpected.” Not that it would be any less painful for Anna. “Anna let me hold her hand for a few minutes.”

“That’s something.”

“Yeah, but then she hemmed and hawed when the Steadman kids came over to ask if she wanted a ride to school. It took me forever to realize that she wanted to go, but she didn’t want me to feel abandoned if she did.” She paused. “She’s a nice girl, Joe. I like her.”

“Why do you make this sound like a bad thing?”

“It’s not but . . . I don’t want to make a mistake. I don’t want to do anything that might hurt her. She’s gone through so much already.”

“Then you won’t. You’ll bend over backward to do the opposite, you’ll see. Listen to your heart, Hannah. It has all the best answers.”

“Mmm.” If she asked the right questions—maybe. “So, anyway, I wrote my first official note to the school to excuse her absence and she left with them. Then I went back to the house to call junk dealers and antique collectors and work out a plan to evacuate the house. Joe, you wouldn’t believe the stuff in that house.”

“So you’ve said.” He chuckled. “And what about the boy?”

“What boy?”

“The sheriff.”

“Oh. Him.” Her heart picked up some nervous speed. “He’s going to be trouble. He keeps looking at me.”

“Oh? And what do you keep doing to cause this?”

“Nothing. I swear. Every time I looked up, he was staring at me like he’s trying to figure me out.”

“Have him call me. I’ll straighten him out on impossible puzzles.”

“He doesn’t know me,” she said, ignoring his comment. “He remembers this . . . this sad, frightened, pathetic little girl he somehow managed to think he was in love with for two or three seconds in high school and I’m not her.”

“Two or three seconds,” he said shrewdly. “Sometimes that’s all the time it takes.”

“For what?”

“To know someone better than we know ourselves. But if you’re no longer attracted to him, then I can’t see why this would be upsetting. Let him look. You’re a pretty woman. You don’t have to look back, you know.”

“And I can do anything for two weeks, right?”

“Right. Longer if need be.”

“You’re not having fun there, are you?” she asked, eager to change the subject. “It took me so long to get you to retire, maybe I shouldn’t have asked you to watch things for me. Maybe all this is a bigger mistake than I thought.”

“Don’t you worry. At this moment I recall perfectly why I decided to retire. Your boy, Jim Sauffle, is making my backside ache.”

She cringed. Joe had the patience of Job when it came to new agents starting out—when it came to most everything, actually. His backside didn’t ache often enough to be ignored.

“Talk to me,” she said, slowing to turn into the parking lot at the high school, close to the football field where track events were also held. In short terms Joe described her new associate’s faulty handling of a group health policy for a Precision Auto Parts franchise and then a term life package for a newly married couple with young children from previous marriages. Apparently, he’d quoted a set of terms to both clients, went back a few days later saying he’d found better policies for them, then only the Friday before had reversed his decision once again.

Hannah worried the stitching on the leather-covered steering wheel as she pulled into a parking space overlooking the field below and turned off the engine. “Friday I got Grady’s call, Joe. I’m trying to remember if Jim tried to talk this over with me or if he . . . well, if this is the new Precision place out on Fredrick Avenue near Catonsville. Larry Watts already has a policy on his other franchise. With me. I’m sure Larry would have told him. Why didn’t he just attach them?”

“That’s what Mr. Watts asked me first thing this morning. And since he’s worked with you for so many years, he’s willing to let me get to the bottom of the problem and get back to him. Young Jim and I had a discussion. That’s when I found out about the term life clients as well.”

While her mind tried to wrap itself around the idea that her new associate might be trying to steal from her, issuing new policies to her preexisting clients . . . she became aware of a group of runners taking off around the track.

“Mixed with the multiple quotes, I want to believe all this was a stupid mistake but—” She broke off when a solitary runner broke from the pack, her long legs eating up the track with ease and confidence.

“I’ll keep an eye on him. He did seem confused about—”

“Oh, God, Joe. I wish you could see this.”

“What?”

“Anna. She’s running. She’s . . . beautiful. She’s . . . Joe, she’s so graceful. She’s almost a quarter of a track ahead of the others, and she doesn’t look like she’s straining at all.”

“It’s a quarter mile track?”

“I don’t know. It’s around the football field.”

“Has she gone around more than once?”

“She just started the second loop around.”

“Then she might be a long-distance runner. Sixteen hundred meters maybe.”

“How many laps is that?”

“Four. You said she runs cross-country in the fall?”

“Yeah. I think so. I gotta go, Joe. Do whatever you think best with Jim. I’ll call you back later.”