What Happened to Hannah (29 page)

“Started again?”

“She’s very upset.”

“Upset?” Once again he had visions of the fire-blue rage in a young girl’s eyes as she slammed Josh Greenborn’s face into the seat on the bus that long-ago afternoon. “She got violent?”

She frowned. “She said she might be violently ill, but once she started to cry she got over that.”

“She cried?” He remembered seeing her cry once, too. He craned his neck to see around the support pillar on the front porch. He curled his toes inside his shoes to keep himself from flying up the steps and taking her into his arms.

Even wretched, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Maybe because she was wretched and still smiling at guests and thanking them for coming on their way out of the house. But either way, for the second time that night, his chest filled with emotion and grew tight; adrenaline pumped through his veins and his muscles tensed for action. Yet where his path and actions had been crystal clear to him when his daughter called, this time he felt like a fish out of water, flopping and twisting around on the dock.

“Certainly not like I would have cried, God knows,” the blonde went on. “But her eyes got misty, and when Anna ran off I thought she’d lose it for sure, but . . . I think she’s holding out for all the guests to leave . . . so be careful.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said as they turned away from each other. He spoke to a couple more citizens and then slowly but surely came to the bottom of the steps and looked up at her.

Stunning in the long red Hawaiian dress with the white-and-red lei, her skin smooth and pale, her healthy dark hair tucked behind one ear . . . it was her bare feet that did him in.

Hannah glanced down at him and while the fake but very convincing smile remained on her lips, the armor dropped from her eyes and she connected with her place in his soul as if she’d never been away—as if she instinctively knew she’d be safe there.

“Are you thinking of arresting me, too?” she asked, walking toward him like the goddess Laka or Pele or Hinakuluiau or one of those other goddesses with too many vowels in her name.

He shook his head—something stuck in his throat.

“Then don’t speak to me at all. Don’t tell me I screwed up.” He opened his mouth to contradict her and she stuck her finger in his face—his mother being the only other woman allowed to do so without remark. “And don’t try to make me feel better.” She reined in her finger self-consciously. “I knew it the moment I saw Anna’s face when she got here. I thought it was a little over the top, but Lyndsey assured me it was only a larger version of a small backyard celebration and not the equivalent of a Hawaiian circus that would embarrass and humiliate Anna in front of her friends. Not that it’s Lyndsey’s fault, at all. I take full responsibility. I gave her no guidelines, no . . . nothing. I just threw my checkbook at her and told her to throw a party and she did. She . . . she’s been great . . . aside from the broken window out back and that poor woman who landed in the koi pool, which wasn’t her fault either and . . . and the fight, of course, but how do you plan for those sorts of things?”

He glanced down at the thick lei of white and red flowers hanging around her neck and blinked twice as he realized the scent of it was filling his head, blurring his thoughts like smoke from a bonfire would distort his vision. Warm skin on skin, panting breath, power and passion—his mind spiraled.

“And Anna . . . God, she’s such a great kid, Grady. So tough. I would have jumped into that damn pig oven and died if it had been me, but she and Lucy both put on happy faces and tried to make the best of it to spare my feelings. Wholeheartedly, you know? They put on the sarongs, tried the hula lessons . . . ate
poke,
for God’s sake.” She bobbed her head a little, distracted. “Lucy’s hair clashed a little with her pareo but she was great.” She refocused; he tried to. “Just great. She’s a great kid, Grady. Anna’s so lucky to have her. When the fight broke out that stupid bird went berserk, and they were on the porch trying to calm it down and then everything went to hell in slow motion. The bird swooped by my head and I looked over at Anna, her eyes were huge. She was in complete shock”—Hannah sliced the air in front of her with her hands—“everyone was screaming at once—the guy in the food, the lady in the pool, the cops, the bird, Anna’s friends, the neighbors . . .” She sighed, deflated. “She just covered her face and ran inside. And I haven’t been able to bring myself to face her. How can I possibly apologize for all this? Me, of all people, inflicting this on her. I spent my whole life in this town miserable and ashamed and embarrassed and trying not to draw unwanted attention to myself so I wouldn’t stand out like some sort of freak and—”

She stopped abruptly and scanned his face for answers; looked into his eyes for the friendship and support she needed.

