What Happened to Hannah (2 page)

He held the phone to his ear with one hand and rubbed the other over his face then back through his short dark hair. What the hell was he doing? Why hadn’t he given the number to Doc Kolson and asked him to call her? Pastor Barnes would have done it. The new priest at the Catholic church, Ellen Benson’s priest, would have made this call. But no, he had to do it. He had to hear her voice.

He leaned back in his chair and swiveled a bit to the right to look out the large window in his office—through the blinds, across the street, beyond the sleeping March gardens and the leafless bushes and trees to the large white gazebo on the shallow knoll in the center of town . . . where he’d taught Hannah to kiss.

“No, not ill. Ruth died five years ago, Hannah.” He heard her sharp intake and closed his eyes. “Jesus. I feel like I’m peeling this Band-Aid off so slow I’m taking skin with it. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I would have called you when it happened, but your mother never hinted that you might still be alive for another two years—after her first heart attack. Then when I tracked you through the DMV she asked me, begged me, not to call you. She said if you were happy somewhere she didn’t want to ruin it for you; and if you weren’t, why add to your troubles. Now I’m serving you a double dose of sad and . . . I should have called sooner. I’m sorry.”

She sighed soft and sad over the line. “I am, too. I’m so sorry. Poor Ruthie. So young.” She paused and was thoughtful. “I suppose I should be curious as to how she died or why but . . . I feel like they’re both finally at peace and the rest of it doesn’t matter. Not now. Not anymore. I suppose that makes me sound heartless and insensitive, doesn’t it?”

“Not to me. But some of the rest of it does matter. I haven’t gotten to my primary reason for calling.”

There came a soft, humorless laugh at the other end. “I’ve run out of relatives, Grady. So, again, if it’s about the farm . . .”

“It’s not. And you haven’t quite.”

“I haven’t quite what?”

“Run out of relatives.” He waited for her to say something. “Hannah?”

“Don’t say it.”

“I have to. Ruth had a daughter. Fifteen years ago. And she needs you.”

“She needs me.” She didn’t sound like she knew what that meant. He heard her moving around, the pattern of her breathing changed. “What, she needs a kidney or something?”

“She needs a home.”

“Come on, Grady, get real. What the hell am I going to do with a fifteen-year-old girl I’ve never even met before?”

“Get to know her. Make her a part of your family.”

“What family?” she exploded. “You just told me my whole damned family is dead.”

“You never married?”

“No! I didn’t.” Christ, he was a total ass to feel so elated . . . wasn’t he? Then she made a point to add, “On purpose! To avoid this very thing. I don’t want to be responsible to or for anyone. You got that? It’s selfish, I know, but there you are. That’s me. Selfish. Selfish, selfish Hannah.”

This wasn’t quite what he expected, but it didn’t make any difference. Hannah was still the girl’s only living relative. He’d envisioned a little initial resistance, but he’d been counting on some maternal instincts to kick in and save the day. A little empathy maybe, so she could put a child of her own in the same situation.

But all was not lost. In his experience people who were truly selfish didn’t think about being selfish or call themselves selfish. They simply
were
selfish—the lack of thought and intent being part of the definition. He had a feeling Hannah wasn’t as selfish as she was scared. And scared didn’t cut it—her niece was scared, too.

“Don’t you want to know about her? Aren’t you curious?”

“No. I don’t and I’m not. Now, if you’ve covered everything you called to tell me . . .”

“She looks like Ruth. A little taller, I think, but slim and blond. Her eyes are more like yours, though. A darker blue.”

“Grady.”

“She’s a nice girl. Smart. She’s a sophomore over at the high school. She runs. She’s on the track team. I understand she writes poetry, too. And . . . Oh! One good thing—her hair’s always the same color. I’m not sure if it’s because she doesn’t care for green or purple hair or because she didn’t want to trigger her grandmother’s heart attack prematurely, but it all works for me.”

“Well, it’s not working for me. I’m not going to change my mind. I’m not equipped to raise a child.”