“Speak,” she said, lowering her gaze, waiting to be castigated. “Tell me what to do.”

He pressed his lips together and tried to stop feeling sorry for himself—he regretted, more than he could say, having missed all the action. She needed him now and he wanted to give her the best answer he could.

“The sooner you face her, the sooner you can deal with it and move on. However,” he said emphatically, “I can’t believe it’s going to be as bad as you say. Anna knows you’d never deliberately do anything to hurt her.”

And when were
his
doubts on that subject going to abate?

Whenever his gut stopped telling him she was hiding something from him, he reflected, defending his suspicions. He didn’t know what it was, couldn’t even imagine, but it was there in her eyes like the dark side of a lighthouse beacon.

“You didn’t see her face before she ran off. She looked ready to fall apart.”

He nodded. He empathized. He hated it when the women in his life cried. It made him feel helpless . . . it made him want to make everything perfect for them. Even when he knew perfect didn’t exist.

“Come on.” He turned her toward the house, putting his arm around her shoulders but holding her as far away as it allowed to the avoid the fragrance of her and the flowers. “You’ll feel better once you get it off your chest. I promise. And I don’t think you’ll need me, but I’ll hang around in case you do. I’ve got your back, remember?”

Chapter Sixteen

N
odding silently, looking entirely inconsolable, she allowed him to lead her up one step to the next, across the porch, past a couple more guests who thanked her for the party, and into the house. Like a woman facing a French guillotine, she bravely took stair after stair to the second floor and stopped outside the closed door to Anna’s room.

He reached out to tap on the door but Hannah grabbed his hand and held it as she leaned in closer and closer to the door to listen. After a moment he did the same . . . to listen and to breath her in again.

He couldn’t hear what was being said, but the tone of both girls was weepy and one of them blew her nose; the other said something and the response was muffled with something.

Hannah looked up at him, her true blue eyes welling with tears. He hated it when the women in his life cried.

“Want me to take this one?” he whispered. “I can—”

“No.” She straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. He knew this Hannah—this brave, brave Hannah—and he admired her as much now as he did when he was seventeen. More, actually, knowing what he knew now. “I’ll do it.”

He stepped back as she rapped lightly at the door.

“Anna? It’s Hannah. I . . . I don’t know a word big enough or . . . or powerful enough to express to you how truly, truly—”

The door flew open and Anna, tears streaming down her face, flung herself into Hannah’s arms, sobbing and gasping for air.

“Oh, God,” Hannah muttered holding on tight with one arm and smoothing her hair with the other hand. “Anna, I’m so, so—”

“Aunt Hannah!” the girl wailed between racking sobs. “That was such a great party! Can we do it again next year?”

Shocked, Grady looked around the doorjamb for his daughter, who lay sprawled on the bed, eyes and nose red and puffy, laughing hysterically. He looked back at Hannah’s stunned expression as she held her niece at arm’s length to connect the tears to the laughter. She couldn’t get it to sink in.

“Daddy, you should have been here,” Lucy said. “Malcolm snatched off Mr. Mahoney’s toupee.”

This comment sent Anna into a fresh fit of laughter that made her knees so weak she wrapped her arms around Hannah’s neck again.

“Who’s Malcolm?” he asked.

“The macaw,” she squealed, rolling into her own grand mal of delight.

He watched and waited and at last Hannah’s eyes shifted to his, and when he smiled she finally let herself hope. And yet . . .

“I don’t understand.” She shuffled Anna back into her bedroom and Grady closed the door on the four of them. “What’s so funny?”

The girls tried to sober up but would snort laughter out their noses and burst into giggles and hoots all over again. All it took was a word.

“Knife!”

“Table!”

“Fish!”

“Fire!”

“Duck!”

That one got Hannah’s attention. “There was no duck out there.”

“No,” Lucy said tightly, fighting the hilarity. “You ducked. Malcolm swooped off the porch when Mrs. Yates screamed and fell in the water, you ducked and he snatched Mr. Mahoney’s toupee right off his head and flew away with it.”