“She’s not a toddler. Most of the messy stuff is done. She wants to go to college in two years. Things could get very screwed up if she’s made a ward of the court. Two years, Hannah. It’ll be over in a heartbeat. She’ll be eighteen and legal. Her share of the farm will pay for most of her education. In the meantime, all you’d have to do is sort of . . . supervise her. Sign a couple of field-trip permission slips. Make sure she eats. Nothin’ to it.”

“Right. Nothing to it. For two years. In Clearfield. I’m sorry—”

“No! Not in Clearfield. Well, yes, but only for a couple of weeks. You’d have to come get her, sign a few custody papers, take care of things at the school, get things rolling on the sale of the farm, but that’s it. Two weeks tops, I’d think.”

“You’d think?”

“Two weeks tops.” Now to drive the point home. “She needs you, Hannah.”

He gave her moment. If a spark of the girl he once knew still existed in this woman, she’d do the right thing. If this was the right thing. For all he knew she could be a mild-mannered insurance saleswoman by day and a kinky-freaky sadomasochist by night—to whom he was delivering an innocent young girl.

He doubted it, but he’d sure as hell check her out as thoroughly as he could before she left town again. For now, he’d go with his gut instincts. And they were telling him that the mere fact that she was now silently contemplating the issue at the other end of the line meant that, deep down, the girl he knew survived.

“And this person’s been living with my mother for the last five years, I take it?”

“A while longer than that. Ruth was pretty sick for a while.”

“What about her father?”

“Never in the picture as far as I know. No name on the birth certificate.”

There was a loud sigh and more silence. He rubbed the back of his neck to ease some of the tension and impatience he felt, reminding himself that Hannah hadn’t had three years to prepare for this phone call.

“What if we meet and hate each other?” she asked, keeping her tone stiff and uncommitted over the misgivings and trepidation in her voice. “She’d have to come and live here. I’d be taking her to a different state, aren’t there laws against that?”

He grinned. Victory, satisfaction, anticipation. He felt them all and had to pull—hard—on years of practice to stay cool and professional. “Only if you’re stealing her and crossing state lines, which you wouldn’t be . . . And you knew that already. Let’s not make this any harder than it has to be right now. Just come down and meet her and we’ll take it from there. We’ll see how it goes. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t. At least you will have tried. I can’t ask for more than that.”

“Even that is asking for a lot.”

“I know.”

She didn’t speak again for several seconds. “You always were very persuasive.”

He glanced out at the gazebo, memories tugged at him. He wouldn’t pretend not to know what she meant. “Some things are worth a little extra effort.”

Once upon a time
she
had been worth
a lot
of extra effort.

“Sometimes some things are best left alone.”

“Sometimes some things need to change.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’ve changed. You’re relentless.” Her laugh was soft, but he could tell she wasn’t amused. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

“I can’t. It’s important.”

That importance clawed at him from within, for the girl, for Hannah, for him—and it went beyond his job, his civic duty, and his responsibilities as a decent human being. This was his chance at redemption, to attempt success where he failed before; to right a wrong in a convoluted, circular fashion. Because once, a long time ago, Hannah had come to him for help and he’d failed her. Miserably. Young and powerless, shocked and confused, no excuse, no amount of adult reasoning had ever been enough to abate the monstrous guilt, the ego-shattering self-doubt, or the tender pain of a first love lost.

Second chances didn’t come along often enough to be ignored or taken lightly. It was too late to change things for Hannah, to be of any use to her, to change what happened so many years ago. But it wasn’t too late for her sister’s child.

He heard her shuffling papers and moving around.

“I need time,” she said. “To think. And I can’t just drop everything here and take off for two weeks. When would I have to be there?”

“Your mother’s funeral is scheduled for Monday morning at ten.”

“Christ, Grady, will you give me a break? I have a life. I can’t possibly—”

He cut her off. He didn’t want to give her
too much
time to think. And it wasn’t only her life they were talking about. “This will be Anna’s second funeral in five years. She shouldn’t be alone.”

“Who’s—?”

“Anna. That’s her name. It’s short for Hannah.”

The background noise ceased and she waited a beat. “Are you making that up?”

“Nope.” He laughed silently. “Frankly, I never would have thought to . . . but I did save it for the very end. Just in case.”

Chapter Two

H
annah turned down the car radio and drove straight through town. She didn’t slow down to gawk at the changes or hark back to the good old days. There weren’t any good old days as far as she was concerned, and she wasn’t deceived by Clearfield’s quaint country charms. No one knew better than she that the tree-lined streets and the pristine gazebo in the middle of the town square were a facade of down-home living and the American way. It could have been Any Small Town, USA, but it wasn’t. It was Clearfield—home to a dark, festering truth for which she was now the final vessel.

She took her foot off the gas and slowed down for an unexpected red light at the intersection of Main and Merchant—an upgrade from the four-way yellow blinker that dangled there before. She closed her eyes and tried not to laugh, hysterically, at the sizzling anger bubbling up inside her. It was a testament to her wild, erratic emotions at the moment—pissed off at having to obey anyone or any-
thing
in this town and the giddy, unreal sensation of being there in the first place.

Using her thumb and index finger to push her sunglasses up, she rubbed the sweaty impressions they left on the bridge of her nose and then let them slide back in place. She reached over and cut off the heat. It registered forty-two degrees out and was as bright as July; freezing cold winds blew tree limbs like whips and she was sweating. The March weather made as much sense to her as finding herself parked at a red light in Clearfield—in other words, none at all.

“Heavy traffic.” The four o’clock rush hour got a sniff of disdain. She and an old man in a faded green pickup truck were stopped on opposite sides of the intersection for three other vehicles. Those now long gone, the two of them sat and stared at each other, waiting for the light to change again. Clenching her teeth, she darted a look to both sides of the road—at the full bumper-to-bumper parking along the sidewalk and the lone pedestrian entering an antique store called Granny’s Attic—then back at the old man across from her.

Hannah blew out a deep breath to ease some of the tightness in her chest, and put a hand over the knot in her belly. With her elbow on the car door she jammed her fingers into her straight dark hair and rested her cheek in the palm. She wanted to scream.

The old man’s wrist perched loose over the steering wheel—and he must have felt her looking at him from behind her glasses, because he suddenly lifted his hand in greeting. She startled and gasped, then just as quickly stomped down on the extra surge of paranoia.

This isn’t a trick
, she reminded herself.
People in small towns wave at strangers all the time. He doesn’t recognize me. He isn’t going to tell on me. There’s no one to tell, remember? This isn’t a trick. Grady wouldn’t trick me.

The light changed and she gunned the engine. The lumbering green truck rolled out from the opposite direction and she watched as the old man passed her by without a second look.

See? Simply a nice, friendly old gentleman. Not a trick. No one to tell, right? Grady wouldn’t trick me.

At least she hoped he wouldn’t.
People change . . . but not
that
much.
She’d keep the doors locked and the motor running until she was sure, of course, but she knew all too well that there were times when believing and taking a leap of faith were her only options. Besides, she’d taken a leap with Grady before and—

She shook her head and shuffled him to the back of her mind. She wasn’t here for Grady. She came here to meet the girl. Her sister’s daughter. Ruthie’s baby girl. Why did that seem like such a strange concept?

Twenty years was a long time. Wasn’t that what Grady said?—
It’s been a long time
. . .

It was a long time—to run, to hide, to fear. To hate. She could have, would have, gladly lived another twenty or a hundred years without coming back to Clearfield, had it not been for the call from Grady Steadman.

Talk about a blast from the past. More like a nuclear meltdown. Out of the blue like that?
Foosh!
Four years of expensive psychotherapy down the toilet in a heartbeat.

She could still feel that horrible, sickening sensation as the blood drained from her face and her stomach roiled with the shock and terror of being found and caught—like a fugitive—as if she’d been hiding under a rock all this time. The past rolling up on her like a tidal wave, crashing down on her, washing her back into the past as if the last twenty years had never happened.

But they had happened. Every single month, day, hour, and second of them had transpired with her blessing, she assured herself, then flipped the left-hand turn signal when she spotted the neat little red brick church up ahead. She was not, in any way, the same Hannah Benson who left this miserable, dinky, white-picket-fenced town so long ago. She
had
changed; she’d made a point of it.