“I couldn’t stand it anymore.” Anna wept with laughter. “I’m sorry I left you to deal with all those people alone but I thought I was going to wet my pants.”

“You did wet your pants,” Lucy reminded her and they fell helplessly, gleefully into each other’s arms.

Their laughter caught like wildfire. Hannah released a reluctant chuckle and then a giggle and then a flat-out laugh as joyful as any he’d ever heard before.

“Did you see poor Lyndsey’s face the first time the cops showed up?” She sat on the bed next to Anna. “I thought she was going to blow a fuse.”

“I know. Her face got all red and her eyes were bugging out.”

“Yeah, Dad.” Lucy made room for him on the bed next to her. “You don’t want to cross that one. She may look cute and bubbly and all that, but she can get really scary really fast.”

He nodded, eyes wide. “I met her. I almost turned around and went home.”

The women in his life started laughing again. He leaned back against the foot of the bed listening to more party details, wishing again he hadn’t missed so much of it . . . though truth told, it seemed to him like this was the best part of the party anyway.

The next day, Sunday, dawned sunny and bright and sweet April warm. Aunt and niece faced each other over coffee and a banana-protein milk shake the next morning and decided they couldn’t face the farm and all the work that still awaited them there. Hannah would be there all week and they deserved a day off.

They spent the morning slopping around in pajamas and sweats, reading the paper and giggling with friends about the party on their cell phones. Joe, like Anna, was hoping for a reenactment on her seventeenth birthday—and Hannah promised to see what she could do.

The crack in the back laundry-room window was indeed
not attractive
. But all other evidence of the party had been swept away and Lyndsey Makel, Party Planner Extraordinaire as they now called her, said there would be no charge for the koi Mrs. Yates squished when she fell in the pond, and the window would be entirely covered by their business insurance.

Still, after Anna left for church, Hannah called May and Don James to tell them and to apologize, profusely.

They laughed and said they’d already had several calls from neighbors, including Jim Mahoney who wanted his toupee back if anyone found it.

Sighing, Hannah terminated the link on her BlackBerry and held it against her top lip as she thought about people like the James’s and . . . well, like most of the people at the party last night. Small-town people. She didn’t know who had complained about the noise, but she’d sensed they’d all been happy to join the festivities, happy to wish Anna well.

They were Anna’s people.

However, some of them she recognized as people who’d lived in Clearfield all their lives, who had lived there when she lived there; people she knew—if not personally at least by sight. Most had acknowledged that she was a child of Clearfield come home. And while they all knew about it now, part of her was grateful none mentioned the manner in which she’d spent that childhood. But another part of her—unfortunately the greater part—ranted and screamed, “Where were you? Why didn’t you help us? How can you look me in the eye and pretend to be forgiven when you never said you were sorry? When you never lifted a finger . . .”

Why hadn’t they been her people, too?

She stood and shook her arms and hands to loosen and release the venom building inside. These were the thoughts and feelings she’d gone to therapy for so long to dispel. The conclusion: She would never know or understand why no one helped her or her mother or poor little Ruth. Nor could she take responsibility for their inaction, she knew, though in low moments she suspected it was her basic unworthiness, her worthlessness. But as low as those moments became, her rage surged tenfold in response. She might not have been as sweet and lovable as some children but she was, ultimately,
a child
. Ruth was quiet and gentle and totally adorable and no one had come to help her, either.

Why?
Why?

Dr. Fry had alluded to the possibility that her inability to make sense of the town’s apparent apathy had damaged her capacity to trust; had warped her attitude toward personal relationships. She’d laughed. She’d scoffed. She’d said most people weren’t worth her time to begin with . . . but she sensed he was right. How to rectify those flaws was still a bit of a mystery but simply being aware of them was sometimes helpful.

As for the citizens of Clearfield, her favorite explanation was that it was a different time. There were more laws now and a greater public consciousness of child and spousal abuse. But set on a scale with the pain and misery endured in her home all those years, it was a lightweight excuse.